Power stalls should make you predictable instead of dead

In Starcraft 2, you can not-mine Vespene Gas and still build a few units. These mineral-only units don't stand up too well against tech units but there is something you can do which counts if you did enough damage.

I suggest to give options during power stalls:

• T1 tanks and T2 non-amphibious tanks cost no energy
• Mass extractors require no energy to run
• T1 power generators and hydro cost no energy to build

Obviously, energy costs for other units may face some rebalancing work.
Which nobody might do, but I want to make this point now at long last.

So if you destroy someones power grid expect a massive tank push... have your gunships ready or whatever.
Also to recover from power stalls less gruesomely the T1 power generators should cost no energy.

Power stalling will still be bad, but not so stupendously punishing as it is now. I have never seen a mechanic as punishing as the power stall in any game. It would be as if Protoss could only build pylons in a pylon power field. As if zerg don't get larvae if they are at supply cap thus rendering them unable to build overlords without suiciding units first.

This would break the game and make the meta immediately hardstalling early game. Would basically always be inefficient to build any sort of pgen with your initial 4k e unless you're going first bomber. I guess massive scale maps like Ditch wouldn't change aside from the fact you can attach even more engies on pgen spam because the stalling doesnt harm your continuous pgen scale.

Overall you simplify the game for nothing enjoyable to be gained and deviate from the main gimmick of a flux economy.

@ftxcommando You need power for land spam because you need to build factories. If you don't want to smash into a wall of PD you need artillery which needs power.

What PD I'll have tanks constantly out of a fac min 2 with a dual land fac bo.

A short power stall doesn't lose you the game. Stalling endlessly and not fixing it is what is really bad. If anything you need to find a way to make new players aware that fixing their power stall is way more important than microing some random small tank engagement.

@blackyps said in Power stalls should make you predictable instead of dead:

you need to find a way to make new players aware that fixing their power stall is way more important

I am sorry but this is losing the bigger picture. Games are meant to be fun and learning to fix your power is still important to make all the units that are more fun than tanks.

As it is now you are not allowed to have any fun or freedom from punishment before you learn the power thing. All I am asking is to let people have fun with tanks before and while they learn the power thing.

And so the learning curve for the game is lowered by arbitrarily making 3 subsets of the game cost no e in a specific condition which may or may not impact the way you would play the game on certain map variations which new players will need to learn and account for because macro/eco balance optimization will still determine all your games sub 1500?

If you want failure to account for power balance to not autolose and for people to be able to play with fun stuff then ask for ladder or whatever to involve a prebuilt base where you have 2 land facs and an air fac rather than organically building it all yourself. It still harms what makes the game unique in a way but it is way less destructive than functionally changing the cost/benefits for the whole early game.

You assume that people either stick to tanks until they figured out power balance, or that they are able to switch their production to tanks when they power stall. I doubt that is going to happen. We already see people teching up when whey can't afford it and if people reacted to power stalls we wouldn't need this change in the first place.

@blackyps I think they will do both and this is perfectly possible.
So what, 3 land factories, 1 or 2 pgens, and build a T2 mex and T2 airfactory at the same time.

With no power that T2 mex and T2 air factory will draw practically no mass, so it doesn't disrupt the tank production that just continuous undisturbed. They might come to Discord asking why T2 takes so much longer for them than other players, and as they learn to manage power the T2 mex and T2 factory might begin to complete sometimes.

Edit: So importantly, while they fail to tech etc. They do have tanks to play with, quite literally something to have fun with. They have something to do, something that is powerful enough to in certain conditions win battles (provided they have good mass), though they will not win the war unless the opponent plays at a similar level.

I just had a look at the bigger picture and this might come off as a bit blunt, but I realized I don't want to participate in entirely pointless low effort balance threads. You regularly circumvent the requirements of balance posts by instead posting them in the suggestions subforum. We are now arguing about huge changes in the balance that were made with little thought about the consequences and without a proper baseline of what exactly the problem is and why the solution could even theoretically solve the problem.
The balance team won't even consider the thread and rightfully so. So without any foundation that this thread would lead to anything besides wasting my time, I will stop here.

@blackyps said in Power stalls should make you predictable instead of dead:

I don't want to participate in entirely pointless low effort balance threads. You regularly circumvent the requirements of balance posts by instead posting them in the suggestions subforum.

It was not my intention to make low effort posts, the reason I don't post in balance is because the point of these suggestions is not to improve balance but to refocus parts of the game to better accessibility. If stringent though applicable requirements existed I would follow them gladly.

I interpret the balance forum as purely identifying and resolving issues where a unit is too weak or too strong. Am I wrong there?

I have been genuinely concerned about FAF accessibility and needlessly punishing mechanics while my suggestion itself are stupid. I just hope that all together I can inspire some improvements to these things by people who are better at understanding this than I am.

I hope you meant no offense, I didn't, but it is disappointing my posts have been interpreted so negatively.

I discussed it with @BlackYps I basically wanted to make a problem oriented post but felt forced to make a suggestion.

I requested this topic to be locked or deleted and I will post a new one focused on the problem I see without somewhat shortsighted 800 rated solutions.

Obviously, making t1 tank and pgen cost no energy is completly out of the question, it breaks way too hard the current balance of the game.

However i like the idea of having one unit costing very low E but being quite weaker than the normal tank. It could be the lab or the amphibious tank, as those units are already much weaker than T1 and T2 tanks, but that would probably require some more reajusting of the stats of those units, especially for aeon.

Topic locked by Valki's request