Poll : Mothership

In an attempt to avoid continueing this argument I think the Mothership should be a super unit that you can only have 1 of on the field at a time but it could be rebuilt. I think it should have the planet cracker, time bomb, and recall. (instead of the black which i did think was overpowered also recall makes it feel more like a commander/city ship unit) The Mothership should have about as much shielding as hp pefreably something like 650/650 and it should cost 1500-2000 resources. The Mothership should be able to attack multiple units at once but its attack you be relatively weak (not much stronger than an inceptor if not weaker) but it should be able to attack both air and ground units. The Mothership should appear next to the stargate instead of warping in anywhere on the map like remy already said.

Im curious what people think about a Mothership like this.

P.S. Remy and Ych9 your posts so far have been stellar and im glad we have people like you guys as admins.

EDIT: Eye not everything is about power some of it is about the theme of the unit and the theme of the team it belongs almost any unit/ability can be balanced if enough time is put into it.

 

You simply can not dictate a scenario and provide the exact requirements for a MS to be balanced.  For one, it is way too early, and secondly, game balance is something that is relative not definitive.  You think you've covered all the possiblities and have satisfied yourself, but the fact is, things are not as rigid and as categorized as you put it.  Try this, 1-per-player, not too strong, not too weak, right there damn smack in the middle in balance land.

As yet another tech option at late-game, if you choose to tech MS you are just choosing to have an equal amount of power all in one place.  Where as someone else chooses to have his forces divided and consist of smaller individual parts where everything is equal to 1~3%, you are choosing to have pool it in one place and have a single big chunk of 10% of your forces.  The % values are examples, but that's what it is.

The inclusion of a Protoss super unit would not be a race to the MS, it is merely yet another tech choice at the top of the tech tree.  Why don't people race to nukes or BCs?  I personally think zerglings are one of the strongest options at tier 3 in the entire game, and I seen proof plenty of times from personal experience.

The way you construct your logic is like saying there is only sniper rifle and weak SMG in FPS games, there can be no middle ground.  Every little factor of game balance is hugely variable, and most of it isn't on a toggle between too strong and too weak.

The super unit concept is just like having high food units like BCs or carriers that take up 6 food(8 food in the past), but you're just taking that idea a bit further.  I personally never get BCs or carriers, but there are people who choose to tech to it.  If something as weak as carriers are can take up 6 food and be in the game but still not have it bitched about, a super MS is just the same thing only one step further.

EDIT:  I don't think the MS was ever meant as a one-time buildable unit, just a 1-per-player hardcap.

And @ LordKerwyn, thank you for your kind words but we are moderators but I get what you're saying.

Just to clarify, our sole Administrator who has single-handedly mustered all the powers in the universe and summoned this realm of forums for your wonderful posting pleasures is SC2FORUMS.
* cue dramatic theme music

 

i disagree, cloak for a mothership? if you got a mothership and you enemy doesnt have a way of finding cloaked units, then why in the hell did u bother building a mothership?, send your probes to kill him right away!

also yo talk about overpower as if while one player is building his mothership the other one just does nothing, by the time you get a mothership your enemy SHOULD have a decent army, and about the mothership carrying a lot of weight for her cost, it´s obvious, at least to me, that no one sane enough would send this unit alone, the mothership should be really expensive, powerfull, and one per player uit, and until we see what those little zergs have for us, no one can say that this is unbalanced.
Blizzard had a really cool concept in the perfect race for it, they just needed to balance it, not make it the dumbest choice for a player...

 

@ Remy I know about SC2FORUMS i just havnt found a good oportunity to thank himfor the effort he has put into the forum. It just seemed appropiate to applaud you and ych9 at the time.

EDIT: Guys lets just drop this argument if he hasnt figured it out by now he probally isnt going to for a long time. Besides the poll speaks for itself about wha most people think about what happened to the Mothership.

 

He is watching you right now, or at any other time for that matter. He is never seen but he is everywhere and always keeping an eye. He also carrys a handful of ass-smiting-goodness to zap anyone talking bad about him. Fear his might, before he makes you disappear without anyone knowing.

Oh noes, I think I've said too much >.<

 

LOL eh good point Rmey but i am curious how would you design the Mothership is you could?

 

The polls just show how many ppl share the same idea, but don't make an argument.

@ Remy: you just used my words to say... ? What the hell is "the middle"?

If in the middle of a fight the mothership cannot be killed by the right choice of units, only by a mass amount of other units together, it's not vulnerable, neither it has a weakness. If it had, it's rightful counter would be enough.

If it can be killed by using the right strategy, then indeed they're balanced, but having only one at a time would cripple the Protoss forces when eventually this unit were destroyed. A crippled Protoss on the account of one unit would be too harsh and unbalanced against them this time.

You haven't picked a possibility, and shoveled the responsibility to Blizzard, of finding something you only suppose to exist. But I'll help you with some other possibility:

- Mothership is vulnerable to simply the right choice of units, not requiring awfull lots of these to even kill her. But, after reaching the tech available for making a MS, it's cheap and fast to be built. Once it's destroyed, you can have another one back in no time and by low prices. Protoss forces would only be crippled by it's loss if the enemy destroys the source. (very nice way of making a single unit per player, and yet not letting the game end because it was destroyed)

Downside: Mothership would be turned into a Zerg-strategy-unit, that can be killed but never dies because of respawn.


It's got nothing to do with a mythical balance, or middle-term balance. It's the combination of vulnerability and power. I messed with the production instead. But I still prefer the MS how it is now.

@ Sagathox: if an army is equivalent to MS, then if the one making a MS also has one, the battle is suddenly unfair. MS cannot double the firepower of a player...


EDIT: Just adding to what Ive said: Mothership beeing a hard to build unit, with it's own weaknesses but not a final unit, is much more Protoss, but would require it being able to be built many times (which would actually make the Protoss strategy more flexible, which is good). If it could be fast to build and cheap, that would fit a zerg unit much more. But wouldn't cause trouble to have as only one, as you could make one again without much trouble.

 

My take on it: I played the MS several times at Blizzcon...personally the way it is right now, I would scrap it all just for the fact it made no use what so ever in the game. In fact, every time someone sent a MS to attack me I owned it with a bunch of Stalkers. They need to either change this bad girl around or scrap it because right now I saw no point in the ship at all.

 

great! An experienced opinion at last, but lemme ask you: were they sent at you alone? And how did the stalkers own her if she has Planet cracker, didn't the enemy use it?

I'm guessing that with 600 total HP, and 4 armor, she should have been harder to kill than this...

EDIT: ...not even Arbiters were so easily owned in the past, and they had worse stats.

 

So your saying the rest of our opinions are invalid because we werent at blizzcon?

Drew just outa curiousity what would you do with the Mothership? (and i mean in terms of changing it back to a super or cratch it.... etc)

 

In fact, an experienced opinion is much more valid than mine, or anyone who might not have seen the actual thing live. Don't you agree?

All others can, at most, speculate. Only in real game will we actually how it turns out, as much as our predictions end up being accurate. The real game is what confirms/refutes what we speculate. Even though I still think speculation is very much valid (and fun). ^^

 

Wow, a lot has been said while I was away. Time for me to add my 2 cent.

Eye, I am still surprised that you think that the Mothership can't be balanced. You kept stating the same thing which goes back in circles again and again.

1. The Mothership is going to be overpowered. Everyone is going to tech straight to Motherships. Once you get the Mothership, GG.
2. The Mothership is underpowered. No one is going to build it because it is not worth the time and money. You are better off building off other units.

That is not the case. Just like Remy pointed out, there is a middle. I listed those 2 points but out of those 2 points, if Blizzard implements the Mothership correctly, that means they are smacked right between Point 1 and Point 2. You are assuming that the Mothership shown back in May is going to be the Mothership at release. Blizzard stated many times that the game is not final and that they have a lot of balancing work ahead of them. If Blizzard decides to balance the Mothership as a 1 unit per type game, they sure can. Motherships just needs some tweaks and I'm sure it would be fine and dandy.

The Mothership is an OPTION that you as a player get to choose during the game. Just like in SC1, there are many OPTIONS that you could choose to win the game. Rushing to a mothership is also an option that you as a player choose. You can either do a Zealot rush or tech up and build Mothership as a support and win the game. Both of those options can win you games and if you are better then your opponent, it doesn't matter if you do a basic Zealot rush or tech straight to a Mothership, the conclusion is that you are going to beat your opponent because you are better then them. What makes SC1 such an awesome game is because there are soo many options that you can choose to win the game. Some people like to turtle and tech up and win with late game units. Others prefer to rush their opponent and win the game early game. From the looks of it, SC2 will work in a similiar fashion in that people that like to turtle and tech up would prefer going the Mothership route. Like I stated, if the Mothership is balanced correctly, it would be counterable. If your opponent is equally as skilled as you, they would know how to fight back.

This goes back to countering units. On paper, Zealot looks like it could be an imbalanced unit because they have like 3 times more HP and attack damage then your regular infantry unit. If that was the case, that means massing Zealots and rushing in the enemies base would be GG according to your logic because Zealots are like super-units during early game. But as we know in SC1, that wasn't the case. You have to factor in the units cost and buildtime. After you factor those in, it is clear that there are tons of counters for the Zealots and it is up to you as a player to build the right mix of units to counter those Zealots. If a person that just started playing the game and got beat by mass Zealots, most likely they are going to call up and say that Zealots are imbalanced because they deal more then 3 times the damage and 3 times the HP of your regular infantry unit. Why don't I just use Protoss every game and mass Zealots and rush my enemy while it is still in Tier 1 because it is going to win me every game. But once they start to play with opponents that are equally or suprerior then themselves, they will find out that infact, Zealots can be easily countered if you build the right units.

This logic can also be used for the Mothership. When a new player first sees a Mothership destroying their armies and base in a game, what will be in their mind? They will think that the Mothership is imbalanced and they are going to use the Protoss from now on and tech to Mothership. Once they get the Mothership, it is GG. But once they actually play against an opponent that is equally or suprerior then themselves, they will find out that they are fighting back those Motherships with no problem.

Zealots and Motherships can be compared because Zealots are the Super-Units early game while the Motherships are like the Super-Units late game. We all have to understand that if Blizzard decides to implement the Mothership concept, they will make it so that it is balanced (Just like how the Zealot is not overpowered). If Blizzard can balance the Zealots correctly, then they will also have the ability to balance the Mothership correctly. With the correct mix of units and startegies, everything will be counterable.

Thanks for the headsup LordKerwyn, but just like Remy stated, I wouldn't be here without sc2forums support and his dedication to this website. Heck we all won't be here if it wasn't for him making this site such a wonderful place for us to share and experience the game that we will all love in the coming future.

 

Sry, I stopped reading right here. I never said this number 2. That's what you guys are saying. I think the ship should remain as it is now, unless Drew's experience shows that she's too vulnerable god knows how. ^^

If you didn't understand what I said, and based your arguments on a false belief of what I'm saying, then I'll read the rest some other time, cuz it's not about me. ;-)

 

You guess wrong Eye_Carumba. A greater numer of lesser units at equal food almost always has greater damage output. Killing a single target whether or not there are support units isn't as hard as you want to believe. Even with the stats of the super MS, you can take it down with enough micro.

And about this statement of yours:

"If in the middle of a fight the mothership cannot be killed by the right choice of units, only by a mass amount of other units together, it's not vulnerable, neither it has a weakness. If it had, it's rightful counter would be enough."

Does that mean the BC was also OP? BCs could even survive a direct of nuke, it the dead smack center of the AoE. BCs had not single unit type that was a direct counter against them, you simply took them down with a greater number of lesser units. So it must mean BCs were OP and SC1 was imba.

Killing a super MS doesn't cripple a player anymore than killing their carriers, BCs, or anything else. The only difference is that one player took part of his tier 3 money and dumped it all into one place and another person took the same amount and dumped it into like 4 units instead.

And me shoveling the responsibilities to Blizzard? What are you smoking? It was Blizzard's responsibility to begin with. Yet somehow you think you have the definitive authority on deciding that MS as a 1-per-player super unit simply can not possibly be balanced. Sorry no, not only are you not qualified to make that conclusion as you are not Blizzard, no one else seem to agree with you. And for your information, "the middle" would be somewhere in between, as in not strong yet not weak. I've explained on that but you seem to have trouble with comprehending the simple concept.

SC simply doesn't have everything in neat cookie cutter packages like you want to believe. Not everything is countered by specific unit types like rock-paper-scissors. If you have any experience with Zerg played at higher levels of skill you would know this. Zerg's answer to most things is micro, and very often it's micro of a mass of units.

 

Ych9, owerup: for that. i... im speachless... paragraphs 5 ("The Mothership is an OPTION...") and 6 ("This goes back to countering units") perfectly describes how starcraft in all its glory is better than other RTSs. if someone ever asked me whats so great about starcraft, i think ill recite that.

 

Eye_Carumba you are not listening and from what you said it sounds like you dont want either. But i do have to thank you because of your inability to listen alot of people are coming up with great posts why the Mothership should be a super over its current form.

P.S. Nice to see you again Ych9 owerup: if i could. 72 hour cooldown ftl.

 

This may seem a reversal of what I've said on other strings, but I think Remy has sucked me over to the dark side. His logic seems strange but it definitely makes sense from this angle.

Even if the MS is insanely powerful and OPs all the other units below its tech level, I can only see this being a good thing for SC2. It will push Blizzard to match this massive unit in the other races. I can see infinite possibilities with a unit that is large enough to break the backbone of a massive force.

I agree totally with Remy on that it should return to Blizzard's original unit and become a one-at-a-time powerhouse that is hard to build, hard to destroy, and compensatorily hard to use to totally decimate the enemy.

I don't think this is the time to compromise on a "safe" game that is pretty much exactly like SC1 and has no new and interesting facets of gameplay that will take StarCraft to the next level.

I know I have said before that Protoss might end up being OP but I have decided this is a good thing for SC2 and will lead to the new game being a much higher-paced strategy game and a more complex battlefield for all of us, no matter what race.

I welcome the MS to the battlefield and will look for new ways to bring her down.

BTW, I just love the name "planet cracker," but I keep hearing nutcracker music in my mind when I read it.

Lol Kerwyn, I'm liking the cool-down period......

"You have fired your weapon, now prepare to wait an eternity...."

 

Hmmmm.. it is a tough decision.. personally, I don't like the MS anymore after playing the actual game. I feel that there is no place for it in SC2 because it really does nothing strategy wise, atleast for me. It's cool to show off that you could build one before you get killed, but without further testing of it and more hours of gameplay clocked in, I don't know why I would build one. They really need to re-think this unit or send it to the Protoss junk yard because it really serves no purpose as of right now... and thats Drew's take on it! Any more questions?

*edit* To respond to Joneagles post, I would have to say that even if the other races matched the MS with their own super units, I still dont see it being worth while unless they up the HP or shields of the MS. The SC2 lets players aquire mass in units alot more easily especially terran, and I just found it really easy to take out the MS with ground units before they could really do much damage to me. Now if the MS was backed up by melee units, I am not sure what the outcome would be, The fact of the matter is, I am not liking it right now and unless I get more time to play and work out some more strats with the MS... I say two :bad: 's down

 

I'm sorry, but I don't understand where you are going. From my understanding, you kept stating that the Mothership will be overpowered because of the Blackhole ability. Bringing in the Mothership would basically turn the tide of the battle. But according to your logic, if that wasn't the case, that would make the Mothership underpowered right? If they decided to axe the Blackhole ability (or anything that you find that was imbalanced), then the Mothership is just going to suck if the 1 unit-policy stays. There is no point of limiting the 1 unit-per game policy. That is why you prefer the Mothership to be a unit that doesn't have the 1 unit-policy restrictment. Because if the dumbed down version still has the 1 unit-policy, they are going to be underpowered. Even though you might not have posted that, it is clear that this would be the case for the Mothership if it wasn't balanced correctly and is why you prefer the Mothership to be like your regular Tier 3 unit because from your point of view, the Mothership cannot be balanced correctly if it was a Super-unit with a 1 unit-policy restrictment.

My argument is still the same. Mothership should be a BALANCED Super-unit that has the 1 unit-per game policy restrictment. Not the IMBALANCED Super-unit that you have stated countless of times. Because if that was the case, then I would have to agree with you that I would prefer the Mothership to be a regular unit then an overpowered unit. ,

My final point is just like what you have stated earlier on. We haven't even played the game yet. What makes you think that the Mothership as a super-unit can't be balanced? We all haven't even played the game yet and you are assuming that the 1 unit-policy of the Mothership cannot be balanced. Wouldn't you be concluding that too soon?

 

I am not as nice as Ych9 and other mods, or any other more-or-less intelligent poster for that matter.  Eye_Carumba you have a weak argument and flawed logic, all you do is nitpick and sidestep valid opposing arguements.

While you didn't directly say the super MS is weak because you largely believe it to be OP, you said that the only way for it to be a super unit and not OP would be for it to be killable(easily) and it would hurt the Protoss player tremendously.  You somehow disregard the possiblities of everything that falls in between.

Also, how you base all of your arguments is as if at that point in the game any Protoss player would only have a MS and nothing else.  Even at 1-per-player, a super MS would still only be a small portion of the entire Protoss forces.  And yet you overdramatize things on how it's the end of the world if you ever lose one.  Losing a super MS IMHO would similar to losing a few unit transports in the air en route to a drop, or again, like losing a few carriers or BCs.  You still have everything else around, they don't die with the MS.

At least Paragon's argument against the MS as a super unit has good logic behind it.

OMG, yes! Well said. Now is definitely not the time to play things safe.