Poll : Mothership

heres my bit about how the MS could be balanced. im gonna base this off of the known stats of the MS at WWI.

1)Reduce the MS's total hits. it had 350shield/850 health in the original video. reduced the 850 to 550~650, bringing the total hits from 1200 to 900/1000.

2)Reduce the damage done by the normal attack by 2-3, because since the MS shoots 8 missiles (i counted), that reduces the damage by 16-24.

3)Increase the area affected by timebomb. after spending 400/400 on a unit, youre gonna want to get all you can out of it, and with the original timebomb, the MS barely fit itself in there, let alone the rest of a fleet/army.

4)Reduce the area affected by Black Hole, and, rather than doing an instant kill to all flyers, have it do massive damage to all units effected, so a BC could survive, but a dropship or viking wouldnt.

well thats my 2cents.

 

I think one of the best ways to bring the old Mothership back into a balanced line of power would be to just remove the black hole ability from the game and give it something else less powerful. (my suggestion would be recall or the old arbiter cloak, something that makes it more like a useful commander unit)

 

Of course it can work on microing masses of units, but it isn't still a matter of number vs. power.

You're saying:
"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."

Ok, lemme see if I can get this straight: you DON'T think the MS should go back to the way it was. You DON'T want it to remain the way it is. And you DO want it to go back to being a single unit available only, right?

What I'm saying, once again: it could be a little tougher than it is. But a single unit has issues, such as:

1-either it the current race don't count much on it, and have a fair enough army to battle with.
If they don't, they need the MS for everything; If they do, the MS can't be that good also, or the race would be imba compared to the others. Why? Because having an entire army well suited enough, and add to it a unit that counts positively to it's performance, wouldn't it facilitate things too much for them? I suppose so. So in this option, the balancing must make the super-unit nerfed, and distribute it's skills upon others. I suppose also that this is the option you're suggesting.

2-or the race is deficient without it, needing it to complete it's strategy.
However, if the race were incomplete without it, it would unfavor the race against others, because their strategy would rely on a unit without spare. That opens up 2 more possibilities, but nevermind them.

"What are you smoking?" is not very much of a compliment. You sound angry, like someone who's had enough on an argument. Well, if you really don't want to hear/read anything else don't worry, I pack my stuff and go. I don't really have to convince anyone of anything. Debates are meant to discuss different opinions, and if all boils down to: you didn't get what I'm saying or the opposite, it's worth the effort of going on.

If however it became offensive, or you just want to join your peers in opinion and raise your flags, then you can do that, I won't object. A debate is just fun when there are 2 interested in it. I have no intention to drag anyone into something they'd dislike. Just tried to show my point of view, but if you (or anyone else) really didn't asked for it, it's all good.

In case you still want to debate, I'll come back tomorrow and read about it after I get some sleep (it's really late in here). And in case not, I won't mention anything about "MS being made into several units per player" until Blizzard makes another statement, or ppl really ask about it again! xD Good night!

 

I am not in the position of limiting or deciding if anyone can voice their opinions.  I only carry the responsibilities of enforcing forum rules and keeping things in order according to it, otherwise I am just a poster like everyone else.  You can post whatever you want or believe in, that's what I do.

The argument that you have right here, I have already addressed in Reply # 65 http://www.starcraft2forum.org/forums/index.php?topic=1588.msg43670#msg43670

This is what I said there:

Every tech tier is self-sufficient and fully funtional, while inclusive of all tech tiers before it.  No higher level of tech alizes the tech tier preceeding it for balance reasons.  It is even possible to beat out someone with higher tier tech while staying at a lower tech tier.  So basically, I don't know where you got that logic from.  Every army at any tier is self-sufficient and fully functional with higher tech only adding positively to it, it's that way for all of SC I don't know why it would or should be any different with the MS, super unit or not.

Also if you take your argument and applied it to the multiple produceable MS concept(no hard cap of 1-per-player), it would be the exact same thing.  Whether an MS is a single super unit or is multiple units, makes no difference in your argument right there.  That argument fundamentally contradicts all of SC, people don't tech up because the lower tech levels are deficient, otherwise every game would be a race of teching up and that's not the reality.  People often choose to stay at lower tech even if their opponents have moved up into the next tech tier.

All of your arguments would apply if this was War3 where there was a hero system but only one race had a hero, but it ain't.  StarCraft has always had a greater difference between the races, and most things that exist currently in SC1 don't have a straight 1-to-1 equivalent from other races.  The super unit concept is only pushing what SC has always had one step further.

 

With this debate coming to an end (I hope) Remy, Ych9, and all the others that posted in defense of a super unit Mothership :thumbup: and you guys could probally write a small book with your responses.

 

Agreed. I think Remy kind of overwhelmingly won the argument simply because I didn't really see a coherent argument against why the MS shouldn't be a badass unit......

I mean, you COULD have more weaker ones, but they would just replace the Carriers... although I wouldn't really mind that, I think the Carrier needs more of a revamp.

I think just about every possibility and moral angle has been covered by this thread. Lol

 

Edited out quotes. Please read the forum rules and refrain from quoting unnecessarily.


Ok, thanks for this wonderful reply.

Mothership being a great unit for the Protoss could be balanced by making other races more powerful. But other races aren't supposed to have an equivalent to the Mothership. I don't think anything in Stracraft has a specific "mirror", among different races, but to balance things out, they need to have a counter-strategy (and by that I don't mean the microing skill) to do so. And in order for another race to have a counter to MS, you would have to make other units stronger. Like a Thor or BC for example. That's still on the same line as what you said, right?

I'm against making a "battle of giants" inside SC. Zerglings can kill high tier units and be useful throughout the game. Marines can be used all the way, as marined bunkers are much more hazardous to interceptors than Turrets. Put some bunkers together and you'll see what I'm saying, against low armored units. In a mass-strategy game, it shouldn't be about special units. But rather their functionality together.

But you already said before: make the MS only good when you work as a team! Didn't you? Well, cloaking is much more of a team skill than another attack would be. Not saying it's skills are the problem. What I'm saying is: she should be a unit that works within the Protoss strategy, and to be such, she cannot be a rare unit, as you probably won't have just one atk team.

If she does not work well with other units, than it's possible to have only one, but it wouldn't fit well in the game in my opinion. And if you make her work well with others, and the rest of the army is balanced in a way that the parts of it without her won't suffer, she will then be a big boost to this army. Being this army already balanced with other races, it would create an imbalance.

Or even, if she doesn't make much difference when she comes, just a new instrument to create diversity in form of atk of the group she's in. THIS I would have to wait and see, how a non-strengthening rare unit would fare in a big fight. If it were a split, in which the group's strategy could be focused on 3 different alternatives, then it would be balanceable. If it were just a diversity promoter, it would actually HAVE to be only one, as many would enable all of the possible strategies at same time, and it would overstress the enemies' flexibility.

I still like the MS as a reproducible unit, that fits in the Arbiter's chair without it's former, let's say: chains. But as a strategy-splitter the MS could be very cool. And as such, she shouldn't have high stats either, even being unique. She should have caster-like stats, which in a sense goes far from what a "super-unit" would have, once being "super". Her protection would be that it doesn't help much your enemy, it just aids it's directioning towards one kind of strat or another. Without any power boosts, and still counterable if you pick the proper counter.

I still prefer the way it as non-rare, even though.

 

One problem with your argument is the current Mothership is overlapping roles with the carrier as a heavy air units designed (expecially if they make the carrier more like the tempest) to assult ground. If the Mothership goes back to a unit that you can only have 1 of at a time they make it strong enough and different enough from the carrier so they will both have different roles. ex. you could mass carriers and pheonix or you could the Mothsthership a few pheonix/warp rays with and a small and make very a destuctive tactical strike. Both ways would probaly do similar damage for the cost but they both would do it in a different way.

 

But as it is now, it can't reach as far as the Carrier, and it cannot atk air. The mothership overlaps with the Carrier as much as the Arbiter did. If it was ok before, it should be now still. And I still think that, even if it is possible, it's still silly to mass Motherships. they cannot take the role of the Carrier, even if it has higher HP.

i.e.: Versus an immortal: Mothership does 10dmg each turn. Carrier does 5 dmg * number of interceptors each turn. Who beats it more efficiently? one hits heavy, and the other hits fast. They're not the same.

 

the mothership would do 80 damage each turn, considereing it shoots 8 missiles. the MS would win.

 

Im not positive (can someone with proof confirm this one way or another) but i think the Mothership's current fires a volley ( i think 8 ) of really weak missles that do like 3-5 damage to actualy (assuming im right) there attack is nearly identical to the carrier's with exception of the range. Also they already made the original tempest abilities really efective against ground and they could easily give the carrier some of them. and that would make the only difference between the carrier and the mothership would be range and semi aoe against ground.

 

Hmmm, strange. Because when a unit fires several volleys of projectiles/lasers/whatever, it's said in it's atk box, like the turrets or the zealots have. Even if the animation is different, I think it still counts as 1 whole atk, and is reduced to 10 dmg too. Unless, of course, the information proceeds and Mothership does 10 dmg*8 like you say. I really hope not. She should be a caster-support-unit. This type of thing is exactly what I'm against.

 

While i have no proof i think each missle from the Mothership is counted individually. Either way In my opinion the best reason why the Mothership should go back to a single super unit is that was the original theme of the unit and an outstanding culmination of the theme of the Protoss as race and anything can be balanced as long as it started as a reasonable idea in the first place and people want it to be balanced. While the Blizzcon Mothership is one way to balance the Mothership it does not fit well with the theme of the unit and that as much as anything else will kill the interest in a unit and in the end kill the unit as an idea.

 

I like it but it needs a little Slappin around

 

The missiles are counted individually, as an example we have the valkirie, each missile was like 5 damage each, and as i remember those where some nasty fighters so i think that the mothership launches 8 whatever it trows and each one of them is counted apart.
oh and i congratulate both Eye_Carumba and Remy for such good posts keep it up, and let´s all remember that even if this is starcraft 2, its just another game, dont get pissed of boys

 

I like the Mothership as it is
it's very cool and it is the domination of the game

 

i don't get why people keep theorizing or complaining about balance issues of a game they haven't played yet.

plus everything can be balanced, it's just a bunch of numbers

 

Reaker i think alot of people who have been posting know that but when challenged with theoretical balance problems people have giving theoretical solutions in an attempt to defend the idea that the Mothership should stay as a super unit.

 

Ummm, No. The arbiter did not overlap the carrier in SC1 before, not because it is similar to the MS(current crap version or the super unit) but because it had ZERO offensive capabilities. The arbiter had no offensive spells what-so-ever, all of its spells were entirely supportive in nature. And for a 4 food unit at the very top of the Protoss tech tree with the longest build time in the game, a 10 explosive damage attack with the short range of 5 and a disgustingly long cooldown of 45 really is insignificant to say the least.

If you think "well, at least it can attack, an attack is an attack no matter what," then cosider these facts: The cost that goes into just arbiter tribunal and researches is 650 minerals 600 gas, that's before you add in the cost to produce each arbiter at 100/350, it is the single most gas expensive unit in the entire game. 10 explosive damage is exactly the same as a single hydra, but the arbiter has 3 times the cooldown. So a single hydra not only can match arbiter damage in a single hit, it can attacks 3 times as fast. I won't even go into a detailed analysis of hydra vs arbiter in all other areas. With all the crazy cost and wimpy enough attack, I did mention earlier that it has the longest build time in the game and is a whopping 4 food. So no, just because it has an attack, you can't really compare it to a carrier.

Because the super unit MS didn't overlap the carrier, the mass producible MS doesn't either? What kind of logic is that? If it's the same thing, I don't think we would all be debating in this thread. Making the MS mass producible effectively give the Protoss two redundant choices for heavy air at tier 3. Both have great offensive capabilities vs ground and both are vulnerable against a large number of lesser air units. Guess what? That's redundance.

Who says the MS should be a support caster unit? Who are you to definitively dictate what should be and shout not be? Stop trying to shove everything into old SC1 molds, especially when the super unit concept didn't even exist back then. The super unit is just a super unit, with its capabilities it certainly is more than just a support caster. Even with the mass producible MS, it is a hybrid at best. But in all truth, the mass producible MS is just a combat unit with one special ability.

* SIDE NOTE * In the original gameplay demo where the MS was featured as a super unit, I counted 25 hits from the MS to take down a missile turret. Based on SC1 stats, and since Terran has no passive regen, each attack from the MS is exactly 8 damage. And that is each stinking individual bolt. The fact that the MS can engage and attack multiple targets simultaneously at irregular intervals should've been hint enough that the bolts fire from the MS are individual attacks and not a single attack divided into a volley of projectiles.

 

I don't really see the MS as being a support caster. It doesn't really make sense in that role. That's about equivalent to saying that the Carrier should only be a support caster. What is the point of having a huge unit like this if it is only for backup?

I would be in favor of it becoming somewhat of a "shock absorber" somewhat like the Immortal is for the Seige Tank. But I think this is limiting the ability of this unit to change the gameplay SC2 for the better. If anything, the MS should be more of a FORWARD unit and be the main thing the enemy is shooting at. Yes, it will cost a lot, but if you can only build one, as we would like, it'll be VERY hard to use this unit in a devastating way more than once, if even then. If it dies, you're sorry out of luck, Charlie.

I'm not going to argue logistics of cost and effect because it doesn't need to be done. If you let the MS, or any other massive unit like this, become a background item like the Arbiter was in SC1, you have negated its effect on the game and reduced the "newness" of SC2, if you will.

Yes, the Arbiter cost a lot and was a good caster for Tier 3 Protoss, but the entire purpose of the MS is different. It's intended (in my opinion) to be the spearhead of major Protoss offensives, etc.... Dumbing this unit down is to cheat the logistics of a different game.

Let Blizzard make this unit into a massive, all-time weapon, and make the other races have completely different approaches to a Tier 3 (or Tier 4 now, I guess ) and late-game play.