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just to further make my point i was trying to make in my above post, i'm not saying i think there is some kind of law about tiers...as far as i know there isn't, that's why it sounds weird that even blizzard is talking about tiers in starcraft...in my opinion, it looks like they are just mistaken when they call a particular unit a tier 1.5 or whatever unit. after all, tiers are warcraft, right? and no upgraded halls in starcraft...
but it is entirely possible that when the game comes out, blizzard will define tiers in some build map...i doubt it, but if they do that we'll have to go with it. but as it stands, i don't see how you can compare terran and protoss tech to warcraft 3 tech like that. zerg is fine...they go hatchery, lair, hive. like necropolis, halls of dead, black citadel. or town hall, keep, castle, or great hall, stronghold, fortress, or tree of life, tree of ages, and tree of eternity. command center. upgradable in sc2 like a mutalisk. nexus. so far nothing special. those are NOT tiers!
but to the subject though....i think at least reavers will although not be in the game not be too sorely missed, as i said i think overload should be exciting, making people wonder if someone will skillfully take out a bunch of units with that skill...
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I'm not saying that blizzard is completely wrong, I'm going purely on the description of the units from the starcraft wiki, and also some from vids of demos. Obviously the demos are trying to show off the unit's power, so in practice corrupters may/may not be as powerful as they seem on paper or even in the demonstration, but based on the theory, zerg needs to be revised. Of course in practice it may be completely different. I'm just pointing out the way I think the game should be made. But I guess we'll have to wait till the game actually comes out or we see more actual gameplay instead of demos (i'm kinda lazy to go watch the pros testing out of the game--the video's aren't too good quality as its a video of the screen instead of those VODs you get).
I was talking with my friend earlier today, he's a zerg and he's happy the reaver is gone...but I'm sad. I'm a Toss of course. Hope it comes back.
@ above post: phoenix doesn't replace reaver simply because it doesn't target land units and therefore isn't a good harass. Anyway...
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The Protoss have indeed lost the reaver/shuttle combo, but it has gained much more. The Phase Prism + Warp Gate combo opens up a lot of space for criativity. Stalker micro is going to be extreeemely intense, Colossus + Cliff as well, and other units such as High templar and phoenix will make the toss gameplay better than before, in my opinion.
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On June 05 2008 11:02 FrozenArbiter wrote:Someone made a pretty good reply to a post I made on the bnet forums (they have a thread about this thread =]) Show nested quote + Nice read and I hope you will read this Talking about MnM I read somewhere that Shield upgrade gives +25HP to Marines. This means they are even 2 times stronger against certain opponents like Sunkens and Lurkers* IMO But even after that they are hurt badly by multiple stimming. What if Stim would steal less HP but be cooldowned? (btw not all Marines have to be stimmed in all situations ) About Medivac itself, without fact on mind it replaces Medic, doesn't it bring much more flexibility for Terran? Terrans are enforced to make them to heal troops but they can carry anything so after all they gain maybe better combo unit for same/slightly higher price as old Dropship. Keeping Medivacs safe won't be so hard: in TvZ there are Scourges no more, even Hydras are Tier2 so far and their replacement on T1 can't hit air. In both TvT and TvP MnMs are no big use with or without Medics... unless new Nomad's Defensive Matrix is still in and makes into the game (what I hope will happen http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/TF-620_Nomad_ ) *(btw Lurkers are moved to higher Tier according to this http://www.sc2blog.com/2008/03/16/starcraft-2-korean-and-chinese-build-summary/I know it's 3months old) I think stim with cooldown could *maybe* make marines viable in a similiar way to how they are viable now in early game, not sure tho. Would still have the issue of being less durable, although I'm not sure if they still have the hp upgrade or at what tech it becomes available. It still leaves two issues tho: * Marines in early game situations (rushing, sunken breaks), imagine those scenarios in SC with no medics, I feel like it might force terrans into some degree of passivity. * The medivac is not as fun as the medic (personal opinion) Especially, with the - supposedly - more viable ghost I'd like to see a more useful version of flare (perhaps even one that works on buildings), that way the medic could actually see some cool usage outside of healing.
@FA, very nice topic. I saw it the other day but didn't have time to post. This bnet post made me think on the marine situation in a different way. Some random thoughts/questions:
Blizzard's goal still seems to be to change the old battles from BW. If SC2 marines and medics were the early game combo for TvZ, then what would the Zerg's answer to that be? I think it'd be the same as in BW, but without lurker options since they come later. So lings or ling/muta or sunken or maybe roaches. I don't see early dark swarm (low Infester count) as being viable without consume, so I think we have to leave that out. So if my guess is right, that would make it almost the same but with less options than BW. Bad for business. Obviously they could leave in the medic and do something else with Zerg, but right now they are headed in the other direction I guess.
Suggestion: Make the flame throwing jackals work... make them useful but with a weakness. If they are fun enough and useful enough in the right situations, maybe they can replace early medics. Probably not, but maybe. Assuming TvZ will always require one factory (or maybe you can go dual fact vs all ground Zerg), then you have tanks for sunkens and jackals for units.
I sorely miss the reaver- the colossus (while pretty solid in the flashy/eye candy department... which doesn't much matter after the first week of play) just doesn't have the same play style or concentration needed as an old reaver/shuttle combo. To me Blizz is slowly realizing this and trying to pump up the colossus (new attacks, etc.), but it's still going to be hard to make it as fun as the reaver. My only hope is that the other unit combos and abilities for Toss make up for it.
Suggestion: Speaking of pumping up the colossus, I like the idea of two different attacks mentioned earlier, picked via a toggle. One is the old sweeping lance for one situation (maybe only good for supporting zealots/stalkers??) and the other is a more explosive type (similar to the multi-lance but with better graphics) more similar to reavers which would be OK for support but very good for probe killing and such. But how do you replace reaver drops on tanks? Can't be done with the colossus... unless the map allows for it somehow. Hmmm. The closest would be attacking from cliffs probably... which would feel more like a weak seige tank than a reaver. I dunno.
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On June 04 2008 22:55 stenole wrote: I pretty much agree that keeping SC2 exciting is very important. They need to have units that become 10 times their worth under skilled hands. A boxer marine is 10 times more deadly than a stenole marine, even if I've seen the moves and know somewhat in my head what I want to do. The same goes for the reaver. It has some very specific weaknesses and powers. Slow movement speed, low firing rate, a slow projectile that must run along the ground, can miss and be obstructed. Like the marine's natural partner is the medic, the reaver's natural partner is the shuttle. Having units like this that open up doors for fun tactics and possibilies is good. The collosus is a bland unit that will mostly attack move along with the protoss army. I think all it does is give protoss an AOE unit that they don't have to fuss too much with. At noob level this may make a matchup like PvZ a little more bearable. But as a spectator and player, it doesn't add FUN.
I think a reasoning behind a lot of Blizzard's decisions is to make the game easier to balance. Units that behave reliably with little randomness and finite micro options make for a game that is much easier to balance.
I would say that it is more important to make sure SC2 is FUN than balanced. A FUN game can be made balanced. But if it is not FUN, you can't patch it into being FUN.
Because basemanagement will be a lot easier in SC2, please don't take potential for fun micro out of the game also. I want to do more than just focus firing and making concave formations and casting dumb spells.
I like your point although I don't agree with the way your worded the last sentence as I like spells or special abilities usually. But basically, yeah, units should be fun and balancing should come after even if it takes a few patches. For me, there are two big ways to make them fun.
One, a special ability that does lots of damage but takes skill to use or skill to get set up for use. The reaver/scarab is the best example even though it's not really a special ability, followed by spider mines, psi storm, irradiate, plague, etc.
And two, functions that make the unit unique and useful and can affect the battle in a fairly big way if you know what you are doing- but NOT a super unit. Usually this means having odd strengths and an odd weaknesses. Examples are reavers (again), lurkers, scourge, dark swarm, consume, corsairs , siege tanks, observers, etc.
I'm pretty sure Blizzard believes in fun first... but the ease of use factor comes into play. More competitive people like things to be a little harder to do while the general population (in the US at least) appear to want things easier to do. Blizzard games typically do a really good job of having that perfect learning curve where both groups are happy. They need to refocus and concentrate on this instead of watering down units and hard countering abilities too much.
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Sweden33719 Posts
Hehe glad you still post
One thing I hadn't considered with the tier 3 lurkers is that we wont be seeing nearly as much marine v lurker micro, which is sad
Anyway, I totally understand blizzard wanting to change the zerg vs terran matchup a little, but I'd much rather they did it by either nerfing the medic or buffing the effectiveness of zerg unit combinations in combating them. IE if ling/roach or hydra/ling /w infestors were more viable in straight up fights it might bring zerg closer to a more swarm type of play, sort of like how ZvT played in 2002-2003 (when hydra/lurk was still used, ah I miss hydra lurk).
But with (I believe) tier 2 disease (plague, not sure how I feel about the name change), tier 2 swarm, roaches AND banelings.. I duno, it seems like more options to combat M&M no? If M&M are still too strong vs that, surely they could just weaken the medic.
As for the jackal, from the TvT video (posted somewhere here recently) it seems to move alright, which is good, but I don't really see it being an exciting TvZ unit. If tank/jackal becomes a TvZ army (no anti-air tho, so I guess tank/jackal/marines or tank jackal vikings) I dunno how I feel about that. Marines being the cornerstone vs zerg has always struck a chord in me There's just something about the whole marines vs swarms of alien bugs thing..
Anyway, it wouldn't really solve the issue of early game mobility/useability of the marine. Assuming the jackal isn't effective vs buildings (which I think is a fair assumption given the nature of its attack), then it really still wouldn't allow for marines to charge static defenses. In addition it's a bit further up the tech tree than the medic.
I just don't really see how you can remove the medics (early game) heal without making marines boring :O
Oh by the way, on another subject brought up in this thread, how many units the medivac can heal at once, I was reading through the Q&A archives today and found an answer:
The Medivac is a very interesting Unit, but there are not many information given to us so far. Can you tell us any more details about it? At which tier can it be found? How does the healing work? Can it even heal multiple units at once and how fast does it heal compared to the medic?
The Medivac is currently available from the Starport (no add-ons required). The healing works just like the medic. We will (if we keep the mechanic) be adding a graphic of the Medivac deploying medical drones to heal friendly biological units. It will only be able to heal a single unit at one time. The speed at which it heals changes frequently as we try different balance options. So, assuming we'll need a similiar amount of medivacs to medics.... Anyone else feel like having 5-6 medivacs floating around is gonna be a pain the ass :-)?
EDIT: Found a more recent medivac update (not just medivac, also deals with other stuff like reapers): http://www.sc2blog.com/2008/06/03/karunology-terran-infantry-building-broodlings-aa-thor/
Medivac Dropships heal much faster than Medics from StarCraft Brood War. Also, players using Marines in the original StarCraft still used Stim Pack often. Now the Marines have more health with the upgrade and is still very effective while stimmed. Combined with Marauders’ slow ability means additional shots with Stim Pack often leading to that unit’s death before it can do damage.
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The idea isn´t to directly replace Medics with Medivacs. The idea is to change the implementation of the Healing concept in the game itself.
Step 1 is to turn Healing strictly OOC, out of combat. Indicators: New Protoss shield restoration mechanic lack of shield batteries. Zerg Regeneration never mattered in the heat of battle. THe only unit where this applies right now is the Roach and that unit justifies it´s existance over it´s quirky survivability.
Only Terrans sort of could "Tank&Spank". WC3 had loads of that especially since troopdeaths were even "worse" due to XPgain for your enemy. One of the earliest complaints against Medivacs was that Reapers are expendable and don´t need Healing anyway - doesn´t that refer to Terran Infantry as a whole?
Step 2 is give Micro/enemy effort dependant possibilities for effectivity increases. Early on there wasn´t much you could do about your enemys Medics. Marauders/Ghosts/Reapers are at the same time potentionally stronger but also harder to utilize.
Step 3 is to reintroduce Healing for infantry in a different way to avoid the original issues. Players shouldn´t buy Medivacs for healing - they should buy them for transportation and be happy about the healing. That they are better targettable is intentional, Players should micro them to keep them on the field/ heal their Marines.
Due to that Medics would get HP - Heal as a upgrade. So what would they start out with? How about a "free" Stimpack?
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Sweden33719 Posts
Well in that case I think it's a bad turn of events since terran was already the only race with in combat healing, and there is a huge difference between reapers (primarily seen as harassers) and marines (the mainstay of any terran bio army).
I don't understand your last sentence.... Are you saying that if the medic were to stay, but they would still try to go in the direction you outlined above, that it should start without heal as an ability..? I'm not sure I'm reading it correctly, please clarify.
Or did you mean to write marines and not medics in the last sentence?
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The base idea is that Healing is removed as "combat variable" for Terrans infantry in the form it currently exists. Spells/skills in BW have always drawbacks, "normal" repair took quite a amount of attention and ate resources. Medics were unique in that regard since they are "passive", you just have them next to your marines and Stimpacks become effectivly free and therefore pseudopassive.
To make Stimpacks an active ability it has to be more complex than "press Hotkey every x seconds". HP were initially a unique issue to manage for Terrans - but medics made heal to accessable.
The main issue is to "move" heal out of direct skirmishes like for example salves in WC3 were useless in combat. That way the HP loss is a issue during a encouner but once you clear the immediate threath you can heal - Protoss shields also work like that.
Of course Marines need appropiate new tactics to make up for the lack of the Heal over Time in combat. Medics initially had AOE heal for that reason so that Players would be forced to "dance" their individual marines more.
The Stimpack on Medic idea was a more indirect suggestion. Due to the later available Heal enemys would have ways to "dispose" Medics once they have Heal available - like snipe or antigrav. IT´s not really a thought trough idea as it would just postpone a lot of the issues instead of solving them.
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Sweden33719 Posts
Meh, just give medics a lower mana cap or a higher cost for heal (that way it wont hurt their other abilities). If you've ever played, say, nexus tvz you'll know how bad constant stimming is when your medics don't have a shitload of mana
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You guys may laugh at this idea, but what if marines could heal on their own? They would have energy or a timer like stalkers, and after you upgrade "self-heal", they could restore HP with the touch of a hotkey. This creates timing issues, like do you upgrade stim or heal first. It is also less powerful than medics, because you can no longer create a wall in front of your marines.
EDIT as for colossi, to make them more fun, maybe they could buy a "scarab" (or several). When they have these, they could no longer use their normal attack. The enemy could see when the unit is in this process, so the colossus could be attacked when it is defenseless. After using its "scarabs", it would go back to its normal attack mode.
RE EDIT The scarab could be lobbed at the target, so that it can be dodged. This rewards quick response time. Also, if you can target the ground, the colossus can try to guess where the enemy units will be, a bit like storm dodging. This adds more skill requirements. It would also make the following situation possible: All the colossi get their scarabs in advance, to do massive damage when engaging the enemy. The oponent briefly engages then disengages, so the colossi lob all of their scarabs but most of them hit the ground. The oponent then comes back in for the kill. You would then have to micromanage your colossi well so that they attack only at the optimal time. Also, if there were a delay between when the colossus goes from scarab mode to normal mode, the potential rewards of good micro would be much greater.
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Whoops, yeah totally wasn't thinking about disease or swarm + banelings. Damn the early morning. I know what you mean about mnm vs zerg. Like you say or imply, it's a style all its own and it will be missed greatly. I can only theorycraft on Blizzard's attempt at replacement strats/builds so let me have some leeway here.
My thought is that in midgame they want it so Zerg will have to pick either disease or dark swarm or banelings or roaches or lings/mutas (and not a cost effective combo or at least not easily cost effective until your 2nd gas is well underway and 3rd coming up). And that they want Terran to go either marine + a couple of tanks or jackals or quick medivac (followed by quick marine shield upgrade?). Marine + tank good vs sunkens or roaches, but vulnerable to swarm + banelings. And marine + jackal good as containment or unit to unit battles, but not good for breaking sunkens. Marine + quick medivac is defensive early on (susceptible to ling + swarm or ling + disease timed attack?) but better vs mutas and better all around once you break out of your base (think typical 2007 BW TvZ maybe?). Maybe with the "free" bunkers with salvage, you can always go for a SCV+bunker rush and disrupt the Zerg early that way and then avoid being overly defensive. Bunkers may be slightly more useful vs Mutas with salvage there too.
Let's say the timing for an attempted dark swarm + banelings combo should be such that if you weren't fighting you can have 3 swarms to cast and 4 banelings at a "sweet spot". You can likely make a swarm line to any sieged tanks and take them out, but the Terran should be able to dance his marines out of the way. If you go for swarms vs marines, the Terran with good control groups can probably get out of the swarms before the banelings hit too many guys.
I hope some of that has merit... not entirely pleased with this post but I like thinking about what ifs.
Yeah, I still read the forum(s) but haven't been posting much... probably two reasons. Trying not too get too burnt out waiting for the game and also started playing some old / not so old school fighting games with friends so I can divert my gaming tensions that way. Speaking of which, for any Capcom fighter fans who want something fresh, check out Guilty Gear (not by Capcom) if you haven't... very solid game with a big cult following as I understand it! Also, I'm trying very hard not to take a vacation from work and spend a couple grand visiting Blizz's office in the hopes they'd let me touch the game for a minute or two. Man that is tempting!
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On June 10 2008 05:27 FrozenArbiter wrote:Meh, just give medics a lower mana cap or a higher cost for heal (that way it wont hurt their other abilities). If you've ever played, say, nexus tvz you'll know how bad constant stimming is when your medics don't have a shitload of mana
Medics are not to strong, they are the wrong aproach. Simply nerfing them would either change nothing or turn them into "SCVs for infantry". They would need stronger and more important alternatives to to Heal to turn it optional. But in context to Marine Stimpacks there wouldn´t be any reason to ever stop healing. If say Stimpacks wouldn´t use HP that would remove the main justification for Heal (as under attack its wither no Damage or Death for marines in 70% of the scenarios not counting Stimdamage).
If Stimpacks were "outsourced" to Medics with mutual execlusivity you´d have to reevaluate each skirmish what to heal and what to stim, the better at avoiding damage you are the more marines you would be able to stim while "lazy" players could just set Heal on auto.
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Sweden33719 Posts
Sooooo, you mean stimpack would work sort of like bloodlust? Ok I could actually support this idea, it actually makes sense for medics to be handing out combat drugs.. That's a good thought man, really good.
EDIT: Only worry is wether or not this would make the micro less fun/harder (but not in a good way) :C
Also I'm really really hoping either restore or flare will be useful in SC2 (I like the idea of flare so much haha, said it a few times already but maybe it could blind area of effect for X seconds or blind buildings).
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When was it said that Infestors are Tier 2 now?
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FA, lets put it this way as well... could you really have predicted each units "excitement" level prerelease of Starcraft1? Likewise how could you really say the same for SC2? While its clear the the reaver was a cool unit, the assumption is that units that we've seen or yet to have seen won't be as cool.. with such limited playtime if not none at all, and definitly none at the professional level.
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The nerf to psi storm would also seem to boggle down the excitement. Seems like fights are headed toward a slower, more methodical pace which is nice from a strategy perspective but makes it much less interesting to watch and less skillful (more forgiving.) It's why WC3 is so boring to watch, because early game units take a year to die. I think after they nerfed the mothership they took the 'no super weapons' mentality too far, because it seems like things are far more predictable, which equates to less dynamic fights and a less interesting game overall.
I say all that as a precaution, not a description. I haven't played SC2 yet so I won't say that's how SC2 will be, but from the information pieced together that's the conclusion I came to.
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If you were going to run with the idea of letting marines have self-heals, you could give them both an energy cost (which is really a shared cooldown, just less offensive sounding to purists) that prevents you from using the other until they'd regen'd their energy. fun with difficult choices!
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
i thought blizz removed the reaver because reaver drops are useless since you can move all your workers at once with that insane 150 selection cap.
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
although i do agree with you FA, overall the units are very very cool and the new features are great. but i don't any real crazyness going on early game like we had in the original SC.
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