Mathematical Proof certain units are still unfair

General Discussion
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Archon costs 95 worker cycles to train (and is literally the most over-rpiced unti in the game).

The HP per cost formula says Archons need a range increase and 475 effective shields to be as strong as their cost justifies. So if anything, Protoss is actually UNDER powered, as Archons are terrible for their cost in terms of both total HP and the range of their attack.

Colossus, Ultraliks, and Thor cost 110 worker cycles each.
Swarm Host costs 65 worker cycles (but can kill two archons per wave of locusts lol).
Hydralisk costs 32.5 worker cycles, and cna kite pretty much infinite archons and killl them all.

Siege Tank costs 61.5 worker cycles, almost as much as a Swarm Host, and yet they get massacred by Swarm hosts (without PDD) from half-way across most maps.

Raven costs 70 worker cycles and half its abilities aren’t even worth playing in a real game now that it’s been nerfed so heavily.

Battlecruiser is is worth it’s cost at 155 worker cycles, it deserves to be as powerful as it is, and maybe even a bit more powerful than it is.

Carrier probably needs to be stronger too, at 172.5 worker cycles to train and fully arm a carrier, they SHOULD beat BAttlecruisers, and they SHOULD beat literally everything else, being that expensive. Obviously it is not fair to the Carriers player if Terran can just shoot down Carriers with some left-over 2/2 or 3/3 marines. You should need Vikings and/or a nuke and/or Yamato gun to beat carriers. For this reason Carriers need 4 armor back, like they had in SC1 Alpha. The nerf was always wrong for the game.

Marauders cost only 26.25 worker cycles ,an dyet they beat pretty much anything on the ground, includign units much more expensive than themselves. Stalker is 37.5 worker cycles, for example, and they are at a disadvantage vs stimpacked marauders, especially once the Marauder splayer gets concussion shells upgrade.

I th ink I’ve made my point, you can show mathematically what is fair and not fair about this game. The mathematics show Carriers, Archons, and Battlecruisders should be slightly stronger each, and the mathematics shows units like Swarm Hosts and Marauders should both get a significant nerf.

Immortals are about right, the resource per cost formula suggests they should have 375 effective HP, they currently have 400 effective HP thanks to the Barrier abiltiy, so they are pretty clost to perfectly balanced now.

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Asserting a unit’s cost in a vacuum is not a mathematical proof of anything.

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The units follow certain rules on HP per cost. Wen you ppplly the HHP per cost and averaged DPS per cst to the ARchon, it is ridiculously weaker than the frmula says it should be.

Using the same reasoning, the Swarm Host is STILL ridiculously over-powered an deshould be nerfect to 200 gase.

By the way, “Melee” units follow a 1.5x cost rule, while Air units and cloaked units follow a 0.5 rule.
“Archer” units follow a 1.0 HP per cost rule.

Roaches are not a Melee Unit, and yet they have Melee unit stats, which makes them lik e 20 HP stronger than their fair stats at their priesent price. IN other workds, the fair price for a Roach is 75/50/2, but they currenlty cost 75/25/2.

I can prove most units follow these rules, as I’ve already stated.

You asserting that my original post doesn’t prove anything is just you disagreeing with me, because for some reason you hate my guts since my first post on here anyway.

DPS per cost and HP per cost are the only scientific methods of evaluating unit balance, and by this rule, Archons are the worst unit in the game except Ravens, since the Raven nerg, which the new Raven is literally the worst unit in the game.

BTW, thinking players have always used HP per cost and DPS per cost to evaluate units.

I’m just returnign to some Broodwar Logic, by showing how big a disparity there is in units cost-effectiveness, and why some units totally suck while others are ridicklously over-powered.

Archons should be IMMUNE to Mind Control in Broodwar, and they should be Immune to Neural Paraiste in SC2. In addition, they should have an “immolation” aura to damage melee units.

That’s what their price tag justifies, and that’ salso what the lore justifies.

In the books, one ARchon or Dark Archon can defeat 7 battlecruisers simultaneously. Now I’m not saying make them that strong in the melee game, but that is in fact what the lore is for archons and dark archons. IN the story, they absolutely wreck ANYTHING except Kerrigan herself anyway.

The campaign archon one-shots an entire page of Zerglings, and is an even match for Amon’s Ultralisks.

The Melee Archon gets sniped by marine focus fire, and surrounded by zerglings and dies…

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You are ignoring multiple factors:

  • Range
  • Speed
  • How the unit’s attack is specialized.
  • The unit’s relationship to certain counters or spells; which may require it to have stronger/weaker stats relative to other units.
  • Supply: As a group, an army of higher-supply units will lose “DPS” at a slower rate than an equal army of lower-supply units. Higher supply units tend to be relatively less durable or have relatively less DPS with respect their cost/supply and the factors listed above to compensate for this fact.
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Well that’s how the game currently exists, for example for what a Battlecruiser costs it should have 700 HP and at least 4 base armor (if it didn’t have Tactical Warp anyway). With tactical warp they are fine, I guess. Carriers are actually underpowered cmpared to Battlecruisers, evne though they cost more than battlecruisers.

but you saying that you know, DPS tends to go down as supply goes up, that’s just blizzard’s choice of flawed game design. IN the real world, both durability of a combat unit and DPS goes UP with the price tag of the unit. For example, the F35 cna 1vs4 F-16’s, and F-16’s can 1vs 4 the best Russian mig fighter.

In the real world, the more you spend on a combat unit, the more exponentially powerful it becomes, and so U.S. Navy Aircraft Carriers are virtually invincible, but cost ~ 10 Billion dollars each to design and build.

Anyway, from one of the Novelizations, the Dark Archon Ulrezaj is an even match for the entire Terran Dominon allied against him.

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You know what unit I first got the “unbreakable” Achievement on? It wasn’t the Archon or Immortal or Colossues, evne though Protoss is my main race. The first Unit I got “Unbreakable” on was a Banshee, and I eventually got to double up on "Unbreakable with a 70-80 kills banshee in a 3vs3 Platinum game…and yes, obviously I won that game almost single-handedly. I pretty much eliminated the Zerg opponent myself with my first banshee, and then I finished off the closest protoss opponent with th esame banshee, and then killed a bunch of stuff owned by the terran opponent too.

It’s hard as hell to get more than a few kills with an Archon in a real 1vs1 or team game and they rarely pay for themselves in total value of enemy units destroyed.

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What unit did you use as a baseline to come up with those numbers?

Did you do any work at all to account for the fact that equivalent armies of “higher supply units” lose DPS at a much slower rate when the stats per supply (DPS/supply, DPS density, health/supply, etc) are equivalent?

That’s not a flaw, that is a necessary feature for RTS games to be balanced.

If you want a simple example, compare the DPS output of a 6 supply unit and 3 2-supply units with equivalent stats/supply when they fight an enemy that deals constant single-target damage to the units in sequence:

The DPS output over the course of the fight would be as follows:
Low-supply: 6(t1) + 4(t2) + 2(t3) = 12(t) where t is the total time and t1, t2, & t3 are each the time between deaths.
High supply: 6(t1) + 6(t2) + 6(t3) = 18(t) using the same numbers.

The 6-supply unit puts out 50% more damage than the 3 “equivalent” 2-supply units just because it dies at a slower rate.

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The Battlecruiser has been changed a few times in the past several versions, and now has attack while moves too though, os they don’t need to be a sbig as the HP per cost method alone woudl susggest. They have a very high rate of fire now, so they are about right, but I still think they need another point of armor,and I still think Carriers should have 4 base armor and 2 shield armor to start, but I’ll never see that obviously.

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No, your assumption that Battlecruisers would ever need 700 health and 4 armor was just wrong.

Attack-move allows Battlecruisers to micro and reposition during combat (which they could not do otherwise because the gap between attacks is far too small for Battlecruisers to accelerate and move any considerable distance between shots); but most units that can attack Battlecruisers actually have the same or less range such that the Battlecruiser’s performance in direct combat is unchanged by that ability to move.

The Battlecruiser’s DPS against ground targets was also buffed by removing the random delay (it is about the same against most air units because of the damage nerf); but the Battlecruiser’s DPS/supply is still only a fraction of most other Terran units.

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I don’t see how that last paragraph could be correct, even if you were right about the other things. The cooldown of the weapon is so little that they shoot even faster than stimpack marines, I think anyway. They nerfed the Air weapon because they want you to use Yamato to kill air units, which since it’s a coolodwn ability now and not an energy ability (buff vs High Templar Feeback) you SHOULD yamato every time the cooldown cycles immediately, to get the most abuse of it. 300 damage that ignores armor >> quite a few shots doing 8 or 5 damage…and you can clone 2 or 3 yamatos at once if necessary, so your opponent can’t run away and heal that unit, for example.

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You didn’t play when Battlecruisers still had their random delay, so let me explain the concept:

A “random delay” is a random number that modifies the weapon cooldown after every attack; unless that weapon uses a mechanic such as a never-ending create-persistent that bypasses that mechanic.

Each weapon sets a minimum and maximum value for the random delay; which is usually -0.0625 and +0.125 (using editor/normal values, divide by 1.4x for faster speed). On average the random delay will add a small amount (0.03125 → 0.02232 seconds on faster) to a unit’s attack cooldown, but most weapon cooldowns are long enough that the random delay is barely significant and easily eclipsed by other factors.

In the Battlecruiser’s case the random delay range was originally -0.0625 to 0.1875 seconds (average of 0.0625 extra seconds), while the base attack cooldown is 0.225 seconds; so the random delay significantly reduced the Battlecruiser’s DPS.
On average, Battlecruisers had 21.739% less DPS than their attack cooldown suggested, and they would occasionally wait up to 0.4125 seconds to fire their next shot instead of the 0.225 seconds that everyone expected.

The patch that gave Battlecruisers the ability to move and shoot also removed their random delay, so their DPS against ground units was buffed by 27.778% and their damage against air was kept roughly the same by reducing the base damage.

That is not correct.
The removal of the random delay effectively increased the Battlecruiser’s attack rate by 27.778%.

Blizzard nerfed the Battlecruiser’s base damage to mitigate the effect against air play.

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12

YOu know, ProTech is a 450 APm Random 2vs2 player who is top tier GM in 1vs1, and he actually agreed with some of my balance suggestions early on in LotV. For example, he agreed Ravagers need a 25 mineral nerf compared to their current price.

I’m not perfect, but I’m pretty good at analyzing unit match-ups, and Ravagers are far too versatile and powerful with Bile being able to hit anything and everything for almost as much splash as High Templar, and a 6 range weapon with that much DPS.

Like I say, he’s probably the best “Random” Player in the world, right now, so his balance suggestions are unbiased.

He also verified my theory that 2/1/1 is the best opening in PvP in both 1vs1 and 2vs2. He proved you can win PvP by just massing the heck out of phoenixes and skip to archons on the ground, and you win…

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Okay, but that’s actually a nerf against Corrupters and Carriers, anything with 2 or more base armro, that’s a net nerf against, because you now lose 40% of your DPS just overcoming the base armor.

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All of that is fine:

  • The damage/delay changes were only a 4.166% nerf against Corruptors, and they are practically irrelevant against Carriers or Tempests because of the shielding.
  • The change was necessary to avoid over-buffing Battlecruisers against all of the other air units. Battlecruisers needed more consistency and arguably more DPS against ground; but they certainly didn’t need a 27% boost against all air units.
  • The ability to shoot while moving improved the Battlecruiser’s ability to compete with Carriers.
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Well, I’m mostly satisfied now anyway, because with Tactical Jump you can always warp back to base and repair the BC, so it doesn’t need 4 armor or 700HP because of that. At least they beat marines now, and they beat “small numbers” of hydralisks and stalkers too, but a “big enough” mass of hydras or stalkers beating battlecruisers is fine, because those units cost a lo tmore than marines.

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They had 2 range in Wings of Liberty,it was painful.I don’t think current Archons are underpowered,maybe overbalanced :smiley:

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The cost of the individual units has nothing to do with it.

Stalkers, Hydralisks, and Marines will all beat Battlecruisers whenever they outnumber the Battlecruisers by enough of a margin to overwhelm them despite the Battlecruiser’s better performance in equal-supply direct fights; and those units will lose in most other situations.

Marines happen to be the least efficient ground units against Battlecruisers besides Sentries or Thors using Javelin Missiles, only because they deal damage in very low bursts.

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@Wade

I didn’t even read this whole thread to realize that you are absolutely clueless. Just because one unit is more expensive than another doesn’t necessarily mean it should beat it. Some units are meant to counter other units that’s why they dominate them. Battlecruiser is slightly cheaper that carrier but it’s supposed to counter carrier. And there is one rule in SC2 (very good rule):

EVERYTHING MUST HAVE A WEAKNESS

otherwise carrier being most expensive unit would be unbeatable, and that’s not how the game design work. Units should be mixed to complement each other’s weakness. I’m suprised that you haven’t figured that out yet.

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19

Please don’t title this “mathematical proof”

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