The Main Problem with Dark Pylons

[SpiderBrigade]

Considering just how useful things like the Argus Link and Null Shield are (not even mentioning the Proton Charge). A Dark Pylon definitely has to cost more than 150 minerals. Besides, it has the added benefit of making the player think well where exactly he wants his Dark Pylons to be placed.

I disagree, at least if the global energy idea is used. No matter how many Dark Pylons you have, you will only be able to cast 2 abilities from full energy. So they can be cheap - you build more of them to be able to cast the abilities at new locations.

The only purpose of making them expensive is to limit how often you can cast the abilities. With global energy reserves, that's already limited by default.

Creating competing base centered abilities is a excellent approach. I think the first step to theorycrafting some other base-centered ablilities is to figure out what base-centered advantages suit Protoss. For instance unit production is a base centered advantage that suits zerg which is why spawn larva works so well. Any thoughts people?

Well I think thematically the existing abilities do fit: cloaking and energy recharge are pretty Protoss-like. The issue is the way they are implemented is more combat-oriented. The other problem is that base-specific mechanics can run the risk of encouraging turtle strats which is usually bad.

Perhaps building cloaking, which I have seen suggested a few times. This is in the same territory as mr.peasant's Mirage ability. Of course this would have to be in tandem with having DP cost increased (or having them share a global energy pool) to avoid players just spamming them.

I could also support a production-boosting spell that would "overcharge" a building for faster unit production or research. That might be hard to balance though.

[Santrega]

I like the idea of the global dark energy, and I also don't believe its cost needs to increase as well.

The global energy will make you decide where you want to use its abilities, and you could choose wrong, by casting it on probes right before they are all destroyed in a harassment, etc.

However, if you do this, you'll want to make its abilities cost significantly less, or last significantly longer.

[SpiderBrigade]

I agree. Or just make the global energy pool slightly bigger than normal - 300 or 350 so you can get more castings than a normal caster unit.

How do people feel about the idea of each additional Dark Pylon adding a very small amount to the energy pool (like 5-10 energy)? This would somewhat mitigate the severe energy limitations in the late game when you can afford lots of them, but you would still have to choose carefully especially in the early game. I'm not totally convinced this is a great or necessary idea, but it's interesting to think about anyway.

[0neder]

Micro is more entertaining than Macro - why do we need stupid APM sinks? Hopefully beta will show how stupid this stuff is...

[Praetor_Ixab]

I agree, they are focusing too much on macro... it's great to have it a little bit, but they need to scale it back a little.

[Santrega]

There are many people, including myself that disagree with you. I enjoy the macro aspect far more than the micro aspect, however, I do enjoy the micro as well. To each his own, but that doesnt mean one is better than the other, and there is certainly still far more micro in sc2 than macro, even if they added additional macro on top of these mechanics, there would still be more micro.

[ArcherofAiur]

The goal is to create a system where you choose if the game has more micro or more macro. Like in BroodWar its really two games mixed into one. You can play a micro oriented game or a macro oriented game. I really wish they would make an official thread or something so people would stop getting the wrong idea of what these macro mechanics are about.

[ArcherofAiur]

Perhaps building cloaking, which I have seen suggested a few times. This is in the same territory as mr.peasant's Mirage ability. Of course this would have to be in tandem with having DP cost increased (or having them share a global energy pool) to avoid players just spamming them.

I could also support a production-boosting spell that would "overcharge" a building for faster unit production or research. That might be hard to balance though.

So cloaking, even cloaking of buildings, is still a combat orriented ability. The thing is macro abilities will always be stronger then micro abilities (this has to do with their global effect on war machine potential).

Now zerg already have faster unit production as a macro power. And protoss have a unit production skill in warp-in. So I think we can focus in other areas.

Research is an interesting area to develop macro for. Researching takes up a sizable amount of a players time and attention. The trick is to find a macro mechanic for research that does not destroy build orders. It makes sence for protoss to have enhanced research capabilities since there lore is all about them traveling the galaxy to aquire new knowledge (mostly about the xel'naga).

[TheEconomist]

I approve of OP Although, I haven't picked a choice yet. I'm leaning more towards one at the moment but two is good as well.

Very well spoken and thoroughly thought-out!

[Pandonetho]

The problem I see with global cooldown for the DP is that now we are limited to "1" dark pylon. It's just a matter of where you want to use it, but it severely limits the use of it since it's all from 1 energy pool.

What if we made it so that it's global cooldown still, but each DP has its own energy to spend?