I was also thinking why not have 2 computer players per team? They would have different colors BUT one color would be reserved exclusively for the special heroes, this would also make it easier to track the heroes across the map. Not talking about the hero units that spawn with normal builds like the BC but just heroes from the special reserved buildings.

From my Vs comp experience (not a trigger programmer) the comps never seem to pick up allied units from another team with shuttles so this would probably fix the reaver issue 100% too....

This would have the same effect as simply moving the shuttle onto the field slightly later, which I am already doing in 2.63. Now if the shuttle was permanently owned by a different CPU for it's entire lifetime on the battlefield, that would prevent it. This is effectively the idea that Rivalz has:

This would mean there would be 4 CPU players, leaving only 4 human slots open, so only 2v2 games would be possible. Most people seem to prefer 2v2, but 3v3 is also fun. It would be a rather extreme change to reduce the number of human players on the map, simply to fix the reaver freezing problem. Alternatively it might be possible for the shuttles to be owned by P9 and P11 or something like that.

If I were re-making the map, I would probably key the resource rates to the countdown timers, rather than real time seconds. The map I based this off, DS Night Final, used real-time seconds, so I just stuck with it.

Anyway you're missing the main point here: vespene isn't used for anything anyway, so why not add a nice player-friendly feature to the map? This is one of the things that people particularly like about my map. Simply making the on-screen text display more accurate/different numbers doesn't solve the problem, for a variety of reasons:
1. Players often just don't read messages, or don't understand them
2. Players may miss the message
3. Players may build multiple gas at once, so now they have to remember to add the times together in their head
4. When your silo is destroyed, 25 seconds are added to the income freeze; again this has problems with 1-3, compared to simply adding 25 to the vespene count (thus lengthening any timer already active).
5. From a player perspective, if you know you have to go AFK for a brief time you can build gas to effectively 'pause' your involvement in the game and go and do whatever it was; having the timer there helps you know how long you have and when you get back you can quickly see how much time is left.
6. From a pure gameplay experience, if the enemy booms or spawns some impressive new army, it's nice to know that you only have x seconds to wait before you can start building again, rather than twiddling your thumbs wondering when it'll come back up. This is particularly bad in older DS maps where the cooldown can be as much as 5 minutes: pretty bloody boring staring at the screen for that long without knowing exactly when you're going to be able to start building again.

Really this is simply good game design - inform your player of important information wherever it is easy and elegant to do so. In all recent Blizzard games, they have a timer system showing you how long until an ability is usable again after it's cooldown. This is really no different.

Because this is hand-holding. I'm not trying to protect people from making stupid decisions: booming when there's 2 enemies (or no enemies) on their side of the map. It's there to protect people from simple dumb mistakes such as accidentally sending 2 booms onto the beacon at once or two team members not communicating and doing it accidentally. In practice, I've personally only ever had this fire a couple of times for me, but judging from my play experience of other DS maps without this feature, it probably kicks in once or twice for some player on the map in about 1 out of 5 games. When 2 booms are used instead of 1 for whatever reason, it really is pretty game destroying because booms are so vital to the end game. I've been in DS games where people quit as soon as 2 booms were used because there's really no point playing with such a huge disadvantage after that.

I could add a system in place that tells you when your ally has built a special, for example, to stop teams from accidentally building two at the same time. But I figure that this is a part of team play, especially as specials are end-game. To give such a warning would be too much hand-holding and would give weak/disorganised teams an advantage compared to strong/organised teams, when the strong teams should be rewarded for their ability. Similarly I could tell you exactly how many gas a particular player has built, rather than just on a per-team basis, but I figure the extra layer of obfuscation here introduces an element of uncertainty and therefore more risk and fun.

Eh, not really. Any trigger system can be made 'accurate', it's just a question of how much effort you want to go to. As it is, the DC system is not very complicated at all. It's also already implemented and appears to work without bugs; so it would be more 'effort' to implement the system you propose instead (or in addition-to) compared to what I already have.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on May 14 2012, 8:56 pm by Lanthanide.

No. What I meant is to modify the way Reavers spawn. A few DCs before the spawn, give the Shuttle to a different player; a few DCs later, give it back. So, when the Reavers are spawned and moved to the battlefield and all that, there technically is no Shuttle owned by the computer, and isn't for a few DCs. I don't know if it'll actually work? But it might be worth trying.

Ahh, so you mean wherever the shuttle is on the field, give it to the other player and then back after spawning, not just during the time when it first spawns.

Yes, this is different, and would be a better initial approach than giving the shuttle to P9/P11 permanently as I had suggested.

did you miss my post about the channel DS thing aw

I wasn't entirely sure how to word it. Also is this map played much on other realms outside of US East?

I only play on the ICCup the Abyss.

Played the 2.63 and I noticed there was at least one time (definitely in my second attempt at Nuke) that the BC failed to shoot at the temple/night defense.

I also didn't like how my science vessel was moving. There were several Lurkers in front of the stasis cell and it took way too long for them to react. Are you sure there was no change in AI as before? I thought those vessels were much more responsive back then.

Also, notice how I made a pretty decent counter when the opponent did his special but my Nuke doesn't really do much for stealing. It damages the temple, but there are a lot of enemy army in the field and almost non-existent on my side. My suggestion is allow the Nuke to steal and retain more units from my side of the field.

Attachments:

I get it, kept hearing "P9" and "P11" and thought there was more than 8 available.

I've played it on US West and Europe, even hosted it there a few times too but the East is better overall for English speakers.

Well since the D3 servers are down (just as I wanted to start playing...) I can answer this post.

Thanks, I'll have a look at it.

I have made no deliberate changes to AI of any units in this, except for the shuttle change which should impact on reavers only. From the scope of the other changes I made (mostly spawn related) it is unlikely that the AI would have been impacted by them either. Still possible of course, but unlikely. Most likely I think it's just your brain trying to find patterns/differences even where they don't actually exist - it's something that humans are very good at doing (and I've read the reason why we are so successful as species is because we try to explain casual events).

Haven't watched the replay so can't comment on this specifically. I did change nuke in 2.62 (I think? Or 2.61, recently anyway) to thin out the amount of enemy units that it steals from your side of the map, because in the 2.5x series it became a bit overpowered with how it worked. But I haven't really played much 2.62 and only one game of 2.63 (which didn't have any terran) so I don't really know how well it's working in practice. But since 2.62 was out you're the first person to mention anything about this.

My point about special is that if you make a proper counter, then it is only natural to have a sudden turn of the tide because you were smart enough to watch the income and react appropriately. However, if i cast a Nuke almost immediately after the opponent's Infestation/MC, there are so many enemy units left in the field that after the enemy units are confused for ~15 seconds, they gather up and the push they make is too strong to handle with my nearly non-existing stolen army.

I will mention it again, but from the replay I really wish either Nuke will steal and retain more units on my side or further destroy the enemy units; there is simply no reward for countering the opponent! I'm not expecting an instant turn of the tide like Infestation or MC, but it shouldn't be weak to the point that the enemy units makes a huge push after 15 seconds of confusion and attack my temple.

But yeah, let's discuss more after you watch the replay.

The main strength of nuke is that it does the 3000 damage to the temple (at least when it's not buggy...), and it is also the cheapest special. With those two thoughts in mind, it isn't fair it if is 100% as effective at turning the tide as infestation/MC are. Terran can also lift off their addons for a final nuke or two at the end to win the game, which the other races can't do.

Exactly! So every realm you'd go to channel: DS

just a thought so everyone could get together n talk... idk maybe try to word it in for next ver

Anyone who has problems with the new nuke needs to play the old 2.08

Although I personally don't like the new one 100% either, it is definitely an improvement off the old where everything would be destroyed near the temple leaving the rest of the infested/controlled enemy armada free reign till the timer hit 0:00. The new nuked and stolen units can usually hold their own until their reinforcements spawn.

It is a problem when it cannot hold their own until the reinforcements spawn.

Right, but that's sometimes the case with all the specials.

If you use nuke defensively, eg when there are lots of enemies on your side of the map / attacking your temple, then clearly it works very well. If you use it offensively when it is your army that's pushing, then obviously it's much less effective. Now if the enemy uses their P/Z special when you are pushing and therefore steals all your units and starts pushing back to your side of the map, if your nuke then goes off then you won't steal many units. I don't call that a bug or problem, I call that a feature - the best terran players will be the ones that time their nukes for maximum effectiveness: instead of immediately after the enemy special, you'll want it to go off ~20 seconds later.

With SC's rather limited options for these sorts of systems that effect masses of units at the same time, I think I've done rather well to differentiate the 3 specials between the races. Zerg's is best vs masses of weak units like zerglings, marines and zealots because many of them get killed and replaced with powerful units like brood lords and leviathans, Protoss is best vs stronger units because it steals them outright and Terran is obviously the most different of the 3. The Terran one is clearly the most difficult to use, the results can be quite unpredictable, but this is balanced by the fact that it's the cheapest, terrans can refund add-ons and it does direct damage to the temple. The spider mines also usually wipe out a significant chunk of the enemy's next spawn, which also shouldn't be underestimated (it can force the enemy to use a special, boom or insta-spawn sooner rather than later).

I was thinking a bit about that, but I am almost sure that the damage that my temple receives while waiting for ~20 seconds is not worth the tradeoff.


Well, almost all the time the confused units run around and they get rid of the spider mines. But point taken; it's better than nothing.

when I used 4 nukes at the same time it only used one and costed me 4x more for only one nuke. it could of at least held the other 3 on wait

I'm confused. The only way your temple will be receiving damage is if there are units there attacking it. If so, using nuke will steal them for you? I thought the problem is you using nuke after the enemy has used their special when all of the units were on their side of the field: then if you use nuke, you won't steal anything because they're on the other side of the field. But if they're attacking your temple, they're on your side of the field, so you should use the nuke.

Yeah, the spider mines are less useful now than they used to be in that regard, but there will sometimes be a few left, especially if you used the nuke defensively so there is nothing on the other side of the field to run on them (unless they just spawned, which is probably when 90% of nukes are used).

You mentioned earlier that would use the Nuke "instead of immediately after the enemy special, you'll want it to go off ~20 seconds later."

However, this means that the Infested/MCed units will attack my temple for full 20 seconds and there is nothing I can do about it.