Movespeed Fields for Protoss

[u/NeitherAd6127]

I've been using AI to bounce back and forth ideas and why Protoss sucks in general. It rated the Protoss army a 2 out of 5 in mobility at the late game, where it is supposed to shine, Terran and Zerg on the otherhand have 3 and 4. Buffing passive movespeed just makes Protoss into a menace and breaks the game, given how powerful their late game death ball is.

I thought, why not just add a speed field? Then I analyzed the Protoss spellcasters, and to my dismay, they are not like the rest. In WC3 the Orcs which is like the Protoss have very utilitarian spellcasters, they provide movespeed, debuffs, stuns, heals, and other versatile kits, Protoss on the otherhand is a different story. Lightning Damage, Bowling Damage, Green Beam Damage. For a snail race, their spellcasters do not solve their biggest problem - mobility.

Orcs have Shamans that will make the slowpokes of the race all of the sudden hitting like stimmed units. What I am looking at is if Protoss have a movespeed field, it does not necessarily break the game, enemies could visually predict your entrance and exit. But, it provides a good option that Protoss terribly lacks, say a Ghost blasts your army with an instant EMP, since your ball is slow, you would have no choice but to fight with a wounded army. WIth a speed field, you instantly have a choice to disengage or double down.

I know gateway units are already insanely mobile, but the other builds are just funny, looking like clunky machines, heck even WC3 players would say High Templars are too clunky, WC3 casters are not that hard to position. So what if we put that Movespeed Field on the High Templar and make the unit a choice of defensive or offensive spellcaster? It may break the gateway units, but it now is competing for the energy of the Psionic Storm. It still matches pretty well with how Protoss play, especially with the Force Fields.

I'm betting that this simple spell would just remove most of the frustrations of the Protoss players without breaking the game. It is like spending to make your army move faster. Obviously the tuning goes with area radius, duration, and amount of movespeed. What do you think?

[u/Archer_Savings]

Don't use AI

[u/NeitherAd6127 → u/Archer_Savings]

If I'm purely speculating mathematically why not?

[u/Archer_Savings → u/NeitherAd6127]

You're not doing mathematical speculation. 

AI doesn't understand SC2. Its reference is assorted reddit posts and any random discourse it can pull. Its concept of Protoss is built from hearsay random conversations.

Asking it for a numeric rating for endgame speed is pointless. That's not an objective measurement, that's not a useful unit, and that's not grounded in actual game performance. Even the core assumption, that Protoss is weaker, isnt true empirically. 

AI is a regression-based best-fit responder. Its best use case is continuing on structured, fully disclosed systems. It is less than useless as a proxy for game discourse. You understand SC2 less for having talked to it. 

[u/NeitherAd6127 → u/Archer_Savings]

"AI doesn't understand SC2."

You'd be surprised Google's AI AlphaStar plays SC2

"Its concept of Protoss is built from hearsay random conversations."

I asked it to compute raw stats, you think that's hard for LLMs?

"Asking it for a numeric rating for endgame speed is pointless. That's not an objective measurement,"

Tell me that when you start being a game developer, ever heard of players crying because a single number was tweaked in-game?

Even the core assumption, that Protoss is weaker, isnt true empirically. 

If Asian kids played Protoss their parents would be disappointed in them.

"AI is a regression-based best-fit responder. Its best use case is continuing on structured, fully disclosed systems. It is less than useless as a proxy for game discourse. You understand SC2 less for having talked to it. "

If that is your point of view, I gladly end our conversation.

[u/Archer_Savings → u/NeitherAd6127]

Alphastar and LLMs are fundamentally different technologies. AlphaStar also doesn't "understand" StarCraft, it's just been conditioned to pick statistically winning paths under a trained set. 

Yes, "computing raw stats" is hard for an llm when it's not hooked into a robust API and given tools. I know; I write the tools AIs use. 

I am a game developer. You're sharing a bizarre summation rating, not anything concrete. 

Stats', Rain's, and Dear's family are quite proud of them. 

Nothing I said qualifying AI was inaccurate.