Warlords and Merchants Discussion

[IskatuMesk]

Did you enjoy your spam last night, Ricky? I found out a way to abuse invite/cancel dialogues and I can now invite and cancel invites for games in about 1-2 seconds.

[UntamedLoli]

13) Khaydarin Amulet's given starting energy is now 70 total (not 75).

Get rid of it like Flux Vanes.

[IskatuMesk]

Hey, hey hey! I got a good one for you!

What the fuck is going on here?



/edit

Without many opinions to work with, I updated the map a bit according to what I did hear.

- I fixed a missing ramp on the bottom left.
- I removed Esports towers on the bends around corner warlords so you can't peak into one guy's base but he can't see you.
- Made the corner high yields ground pathable in the only way I could immediately see viable.


No, you won't be getting any Zeus' out still, but destroy those Dustin Browder Love Chunks and you'll be able to path up or around that region. Keep an eye on those cocks - this opens up a new route into the adjacent starting position's ramp. I checked their collision and I think a Chargling Ultralisk can get all the way through but no guarantees. I don't want to see Diamondback hit and runs coming through these areas.

[Vetraeus]

Vultures' build time to 20 and have 15(+10 Light) damage instead of 10(+15).

Ricky, a simple notice, the reason behind the +15 light, is because it shoots a "Frag Grenade", Reducing the damage is plain dumb, leave it the way it was, it was fine, If anything, increase the Viking's damage vs armored.

[Mucky]

Vultures' build time to 20 and have 15(+10 Light) damage instead of 10(+15).

Ricky, a simple notice, the reason behind the +15 light, is because it shoots a "Frag Grenade", Reducing the damage is plain dumb, leave it the way it was, it was fine, If anything, increase the Viking's damage vs armored.

ok 1) He increased the vulture's damage to everything while the total damage to light stays the same

2) Vikings don't need a buff to damage, are you high?

[IskatuMesk]

I am all in favor of buffing vikings with +69 aoe damage vs larva map-wide

[Mucky]

ok but then we need combo/elite larvae units

[IskatuMesk]

I am starting to think it will be impossible to properly balance this map without being able to directly and quickly make and test massive, swinging changings. As that's kind of what the map needs right now. Well, it's more or less sc2 in general.

e.g. Banelings are retarded because of hitscan, movespeeds, ect.

I'd like to see all of the speeds and stuff get a significant reduction and such. Gas mechanics return to sc1 style. Some major sweeping changes to damage values across the board. But this stuff isn't easy or timely to do in sc2. If this were wc3 or BW I would offer to take it upon myself to swung my dick in a wide arc and up fuck this bitch. But sc2 is just all levels of uaarghargahr and I understand why Ricky doesn't want to go into it. I also understand why Bluzzard kept scourge and other units out of melee. Unfortunately, banelings are one of those argahrgh wonders and fixing them won't be as easy as changing damage values. Much like scourge, Thors, Immortals, and any other unit, they scale very differently than what we're used to dealing with because of no overkilling. It changes the way these big spammy battles play out in ways that I am sure not sure how I would approach.

A lot of little things come to mind as I consider how this map could be improved. One of the things HKS mentions is having all of the upgrades grouped (Air weapon, Air armor, Ground weapon, Ground armor). Thus, one upgrade upgrades all ground units, and one upgrades all air units. This would help clean up the interface to boot.

But this and other things are unlikely to get added or changed due to ricky's lethargy and the editor's terribleness. Why do you even bother boosting the map, anyways?

I think I'll devote some of the cast time for these games to explain in detail why some shit is so ridiculous.

[Mucky]

Some observations:

1) Giant banelings OH GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE
2) 100% green tint looks absolutely disgusting
3) Vulture damage values are fine
4) Locusts costing gas may be a bit harsh now that I think about it
5) I have no idea why people could still see ultralings/giant banelings when they were burrowed

Besides hitscan, a big problem I see is that the damage system is too simplistic. Damage values and attributes given in melee are incredibly one-dimensional. Look at how almost every unit in the game is labeled armored while also having a bonus to armored. And if they don't have a bonus to armored, it's pure damage. So everything deals bonus damage to everything. I would go into more detail, but it's 5 am and I'm sleepy.

[IskatuMesk]

I shit you not my dreams involved banelings and hurried chanting of the very word "Baneling". I woke up thinking about banelings. Fuck you mucky. FUCK YOU

[Vetraeus]

A lot of little things come to mind as I consider how this map could be improved. One of the things HKS mentions is having all of the upgrades grouped (Air weapon, Air armor, Ground weapon, Ground armor). Thus, one upgrade upgrades all ground units, and one upgrades all air units. This would help clean up the interface to boot.

Now I have said this before, you simply just chain every upgrade to the same exact upgrade on a list of races, take an Un-existing upgrade in specs to the creation Adv Upgrades, The same way you create one that links to a unit.
Simply as it is explained, the way you create upgrades linked to units is you use the unit then apply the upgrade to it, all you have to do is this:

ex:
|Multi|
--Zerg Missile Attack
--Terran Infantry Attack
--Protoss Ground Attack
v
----Ground Missile Attack #/6

Take every upgrade from that specific tier and put it into one big upgrade that costs a ton of money?

[UntamedLoli]

I'm not talking about some special shit for merchants or an increased cost. I want there to be only 4 upgrades that warlords can get so merchants can stop picking fucking favourites an entire game last the last time. No one at all was making Terran anything except Battlecruiers and Hellions. Combo is just as bad because every single unit requires different upgrades. Research list would also be less of a clusterfuck than it is now.

[IskatuMesk]

Vet> No, I mean just literally removing all of the racial-specific armor/damage upgrades and replacing them with generic ones and leaving the prices as-is.

Also, there's no doubt about it, phantom scourge need to lose splash. Doom scourge can keep the splash.

[IskatuMesk]

I had a quick glance at some of Ricky's videos he uploaded (As a Canadian my bandwidth is limited, as a retard I fucked up enough videos to demolish my entire upload chain), where he's playing a merchant, and I have to say...

Playing as a merchant looks boring as fuck. No, really, it looks like almost nothing is happening 90% of the time. You are so de-sensitized and so distant from the frantic actions of the warlords it's insane.

I am glad I've never played as merchant.

[Vetraeus]

Playing favorites is pretty boring so. . .Now this a VERY EASY WAY TO MAKE THINGS HAPPEN! And it will clear up the mess of not having "unit specific" upgrades like multi-lock on-time because the damage and armor upgrades are annoying the crap out of me. It will also free up a whole page on the Merchant buy list.

>--Upgrade Melee & Ground: Upgrades all races damage up to a max #/6
>--Upgrade Armor & Shield: Upgrades all races armor & shields up to a max #/6
>--Upgrade Aerial Attacks: Upgrades all races aerial attack damage up to a max #/6
>--Upgrade Aerial Armor: Upgrades all races aerial armor up to a max of #/6

Now lets see, if we gave this to warlords it would make Upgrade Merchants' lives much easier, But it would also hurt us a tiny bit, but not much because these dreadful upgrades annoy us. I'm tired of having to upgrade all 3 Chains of Terran upgrades plus the extras. (ex. Infantry, Vehichle, Aerial)(ex. Siege Mode, Stims, Hunter Seeker)

However I would like to see upgrades such as these in the field: (As noted in previous pages)

{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

And I've seen as HKS stated From playing the ominously boring merchant (don't play it) that I've realized that the upgrades for 1/6 Damage and such seriously either need to be combined into one, or given to the warlords; I have also realized that Favouriting merchants isnt that hard with the fact that some upgrades cost more than others. (Shields 650/650 -_-) and people are too lazy to upgrade more things than others, I usually avoid Infantry upgrades for terran due to the fact that they become absolutely useless endgame because they only do 1 Dmg to things with above 8-10 Armor.

As noted Requote of HKS:

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.

We come back to this.