There is a very interesting idea being discussed over on the TeamLiquid forums, basically presenting the idea of the entire Protoss army sharing one energy pool, fueled by Nexii: The original thread can be found here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=92482 NOTE: This is NOT my idea! I simply support this idea because I think it will add a lot of interesting gameplay and strategy options to Starcraft 2. I wanted to share it with you guys, because A) You seem to think you have a direct pipeline to Blizzard, and I'd like to generate some buzz about this idea and B)To give this forum some meaty theory craft to discuss. So what do you think? Good idea? Could be fun? What are the potential problems?
Before one of my text walls appears here: did you ask the original poster if you could post it here? 'Cause you really should have did that first.
Hmm this idea sounds interesting but let me address part of your note first, I don't think any site truly believes they have a direct pipeline to Blizzard. If anything I would say its likely that Blizzard checks every site once in awhile and sites with more disscussion/more in-depth more often than sites (Where Sc2f falls in those two ranges I am not going to disscuss because it really is imaterial to having a good disscussion). Now to the idea, I am going to assume the numbers thrown out are subject to balance like always, and when/if I need to toos out a number to get my idea accross I am going to do it in X, Y, Z format. The first thing I would suggest with this idea would be a fundemental shift in how it works, instead of it being based on Nexii I believe it should be based on Pylons. I say this for two reasons, first the lore fits nicely given that Pylons provide the pyschic energy to power Protoss units/buildings on other worlds. Second Pylons are a much more fine tuned control over population, which means there is going to be correlation between number of Pylons and army size, and since there is a high correlation in army size and caster units, Pylons are going to correlate better with Pylons versus Nexii. With all that being said I still think that whatever macro ability is implemented should be attached to the Nexus, my suggestion would be instead of a temporary increase in maximum supply and regeneration, instead the Nexus should just add X amount of energy to the network and lose power/its shields for Y seconds. Next I would suggest simply merging the Dark Pylon with Nexus and changing some abilities. There would be a couple of advantages to this, First it would remove the extra clutter the Dark Pylon creates in a Protoss base. Second, it would remove whatever lore problems exist with this "Psionic Network" and the Dark Templar, as well whatever lore problems exist with the Dark Pylon. Third, this would increase the cost of a powered down Nexus to more than just a temporary loss of resources and ensure there is some kind of cost involved in powering down a Nexus that isn't in use anymore. On a final note, I have a couple of concerns with this idea in general. The first and probably largets of these concerns is the Protoss are already the most macro intensive race from the looks of things in Sc2, this would put even more pressure on any Protoss player and more importantly would make the Protoss particularly hard to balance with the other 3 races on all skill levels, you don't want to the Protoss to be to powerful at the top end of skill or to weak at the bottom or visa versa. The other major concern I have is if this idea goes through we are effectively putting Protoss casters at the mercy of there buildings, which would mean if player had a particularly large portion of his army as casters and then suddenly lost a couple of Nexii or Pylons he would be a lot worse off than a player in similar position but with a different race. Well there is my 2 cents. And just to state it outright I havn't read the thread on TL.net yet so if a lot of what I have tossed out there has already been mentioned I apologize. Also, I would just like apologize before hand for any gramatical errors in my post, I always have a couple in a post this size.
Cool idea But I think this could be applyed to all races Not just the Protoss. Sure it's meant to make the protoss more unique. But doing this to all the races would bring more dynamic gameplay to SC2. It would also make sure that it's not just a copy of SC1 with new units and some flashy graphical stuff. PM me if you want to know more of what I was thinking for the other races.
Only read what the actual suggestion was. The rest TL;DR Isn't this more or less what Dark Pylons are for?
After reading the TL thread on the issue I agree with the general sentiment that this is both an interesting idea and would be a b!tch to balance. As far as other races go, you could easily justify something similar for the Zerg but you would have to severly screw with the lore to justify something like this for the Terran. Either way though I think this should be more or less unique to one race to make the balancing easier also to help add uniqueness to every race, and since the Protoss to some degree have seemed to loss their health advantage this seems like something that could be the new Protoss "thing." One other thing, I think the this should supplant the Dark Pylon as far as added macro goes unless more macro is going to be added to other races in some way.
I think it would be great for the Zerg as well, what with the Overmind theme and whatnot. It was originally suggested as Protoss so I kept it in that context. As far as you saying it would be better applied to pylons rather than Nexii, I totally hear what you're saying, however, I think one of the major uses of this idea was to help with the Dark Pylon idea. (Blizz stated recently that they were having a hard time making the Dakr Pylon work in multiplayer the way they wanted it to.)
This is all a very interesting idea, but it's of such a magnitude it needs to be in the game all the way from the early alpha, in order to receive proper balancing. Throwing it in right before the beta could be catastrophic. The entire Protoss race has been build around a non-pool system and lots of minor things would require twitching. I guess this would be a good idea for SC3
LK: This could work just fine for the Terrans, just call it "specialized supplies and ammunition" or just "supply" -attach it to Supply Depots, even. Maybe even use the Orbital Command to distribute supply package calldowns. Piece of cake. I've played a game that uses a base-wide energy system, but the whole game is basically built around the energy system- it's definitely not something to be tacked on at the last minute.
I might be, but this whole thing about racial identities is very delicate to Blizzard, I can imagine. You need to have the idea in your head all the way through development to get the right feel to the race in general. It's just not about balance, but also about racial identity and having a set goal in your mind as of how the race will look like in the end. This doesn't just involve one unit (like when Blizzard toy around with the Mothership or Queen). This involves 2 - 3 structures and 3 - 4 units, which is a large portion of a race.
IMO to much of a paradigm shift and way too late to try and actually implement it. I think it would make a fine idea for a custom map though if someone wants to take the time to make it.
It's really NOT that big of a deal, you guys. Remember a month ago when there were no spawn larvae, dark pylons, or MULEs?
it really isnt a big deal. i think would be kool to have it in the game, its not to late, but things would change. and change is good. applyin it to all the races isn't a bad idea. but like gasmaskguy said doing this to all the races would mess with how the races feel in the end.
Why not just a copy of SC1 with some cool flashly graphical stuff? No but seriously, I do agree w/ wat Lord Kerwyn originally said. P.S. HAH SIGNATURES FTW
I'm afraid this tech would end up causing protoss players to just build tons of extra nexuses so they have enough mana, which would just get really frustrating. Esp. for the protoss.
this kinda reminds me of the shield battery from Sc1, but a lot more practical for the majority of spell casters that the toss have.
why not make it so they have a bunch of shield batterys, and maybe even change the name to somthing like the Energy Core and make it do the healing thing like in SC 1 and also make it have a separate energy thing for the spell casters. Therefore if you where going to have a lot of spell casters you would have a lot ofEnergy Cores and if that failed you would have a perfect force that could heal ur units shields.
gtfo gtfo gtfo gtfo gtfo gtfo gtfo gtfo gtfo anyways, back to the situation at hand, 1 building, dark pylon, acts as shields battery, and "mana pool", ok?
