Im working on a campagin series where over the course of the story, you will have several chances to convert a unit to its dark form. So you know all those "dark protoss" models? In the game, you get to pick if you want zealots or dark zealots, and then for the rest of your campagin you will have the one you picked. So Im thinking of ideas for the dark units. I want the dark units to actually be different from the normal units, but I want them to be balanced. So you can win just as easily with all dark units as all normal units. Here is an example
Normal Zealot-
Has charge
default stats
Dark-
Has some other ability that might do damage or something
Less shield more attack
or maybe a dark stalker has a cloak instead of blink and better sped, but less hp, etc
Or something like that. Anybody have some ideas for these units? Also, there are NO dark colosus, carriers, or phoenix models so they will have no dark form available. Thanks in advance!!
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How about just making them cost more but as a trade-off being more durable/more regen/more energy.
Kinda boring but if you want to keep things balanced. I'd certainly steer clear of adding abilities that aren't auto-castable. There are plenty enough hotkeys to remember in-game already for your average player, without adding more.
If you wanted to be really suave, you could take a leaf from the campaign. Just like units are upgradeable there, say, a medic. By default a medic would require a tech lab and heal for 3 hp per mana. Upgraded, it needs no tech lab and heals for 4 hp per mana.
Jumping back to the Protoss, say, a stalker. Upgraded, it might not need a cybernetics core and might have some not-overpowered-but-cutesy feature like reduced cooldown on blink or some small amount of hp regen.
^^
He's probably right about balance, but his way is also more boring.
You'll be excited to know not only is there a dark carrier model, there is a dark interceptor model. But there is no Dark Dark Templar or Dark Observer. If you wanted, you could always make a cloaked colossus or phoenix and call it a dark colossus.
I assume you want your abilities to be thematically "dark", so here are some suggesstions:
Dark Zealot: No charge. Instead whenever a dark zealot dies, all allies gain a stacking move and attack speed buff.
Dark Stalker: No blink. Instead Dark stalkers can swap their position with an enemy unit.
Dark Archon: No Attack, has mindcontrol (same as from brood war)
Dark Carrier: Each interceptor is a suicide interceptor, but does more damage.
Dark High Templar: Give them some of the deprecated infestor spells. Like siphon life, siphon energy, and an AoE shield recharge ability.
Dark Immortal: Give it a damage boost, but have it deal 50% of the inflicted damage back to itself, let hardened shields reduce that damage so immortals destroy themselves very quickly if they don't have shields.
Dark Void Ray: ???
Dark Sentry: Give it a taunt, and a guardian shield analog that reduces armor by 2.
Dark Warp Prism: ???
Dark Probe: Make them cloaked, take away their shields.
I personally think you should use prisoner zealot for the dark zealot, thats what I used. and to rogue, just in my opinion I dont see the point in a dark high templar because in my thinking the dark is the darkness version of a templar and the high templar is the light version :P. just saying!
Dark Void Ray should be the opposite of the Void Ray. It should start out kinda fast, and then get slower as it sustains its attack. And it should get stronger the slower it gets.
Dark Warp Prism should have a small aoe summon when it's deployed.
@roguelike: Go
Thank you, that was EXACTLY the kind of post I was looking for. The only thing is I want to have variety in the units with abilities AND stats, but they have to be balanced or players will pick one or the other because they know its better.
I was not sure if I would make the player choose Dark temps or high temps, or if he will choose either high temp or dark high temp...Not sure, I will think about it
Then perhaps give the Void Rays a cloak? Or Blink. Afterall, the have Void in their name and Stalkers talk about it all the time and they have blink. :D
If you look at the baneling - explode behavior and switch the advanced view (click on the middle of the 5 orange icons next to the search bar), you can see how the baneling death effect works. There is a Combat-Modification - Death Response - Effect field you can put an effect in.
One piece of advice: try to avoid cloaks at all costs. They are either very useful (if the enemy has no detection) or completely useless (if the enemy has detection). To prevent an all dark player from absolutely owning, you would have to include a lot of detection. This would make a balanced player hate his cloaked units, as they would be fairly useless.
IM still not sure about cloak for the reasons you two just said, but remember, this is SINGLE player. So it doesnt matter if protoss are OP, as long as the dark protoss are fairly balanced with light protoss. Any suggestions for the void ray ability?
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Yeah but cloak might be a lot better than what the other normal ability is.. So I still want dark and light to be close enough to each other to be fair, but different enough to make your choice meaningful.
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Think about it this way, if the enemy has no detection, they will have no way to kill cloaked units (overpowered), but if the enemy has tons of detection, cloak is useless (underpowered).
Now imagine you try and find a middle ground, say the enemy has a base with detection, but an expansion that has no detection around it. You could go in with 3 cloaked units and kill everything in the expansion, gaining a significant advantage over that main base for the rest of the game (still overpowered).
In my opinion, in a CAMPAIGN (not melee) setting, cloak is doomed to be either way overpowered or way underpowered.
He could always make it so that the invisible detecting units are scouting so that some of the time areas are being detected and some of the time they are not.
Im working on a campagin series where over the course of the story, you will have several chances to convert a unit to its dark form. So you know all those "dark protoss" models? In the game, you get to pick if you want zealots or dark zealots, and then for the rest of your campagin you will have the one you picked. So Im thinking of ideas for the dark units. I want the dark units to actually be different from the normal units, but I want them to be balanced. So you can win just as easily with all dark units as all normal units. Here is an example
Normal Zealot- Has charge default stats
Dark- Has some other ability that might do damage or something Less shield more attack
or maybe a dark stalker has a cloak instead of blink and better sped, but less hp, etc Or something like that. Anybody have some ideas for these units? Also, there are NO dark colosus, carriers, or phoenix models so they will have no dark form available. Thanks in advance!!
How about just making them cost more but as a trade-off being more durable/more regen/more energy.
Kinda boring but if you want to keep things balanced. I'd certainly steer clear of adding abilities that aren't auto-castable. There are plenty enough hotkeys to remember in-game already for your average player, without adding more.
If you wanted to be really suave, you could take a leaf from the campaign. Just like units are upgradeable there, say, a medic. By default a medic would require a tech lab and heal for 3 hp per mana. Upgraded, it needs no tech lab and heals for 4 hp per mana.
Jumping back to the Protoss, say, a stalker. Upgraded, it might not need a cybernetics core and might have some not-overpowered-but-cutesy feature like reduced cooldown on blink or some small amount of hp regen.
@zeldarules28: Go
^^ He's probably right about balance, but his way is also more boring.
You'll be excited to know not only is there a dark carrier model, there is a dark interceptor model. But there is no Dark Dark Templar or Dark Observer. If you wanted, you could always make a cloaked colossus or phoenix and call it a dark colossus.
I assume you want your abilities to be thematically "dark", so here are some suggesstions:
I personally think you should use prisoner zealot for the dark zealot, thats what I used. and to rogue, just in my opinion I dont see the point in a dark high templar because in my thinking the dark is the darkness version of a templar and the high templar is the light version :P. just saying!
Dark Void Ray should be the opposite of the Void Ray. It should start out kinda fast, and then get slower as it sustains its attack. And it should get stronger the slower it gets. Dark Warp Prism should have a small aoe summon when it's deployed.
@roguelike: Go Thank you, that was EXACTLY the kind of post I was looking for. The only thing is I want to have variety in the units with abilities AND stats, but they have to be balanced or players will pick one or the other because they know its better.
@Darkling155: Go
I was not sure if I would make the player choose Dark temps or high temps, or if he will choose either high temp or dark high temp...Not sure, I will think about it
@Frekerellik: Go
Ummm...I dunno.. Seems kind of weird for void rays.. I'd rather have something else..Maybe they have an activated ability of some sort?
@all of you ->
Thanks for the advice! Keep it coming!
@zeldarules28: Go
Then perhaps give the Void Rays a cloak? Or Blink. Afterall, the have Void in their name and Stalkers talk about it all the time and they have blink. :D
Blink, no. But cloak..Thats probably a good idea. But maybe they don't have the beam get accelerator. They would be better at stealth strikes..
edit- for the zealot death ability, I have no idea how to fire off a effect upon death...
@zeldarules28: Go
If you look at the baneling - explode behavior and switch the advanced view (click on the middle of the 5 orange icons next to the search bar), you can see how the baneling death effect works. There is a Combat-Modification - Death Response - Effect field you can put an effect in.
I see...Thank you, I will go take a look.
One piece of advice: try to avoid cloaks at all costs. They are either very useful (if the enemy has no detection) or completely useless (if the enemy has detection). To prevent an all dark player from absolutely owning, you would have to include a lot of detection. This would make a balanced player hate his cloaked units, as they would be fairly useless.
I would have to agree with Hamster on the cloaked units, One thing I know I hate in 1v1s is getting rushed by air units that are cloaked...
But yes, I mean if your subtracting abilities from the units and giving them cloak instead, if the enemy has detection it would be of no use...
IM still not sure about cloak for the reasons you two just said, but remember, this is SINGLE player. So it doesnt matter if protoss are OP, as long as the dark protoss are fairly balanced with light protoss. Any suggestions for the void ray ability?
anybody?
The reasons stated above were simply multiplayer complaints. If this is pure Single Player/Campaign, Cloak should be fine lol.
Yeah but cloak might be a lot better than what the other normal ability is.. So I still want dark and light to be close enough to each other to be fair, but different enough to make your choice meaningful.
Think about it this way, if the enemy has no detection, they will have no way to kill cloaked units (overpowered), but if the enemy has tons of detection, cloak is useless (underpowered).
Now imagine you try and find a middle ground, say the enemy has a base with detection, but an expansion that has no detection around it. You could go in with 3 cloaked units and kill everything in the expansion, gaining a significant advantage over that main base for the rest of the game (still overpowered).
In my opinion, in a CAMPAIGN (not melee) setting, cloak is doomed to be either way overpowered or way underpowered.
@HamsterBoo: Go
He could always make it so that the invisible detecting units are scouting so that some of the time areas are being detected and some of the time they are not.
I think the only cloaked units you will get are dark templars, and you dont get a choice with them. You just get them
I have come up with a good idea for dark void rays.
Overcharge: Drains the void rays shields to activate overcharge for 10 seconds
(overcharge mode is just the stronger void ray beam. dark voids dont get that beam by just shooting for a few seconds)