New Colossus Attack

Fully agree with this, the old animation was way better than this new one and my oppinion (and others' oppinion, too, i think) is that the old one suited the Colossus way better, frying all the poor little units BBQ time

 

I strongly disagree. Other than estetics there is no reason to have the old animation back whatsoever.

 

Aesthetics will actually play an important part in StarCraft2. Obviously gameplay has to come first, but that's no excuse for having a crummy attack animation for one of the greatest of the new units. In my opinion this new animation could actually have an impact on gameplay because of how much it clusters up the screen, as kuvasz demonstrated earlier.

 

You forget that they are planning to change it, therefore there is absolutely no reason to go back unless they screw up the change.

 

Who's to say that they won't? It would be extremely hard for them to design an animation that would top the original. Fortunately it's not impossible and obviously if they do top it then there won't be any more complaints but they've set an extremely high bar for themselves. The original attack was simple, suited the Colossus and was a brand to attack type to StarCraft2.
Personally, I don't see why the Protoss need the Colossus to be an area of effect attacker. They've already got the High Templar, Archon, Mothership and the pseudo area of effect attacks of the old Colossus and Carrier.

 

Hey, I'm fine with an AoE attack for my favourite unit, it would make it all the more deadly. But not this stupid perpendicular line...
Why not bring back the thermal lances but without the direct focus. I'm thinking it could attack a unit without actually focusing the lances on it but rather hitting on either side. Basically it'd deal damage by heating the ground to an insane temperature, and so it would mean a medium AoE radius, from which the unit between the lances and around them would suffer. There would be no need to reduce the damage just because it's a relatively large AoE because your own units would be vulnerable to this attack as well (you can't tell heat who to burn...).
Here's a sketch of my idea:

Orange are lances/AoE while black is the primary target.

 

That idea would work, but I feel that the beams need to come to a focus. I'm fine with having the same area of effect damage around the focus, but they should still come to a point. However the reason that Blizzard changed the attack was to increase micromanagement potential, which is why the current attack deals damage in a straight line. Having a circular or an ovular area would limit that potential.
Also, your winter terrain still lacks doodads.

 

Nice idea. But the whole point of the original concept was to do maximum damage to a single target, killing it quickly, then sweeping on the the next. Any unit which touched the beam would get damaged even if it wasn't targeted. For example (see attachment; click for larger view)
It targets unit 1 first and as that is dead, you deliberatly target unit 3, ignoring unit 2 because you want the sweep to damage unit 2 as it may be weaker or less of a threat. As the 6 second attack is coming to an end you finish off the weaker unit in one sweep, so by your skill of responding to the situation you have effectivly killed 3 units in once shot.
And you might think, well isn't that imbalanced?
Not at all as it requires skill and judgement to make the most of this unit. Many more micro possibilities with this.
Whereas the spray fire would be limited to only attacking masses, which seems like a waste for such a big strong unit.

 

No it was not, thats the whole point. They stated themselves that they wanted to make it AoE, and this mechanic very often fails at fulfining this job.

 

First off, you misread it. He said the whole point of the original concept was to do maximum damage to a single targer, kill and sweep onwards.
It wasn't a classic type of area of effect attack, but it got the job done. If it got stuck on a particularly tough unit or building, thus not sweeping to the next, thus failing to do it's job as an area of effect attacker, then it's the players fault for letting the Colossus fail. The old mechanic was a great new way of having an area of effect attacker without having to have an area of effect attack.

 

I did not misread it. I reacted to his post exactly as intended, please tell me where exactly did you put the monitoring chip in my brain that you can tell if I misread something or not.

 

The original concept was to deal maximum damage to a single target, kill it quickly, and sweep on the the next. You can't dispute that. It's what it did. They decided to change it to be an area of effect attacker, as the old mechanic supposedly failed at fulfilling it's job, which personally I feel is a load of rubbish. The original concept was not to deal area of effect damage. All in all, the original attack was to deal as much damage as possible and sweep on, and the new attack was to deal area of effect damage. You either misread it or just said something completely irrelevant. If I were you, I'd choose the 'misread' option.
Also, I put the monitoring chip in your cerebellum.

 

@ Itza: Ovals can be micromanaged while circles can't, so my idea would preserve the ability to micro the colossus, though it would reduce it compared to the current attack. About the focus, I agree that it looks a lot better to have the beams focused but if those beams hit a single unit then it's a bit hard to imagine the AoE. If the lances heat a living organism up to a point where it actually burns its surroundings, then the primary target would live for about 1 second, which would make the colossus overpowered. If the target lived for much more than that then the lore concerning the heat would collapse. Of course no one said the AoE is heat but they're thermal lances so I think it is.

This is exactly the reason I suggested to make the lances heat the ground, because the AoE would be obvious.

@ Psi: I'm willing to switch the role (from single hitter to classic AoE) of the colossus as long as it looks devastating.

edit: I think we're talking about two different types of AoE... never mind then.

 

ItzaHexGor: Please quote to me where exactly did Blizzard state that it was their original intention.

And I already removed the chip... any ideas how to stop bleeding? My keyboard is getting messy.

 

Yeah, my main concern about the focus of the two beams was the Colossus looking powerful. However it doesn't have to focus directly on the organism, it could just focus on a central point on the ground, thus heating up the ground around it dealing damage to surrounding units as well as the unit above the focus point. But yeah, in order to have a central point the Colossus would have to have a circular area of effect attack which removes the reason for changing the attack in the first place.
I gotta agree with you about switching roles as long as it looks devastating, but if both the single target and area of effect attack looked equally devastating, I'd rather have the single target, as it's a new and unique attack type.
@ TheWorker. They designed the Colossus to deal tonnes of damage to its target and sweep onwards. That said, explain to me how it wasn't their intention for them to do so. Their intention obviously changed as that was the reason for them changing it to an area of effect attack, but their original intention was for the sweeping attack.
A great way to stop the bleeding would be putting the monitoring chip back. Trust me, it'll work.

 

The original attack was so great because you had maximum control over its effects and there was a range of effects you could do. I guess TheWorker finds it hard to comprehend the possibilities as he likes the new one so much. So I ask TheWorker this:
Lore-wise, how would the spray fire attack be explained and why is it effective?
Fact; it clutters the screen. Fact; Blizzard want to reduce clutter. So why the spray fire?
What are its uses? Pros? Cons?
Lore-wise and gameplay-wise, why is the new one better than the old?
Fact; it was only ownage in the videos because the damage output was imbalanced obviously. Although in the showcase video, it took 4-5 shots to kill 3 Hydralisks. Really effective huh?

 

This is exactly how the colossus should attack, period. Sure, it removes the line AoE and makes it just another simple AoE unit, but everyone agrees that even though balance and gameplay are the primary aspects of SC and SC2, units and mechanics also have to look good. Besides, if friendly units were vulnerable to it, the colossus would require just as much micro as the line attack. It'd be micro to avoid getting your units killed as opposed to killing as many enemies as possible, but still... the owner would have to keep the colossus on a short leash, which would go well with the whole "banned killing machine" lore of the robot.

 

i was thinking that to get the same AoE effect you could have the colossi have two separate lasers that both strafe in different patterns like the original one, the dmg would be like the original one just times two.

 

But you could have the same effect with the original. With your idea, yet again its automated.

 

seriously? you're all gonna let blizzard win? so much for persitance...

the original is the best, it is a mass counter that doesn't do AoE.
the collosus' ability to step up/down cliffs means it needs to be able to function fairly independent (is that not why they took away the medic, because it made reapers useless compared to marines with them not being hope?) a group of old ones could raid and enemy base and do more than kill a worker line, they could destroy buildings quickly the new one looks useless without a line of zealots to keep the enemy in a line, this also goes against the lore about roving collosi scathing death on the kalath.