Protoss Shield Omnidiscussion.

The point of StarCraft2 isn't to do things that StarCraft1 didn't do. I don't know why you would even say something like that. There are plenty of things that have been implemented or will be implemented into StarCraft2 that were exactly the same as in StarCraft1. Just because it is a new game is doesn't mean that you have to change absolutely everything. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

What I was saying is they are trying not to make a copy but instead a sequel.  Therefore just because something was one way in SC1 does not mean it has to be the same in SC2.
I am not saying it HAS to be different I am just saying is doesn't have to be the same

I am saying that you should just consider it before saying "Well that's not haw Starcraft is"


Also I consider that fact that shields all took the same damage regardless of unit and situation to be rather shallow and thus "broken"

Also even if something isn't broke does not mean they can't improve it

 

I would agree that the shields did not function intuitively in the first Starcraft. Two points: First, heavy units like Carriers did not have equivalent durability to similar level units like Battlecruisers without unreasonable adaptions. While the combined shield+hit point totals were similar, the universal shield rating stat made that deceptive. A Carrier may have had a combined total of 450 points compared to a Battlecruisers 500, but with a base armor of 4 and base shield of 0 the shields were not nearly as effective as the armor. To illustrate:

A Battlecruiser could take 167 shots from a Marine. A Carrier could take 175. However, the Carriers shields would only stop 25 shots, compared to its armor handling the other 150. The shields appear practically worthless. It would have been far better to allow for the Carriers more elegant appearance and give it an armor rating of 3, along with a shield rating of 3. Then perhaps a 250 health point, 250 shield point split would have represented the unit more accurately. As it was, an EMP was of minimal usefulness and an entire principal facet of the Protoss concept was marginalized.

Secondly, there is no reason to say that different units would not have different levels of shield 'thickness'. Just as some units had thicker or higher tech armor, some Protoss units should've had more developed minds and/or shield generating technology. Any Protoss units following the Khala should've had better shields than those who used Void energies. The Dark Templar focus their energies on avoiding detection and hence damage completely. It does not make sense for them to be capable of splitting their concentration and power to both manipulate light and maintain a physical barrier. The Protoss of the Khala however, focus entirely on direct forceful application of their psionic powers, and they should be better as a result.

Additionally, larger units have room for more powerful generating technology, and greater numbers of minds to focus the energies... it is sensible for them to have higher base shield ratings as well.

 

I guess that makes sense, but I still think the old method is good enough for me. Sorry.

 

Surprisingly Protoss don´t rely primarly on Shields for survivability. Shields are designed as effortless recoverable HP, the new recharge mechanic (only out of combat, but 2x rate) illustrates that. Shields by themselves would be lousy protection, even not counting EMP, since they have low value compared to "real" HP.

There seems to be some confusion about the core concept of the Protoss shields here. Protoss units are expected to take irrecoverable damage in serious fights, the amount is based on the involved players units/skill. The more the Protoss commander pays attention the better he can protect units with low shields.

EMP wasn´t imba in SC since Shields were a minor part of a Protoss units survivability, as pointed out by NateSMZ. Thats why I doubt that SC1 EMP = SC2 EMP, alon based on the fact that the damage model was changed.


Edit: Basically Protoss can´t repair. To avoid them being owned by hit-and-run tactics the shields catch minor damages. It is a core weakness, the shields just prevent it from becomming frustrating.

 

Well, I'm not sure about the Shields being a minor part across the board. Yes, Carrier shields were practically worthless in comparison - but to smaller units like Zealots, Dragoons and Reavers the shields were an integral part of their defenses.

Take for instance a Reaver: 100 health points and 80 shield points, both start at level 0. The shields thus make up 45% of the Reavers damage resisting capability. Check a breakdown...

Shield Usefulness by Unit vs. Marine:

Carrier - 14%
Dark Templar - 30%
Observer - 33%
Zealot - 33%
Shuttle - 38%
Arbiter - 38%
Dragoon - 40%
Corsair - 40%
Scout - 40%
Reaver - 45%
Probe - 50%
High Templar - 50%
Dark Archon - 88%
Archon - 97%

As you can see, other than the woeful Carrier shields, every other units' shields make up practically at least 1/3 of their defense. Almost a third of the units in the roster have at least half of their defense coming from psionic shields, and two units had a substantial majority of their defense from their shields. So the shields were, and in my opinion should remain, on par with armor as a defensive option.

A quick look at the building hit point and shield point levels show that the shields represented roughly half of the buildings survivability. Shields were a defining aspect of the Protoss, and I think they should be even more so - not regulated to a potential tactical exploit.

 

How much is a point of shield worth compared to a point of HP? Remember points like EMP, always full damage and the universal base "resistance" of 0 and the expensive Plasma Shield upgrade.

You conveniently used the Marine as example, much more interesting would be ussage against a Vulture/Firebat imho.

I think we have to stop the debate here, since everyone probably has different experiences of relative Shield value, I personally would count them as 0.5 HP each. That doesn´t mean they are useless, the opposite actually, they are essential to Protoss.

 

I used the Marine because it can target both air and ground (with the same attack) and is equally effective against all enemies. The only other Terran unit which fulfills those qualifications is the Battlecruiser with attack 25 as compared to the Marines 6 - so we can get both ends of the spectrum from small to large damage. So, here it is:

Shield Usefulness by Unit vs. Battlecruiser:

Carrier - 30%
Dark Templar - 32%
Observer - 33%
Zealot - 37%
Scout - 40%
Shuttle - 42%
Arbiter - 42%
Dragoon - 43%
Corsair - 43%
Reaver - 44%
Probe - 50%
High Templar - 50%
Dark Archon - 88%
Archon - 97%

It should be clear that in the first game a units shield usually represented around 40-45% of it's damage taking capability. While shields were vulnerable to EMP's, they also recharged. By and large, shields and health points were pretty much equivalent. They were one of the main points which made Protoss stronger than the other races. The only Protoss unit with a high base armor rating was the Carrier in the first game. And it seems as if this was solely to balance it against other heavy units like the Battlecruiser... The Carrier shouldn't have a base armor rating of 4. Every other Protoss unit only has a base rating of 0 or 1. Protoss armor visually looks like a mix of form and function. It would make sense that it isn't overall as tough as the thick Terran armor - but if the Protoss shields had base values as well... things would remain balanced.

 

After thinking about it, I think some protoss units should have shields better than the base reduction of 0. I think it would be alright for all buildings and the majority of units to remain with base 0 shielding but it could be interesting to have some units that rely more heavily on their shields.

The unit I'd like to see this with most is the Collossus. Since a higher base level for shields would be more effective against units that do small amounts of damage it would emphasize the Collossus's role. It would make attacking Collossi with lighter units truly a foolish strategy. The counter for them would then be heavier units or AA.

I can imagine a combiniation of Collossi and Immortals going up against Siege Tanks and Infantry as a very interesting fight. The Terran player would be very determined to EMP the incoming units but if they are unable to do so, they would have to hope the siege tanks are capable of taking down the Collossi before they take out the infantry, otherwise the immortals will destroy the tanks.

Other units that I would like to see have an increased base level could be Archons and possibly carriers or motherships. Archons since they depend on shields so heavily, I'm assuming Twighliight archon's will have similar SP to HP ratios at Dark Archons. They could use a nice little buff to put empahsis on their shield's importance. I would like it for carriers or motherships since it would balance out the differeence between the importance of their shielding with the importance of their hit points.

I don't feel as strongly about these units having improved shields compared to having the Collossi have improved shields but I think it could make the dynamic a bit different from SC.

 

An interesting note: Blizzard seems to agree with you about the Colossus' shields: at BlizzCon, while it didn't have a base shield strength upgrade, like you would have, it did have a max SP upgrade.

 

Like many others in this thread, I agree that certain protoss units should have higher base shields. One aspect is realism. Sure you can argue that nothing in SC1 or SC2 is realistic, but nonetheless I think it's a legitimate point-- the game has to draw its basis from somewhere right (I hope)? Come on, how realistic is a marine carrying a pea shooter shooting down a carrier? Hell, never mind the shields, it shouldn't even be possible even IF the carrier had no shields. Another aspect is added gameplay value, although depending on the solution, this could be for better or worse.

Several individuals have also brought up this point, but the shield a carrier is sporting is NOT going to be identical to one a marine has. The Protoss are not going to be attaching a shield built for absorbing small arms and melee to one of their capital warships. Even if the issue of the energy needed to supply such a large object is a concern, there are many solutions to this problem.

1) How do we even know Khadarian don't increase their output/meter^3 exponentially?
2) Why do the shields need to be on or protect the entire vessel at all times? From a realism standpoint, the Protoss probably only need to deploy the shields when there is an imminent threat.
3) The shields only need to be deployed to a localized area where the immediate threat is. Why waste all that power generating a shield around when the entire ship, when all you have to do is protect a small area? This may also be done to maximize shield toughness within that area. You obviously can protect against a lot more when you're dedicating 1000 giga watts of energy rather than just 10.
4) Protoss warships built to withstand HEAVY weapons fire. Bullets from a 2 meter tall humanoid should do absolutely NOTHING against a warship several hundred meters long. Even for gameplay sake, a carrier needs to be able to be taken down by mass marines, rifle ammo should have a decreased effect against protoss shields.

So I have several solutions:

Make shields have a base modifier similar to the existing armor class, so colossi get a shield base of 1 or 2, carriers 3, motherships 4, etc?

or

Take WC3 armor classes, light, medium, heavy, hero, divine, etc and modify it to shields in starcraft
*bonuses still apply

Zealots and Stalkers now have light shielding (all fire does same damage)
Colossi and Warp Rays have medium shielding (small arms and light melee (damage from small units) do a decreased amount of damage, medium and large units still do full damage.
Carriers, motherships, etc have HEAVY shielding (small and medium arms do decreased damage)

or finally,

Increase the amount of shields for units to reflect how powerful that unit is. It'll be hard balancing considering the new regen mechanic though...


@quanta, I agree that colossi should have a higher base shield, they die much too quickly IMO especially since they also get hit by AA :/

 

You are right, it is kind of unrealistic, but as was written on the Starcraft 2 main website, they said that they want to make the game fair and balanced between races. So basicly they want the marine to be able to shoot down a protoss vessel. But then where have you seen a single marine trying to attack a huge warship. Usually it is more then one, for example 12, one basic team. That would be hurling thousands of bullets at the ship. Plus imagine the point that the bullets are not just random pieces of metal that are used right now, but for example ones that explode on contact, or with some nuclear charge or something. so the marines should be able to do that for sure.

 

The guns are Gauss rifles, they rapid fire shoot depleted uranium spikes at hypersonic velocities, that kind of stuff would demolish a modern main battle tank.

Yes, a marine can destroy a carrier with enough time, that is for balance because starcraft would just be a rush to tech if late game units were virtually invincible to small arms fire, however when the carrier is shooting back the carrier wins by far. That is perfectly fair, balanced and makes sense, afterall, you could destroy a carriers shield and armour by repeatively bashing it with a harder rock.

 

LMFAO OMG THATS FREAKING HILARIOUS LOLOLOLOLOLOLOOOLOLOOLLOLLOL

no but seriously. imma suggest sumthing.
how about this:
when u regenerate shields , it stays at normal sc2 regen rate until u regen up to 125 shields. then, for the next 100 shields (125-225) the shield regens at a 1.2x rate, then from 225-300, it regens at a rate of 1.5, and finally from 300 - 9999999999999999999999999999999 , shields regenerate at 2x speed.
also, i wanna suggest an option for shield regeneration speed and starting point in the map editor along with base shield lvls

i agree with mouse that protoss shield lvls should be more varied, not always at zero. for example, an archon should have like 2 for base shield lvl or AT LEAST 1.

 

I'd kinda want to have a adjustable shield option like what you said except you can make it regen faster in exchange if it gets attacked during that period it receives double shield damage. Like if you got some archons and you mange to get them away and you think it's safe to change to shield recover mode but you get ambused by a group of marine or zerglings and that stuff.

 

well that really only would be good if the regen rate is much higher than wat im talking about
im just saying make the regen rate higher over time, allowing units with high shield points to regain their shields without waiting the duration of the game.

 

Most games last average of 20mins (excluding cheese/rush) From what I seen on battle reports to heal 40 shield it takes about 18-22 seconds and an archon has 350 shield i think so only like a few mins?

 

Still a few min = long time. the faster shield regen over time would makesense

 

My god, this topic is ancient, yet people manaaged to find it and post in it.

Anything to boost sield recharge would be nice, but I miss my shield battery.

 

ok first of all: so wat u managed to find ur way here
second of all: ur shield battery?!!?! btw i suggested a shield-recharging immobile nanite cloud ability for the mothership b4