Carrier Escorts

I myself would go for a minute to a minute and a half for the time limit but a 2 minute battle is on the long end of things anyway assuming it isnt a siege and 8 carriers strikes me as suicide. If you have 8 carriers because you are winning then you don't even need to worry about the escorts

 

We haven't the slightly clue as to a rough estimated figure at this point. It's still too early to do any math. I seriously doubt that Blizzard assumes people only make a single Carrier and set the cost according to that.

It will all depend on the stats. Then it would get tweaked to a right amount after testing.

Depending on a player's cash flow, you might make the cost of escorts all back in 45 seconds. Is that possible? Of course. I can suggest such a possiblility, but it's still all too early for number talk. The only thing is the mechanic itself at this point, which I think is very promising.

 

It's not that I think people shouldn't use escorts, they just need to think before using them. Best protoss change so far.

[/end overcomplicating the damn topic]

 

I think it boils down to people's disdain for temporary units and their tendency to pop at inopportune moments and end up costing you.

I am more comfortable with 8 permanent interceptors than I am with the temporary escorts because timed units strike me as something bad by their very ability to shift the balance of power so rapidly.

I don't think it is right for you to be in a bad situation and 4 seconds later have 20 units come out and all of a sudden you win or have 20 units suddenly wink out of existence and leave you undermanned

 

I see timed units more as abilities, not units. Just abilities you have more control over than usual. I don't think you can any more blame a temp unit for changing the balance of battle than you can abilities. Like, you can't say Psi Storm's annoying because it shifts the balance of power quickly.

 

Psi storm is a one off ability that does heavy damage to the enemy and takes skill to change the balance of power

Temporary units have the ability to affect the balance of power over a period of time by providing additional targets and sources of damage.

 

@Wlck742, Same here. Escort to me, is an ability. As you've mentioned the Psi Storm, like how you mush choose when and where you use it, same with the Escorts or anything else.

 

except unlike an ability, escorts cost minerals which is rather annoying as they vanish after 45 seconds.

 

Sorry, going back a bit again, but here's my thoughts. I like the idea of starting off with four Interceptors then upgrading to build another four. It's a great mechanic, we all know it works, the Carrier is one of the few original units so we should try and keep it true to its original self. Instead of having an 'oh-shit' button, which I believe are technically known as 'panic' buttons, that releases, spawns, warps in, etc, Escorts, the panic button should greatly increase the Interceptor's speed, damage, etc. It'd only last a short while, most panic buttons do, and fits in with the Protoss' current style of play. It'd be similar to the Phoenixes Overload, a sudden and fairly major increase in attack power, but the Interceptors or Carrier wouldn't power down afterwards.

EDIT: Whether the Interceptors are invincible or not, both the ones it starts off with and the ones built after the upgrade should be the same. Having four invincible Interceptors and four normal Interceptors would just be scrappy. If they are invincible, it'd be just like the attack of any other unit. I don't see enemies targeting Glave Wurms or missiles, so it's entirely possible that Interceptors are no different. If they aren't invincible, then it would be just the same as in StarCraft1.

 

I like that idea more. It also makes more sense than building a unit that will explode in less than a minute

 

that gives me an awesome idea for a map. Have a carrier that builds drones that auto mine, as well as defenses, make it kinda like the mothership from homeworld.

 

Wait. So, what I've gathered from this thread is:
The Pre-built 4 Interceptors are now invincible?
If so that agrivates me even more since the fact the fast moving Interceptors got targeted is what made the Carrier a valuable unit in two aspects being support and siege in a sense.
If this is true its basically a battlecruiser since you have a short period of being stronger (yamato cannon/plasma array).
Lots of these new changes Blizzard are making are rather disappointing.
Also, these things are AtA. Whats the point if we have a AtA Phoenix which from what I've heard is quite powerful. It doesn't make sense :s

 

Sigh~ nobody gives any thought to impact on actual gameplay. Only the coolness or how much something makes sense lore wise matters around here.

The current (very promising) new mechanic described as a panic button somehow sucks, yet the old mechanic (which makes the Carrier worse in practice) with an actual panic button is great? Now where is the logic behind that picture?

Reasons why this panic button crap sucks ass:
- Bringing Carrier back to the old mechanic makes it stale, worse, later tech wise, useless unit in pinch situations, likely have a far less useful/used factor
- We already have overload on the Phoenix. Or do people want overload for everything Protoss now? Overloading Zealots, overloading
- Is a more mindless design that does not reward a player who actually thinks

I saw absolutely no logical reasoning behind the arguments/comments that portrayed the panic button Carrier as somehow better than the Escort Carrier. Well other than vague terms such as "should" and "makes more sense." Really? Is this place still stuck on stuff like that and people complaining left and right about the looks of things? You really want vague "should"s and "makes-more-sense"s decide game design and mechanics for you? I personally would much rather favor a mechanic because it made the unit more viable, more useful, more balanced, or something along those lines. But if starcraft2forum people are stuck and shoulds and sense making from the land of magic 8-balls, there is really no argument to be had. How can one argue against such overpowering force of magical logic?

@ Psionicz, no they are NOT AtA, they are Air-to-all. And no, Interceptor targetability isn't what made the Carrier valuable or useful at all.

 

So you're saying if you made some Carriers and you want to get your Zealots and Dragoons into the correct position while the enemy has a load of cannons and Dragoons the fact that the Carrier's Interceptors got targeted and cluttered the screen in your advantage so the enemy can't micro his units against your ground units correctly didn't help? I know its helped me win battles. Plus if they focus on the Zealots and Goons the Carriers which cripple their base. GG.

Oh sorry, the post Wlck made it looked like he said air to air, they are indeed air to all.

I will wait until they release some footage or more info on the changed Carrier before I make further comments on that topic.

 

First off, it's not exactly a panic button. Panic buttons are last resort type buttons, so they do actually differ a fair bit from this suggestion. Panic button was just the easiest thing to label it as, as it would be used in important situations. It'd be exactly the same as the Escort mechanic, the idea of which is to increase fire-power, except it would achieve it in a different way. Instead of summoning new temporary units, it would temporarily buff the existing ones. If this idea can be labelled as some crap panic button, the Escort ability can as well.

Stale? Even just having the plain old Carrier wouldn't be stale. Just because it's a sequel it doesn't mean that every unit has to be changed or replaced. There is still room for having unchanged to slightly changed units in the game. Worse? Well, it's good to see that you're coming up with some great points. Too bad this one is cancelled out by my thinking that the Escorts are worse. Later tech? Who's to say it'd be a later tech? This would only be the case if someone consciously chose to put it at a later tech. It would work in the same way as the Escorts, so I don't see why it would be changed at all, but who's to say it couldn't come even earlier? Useless? Again, it would work in the same way to the Escorts, just a different way of expressing it. It would be effective in all the situations that Escorts would be effective in, without having the weak, temporary Zerg-like mentality.

Protoss already had an Archon, does that mean that they shouldn't have been given a Dark Archon? Zerg already had the mutating Mutalisk, does that mean the Hydralisk shouldn't have been given the ability to mutate? Having a unit that performs a certain operations doesn't mean that they can't have other who do similar. It would help them become a unified team rather than a whole lot of units bunched together.

Who said that it couldn't be used skilfully? It works in the same way.
Lastly, 'should''s, etc, aren't vague. They're opinions and strong ones at that. What would you rather we say? It does have these things? The fact it that it doesn't, but, in our opinion, it should. It would work in the same way and would fit the Protoss mentality much, much more. If us, or at least me, arguing that it 'should' be changed is weak and vague, you arguing that it shouldn't us just as weak/vague.

 

No. Think about it.

Carriers start with four interceptors, and can only have four.

Carriers can auto-build interceptors.

If Carriers can never lose their interceptors, then what's the point of having the ability to (auto-)build interceptors?

In the little gameplay flashvid on the Carrier page (Carrier vs Battlecruiser) it looks like the interceptors are invincible because the Battlecruisers just focus on the Carrier and ignore the interceptors. I think the unit AI got better, that's all.

The AtA-only Phoenix annoys me too.

 

I don't like this...
It seems like Blizzard wants every unit to have an ability (not passive like crack, abilities like stimpacks etc.). That reminds me too much of Warcraft 3, where very unit has such a type of abbility... I dont know why Blizzard wants the game to be more micro oriented...

 

Kimera your post has no relevance to anything I was saying... And I don't dislike the AtA Phoenix, I said it would be stupid if the Escorts were AtA as they'd overlap. But they arent, so problem solved. Although, I'm still not fond on this change.

 

Remy escorts aren't even really a panic button beca-se they take a few seconds to build thus making them less effective as on the spot items and more effective as a preepmtive measure.

Frankly I am one of th people who liked the Tempest with its hardened shield for making base assualts. The ability to sit over GtA enemies and provide air support is very powerful

 

I just don't want to lose the aspect of the Interceptors confusing enemies. I'd gladly welcome the Tempest if its Shurikens were targetable. Cuz who really used Carriers against air?
Then we have the Phoenix for AtA. Everything fixed IMO.