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Concept study: Localized Warp Gates
Abstract: This paper looks at the potential impact of adding a proposed new building-transformation to the protoss Gateway called a Localized Warp Gate. The analysis found many reasons to believe this would be a good change to the game in adding further strategy and also in strengthening some of the problem-areas of the protoss. The danger of this strengthening proxy-gates could potentially be very real.
Introduction: + Show Spoiler +First off, this study does not have the goal of having blizzard implement this feature, but is rather made to help provide a template for how to suggest changes to the game in a constructive and well thought out manner. This study will focus on every aspect of the change and will hopefully shed some light into how massive of a impact small changes can make.
Our motivations for the building are three-fold: * To make using warp-gates a choice rather than a necessity * To allow more strategic room for protoss macro strategies * To allow protoss to take easier thirds and strengthen their defensive capabilities
This study hopes to prove that the proposed changes could help all these three aspects without hurting other major aspects of the game.
Terminology: + Show Spoiler +Warp Gate - The standard Warp Gates from WoL and HoTS. Also referred to as globalized Warp Gates. Localized Warp Gate - The suggested new form of Warp Gates being studied
The Concept: + Show Spoiler +The Localized Warp Gate is an additional form of the Warp Gate with limited range but a much shorter cooldown than both the Gateway and the traditional Warp Gate. It comes as a transformation from either a Gateway or a Normal Warp Gate and requires the Warp Gate upgrade from the Cybernetics Core.
The Localized Warp Gate allows units to be queued and will automatically warp in the unit at a designated location once the unit is produced. Once a unit is produced the gate starts producing the next unit immediately, just like most other buildings.
Core stats: * Warp-in range - 8.5 units from centre of the Warp Gate * Warp-in time - Instant * Cooldowns - One half of the traditional Warp Gate cooldowns * Unit costs - The same as the unit prices in the Gateway or Warp Gate * Transform time from Gateway - The same as the Warp Gate (10s) * Transform time from Warp Gate - Half of the Gateway transformation Time (5s)
Analysis: + Show Spoiler +The Localized Gate Way are different from the normal Warp Gate in three major ways: * Production time is much shorter * You are able to queue up units * You cannot warp in units on the other side of the map The consequences of these differences is what hopefully satisfies our motivations for adding the unit. The consequences we envision are explained in detail below and hopefully covers the key impacts of this change. Defensive impact: + Show Spoiler +The reduced production time of the unit allows the protoss to reinvest the minerals that he traditionally would have to spend on Gateways.
When it comes to fast protoss thirds this allows the protoss player to stay on 2 gates, while producing the same amount of units as he would with 4 Warp Gates. This saves the protoss 300 minerals at the time when he would normally build those additional gates. This could be used to further speed up his third(to allow photon overcharge), or to add more cannons/zealots to the defence.
The fact that the Localized Warp Gates can still warp in allows the protoss to still have his gateways relatively safe in the main(given that his third is relatively close to his main) but makes reinforcing his base faster and/or easier. Being able to change the warp-in spawn also allows many of the same tactical opportunities that warp gates have(like spawning in chokes or behind cover).
Agressive impact: + Show Spoiler +Generally: While the Localized Warp Gate allows the protoss player to save minerals on production facilities this advantage is mostly lost aggressively by two facts. 1: The units have to spend time walking across the map. 2. The units have to spend time in production. Meaning you pay for the units longer before they are at the front. This results in that the amount of units at the front are generally about the same as if you chose to warp them in using normal Warp Gates close the the engagement. It does give you more map-control and flexibility to deal with smaller counter-attacks by having a bunch of units on the middle of the map, but it also adds the strategic vulnerability of having to defend your reinforcements.
Proxy Gates: The Localized Warp Gates can, just like the Warp Gate, be used to traverse map features like cliffs or chasms. This allows the protoss to, in some cases, spawn their units inside the enemy main or natural which allows the gateways to stay more protected as the enemy may have to traverse map features in order to kill the gateways. The Localized Warp Gate also produces faster than a traditional gateway, so the aggression is both cheaper to initiate and holds less risk.
The saving grace of the defender comes from 3 major factors though. 1: The time it takes to get the Warp Gate upgrade Both with the economic changes and the already long upgrade time this should not be able to hit very fast compared to the size of the enemy economy and tech level. 2: It should be fairly easy to scout. With the low warp-in range, the places the gateways can be placed and still traverse map features should be quite few. 3: It takes a long time from the strategy is scout-able until your units spawn Pylon build time, Gateway build time, Warp Gate transformation time and unit production time should together give the opponent a lot of time to scout and prepare for the attack.
General macro-impact: + Show Spoiler +The fact that you can queue your units make it easier to have a constant stream of production. You dont have to spend all your money at once as long as you remember to add units to the queue. You also get the benefit of not having to look at a pylon every time you produce units, which allows you to macro purely with the keyboard and frees up more APM for other tasks across the map.
Also, it allows players using mostly Warp Gates to spend their money if they forget a cooldown cycle. They can transform their Warp Gates into Localized Warp Gates and having a higher production rate for a few production cycles before switching back to normal Warp Gates.
It adds a whole nother dimension to protoss macro as you have to figure out how many of each type of gate you want, and where you want to place the different types of gates.
Summary: + Show Spoiler +The Localized Warp Gate seems to be able to fulfil the motivations it was designed with. It adds more strategic depth to the protoss in giving them several pros and cons of different types of gateways. It allows the protoss to trade away some of their aggressive potential in order to save resources at key points in the game, like when they expand to a third. The Localized Warp Gate should not be capable of excreting too much pressure compared to regular Warp Gates early on, though the threat of proxy gates becoming too strong is present.
Lore Concept (mostly just written for fun): + Show Spoiler +As the protoss decline is kicking in hard, protoss engineers have been looking for ways to salvage old technology. Inspired by the way the Terrans calibrate their scanning equipment they have found a way to use previously obsolete equipment to modify their warp gates to operate on a lower frequency. This allows the Warp Gates to use less energy and hence needs a lower time to cool down. This really weakens the range of the warp-in and so must be done inside the Gateway. However the engineers were also able to channel some the residual energy from the closing of the warp rift into a special Void Displacer similar to the ones used by stalkers for blink, and are as such able to teleport the unit a small distance just as they materialize inside the gateway.
About: + Show Spoiler +I hope you found this to be a good read! If you have suggestions to things i have overlooked in the way i present the change i would love to hear it. Again, the goal of this post is not to make blizzard implement this(as they have a nearly non-existent track-record of adding community proposed changes), but is rather intended to be a template for further arguments in how the game could be balanced. I believe that even if blizzard has no intention of adding our propositions directly they might be inspired by our discussions and propositions!!
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seems way too strong to be able to warp in with those at half the traditional warp gate cooldown lol
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i like the idea. it decreases "global" warping for a faster cooldown on "local" warping, and gives the player more options. tbh, a lot of things in sc2 could be better if they followed the simple concept where if something has an advantage in one category, it has a disadvantage in another. for example: lower movement speed = high attack damage, higher movement speed = lower dps, faster cooldown = lower range of usability, etc.
this is the reason why i feel some units/buildings could b e improved for example collossi or marauders. they have huge strong points with very few, specific weak points. they could lower the movement speed to compensate for the huge dps or health; instead they add other imbalanced units to counter them.
P.S. great template for future suggestions!
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Half the cooldown haha. This is way too complicated for what it brings. I'd rather buff the gateway so that it produces units at a higher rate than the warpgate. As suggested in the past many times.
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Canada13372 Posts
Honestly, the simplest thing they could do is to make the units warp in like HotS within a certain range of a nexus (maybe the overcharge range)
this actually creates bigger defenders advantage in PvP than previously and we could nerf photon overcharge slightly as a result since it wont be as heavily needed as in HotS for PvP
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On April 16 2015 01:40 ZenithM wrote: Half the cooldown haha. This is way too complicated for what it brings. I'd rather buff the gateway so that it produces units at a higher rate than the warpgate. As suggested in the past many times. Pretty much this. This is how it should have been in the first place. It would have solved so many issues in the past.
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On April 16 2015 01:40 ZenithM wrote: Half the cooldown haha. This is way too complicated for what it brings. I'd rather buff the gateway so that it produces units at a higher rate than the warpgate. As suggested in the past many times.
I used to be for that, but that would make the early timings so damn strong. You need to stop the zealot rushes from getting too strong. I still have nightmares about the 4gates from the start of WoL.
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Great template!
I don't like the exact idea. It addresses a problem that doesn't exist (i.e., no need to speed up P build time). P lacks mobility, let's focus on that. Using your idea, consider this: 1. Warpgate - add an ability to warp unit - instead of creating a new unit, it warps selected units to energized location - warps 1 unit per gate - warped units have full health while phasing in 2. Unit have to be phased-out before they can be warp to another location - Select unit(s) - press phased-out key - Phase 1 unit per gate - Unit(s) begins to phased-out (same duration/vulnerability as warp-in) - Unit(s) are now available to warp to another energized location - Unit(s) must be in energized location to phased out
This allows P to defend early bases and prevent early all ins. Thoughts?
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On April 16 2015 02:08 TL_Ghost wrote: Great template!
I don't like the exact idea. It addresses a problem that doesn't exist (i.e., no need to speed up P build time). P lacks mobility, let's focus on that. Using your idea, consider this: 1. Warpgate - add an ability to warp unit - instead of creating a new unit, it warps selected units to energized location - warps 1 unit per gate - warped units have full health while phasing in 2. Unit have to be phased-out before they can be warp to another location - Select unit(s) - press phased-out key - Phase 1 unit per gate - Unit(s) begins to phased-out (same duration/vulnerability as warp-in) - Unit(s) are now available to warp to another energized location - Unit(s) must be in energized location to phased out
This allows P to defend early bases and prevent early all ins. Thoughts?
Well, at least its completely different. I think the amount of balancing that would have to be done to make it fit into sc2 would just be too much, and will change the identity of protoss way too much. I think it could be cool and I hope they experiment with it if there ever is a SC3 but I don't think it could happen here.
I am not sure I agree with the fact that mobility is protoss' biggest issue either. Between blink, phoenix, recall and warp gates it seems like they already have a fair bit of mobility tools. It also seems like blizzard is working on improving the issues with supermobile compositions like MMM by just providing units that counter them really well (adept).
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I think the amount of balancing that would have to be done to make it fit into sc2 would just be too much, - This Protoss beta is the right place and time for this balancing act
will change the identity of protoss way too much. - Protoss already have warp in, this is just an extension of that.
I think it could be cool and I hope they experiment with it --yea me too If there ever is a SC3 but I don't think it could happen here. - I can't wait that long! I don't think it is that drastic of a change as compared to disruptor (invincible unit with aoe...)
I am not sure I agree with the fact that mobility is protoss' biggest issue either. Between blink, phoenix, recall and warp gates - I was addressing early game army mobility to keep up with the pace of the new economy
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seems kinda broken for production:
gateway finishes making a unit:
wg research finishes, make local warp gate, instantly make another unit,
make another unit half as much time....
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On April 16 2015 02:08 eg9 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2015 01:40 ZenithM wrote: Half the cooldown haha. This is way too complicated for what it brings. I'd rather buff the gateway so that it produces units at a higher rate than the warpgate. As suggested in the past many times. I used to be for that, but that would make the early timings so damn strong. You need to stop the zealot rushes from getting too strong. I still have nightmares about the 4gates from the start of WoL.
Just scale warpgate production time up instead of scaling gateway production time down.
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Just scale warpgate production time up instead of scaling gateway production time down. - I fail to see how nerfing protoss helps at all. Anyway seeing as how most of the protoss race is balanced arround the warpgate i cant imagine how massive changes to the warpgate that would not require rebalancing the entire game.
wg research finishes, make local warp gate, instantly make another unit, Well, that is essentially how it is now right..? The problem would be if you could warp back to gateway and start unit production while the Warp Gate is cooling down(essentially ignoring the warp gate cooldown). Just put the transformation on a cooldown together with your units whenever you normally warp in.
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On April 16 2015 01:40 ZenithM wrote: Half the cooldown haha. This is way too complicated for what it brings. I'd rather buff the gateway so that it produces units at a higher rate than the warpgate. As suggested in the past many times.
On April 16 2015 01:51 ZeromuS wrote: Honestly, the simplest thing they could do is to make the units warp in like HotS within a certain range of a nexus (maybe the overcharge range)
this actually creates bigger defenders advantage in PvP than previously and we could nerf photon overcharge slightly as a result since it wont be as heavily needed as in HotS for PvP
I would be happy with either of these if they buffed gateway units a little. I prefer the elegance of gateways over warpgates, and I think you can't buff quite as much while retaining warpgate as THE mechanic because defensive warpins might still be too powerful -> protoss possibly doesn't get what they need in order to defend expansions early on.
It seems like the OP's suggestion of reducing the cooldown is trying to provide that buff within the warpgate mechanic, but that defeats the purpose since the units won't be any cheaper or stronger -> protoss isn't actually any better at defending bases than they were before, they just have to build fewer production facilities to spend their money.
I'd like to see them try stalkers dealing a little more damage or having more health and slight speed increase to zealots so they can deal damage more reliably in small engagements. Zealot micro has the potential to be really cool but right now they just serve as wall plugs and meat shields in the early game.
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I agree that this complicates things. I'm in favor of just limiting warp-ins to near a nexus (big range; overcharge range, perhaps --> proxy nexus?!) and reducing unit build times for gateways so people will actually choose to revert to gateways when defending or macro-ing up.
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On April 16 2015 01:51 ZeromuS wrote: Honestly, the simplest thing they could do is to make the units warp in like HotS within a certain range of a nexus (maybe the overcharge range)
Or just allow the gateway to produce units slightly faster than the warp gate. It would allow for more of a defender's advantage that PvP is sorely missing, since proxy pylons wouldn't be as useful as having gateways.
No need for a third option... too complicated.
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The simplest solution would be to remove warpgate all together. It violates the concept of defender's advantage which is a fundamental principle all RTS games are based on and also makes the warp prism absurdly strong, being able to warp in an entire production cycle of units in the enemy base without the risks associated with drops.
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On April 17 2015 05:35 Loccstana wrote: The simplest solution would be to remove warpgate all together. It violates the concept of defender's advantage which is a fundamental principle all RTS games are based on and also makes the warp prism absurdly strong, being able to warp in an entire production cycle of units in the enemy base without the risks associated with drops.
It would also make Protoss macro as easy as Terran and Zerg macro... having the ability to queue units up (especially before a fight) would be great, as would merely using hotkeys and not needing to leave your current screen to go find a pylon.
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On April 17 2015 06:37 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2015 05:35 Loccstana wrote: The simplest solution would be to remove warpgate all together. It violates the concept of defender's advantage which is a fundamental principle all RTS games are based on and also makes the warp prism absurdly strong, being able to warp in an entire production cycle of units in the enemy base without the risks associated with drops. It would also make Protoss macro as easy as Terran and Zerg macro... having the ability to queue units up (especially before a fight) would be great, as would merely using hotkeys and not needing to leave your current screen to go find a pylon. Queueing doesn't make macro “easy,” quite on the contrary it creates the tension between “too little” (production gaps) and “too much” (saturation of production = inefficient use of resources); the latter being absent from the Warpgate model.
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On April 17 2015 06:42 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2015 06:37 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On April 17 2015 05:35 Loccstana wrote: The simplest solution would be to remove warpgate all together. It violates the concept of defender's advantage which is a fundamental principle all RTS games are based on and also makes the warp prism absurdly strong, being able to warp in an entire production cycle of units in the enemy base without the risks associated with drops. It would also make Protoss macro as easy as Terran and Zerg macro... having the ability to queue units up (especially before a fight) would be great, as would merely using hotkeys and not needing to leave your current screen to go find a pylon. Queueing doesn't make macro “easy,” quite on the contrary it creates the tension between “too little” (production gaps) and “too much” (saturation of production = inefficient use of resources); the latter being absent from the Warpgate model.
Yes, but there's something inherently easier about queuing up a bunch of units and focusing on the micro in a fight vs. Trying to take a fight and making sure you don't miss production cycles during it because you need to look away and warp in units near a pylon.
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What if the warpgate becomes a separate building to the gateway which allows you to warp ANY units from any of your available existing production facilities but on a very harsh cooldown.
Yes, you could warp in Carriers or even Probes but doing so will take a lot longer than simply building the actual unit.
When you use the warpgate the production facility that produces said unit goes in "cooldown" for a lot longer than the actual build time of the unit. This means you reinforce once with strong units but you can't do it all the time unless you invest the money into more production facilities.
Thoughts?
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i think it would be neat if you could only warp in 1 unit at a time per psi field. so at home you could just stack a pylon wall near your gateways or whatever and be able to warp in 6 stalkers defensively in your base, but aggressively you would be forced to either reinforce slower or invest money in a bunch of extra proxy pylons
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On April 17 2015 06:42 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2015 06:37 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On April 17 2015 05:35 Loccstana wrote: The simplest solution would be to remove warpgate all together. It violates the concept of defender's advantage which is a fundamental principle all RTS games are based on and also makes the warp prism absurdly strong, being able to warp in an entire production cycle of units in the enemy base without the risks associated with drops. It would also make Protoss macro as easy as Terran and Zerg macro... having the ability to queue units up (especially before a fight) would be great, as would merely using hotkeys and not needing to leave your current screen to go find a pylon. Queueing doesn't make macro “easy,” quite on the contrary it creates the tension between “too little” (production gaps) and “too much” (saturation of production = inefficient use of resources); the latter being absent from the Warpgate model.
I meant on relative terms... "easier". It's not easy, per se, because very little of the game is inherently easy. As you mentioned, any race can forget about creating a new round of units at the perfect time, but Terran and Zerg allow for a little more leeway in that respect, as they permit queuing in case they need to focus entirely on microing an upcoming battle or something else that focuses all their attention. Not only can Protoss not queue with warpgate, but it requires you to look away from the battle when you wish to warp in more units (unless there is a proxy pylon exactly on screen, which is quite rare), which can lead to errors in micro/ key units being picked off (especially since Protoss units are slower too). This is another macro problem that Terran does not have (since they can use only hotkeys if needed, so they don't have to look off-screen to build more units), although Zergs have this issue too in terms of injecting larvae. Obviously, the ability to reinforce pretty much anywhere on the map is the reason why Protoss uses warpgates and sacrifices the more reliable macro mechanics of gateways.
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On April 17 2015 20:45 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: I meant on relative terms... "easier". It's not easy, per se, because very little of the game is inherently easy. As you mentioned, any race can forget about creating a new round of units at the perfect time, but Terran and Zerg allow for a little more leeway in that respect, as they permit queuing in case they need to focus entirely on microing an upcoming battle or something else that focuses all their attention. Not only can Protoss not queue with warpgate, but it requires you to look away from the battle when you wish to warp in more units (unless there is a proxy pylon exactly on screen, which is quite rare), which can lead to errors in micro/ key units being picked off (especially since Protoss units are slower too). This is another macro problem that Terran does not have (since they can use only hotkeys if needed, so they don't have to look off-screen to build more units), although Zergs have this issue too in terms of injecting larvae. Obviously, the ability to reinforce pretty much anywhere on the map is the reason why Protoss uses warpgates and sacrifices the more reliable macro mechanics of gateways.
Being able to queue units is a big advantage. Even thou queued units are pretty much locking your resources away early which is bad, its still much better than having your warpgates sitting idle just because you have something more important to do at that second. And ofcourse other big advatange is that you dont have to locate camera at a certain location to build. But because of this reason I have always tought that zerg macro is by far the easiest. Sure they have to inject larvae but that can be done really fast if you practice. But protoss and terran have to build supply depots/pylons which takes 4 times more time than building overlords even counting in the inject larvae and ignoring the fact that you have to locate camera to exact location unlike for overlords. Also keep in mind that protoss and terran have to build other buildings aswell more than zerg, and building buildings takes always much more time than building units.
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Why can't we just simply swap Gateway and Warpgate times and move Warpgate up in tech? Is the most brained thing, and only requires small rework of the macro. Maybe some build times should also be adjusted. Just like SC2 alpha.
BTW, we need old Chronoboost (30s duration) and the Obelisk or some Nexus upgrade tech at 150mins to standarize Protoss macro.
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I like the idea of limiting WG range, but I feel like we need to focus on making the Gateway useful past WG research as well.
I like JCoto's idea, maybe at that point we wouldn't even need to move Warpgate up. Just swap the times (or just extend Warpgate time), maybe buff the Zealot/Stalker to compensate for the loss and reform the Protoss core, and should be good.
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I kind of like how it would give a defenders advantage in PvP games, but I think it might be a little confusing for newer players. I also currently like how protoss unit building mechanics vary quite a bit from terran and zerg, and if you can queue up units again, I feel like it might be too similar to terrans once again? Definitely a small detail, but still an interesting suggestion, similar to the idea I had back when Wings of Liberty was first released.
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On April 16 2015 01:17 ROOTFayth wrote: seems way too strong to be able to warp in with those at half the traditional warp gate cooldown lol
agreed
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