Protoss Unit Roster: A Review (with suggestions)

Actually that is a little better than my original idea. (i always imagined the haunt living through the ordeal but this way you justify the enemy not being able to see the haunt while the ability is active) Also it would be god to note what would happen to enemy units caught in the "forced fog of war". I think it should be similar to every unit in the area being under the ffect of the medic blind.

 

Hm... wait...

So the Haunt would REMOVE territory that the enemy has seen? Or it would reduce the sight range of enemy units in its line of sight? *confused*

 

It would be just like normal fog of war (not the black area) if you had already scouted a place but had units/buildings left there to see anything.

 

yeah, I was trying to figure out how to work the part about units caught in the area of effect too...

So, they are temporarily blinded? just for the length of the spell and/or until they left the area of effect right?

and yeah, as a Haunt controlling player you'd have to choice... cut the ability short so your Haunt's shields can recharge and fight again another day? OR keep the ability going as long as possible for the advantage it brings and forfeit the resources expended in building? It also lets you get some use out of a Haunt that's been spotted or in an area under attack or something... it's about to be destroyed anyway, you can sacrifice it and try to get some advantage out of it

 

Yes and Yes. Even though i wonder if it would be going overboard making so enemy units cant at all during the duration. (including attacking units) Also the range of the effect shouldnt be any larger than a comsat and maybe should be smaller.

 

wordems... perhaps just a fraction larger than a psi storm?

 

Im not sure i cant really visualize how big those areas are atm. I just listing comsat because it does the exact oposite of this ability.

 

@ LordKerwyn, "Coolness" is a very subject thing.  But do you think SC units are only what they are because that was the absolutely coolest way Blizzard could've conceived them?  I don't think so.  I think if Blizzard let their ideas run wild and didn't care about balance, things would be way cooler and wilder than how they are now.  But at the end of the day balance is king, you have to draw the line somewhere.  You have to put a limit to how cool something can be, because it still has to work with everything else in the game.  If balance is the limiting factor on coolness, and coolness is not the limiting factor over balance, so then wouldn't it be accurate to say that balance has priority over coolness?

You seem to think that people who regard balance as top priority care less about coolness, but that's not true.  Taking the MS example that you've brought up, people aren't asking for the MS to be made back into a super unit because coolness is first for them and they care less about balance.  They are crying out because they think such a cool idea could be balanced.  People are upset because Blizzard never took the effort to balance it out before turning it into crap.  If Blizzard tested the super MS extensively and tried everything they can to balance it but just couldn't, you think people would be as upset as they are now?  I don't think so.  And no one asking for super MS is asking for it to be exactly like the WWI showing, they are all asking for the super unit with balance tweaks.  So don't make the MS situation sound like it's because coolness is more important, balance will still dictate how much of the "coolness" can make it into the game.

Unless I misunderstood, even after revision, at that point the Haunt was still a unit under double cloak that provided a large radius of radar scan instead of actual vision.  But I think what you changed the idea so it switched on and off periodically.  If I got it wrong completely, I apologize.

I checked the opening post again, I see that it's now a completely different idea, I think based off of what LordKerwyn suggested.  I think "Void Mist" is an awesome idea for a special ability if it is as how I understand it.  Blindness that target individual units was completely useless, but blindness based on an area sounds useful.  But if "being comprised mainly of Void energies the Haunt is almost non-existent and does not register on any normally detectable energy waves" means double cloak, I'm still against that particular mechanic.  But with Void Mist, I don't think you even need cloak at all, that ability in itself would be kickass.

 

Your right you do need balance expecially if a game is going to survive for any length of time. But if you have no "coolness factor" the game wont get off the ground in the first place. So yeah while you do need balance for a game to survive you need to have coolness or balance wont matter because the game will never launch. And no matter what happens practicality really pulls the strings because if it cant be done, it cant be done. All im saying is all 3 are equal and you cant just dismiss one because with only 2 of those 3 your game is going to be seriously lacking in some way.

 

And you think having balance as first priority will mean completely dismissing "coolness" altogether because...??

Nate stated coolness first, practicality second, balance thrid.  My point was that it is actually balance first, practicality second, and coolness last when it comes to actual implementation.  I've already mentioned that when ideas are first conceived, you start out with coolness.  So I don't know where you made the connection of balance first means no coolness whatsoever.  Does it even make sense to think people who value balance over all else want the least cool games with ugly and stupid looking units?  No, even people who believe balance is first and foremost, want as much coolness as possible, so long as it doesn't break balance.

They can not be equal because one is the limiting factor over the other, suggesting that there is priority.

 

Ok ill give you the priority and raise you a couple of Stasis Orbs.

But seriously while yes there is a priority that priority changes. In concept pahse of a unit, coolness is given near complete priority and once you have a good unit idea it moves into the implementation and practicality has its say on the unit. If the unit isnt practical it goes back to the drawing board where coolness reigns supreme. If the units is practical then balance get its chance to give that units its beatiful shine that makes all blizzard games great. If the unit cant be balanced it goes back a step to see if it can reimplemented in a different, more balanced way and if that cant be done its back to the drawing board where coolness has the power.

So coolnes -> practicality -> balance, which is what i think NateSMZ was trying to say.

Finally, while balance does have more control than the other 2 at the last stage of creating a unit it is also completely dependent on the other 2 as well. You can have a cool idea without balnce but you cant have balance without an idea. So in my book that makes all 3 equal in the process of creating a unit/building/game etc...


P.S. I think this debate is starting to fall into the realm of philosiphy which may be a bad thing.....

 

Please don't raise me with stasis orbs. I hate them, I think most people do. Please give us star relic back.

I don't usually do this, but I think I'm just gonna leave it one alone here. I think I've said enough of what I wanted to say about it anyway. I don't think it's necessary to drag this particular topic out any longer than it already is.

 

lolol... I was just about to make a new thread to discuss game creation mechanics so it wouldn't happen here... buuuut

basically, I wasn't trying to say that balance isn't important - I think balance is usually the determining point in making classic games... but cool units and useful units are what make games at all - what I mean by that is, you don't start a unit concept by trying to figure out what variable (unit) is missing from the equation (game),

If you don't put cool stuff in your game, nobody is going to buy it. If that cool stuff isn't useful, nobody is going to play it past the first week. And if that cool, useful stuff isn't balanced, nobody is going to play it past the first month. So balance is the longevity factor for games. Coolness is the purchase factor, and utility is the initial play factor.

It's much more difficult to think up a bunch of cool ideas and then balance them, rather than making a balanced game model and then trying to give it flavor... but I think SC demonstrates that the first method is better overall. People have favorite races, not just because they like the models, but because they like the way that particular faction plays.

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and wordems, the Haunt double cloak concept is gone, vanished, destroyed

 

These are some very cool suggestions, I agree that the Twilight Archon should only be formed from a HT and a DT

 

added in Bird of Preys' suggestion regarding the Immortal shield

 

I think the shield situation is fine on the Immortals. It just gives them this "unstoppable" ability versus larger units that are designed to simply wipe out whatever comes their way.

It's not only the perfect counter to seige tanks, but also any hard-hitting unit that can be thrown at them.

However, if the Zerg are thrown in the mix without any real "hard-hitters" then I do think BirdofPrey's percentage idea (allowing percentage damage on top of accrued shield damage of 10) would be beneficial to balancing.

 

I agree that I really like the concept of a Protoss unit that can seemingly weather anything thrown at them... I just hate the part where nukes are no more effective than rail guns =/

I really like the percentage suggestion however because it still keeps them as being extremely tough against hard-hitting attacks... there's just a slightly sliding scale now... I mean, if Bird of Preys' suggestion was put into place, they could withstand THREE nuclear attacks and still be effective - that's insanely tough I think. They wouldn't lose any of their Immortal status concept really... they'd just make a bit more sense.

 

once an immortal's shield depletes, it's likely that it can no longer resist attacks

currently the immortal has 150hp/150shield, with the 20% mechanic the first nuke will do 108 damage, the seconds nuke will use 170 of its damage to destroy the remaining shield, and what's left of the nuke's damage (330) will kill the immortal.

but being able to resist a whole nuke is still impressive.

 

you're right - stupid error on my part, but check my math for me would you?

with that in mind, I'd like to see the Immortal go from 150/150 to maybe 125/175... in which case it would take two direct hits from nukes to kill an Immortal... check my math?

nuke = 500, Concept Immortal = 125hp/175 shield

first 10 points directly to health damage * 2 = 20hp
175 divided by 20% = 875 potential shield and 980 remaining nuke power - 875 shield = 105 remaining nuke power
final 105 nuke power targets hit points

20+875+105=1000 or two direct nuke hits.

 

so you mean the 10 points "fixed" damage will directly reduce hp and not shield? i am pretty sure the first 10 points reduces the shield also.

edit: or do you mean in this new mechanic that you suggested, the 10 damage will go to hp and not shield.