@Regretredress: Go Welcome to Mapster and thanks for taking the time to show up.
@SGTMeowmers9: Go Sorry guys, no Banelord. As I've been saying in this thread Zerg already has to many free units, and HoTS is going to boost that even more. So, instead of creating moree of the same, why not try new ideas, maybe new casters?
@michaelknives: Go I'm using the Kaboomer pretty much as it is in Left 2 Die, it can be merged from 2 Banelings, it has a siege weapon but can also suicide for an area damage.
Alrighty... wait, what? You want us to think of ORIGINAL IDEAS?!
Banelord as EXPLODING OVERLORD. But costs 2 supply and requires a baneling nest. When it explodes, it also generates a DoT in the area of effect or creep or something, but it should have a post-mortem effect.
@SGTMeowmers9: Go LOL when I read Banelord for some reason I thought of Regretredress' Baneling-shooting Brood Lord, you know, Baneling + Brood Lord = Banelord ;-)
I've read about your idea before, you were suggesting it somewhere right? I guess it could work, a gigantic suicide unit, morphed from Overlords? But I'd like to have a custom model for it, right now I have nothing that looks like it.
Maybe some kind of zerg that "leeches" resources from the Terran Command Center, Protoss Nexus, or Zerg Hatchery. It slowly drains resources from the enemy and gives you some in return, but most remain stationary. Could also shut up off Pylon power in a radius for a time, the ability itself could have a long cooldown and cost quiet a bit energy to use. I imagine it looking like a large zerg beetle with a odd probasicus to "leech" resources from structures. As a upgrade you could make them have a passive chance to when hit to attack the target back, this could be a stinger or the tentacle the Infestor uses for nerual parasite.
Also another unit type could be a fast agile weak harassment unit that its attack deals damage overtime akin to poison, kinda like a zerg Hellion I guess not too original but think it is kinda of a neat idea. As a upgrade it could gain the ability to sting a target and infect it with a explosive toxin and after a certain has passed it explodes dealing corrosive damage to nearby targets. I imagine them looking like defliers but with more weird looking sketter legs and a long stinger that hangs over the top of their body. :3
Anyway great work SoulFilcher, I really enjoy your mod and keep up the amazing work. ;3
@FirebatRommel: Go Welcome to Mapster and thanks for taking the time to share your ideas. I like the idea of a resource-leeching unit, it fits the zerg more than the Oracle's current ability to damage structures and earn minerals (if you know the current state of the beta you know what I mean). I also like the idea of disabling pylons, but it may be op. You gave me the idea for other possible abilities to be disabled: Creep, radar from Sensor Towers, Detection from turrets, disruption from Psi-Disrupters and so on.
For the fragile harassment unit: Left 2 Die brood will unlock Hunterlings (wait for the next update), but I like the poison idea, it's so obvious and still no zerg unit uses poison. The other idea sounds like the bane creeper.
Wouldn't the "Banelord" overlap with baneling drops, scourges, or even regular banelings? Would probably be OP against fellow Zerg too if it's T1(.5). If you want to try it you could use the Overseer/Broodlord cocoon, maybe add a distortion effect (Archon/Vortex) or an "acid-drip" effect.
I do like the idea of Zerg poison, the problem is that it's hard to balance on combat units (if it's a long back-and-forth the poison will eat away everything, but in a 1a deathball-vs-deathball most units will be dead before they even get poisoned); On harassment units a DoT is inferior to upfront burst damage a la Muta/Bane-bomb, but maybe it could be a long-range ability so you can "harass" the enemy army with it.
The explosive toxin sounds like an all-or-nothing deal: If it's a timed instakill you can't allow it on anything but expendable targets (T1) for obvious reasons and it will function like HSM or Battle Report widow mines. If it's "explode on death" you need something to prevent massing/chaining it, to the point of absurdly short cast range or even making poisoned units immune to the explosion ("not trigger if killed by toxic explosion" won't work well because so many Zerg units deal continuous scratch damage, so unless the explosion deals massive amounts of damage itself some Zerglings can snatch up the kill)
Disabling Pylons should be ok if it isn't spammable until lategame and is either hard to inflict (slow grounded caster) or high-tech in the first place (NOT Overseer contaminate!); disabling creep might be hard if it's still footprint-based and would require an almost excrutiating duration to be effective, creep recedes slowly and its loss has no immediate consequences (especially in ZvZ where it benefits your opponent just as much), whereas Pylon loss immediately shuts down everything and can't harm the casting player. If you also include specific abilities like psi-disruptors and radar you need clear rules on what can and can't be disabled. For example disabling resource dropoff would be far too strong, but it's the core native ability of HQs just like sensor towers have radar.
Wraiths that cost 150/150 mineral/gas with only 8 ground damage and range of 5 for both attacks seem underpowered. I feel buffing the weapon damage/rate would make the unit more reliable, or decreasing the cost
thoughts on SpecOps being able to heal as well as cloak?
Defiler’s plague should be hot keyed to "f"; same as the infestor fungal because hot key "L" is on the other side of the keyboard and it’s like using your right hand when your left-handed.
defilers when selecting a mass group should be the primary caster (if you know what I mean; if I select roachs and defilers roaches become primary casters which make no sense as it should be defilers. Also I never like that blizzard had queen as primary over infestor if you select both of them.
looking forward to the next update, don’t forget the guardian’s slash damage
hybrids should cost 8 supply and be able to steal life from allied units.
infested zealots are unable to be used by defilers. there should be a similar research for defilers then.
lurkers are fucking terrible. should do more damage and should not have a + to armored or anything (except maybe light, zerg has almost nothing +to light)
nullifiers abuse tank stacking.
reavers are unable to hit allied units, and i feel the model is a wee bit too small.
other than those things, fun to play, buggy for now, when hots gets released will look back into this.
@Photoloss: Go In my mind this Banelord would be anti-air, not overlaping with Banelings even drops. Scourge are faster and I believe damage a single target, maybe Banelord could be better vs groups of air units, dealing large area damage.
Your considerations on poison are important, so far I believe that if it sticks to your suggestions it would be like Plague.
As I don't have any unit that could fit the "bane creeper" role I'm not taing this idea that seriously right now, but who knows, if we get to a point such unit becomes an option I will consider your ideas.
I'd make it only disable "special effects", it wouldn't overlap with contaminate so unit-training structures aren't included. By special affects I mean most combat-oriented auras, detection, radar and so on. I can't imagine how in a real world an ability would disable the capacity to drop resources inside a building lol, and I wouldn't allow the ability to do it.
@FreezingAcidRain: Go Whoa! First feedback on the Wraith EVER. I think it must be cheaper, right now they cost way more gas than Vikings. Their anti-ground attack must be weak or they will be better than vikings in this role, and overlap with banshees allowing an even earlier "wraith harass". So, if I change them to cost 150/100 or even 150/75 what should be the stats?
I think I need to give those factions the medivac back, so the SpecOps isn't a replacement.
Thanks, I'll change the hotkey for Plague and the selection priority to be the same as the Infestor.
I'm working on it. Right now I'm working on the Devourer.
@CactusMeat: Go Hi, welcome to SC2Mapster and thanks for the feedback. I'm working hard to make it less buggy. I like your suggestion for the Lurker, the vs Light bonus would be better than the current one. I simply added the unit as it was and never tweaked the stats.
What do you mean by tank stacking? I'll work on these issues.
An AA Banelord would overlap with Corruptors and Scourges vs capships, and is useless against anything that's faster than it. And it would probably be OP alongside Infestors, but the main problem there is fungal. (BL/Infestor vs Terran, +Banelords to instagib Vikings? not fun.)
Yes, I was thinking of Plague, the other common poison ability is on-hit like in WC3, which as I said won't work in head-on engagements. It could work for harassment, but Zerg has enough similar options already. Lings/Mutas are more controllable for "mopping up stragglers" than a lethal DoT unless you blanket their entire army.
What are your rules for what can/can't be disabled? A "feels right" list is easy to implement, but hard to explain in-game: The creep geo-effect is "produced" by the Hatchery just like Larva, both in a gameplay sense and in lore. And while we're at it, covering a structure in a layer of corrosives/chitinous armour is much more likely to impede resource dropoff than the weapons research taking place within.
Wraiths already were bad in the campaign, where detection was limited and predictable. Cost needs to stay high though so Wraith+Banshee remains unaffordable. I don't see a place for them at the moment as the units' two roles were made into the Viking (generic AA) and the Banshee (cloaked harass) in SCII. And since Vikings are balanced around being the only Terran AtA making the Wraith anti-light or something isn't an option either.
I know I've asked this before, but could you keep the SC2Mapster download up-to-date? It's still good for bughunting etc.
@Photoloss: Go The detail to consider when dealing with overlaping roles is: will those units be avaiable for the same broods or for the "basic" teh tree? Corruptors are the base AtA unit, Scourges aren't. I'm working on the Devourer and it will be one more AtA unit, but will all those meet in the same army? They most likely won't. Maybe Devourers + Scourges will, but in this case I have more freedom to change them. The same applies to this Banelord idea, is there a tech tree that makes room for a Banelord? We think this way for AtA units because air diversity is limited when compared to ground. All 3 races have more than 1 GtG unit in their army and it's not a problem, because ground combat feels more diverse and dinamic. Air combat on the other hand is limited to who has more firepower or ground support to hit air.
Ok, I understand. What do you think of Plague? Right now I think it can be effective when used before a push or a harass. It wont kill your targets, but if you use lings/mutas when the duration is about to expire it can be devastating.
Good point, maybe disabling creep was a bad example. My idea was to include special effects as I said before, but maybe creep and pylon power shouldn't be included. I'm just throwing ideas around, so we can discuss what exactly such an ability should do.
Again, Wraiths are avaiable in an optional tech tree. There's no problem in a possible overlap with Vikings, the main differences between them 2 is that Wraiths can Cloak and don't need to land, which makes them useful vs ground in different situations, being Wraiths better vs GtG units, while Vikings take out GtA without problem. But the overlaping with Banshees can be a problem, that's why I'll keep their vs greound damage very low, so their main role will be vs air units. So, my question in this post is: Can we make air combat more diverse and dinamic, like ground combat? What do we need to make that happen?
I will update the Mapster version to be the same for the next NA update. And I'm still looking for an EU publisher, at least for the mod files and a few maps, so the mod can be public and other players could publish their own maps.
Corruptors vs Banelords: Noone will ever make the suicide option unless it's so stupidly OP you can guarantee a profit (see: Widow Mines, BLings vs fungal), plus Corruptors can morph to Broodlords once the enemy gives up on air tech and instead own almost all ground units. Banelords could work as a support option like Devourers, but a suicide unit that doesn't even kill things by itself sounds unattractive.
Wraith vs Viking(/Banshee): Both die to anything that can shoot up from the ground. Banshees are better for abusing lack of enemy AA. If Wraiths kill light air units Wraith+Viking outright guarantees air superiority. Wraiths can have their niche in killing mass Carriers/BCs(/Tempests/Vipers) after you snipe the detectors, maybe remove the Techlab requirement and/or reduce gas cost to 100 so you can get them without fully committing to air tech.
Making air combat more interesting would probably require a redesign of all 3 races. Since most existing air units "counter themselves" mirror matches can't be improved without adding at least 2 new units, and the other matchups are a mess of "who happens to be ahead?". Then there's the problem of "Day9 strategy" - if your opponent does some crazy air play, why not just mass T1 and go kill him? Only Protoss can avoid that, and forcefields don't last forever either. (Thank God!)
Plague: Probably OP vs Protoss, otherwise fine on a Defiler-like caster (Hive tech, gas-heavy, fragile). In BW it was ok because ALL spells were OP like that and it came down to micro which one actually won the game.
How about the Banelord having tons of HP (to be fair, 400 I guess) and initial burst damage that could almost take out a Marauder in 1 hit and then DoT? Nearly guaranteed profit.
@Photoloss: Go Wraiths don't require Tech Lab. There's no Wratih + Vikings as one is made to replace the other, so basically their AtA role can be the same (not considering cloak). The whole point of Tosh' Pirates is to focus on cloak play/harass, so I believe sniping detectors is what players would want to do anyway. For the next update I think the reduced cost and a small buff to their AtA range is enough for future testing.
As the new air units are limited and I don't want to overhaul the original ones this may not be possible in this mod. At least not for all tech options, maybe the air focused ones will have more complex strategies, but I believe that's all I can do.
I had made Plague hit shields like anything else, but then I nerfed the damage to 100, and I felt it could function like in SC1, so I made it bypass shields. The Defiler is Lair tech in my mod, but still fragile, and unlike Infestors they can't burrow-move in and out, and don't have a cheap ability to use even when burrowed, so they need to Consume units constantly to use energy-heavy abiltiies. I need more feedback about them before I can plan any changes.
tank stacking
phase shift needs to be on biological only, and with that should cost less energy.
i found that when burrow charge is upgraded, you cannot manually burrow your ultras.
the factions that get dragoons outright win a 4gate vs 4gate against those that do not take dragoons.
to remedy this i suggest (and the lore would) that the dragooning factions must use gateways instead of warp gates.
the mothership and its counterpart for the hybrid faction are able to use their abilities when they begin warping in even though they can't move or regain energy. this could be abusable if the mothership core weren't so slow.
oh and a ton of the merc compound tooltips don't show the required minerals, gas or supply.
Oh sorry, for some reason I thought you had kept the campaign tech for the Wraith. Assuming you kept the "light" tag, what anti-Phoenix measures do the Wraith factions have?
The deciding factor with Plague vs Protoss is the cast range I think. As long as feedback outranges it it should be manageable, especially if Defilers and Infestors are mutually exclusive. For the record, BW Plague did around 25 dps for 12 seconds, or around 2.7x the total damage of Psi Storm. The latter comparison would yield about 214 total damage in SCII, which probably is a bit much, but 100 sounds very low.
What are the exact mechanics of that stacking mechanism? Units walking into each other with Phase Shift should get pushed apart when the effect ends, and it currently doesn't work with structures so you'd have to manually box in phased units with your buildings. Maybe immobile units don't get pushed apart, in that case ordering the mode switch when the effect ends should be a better fix (like Vortex does)
The problem with your 4gate fix is that vanilla Protoss are balanced around Warpgate (and Forcefield) as core mechanics. Making the upgrade only reduce production times wouldn't be enough, and reducing the reserach time would open the floodgates for proxy cheeses. Maybe the Mothership Core could be adjusted to deal with the 4gate? Blizzard did intend that originally, though the recent changes were rather counter-productive.
@CactusMeat: Go As Photoloss said I don't believe Phase Shift causes a serious problem with unit stacking, but of course if players report it I'll take a look.
Burrow Charge? Ok, I'll test it.
So maybe I'll have ro re-evaluate the Dragoon stats. Dragoons were made to be stronger, but slower and not useful for harass as Stalkers are. And I fear they are less microable. I wouldn't change such an important mechanic only to try fixing Dragoons.
I'll check the other bugs you reported. But the tooltips are somehow caused by Blizzard, there's nothing wrong in my buttons and I reported this bug before but they didn't fix it.
@Photoloss: Go The Wraith counts as an armored unit. And I hope the increase to 6 range will help in this case.
Good, thanks for the math. Defilers and Infestors are mutually exclusive so their combo isn't a problem (except in team games). Plague used to deal 200 damage before, it was too much, so I decided to nerf it a lot and wait for feedback. I'm sure we can get to a better value.
So... no Banelords, that is ok I guess. This mod is still my fav and I play it all the time :)
I however came up with a new unit idea!
A little backstory first I suppose... While playing Terran, clicking on the SCV multiple times trigger the voice to say something along the lines of' "Self destruct initiated. 3...2...1....etc." AND, the queens in one of the Zerg Broods get more attention with egg pop/broodling genesis and whatnot.
I was thinking it would be pretty funny to have a tech upgrade for SCV's to make them little suicide units. Late game tech of course since an initial rush with SuicideCV's could be bad for the opponent. Maybe they could have little nuke illustrators with a very tiny splash radius.
-unable to attack my own rip field generators. with only one active drones regenerated all hp from the effect, with 2 it took 20 seconds to bring them down to 1 hp ( i guess)
- preservers ... need to be debugged, i spammed their foresight while in an opponents base (cause i'm testing vs computers) and it just handed out warnings.
also the preservers, though made from gateways do not use up the cooldown of the warpgate, i had 8 warp gates, made 8 stalkers, turned around and made 8 preservers. I dont see it as a balance issue because preservers cant attack but that seemed a bit odd.
as a request please try to work in drop pods (terran AND zerg) from the campaign.
as for original ideas on units:
a zerg harass unit that creates a tumor when it dies?
terran chem trooper cause for some reason only zerg uses acid
@Regretredress: Go lol, you're crazy you know? The Banelord made some sense, but suicidal SCVs? what role exactly would they fill? Which faction would use them? Why blow up your workers?
The units included in the mod usually come from 3 sources (I believe all of them, but there may be exceptions):
-SC lore, pure and simple, units that we know exist in this universe, and we know what they do.
-Unused models found in the editor (good quality ones), because that doesn't make the mod much larger in file size, this is case for the Laserdrill Tank, Blimp and others. That could in a sense fill a role for a faction.
-Units from Blizzard's own mods, this category is here to include the Left 2 Die units, and possibly others in the future.
@CactusMeat: Go Attack your own rip-field? Drones? Please explain.
Could you tell me what the warnings said for Foresight? I tested it vs computer and the ability worked just fine, though I didn't spam it.
I'll check the cooldown, I was positive I had fixed that :-(
Yeah Drop Pods are in my list for a very long time, but I simply haven't gotten to a functional mechanic for them, specially because I need custom structures and animations. I'll try and go back to work on these but I can't guarantee I'll get them woirking properly.
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@Regretredress: Go Welcome to Mapster and thanks for taking the time to show up.
@SGTMeowmers9: Go Sorry guys, no Banelord. As I've been saying in this thread Zerg already has to many free units, and HoTS is going to boost that even more. So, instead of creating moree of the same, why not try new ideas, maybe new casters?
@michaelknives: Go I'm using the Kaboomer pretty much as it is in Left 2 Die, it can be merged from 2 Banelings, it has a siege weapon but can also suicide for an area damage.
Alrighty... wait, what? You want us to think of ORIGINAL IDEAS?!
Banelord as EXPLODING OVERLORD. But costs 2 supply and requires a baneling nest. When it explodes, it also generates a DoT in the area of effect or creep or something, but it should have a post-mortem effect.
@SGTMeowmers9: Go LOL when I read Banelord for some reason I thought of Regretredress' Baneling-shooting Brood Lord, you know, Baneling + Brood Lord = Banelord ;-)
I've read about your idea before, you were suggesting it somewhere right? I guess it could work, a gigantic suicide unit, morphed from Overlords? But I'd like to have a custom model for it, right now I have nothing that looks like it.
Maybe some kind of zerg that "leeches" resources from the Terran Command Center, Protoss Nexus, or Zerg Hatchery. It slowly drains resources from the enemy and gives you some in return, but most remain stationary. Could also shut up off Pylon power in a radius for a time, the ability itself could have a long cooldown and cost quiet a bit energy to use. I imagine it looking like a large zerg beetle with a odd probasicus to "leech" resources from structures. As a upgrade you could make them have a passive chance to when hit to attack the target back, this could be a stinger or the tentacle the Infestor uses for nerual parasite.
Also another unit type could be a fast agile weak harassment unit that its attack deals damage overtime akin to poison, kinda like a zerg Hellion I guess not too original but think it is kinda of a neat idea. As a upgrade it could gain the ability to sting a target and infect it with a explosive toxin and after a certain has passed it explodes dealing corrosive damage to nearby targets. I imagine them looking like defliers but with more weird looking sketter legs and a long stinger that hangs over the top of their body. :3
Anyway great work SoulFilcher, I really enjoy your mod and keep up the amazing work. ;3
@FirebatRommel: Go Welcome to Mapster and thanks for taking the time to share your ideas. I like the idea of a resource-leeching unit, it fits the zerg more than the Oracle's current ability to damage structures and earn minerals (if you know the current state of the beta you know what I mean). I also like the idea of disabling pylons, but it may be op. You gave me the idea for other possible abilities to be disabled: Creep, radar from Sensor Towers, Detection from turrets, disruption from Psi-Disrupters and so on.
For the fragile harassment unit: Left 2 Die brood will unlock Hunterlings (wait for the next update), but I like the poison idea, it's so obvious and still no zerg unit uses poison. The other idea sounds like the bane creeper.
Wouldn't the "Banelord" overlap with baneling drops, scourges, or even regular banelings? Would probably be OP against fellow Zerg too if it's T1(.5). If you want to try it you could use the Overseer/Broodlord cocoon, maybe add a distortion effect (Archon/Vortex) or an "acid-drip" effect.
I do like the idea of Zerg poison, the problem is that it's hard to balance on combat units (if it's a long back-and-forth the poison will eat away everything, but in a 1a deathball-vs-deathball most units will be dead before they even get poisoned); On harassment units a DoT is inferior to upfront burst damage a la Muta/Bane-bomb, but maybe it could be a long-range ability so you can "harass" the enemy army with it.
The explosive toxin sounds like an all-or-nothing deal: If it's a timed instakill you can't allow it on anything but expendable targets (T1) for obvious reasons and it will function like HSM or Battle Report widow mines. If it's "explode on death" you need something to prevent massing/chaining it, to the point of absurdly short cast range or even making poisoned units immune to the explosion ("not trigger if killed by toxic explosion" won't work well because so many Zerg units deal continuous scratch damage, so unless the explosion deals massive amounts of damage itself some Zerglings can snatch up the kill)
Disabling Pylons should be ok if it isn't spammable until lategame and is either hard to inflict (slow grounded caster) or high-tech in the first place (NOT Overseer contaminate!); disabling creep might be hard if it's still footprint-based and would require an almost excrutiating duration to be effective, creep recedes slowly and its loss has no immediate consequences (especially in ZvZ where it benefits your opponent just as much), whereas Pylon loss immediately shuts down everything and can't harm the casting player. If you also include specific abilities like psi-disruptors and radar you need clear rules on what can and can't be disabled. For example disabling resource dropoff would be far too strong, but it's the core native ability of HQs just like sensor towers have radar.
hybrids should cost 8 supply and be able to steal life from allied units. infested zealots are unable to be used by defilers. there should be a similar research for defilers then. lurkers are fucking terrible. should do more damage and should not have a + to armored or anything (except maybe light, zerg has almost nothing +to light) nullifiers abuse tank stacking. reavers are unable to hit allied units, and i feel the model is a wee bit too small.
other than those things, fun to play, buggy for now, when hots gets released will look back into this.
@Photoloss: Go In my mind this Banelord would be anti-air, not overlaping with Banelings even drops. Scourge are faster and I believe damage a single target, maybe Banelord could be better vs groups of air units, dealing large area damage.
Your considerations on poison are important, so far I believe that if it sticks to your suggestions it would be like Plague.
As I don't have any unit that could fit the "bane creeper" role I'm not taing this idea that seriously right now, but who knows, if we get to a point such unit becomes an option I will consider your ideas.
I'd make it only disable "special effects", it wouldn't overlap with contaminate so unit-training structures aren't included. By special affects I mean most combat-oriented auras, detection, radar and so on. I can't imagine how in a real world an ability would disable the capacity to drop resources inside a building lol, and I wouldn't allow the ability to do it.
@FreezingAcidRain: Go Whoa! First feedback on the Wraith EVER. I think it must be cheaper, right now they cost way more gas than Vikings. Their anti-ground attack must be weak or they will be better than vikings in this role, and overlap with banshees allowing an even earlier "wraith harass". So, if I change them to cost 150/100 or even 150/75 what should be the stats?
I think I need to give those factions the medivac back, so the SpecOps isn't a replacement.
Thanks, I'll change the hotkey for Plague and the selection priority to be the same as the Infestor.
I'm working on it. Right now I'm working on the Devourer.
@CactusMeat: Go Hi, welcome to SC2Mapster and thanks for the feedback. I'm working hard to make it less buggy. I like your suggestion for the Lurker, the vs Light bonus would be better than the current one. I simply added the unit as it was and never tweaked the stats.
What do you mean by tank stacking? I'll work on these issues.
An AA Banelord would overlap with Corruptors and Scourges vs capships, and is useless against anything that's faster than it. And it would probably be OP alongside Infestors, but the main problem there is fungal. (BL/Infestor vs Terran, +Banelords to instagib Vikings? not fun.)
Yes, I was thinking of Plague, the other common poison ability is on-hit like in WC3, which as I said won't work in head-on engagements. It could work for harassment, but Zerg has enough similar options already. Lings/Mutas are more controllable for "mopping up stragglers" than a lethal DoT unless you blanket their entire army.
What are your rules for what can/can't be disabled? A "feels right" list is easy to implement, but hard to explain in-game: The creep geo-effect is "produced" by the Hatchery just like Larva, both in a gameplay sense and in lore. And while we're at it, covering a structure in a layer of corrosives/chitinous armour is much more likely to impede resource dropoff than the weapons research taking place within.
Wraiths already were bad in the campaign, where detection was limited and predictable. Cost needs to stay high though so Wraith+Banshee remains unaffordable. I don't see a place for them at the moment as the units' two roles were made into the Viking (generic AA) and the Banshee (cloaked harass) in SCII. And since Vikings are balanced around being the only Terran AtA making the Wraith anti-light or something isn't an option either.
I know I've asked this before, but could you keep the SC2Mapster download up-to-date? It's still good for bughunting etc.
@Photoloss: Go The detail to consider when dealing with overlaping roles is: will those units be avaiable for the same broods or for the "basic" teh tree? Corruptors are the base AtA unit, Scourges aren't. I'm working on the Devourer and it will be one more AtA unit, but will all those meet in the same army? They most likely won't. Maybe Devourers + Scourges will, but in this case I have more freedom to change them. The same applies to this Banelord idea, is there a tech tree that makes room for a Banelord? We think this way for AtA units because air diversity is limited when compared to ground. All 3 races have more than 1 GtG unit in their army and it's not a problem, because ground combat feels more diverse and dinamic. Air combat on the other hand is limited to who has more firepower or ground support to hit air.
Ok, I understand. What do you think of Plague? Right now I think it can be effective when used before a push or a harass. It wont kill your targets, but if you use lings/mutas when the duration is about to expire it can be devastating.
Good point, maybe disabling creep was a bad example. My idea was to include special effects as I said before, but maybe creep and pylon power shouldn't be included. I'm just throwing ideas around, so we can discuss what exactly such an ability should do.
Again, Wraiths are avaiable in an optional tech tree. There's no problem in a possible overlap with Vikings, the main differences between them 2 is that Wraiths can Cloak and don't need to land, which makes them useful vs ground in different situations, being Wraiths better vs GtG units, while Vikings take out GtA without problem. But the overlaping with Banshees can be a problem, that's why I'll keep their vs greound damage very low, so their main role will be vs air units. So, my question in this post is: Can we make air combat more diverse and dinamic, like ground combat? What do we need to make that happen?
I will update the Mapster version to be the same for the next NA update. And I'm still looking for an EU publisher, at least for the mod files and a few maps, so the mod can be public and other players could publish their own maps.
Corruptors vs Banelords: Noone will ever make the suicide option unless it's so stupidly OP you can guarantee a profit (see: Widow Mines, BLings vs fungal), plus Corruptors can morph to Broodlords once the enemy gives up on air tech and instead own almost all ground units. Banelords could work as a support option like Devourers, but a suicide unit that doesn't even kill things by itself sounds unattractive.
Wraith vs Viking(/Banshee): Both die to anything that can shoot up from the ground. Banshees are better for abusing lack of enemy AA. If Wraiths kill light air units Wraith+Viking outright guarantees air superiority. Wraiths can have their niche in killing mass Carriers/BCs(/Tempests/Vipers) after you snipe the detectors, maybe remove the Techlab requirement and/or reduce gas cost to 100 so you can get them without fully committing to air tech.
Making air combat more interesting would probably require a redesign of all 3 races. Since most existing air units "counter themselves" mirror matches can't be improved without adding at least 2 new units, and the other matchups are a mess of "who happens to be ahead?". Then there's the problem of "Day9 strategy" - if your opponent does some crazy air play, why not just mass T1 and go kill him? Only Protoss can avoid that, and forcefields don't last forever either. (Thank God!)
Plague: Probably OP vs Protoss, otherwise fine on a Defiler-like caster (Hive tech, gas-heavy, fragile). In BW it was ok because ALL spells were OP like that and it came down to micro which one actually won the game.
How about the Banelord having tons of HP (to be fair, 400 I guess) and initial burst damage that could almost take out a Marauder in 1 hit and then DoT? Nearly guaranteed profit.
@Photoloss: Go Wraiths don't require Tech Lab. There's no Wratih + Vikings as one is made to replace the other, so basically their AtA role can be the same (not considering cloak). The whole point of Tosh' Pirates is to focus on cloak play/harass, so I believe sniping detectors is what players would want to do anyway. For the next update I think the reduced cost and a small buff to their AtA range is enough for future testing.
As the new air units are limited and I don't want to overhaul the original ones this may not be possible in this mod. At least not for all tech options, maybe the air focused ones will have more complex strategies, but I believe that's all I can do.
I had made Plague hit shields like anything else, but then I nerfed the damage to 100, and I felt it could function like in SC1, so I made it bypass shields. The Defiler is Lair tech in my mod, but still fragile, and unlike Infestors they can't burrow-move in and out, and don't have a cheap ability to use even when burrowed, so they need to Consume units constantly to use energy-heavy abiltiies. I need more feedback about them before I can plan any changes.
@SoulFilcher: Go
tank stacking phase shift needs to be on biological only, and with that should cost less energy. i found that when burrow charge is upgraded, you cannot manually burrow your ultras.
the factions that get dragoons outright win a 4gate vs 4gate against those that do not take dragoons. to remedy this i suggest (and the lore would) that the dragooning factions must use gateways instead of warp gates. the mothership and its counterpart for the hybrid faction are able to use their abilities when they begin warping in even though they can't move or regain energy. this could be abusable if the mothership core weren't so slow.
oh and a ton of the merc compound tooltips don't show the required minerals, gas or supply.
@SoulFilcher: Go
Oh sorry, for some reason I thought you had kept the campaign tech for the Wraith. Assuming you kept the "light" tag, what anti-Phoenix measures do the Wraith factions have?
The deciding factor with Plague vs Protoss is the cast range I think. As long as feedback outranges it it should be manageable, especially if Defilers and Infestors are mutually exclusive. For the record, BW Plague did around 25 dps for 12 seconds, or around 2.7x the total damage of Psi Storm. The latter comparison would yield about 214 total damage in SCII, which probably is a bit much, but 100 sounds very low.
@CactusMeat: Go
What are the exact mechanics of that stacking mechanism? Units walking into each other with Phase Shift should get pushed apart when the effect ends, and it currently doesn't work with structures so you'd have to manually box in phased units with your buildings. Maybe immobile units don't get pushed apart, in that case ordering the mode switch when the effect ends should be a better fix (like Vortex does)
The problem with your 4gate fix is that vanilla Protoss are balanced around Warpgate (and Forcefield) as core mechanics. Making the upgrade only reduce production times wouldn't be enough, and reducing the reserach time would open the floodgates for proxy cheeses. Maybe the Mothership Core could be adjusted to deal with the 4gate? Blizzard did intend that originally, though the recent changes were rather counter-productive.
@CactusMeat: Go As Photoloss said I don't believe Phase Shift causes a serious problem with unit stacking, but of course if players report it I'll take a look.
Burrow Charge? Ok, I'll test it.
So maybe I'll have ro re-evaluate the Dragoon stats. Dragoons were made to be stronger, but slower and not useful for harass as Stalkers are. And I fear they are less microable. I wouldn't change such an important mechanic only to try fixing Dragoons.
I'll check the other bugs you reported. But the tooltips are somehow caused by Blizzard, there's nothing wrong in my buttons and I reported this bug before but they didn't fix it.
@Photoloss: Go The Wraith counts as an armored unit. And I hope the increase to 6 range will help in this case.
Good, thanks for the math. Defilers and Infestors are mutually exclusive so their combo isn't a problem (except in team games). Plague used to deal 200 damage before, it was too much, so I decided to nerf it a lot and wait for feedback. I'm sure we can get to a better value.
So... no Banelords, that is ok I guess. This mod is still my fav and I play it all the time :)
I however came up with a new unit idea!
A little backstory first I suppose... While playing Terran, clicking on the SCV multiple times trigger the voice to say something along the lines of' "Self destruct initiated. 3...2...1....etc." AND, the queens in one of the Zerg Broods get more attention with egg pop/broodling genesis and whatnot.
I was thinking it would be pretty funny to have a tech upgrade for SCV's to make them little suicide units. Late game tech of course since an initial rush with SuicideCV's could be bad for the opponent. Maybe they could have little nuke illustrators with a very tiny splash radius.
Something new and quirky, what do you think?
-unable to attack my own rip field generators. with only one active drones regenerated all hp from the effect, with 2 it took 20 seconds to bring them down to 1 hp ( i guess)
- preservers ... need to be debugged, i spammed their foresight while in an opponents base (cause i'm testing vs computers) and it just handed out warnings.
also the preservers, though made from gateways do not use up the cooldown of the warpgate, i had 8 warp gates, made 8 stalkers, turned around and made 8 preservers. I dont see it as a balance issue because preservers cant attack but that seemed a bit odd.
as a request please try to work in drop pods (terran AND zerg) from the campaign. as for original ideas on units: a zerg harass unit that creates a tumor when it dies? terran chem trooper cause for some reason only zerg uses acid
all i got this time
@Regretredress: Go lol, you're crazy you know? The Banelord made some sense, but suicidal SCVs? what role exactly would they fill? Which faction would use them? Why blow up your workers?
The units included in the mod usually come from 3 sources (I believe all of them, but there may be exceptions):
-SC lore, pure and simple, units that we know exist in this universe, and we know what they do.
-Unused models found in the editor (good quality ones), because that doesn't make the mod much larger in file size, this is case for the Laserdrill Tank, Blimp and others. That could in a sense fill a role for a faction.
-Units from Blizzard's own mods, this category is here to include the Left 2 Die units, and possibly others in the future.
@CactusMeat: Go Attack your own rip-field? Drones? Please explain.
Could you tell me what the warnings said for Foresight? I tested it vs computer and the ability worked just fine, though I didn't spam it.
I'll check the cooldown, I was positive I had fixed that :-(
Yeah Drop Pods are in my list for a very long time, but I simply haven't gotten to a functional mechanic for them, specially because I need custom structures and animations. I'll try and go back to work on these but I can't guarantee I'll get them woirking properly.