Warlords and Merchants Discussion

[Ricky_Honejasi]

A quick note : I will obviously not going to scrap any type of Merchant, considering that it would essentially mean undoing like 75-125 hours out of my 200 spent so far on W&M.

Latest Changes :
1) Hybrid Spec for Merchants to allow more jack-of-all-trades game styles.
2) Merchants can now instant-sell non-research items at 50% price.
3) Price cap is now 299% (from 499%).
4) Queens can now auto-cast Spawn Larva but +50% delay.
5) Added Obverse Incubation standard research for Zerg.
6) Elite - Sniper Commandos now immune to EMP.
7) Elite - Zeus now have +500 HP and +4 damage (12 to 16) per mini-turret.
8) Thor's ground attack's attack speed further nerfed.
9) Devourers now deal bonus damage vs Armored.
10) Devourers' Acid Spores stacks 9 times instead of 5.
11) Corrupters have a heavy buff vs Massive units.
12) Photon Cannons stops falsely missing some types of ground units.
13) Added Obverse Incubation standard research for Zerg.
14) Zerg Players should only spawn with 3 larvae max.
15) Removed MULE cooldown.
Other : Medics only cost 1 supply instead of 2.

Specific extra notes :
- Hybrid Spec essentially cut all merchant levels times by 90 so levels costs time-wise 90/180/270 instead of 180/270/360/450/540. However, going Hybrid Spec will cap you at 3/3/3 levels instead of 5/5/5.
- Instant-Selling at 50% also have a quantity you can specify. It sells as if some random out-of-nowhere Warlord bought it off 50% from you (considering Profit Score and C&F).
- A lower price cap since it seems some like to plain abuse 499%.
- Auto-cast Spawn Larva might suddently make Zerg very powerful thus +50% delay the larva pops up.
- Obverse Incubation research allows 4 zerglings to pop up from a single egg. 100 minerals cost and 36 (from 24 for 2z). Requires Hive or Basic Merchant Level 2.
- Thor's attack speed at 1.68 or so.
- Devourers more intended for "general air combat" while Corrupters more focused as an anti-capital ship role.
- Reapers are no longer immune to Photon Cannons.

Other :
- Tried to make Hunter Killers but tend to have morphing issues or they look EXACTLY the same as hydralisks (scale/collision), etc.
- Lacked time for other things. Maybe ill still do one or more. As usual, editor takes forever to do anything and to test.

[Vetraeus]

Personally, as an Upgrade merchant, I find it stupid too have "That" many upgrades only for merchants I agree that players should be able to buy all the upgrades according to their race they can, just buff the prices here & there and be done with it, "WHY CANT TERRAN GET MULTI-LOCK". Give them Multilock I don't and shouldn't have to upgrade it as a merchant, I personally find that stupid. The only thing adv merchants should be able to do is provide "Adv. Special Upgrades" and thats IT! Being able to research the "still existing" flux vanes and stimpacks & crap like that along with damage/armor upgrades I find is personally stupid. If the player cannot find the personal and racial counter to a certain unit, then we all know who the weakest link is. We should also not have to upgrade or get crap on the buyouts for you like 4/4 research when you can simply upgrade it yourself, you have hands USE THEM!

Like I said, i don't want to keep any "non-special" or "campaign" research upgrades on the Adv Merchant, only the Adv. Reasearches can stay like better mining, gas, and landing zones. Those I believe should stay. If you want to buy units of a different race, hmm, I'm sure you have units of your current race that do the same thing or are counter to what your looking for and your too godamned lazy to find it and use it. If Mesk played "Adv. Merchant" for a day, I'm sure He'd see immediatly what needs a change, especially that imbalanced chronoboost crap ricky put in, WHY AM I UPGRADING SO FAST!

[Ricky_Honejasi]

Researches such as Multi-Lock ARE the Adv. Special upgrades in my book. Ultimately you DON'T need it to make the base unit right but it adds that extra wanted sugar on it. That's regardless if they were Campaign upgrades or not. Goliaths can fight quite damn well without Multi-Lock.

For Weapons/Armors to 6/6, that was the main exception that I gave to Warlords as those upgrades affect their whole race of units and would otherwise make them way too dependent on Adv.R Merchants if they decide to go the road opposite.

Any type of merchant can get normal researches, not just Adv.R. However, if a merchant goes Adv.R, it becomes more natural that they get normal researches as well.

For the Chrono Boost, at 10%,20%,30%,40% and 50% (depending on Adv.R level), I don't believe it's that bad as it allow them to get normal researches faster, catch-up on lower-end Adv.R levels and their current level Adv.R researches more or less become "normal" speed. 10%-50% is basically 110%-150% concrete research speed.

As for the Adv.R Merchant, if I cut out all the "non-special" and "campaign", it would probably cut out like 90% out of the researches based on your wills hence might as well cut out of the Adv.R itself.

Oh wait, C&F is OMG OMG unbalanced and "doesn't give any concrete changes and still make normal units", cut it out. OMG OMG OMG Combo allow units that "should" be on warlords directly! Cut combo since Warlords would make them and kills 90% of the point of having a Combo Merchant. OMG, merchants became essentially useless after all these changes since you can build/upgrade everything yourself, cut them!

No, I won't undo like 90% of my work that I did over 200 hours or so. If you want a plain buffed melee, just pick some melee map of your choice and add your extra units/researches on the melee players.

There is also a reason why I keep to about one unit affected per Adv.R. upgrade. I am aware that more than one upgrade can clearly make a specific unit way too powerful. I even avoided to make many Adv.R researches on specific units that seem already overpowered out-of-the-box.

EDIT : Finally, let's be frank : REGARDLESS of what main path I do about it, there will be always drawbacks regardless if it's due to the map itself, due to the common Warlord mentality, due to the common Merchant mentality,etc. You cannot please everyone, period.

[Lavarinth]

Damn, Ricky's got some balls today.

[UntamedLoli]

Researches such as Multi-Lock ARE the Adv. Special upgrades in my book. Ultimately you DON'T need it to make the base unit right but it adds that extra wanted sugar on it. That's regardless if they were Campaign upgrades or not. Goliaths can fight quite damn well without Multi-Lock.

For Weapons/Armors to 6/6, that was the main exception that I gave to Warlords as those upgrades affect their whole race of units and would otherwise make them way too dependent on Adv.R Merchants if they decide to go the road opposite.

Any type of merchant can get normal researches, not just Adv.R. However, if a merchant goes Adv.R, it becomes more natural that they get normal researches as well.

For the Chrono Boost, at 10%,20%,30%,40% and 50% (depending on Adv.R level), I don't believe it's that bad as it allow them to get normal researches faster, catch-up on lower-end Adv.R levels and their current level Adv.R researches more or less become "normal" speed. 10%-50% is basically 110%-150% concrete research speed.

As for the Adv.R Merchant, if I cut out all the "non-special" and "campaign", it would probably cut out like 90% out of the researches based on your wills hence might as well cut out of the Adv.R itself.

Oh wait, C&F is OMG OMG unbalanced and "doesn't give any concrete changes and still make normal units", cut it out. OMG OMG OMG Combo allow units that "should" be on warlords directly! Cut combo since Warlords would make them and kills 90% of the point of having a Combo Merchant. OMG, merchants became essentially useless after all these changes since you can build/upgrade everything yourself, cut them!

No, I won't undo like 90% of my work that I did over 200 hours or so. If you want a plain buffed melee, just pick some melee map of your choice and add your extra units/researches on the melee players.

There is also a reason why I keep to about one unit affected per Adv.R. upgrade. I am aware that more than one upgrade can clearly make a specific unit way too powerful. I even avoided to make many Adv.R researches on specific units that seem already overpowered out-of-the-box.

EDIT : Finally, let's be frank : REGARDLESS of what main path I do about it, there will be always drawbacks regardless if it's due to the map itself, due to the common Warlord mentality, due to the common Merchant mentality,etc. You cannot please everyone, period.

Adv. R Merchants can fuck an entire game because of their drastic research speed increases (that you increased again not long ago) and forcing other Warlords to get the race+sub type upgrade they have or fade into nothing to that Merchants favourite, Offensive or Defensive. This isn't a new complaint, this makes playing a Warlord LESS FUN by far.

Mesk horribly lost a game simply because our Upg merchant pumped 6/6 Terran/Protoss Air screwing him out of any hope of countering it with no Mech upgrades because of the research time differences. The other guy that lost couldn't get any Infantry upgrades to get rid of Battlecruiser spam.

Maybe Weapon/Armor/Shield upgrades should just get taken off merchants? Maybe they should get changed to Capacity/Attack Speed like suggested so its not entirely game breaking too? We're not playing with WC3's % based damage mitigation and more Armour will always be superiour to Health/Shield Regen with this supply cap. Make other races upgrades as an upper tier that Warlords can do and make sure each race has a buildable counter to other races so they don't get pidgeon holed into another race than what they picked.

Defensive upgrades are another tricky issue that gets exacerbated by the fact weapon/armor upgrades are simply more tiers causing huge imbalances. Defenses are already weak, even with upgrades they will simply vanish if anything threatening gets near them. The only time I've seen defensive upgrades do anything was when Ricky got the zerg ones vs Wraiths because their ground attack is pretty terrible, as soon as Banshees got added to the mix everything fell over.

This is another issue that Adv. R Merchant only having them and never gets your races upgrades, your defenses are worthless and only exist to buy time. Merchants play favourites and theres not really anything you can do that about.

At this point you might be wondering why even have Adv. R at this point with those upgrades moved off or Warlords can get them? I think maybe it should just be shifted to a secondary upgrade much like Faster Delivery etc, something that wouldn't take days to do. I don't know entirely how your system works but every game we have, every merchant ends up getting all the upgrades anyways, its only defining them for the first fraction of a game. Perhaps C&F and Combo should be mutually exclusive?

I'm not entirely sure Thors need even more nerfs after Mucky assraped me with Immortals/Dragoons/Colossi. Supply cap army vs supply cap army. Mind you I don't know what Zerg can do but thats not even just against Thors I don't know about.

These are just my thoughts after previous games not telling you to do anything but theres major flaws that happen when a merchant excludes a races upgrades. Upgrade spam is also highly retarded. Combo Factories are also completely non-descript of what they do.

EDIT: Thors, turning their ground attack into a missile (Marauder one) with their original attack speed would probably fix them. The lack of overkill is why Zerglings disintigrate when they run up to them.

[Vetraeus]

You said Armor/Damage/Shield upgrades for attack speed & such would be great right? Well if this works out. I had an idea to make all Upgrades the same for each and every race that way you don't have to research shields and armor and damage of each individual race, why not make them all one upgrade so every race can get them without having to build more useless crap? Maybe have different types of armor that contributes different things, and make then "not" be "Racial" based; instead everyone can buy them race or not.

{ARMOUR}

-->Armor 1-6 #1: Increases Health
+5 HP Lvl1
+10 HP Lvl2
+15 HP Lvl3
+20 HP Lvl4
+25 HP Lvl5
+30 HP Lvl6

-->Armor 1-6 #2: Increases Health Regeneration Rate
+0.1 Hp/sec Lvl1
+0.14 Hp/sec Lvl2
+0.19 Hp/sec Lvl3
+0.23 Hp/sec Lvl4
+0.29 Hp/sec Lvl5
+0.35 HP/sec Lvl6

-->Armor 1-6 #3: Increases Movement Speed
+0.06ms Lvl1
+0.11ms Lvl2
+0.16ms Lvl3
+0.22ms Lvl4
+0.30ms Lvl5
+0.39ms Lvl6

{SHIELDS}

-->Shields 1-6 #1: Units that do not have shields will be granted 5-10 Shield points per upgrade. (Infantry 5)(Air/Vehichles 10)
+0.2 Regen/sec Lvl1
+0.4 Regen/sec Lvl2
+0.6 Regen/sec Lvl3
+0.8 Regen/sec Lvl4
+1.0 Regen/sec Lvl5
+1.5 Regen/sec Lvl6

-->Shields 1-6 #2: Each upgrade increases shield hardpoints by 1.0 (Protoss cannot buy this)
+1 Lvl1
+2 Lvl2
+3 Lvl3
+4 Lvl4
+5 Lvl5
+6 Lvl6

{DAMAGE}

-->Damage 1-6 #1: Each application applies a DoT (Damage over Time) effect on the attacked target(s) for 6 Seconds (DOES NOT STACK AND CANNOT BE RE-APPLIED WHEN ALREADY EXISTING ON TARGET)
+0.2 Dmg/sec Lvl1
+0.4 Dmg/sec Lvl2
+0.6 Dmg/sec Lvl3
+0.8 Dmg/sec Lvl4
+1.0 Dmg/sec Lvl5
+1.5 Dmg/sec Lvl6

-->Damage 1-6 #2: Each application applies a AD (Armor Debuff) effect on the attack target(s) for 6 seconds. (SEE ABOVE I DON'T NEED TO REPEAT MYSELF)
-0.4 Armor Lvl1
-0.9 Armor Lvl2
-1.6 Armor Lvl3
-2.3 Armor Lvl4
-3.2 Armor Lvl5
-4.0 Arnor Lvl6

-->Damage 1-6 #3: Each attack deals AoE (Area of Effect) damage to the target(s). (DS = Damage Spread)
+2.0 DS Lvl1
+4.0 DS Lvl2
+6.0 DS Lvl3
+8.0 DS Lvl4
+10.0 DS Lvl5
+12.5 DS Lvl6

-->Damage 1-6 #4: Increases Attack Speed (50% for Infantry units)
-0.07as/ Lvl1
-0.14as/ Lvl2
-0.21as/ Lvl3
-0.28as/ Lvl4
-0.35as Lvl5
-0.42as Lvl6


If these are any better or want new ones just ask, I'm pretty sure I can go through a couple more painful balance tests.

[IskatuMesk]

For Weapons/Armors to 6/6, that was the main exception that I gave to Warlords as those upgrades affect their whole race of units and would otherwise make them way too dependent on Adv.R Merchants if they decide to go the road opposite.

A whole race of which 80% of their units get countered by single individual units who get specific upgrades the second they pop up on a merchant. Warlords are already completely dependent on advanced research, as we discussed.

For the Chrono Boost, at 10%,20%,30%,40% and 50% (depending on Adv.R level), I don't believe it's that bad as it allow them to get normal researches faster, catch-up on lower-end Adv.R levels and their current level Adv.R researches more or less become "normal" speed. 10%-50% is basically 110%-150% concrete research speed.

Having not played a merchant yet (maybe I should?) I can tell you that building an armory, then checking the research list to see 3/3 already available really makes me wonder how the fuck merchants get this shit so fast. In wc3 W&M it simply wasn't possible to get fucktons of units or whatever so damn quickly.

As for the Adv.R Merchant, if I cut out all the "non-special" and "campaign", it would probably cut out like 90% out of the researches based on your wills hence might as well cut out of the Adv.R itself.

Uh, we're not asking to remove the researches entirely. We're asking to get rid of the advanced research merchant type and allow a good portion of the upgrades to be researchable by lords and available to all merchants. At least that's what I'm asking for. I apologize if I wasn't clear about that.

Oh wait, C&F is OMG OMG unbalanced and "doesn't give any concrete changes and still make normal units", cut it out. OMG OMG OMG Combo allow units that "should" be on warlords directly! Cut combo since Warlords would make them and kills 90% of the point of having a Combo Merchant. OMG, merchants became essentially useless after all these changes since you can build/upgrade everything yourself, cut them!

...wut? I don't think I've ever said combo units should be on warlords. I have stated that like half the combo units are redundant. I really don't know who you're even ranting to. Vet?

If you want a plain buffed melee, just pick some melee map of your choice and add your extra units/researches on the melee players.

Actually I just want a map that is fun to play. Currently, unless you or vet are merchant and on vent catering to my every whim research-wise I find myself getting anally fucked by circumstances totally out of my control a bit too often. I much preferred wc3 where you could get stuff, merchants could get bigger stuff, but you didn't DEPEND on sometimes extremely rare or non-existent merchant-only material just to scrape by. Now, in sc2, the gameplay is completely different and you still seem to be approaching it from a wc3 standpoint, except now with upgrades, too.

There is also a reason why I keep to about one unit affected per Adv.R. upgrade. I am aware that more than one upgrade can clearly make a specific unit way too powerful. I even avoided to make many Adv.R researches on specific units that seem already overpowered out-of-the-box.

Darn rights! How about them +50 shields and 8 max damage on Immortals, huh? I dunno, Immortals being indestructible and doing 80 hitscan damage vs half the units in the game seems a bit game-breaking as it is... that's why I try to explain these things to you. Instead you just twitch your mustache in silent hatred for my filthy native Canadian white ass.

EDIT : Finally, let's be frank : REGARDLESS of what main path I do about it, there will be always drawbacks regardless if it's due to the map itself, due to the common Warlord mentality, due to the common Merchant mentality,etc. You cannot please everyone, period.

Yeah, this is why you read and consider feedback when you don't know what to do.

If sc2's editor wasn't a pile of shit I would do more than terrain. But it happens to be a pile of shit most grotesque and despicable. I find it admirable you've made it this far. But you're far from done, bro!

Also now you know how I felt when I was working on LoL. God, the demands!

[IskatuMesk]

So... after our three silly games last night, all of which I managed to lose terribly...

I feel that Zerg macro is definitely more friendly now. Their air power is also respectable in the form of the Devourer who is, honestly, much more effective than the Corruptor now. Unattended Carriers easily get picked off and their high armor makes them able to withstand harassment. Mutas still suck balls, but at least between Devourers and Mustaches you finally have an air force worth using.

My attention turns towards the Ultras who, for all intents and purposes, remains the way it was in vanilla - terrible. But at least we have Omegalisks, right?

Two out of those three games were with zerg, and both games I lost because of economics. I actually didn't know that the gas upgrade caps at 3/3 in compared to the mineral one capping at 5/5... I always thought the gas one capped at 5/5 too... ho hum.

My constant issues with shift and alt are certainly related to SC2 in specifics, but I can't discount some kind of issue with them and sticky keys. I've disabled sticky keys to what extend is possible, but when the game lags the problem remains. HKS experiences a degree of the problem as well, but Mucky doesn't seem to and I don't hear anyone else really complaining about it. Could it be OS specific or something else? I don't really know. It's terrible anyway.

Phantom scourge really are silly, though. Silly and stupidly cheap. I think their mineral cost should be more like... 150... as opposed to 15 or 30 or whatever they are right now.

Protoss feel pretty solid but I think the defensive upgrade for cannons might need a slight nerf in its DR.

As for the map, I didn't hear any specific complaints except for the high yields being islands now. I'm not sure how I can make them land-pathable again without making those corner spots retarded again. I think someone said there was a destructible cocks in the left side that I forgot to delete and is stuck in the ground somewhere. As for the dragoons in the cliffsides, that problem has existed since day 1. I'll look into it but no idea what causes it. Also I think there is a tiny zergling-pathable area in the top right I can fix easily.

The map felt stronger overall though I think that the corner spots being unchanged in distance makes an issue for air rush distances. In our retarded third game this didn't seem to really have a big issue, but it's something I would avoid if I decided to do a much larger overhaul.

[Lavarinth]

I figured I'd leave a note here on it, I thought it'd be interesting to see a gameplay mode where a player cannot build units (or related buildings) and but expand and build supply and defenses, therefor making the Merchant's items of much more value.

[Mucky]

FUCKING HOLY SHIT WHERE DO I GO TO CHANGE THE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF INTERCEPTORS FOR A CARRIER-BASED CUSTOM UNIT

i hate galaxyedit

[Vetraeus]

Data Editor and Module Unit setup.

[Mucky]

Data Editor and Module Unit setup.

That does not narrow things down in the slightest.

[Vetraeus]

Yes it does, go into the data editor, find the unit under the "units folder" then double click it, select interceptor addons, then another screen will popup, drag interceptor and carrier in the window called: "Module Setup" and then you can change its attributes from there, its pretty straight forward, just don't make a carrier with 3000 interceptor all launch at once, GalaxyEdit crashes.

[Mucky]

Module Unit setup, you mean the field values for whatever you have selected in the Data Editor? I've spent half an hour last night and 20 minutes now looking for it and I still can't find it.

This shit is anything but straightforward. You'd think looking at the defaults and knowing that the carrier has a maximum of 8 interceptors, you'd find something related to maximums. Every field I've found even REMOTELY RELATED either has a value of "0" or "None", so it can't be what controls the maximum count for interceptors.

I found the field value for starting number of interceptors in the carrier hangar ability. I figured that maximum number of interceptors would be located somewhere in that area... but all I found was a "Info - Charge - Count (Max)" field that does nothing even when I put numbers in it.

I looked at the default carrier, nothing

Default interceptor, nothing.

Carrier hangar ability, nothing.

Hangar queue, nothing.

Arm interceptor upgrade, nothing.

What.
The.
FUCK.

[UntamedLoli]

That's because the interface is a convoluted mess but if you ask anyone they will say something stupid like "You want to use the editor without learning it?".




Took me 10 minutes to even find where it was referenced, thats why I just edit the XML directly. Ctrl+F "Interceptor" hey look everything in every file suddenly.