General Overview

Well I've been playing this game for awhile now and i have enjoyed watching the game evolve as it gets constantly updated which gets me excited to know what changes have happened. As of the moment it feels like the Thor's are heavily disadvantaged and its getting worse. Granted when you have three Thor's who are friends or just know what they are doing and work together it tends to be very easy, I've even done it with just 2 Thor's with a friend of mine. But in most games this isn't the case, usually i much prefer to play as probes as it is more relaxing and the thrill of being caught. But this is starting to be dull as Thor's just leave the game when they can't get everyone. I do play as Thor from time to time and i can say it is becoming increasingly frustrating to play as one. Probes just seem to be getting smarter and it only takes one smart probe to waste a great deal of your time let alone the entire team, while Thor's have to all work as one to achieve victory.

I'm not sure what giving the sight tower's vision while being built was about but it seems to be slightly over powered, they are becoming overpowered in general as they are being placed around the entire map and giving probes full sight of the map in no time allowing probes to run away before a Thor can even get close which is resulting in constant scans on empty bases and Thor's just don't have the time to go around cleaning up all the mess while the probes continue to build around the map and eventually get gateways.
Don't get me wrong i love how the sight tower gives sight while building as a probe but for Thor's it's a pain when they get freed and just make a tower and blink to high ground instantly even though you were right on them as they get freed. If not remove that function perhaps increase the cost of the sight tower. It is an invaluable tool for probes for early warning of an attack and shouldn't be taken as something they just spam around the map or use for a quick escape. Also I'm not sure if you plan on scaling Thor's more with their ability's for their level but maybe it is something to be looked at, probes really need to be punished for freeing so many times without consequence as it only hinders the Thor's and ultimately causes them to leave the game in frustration because there's a constant stream of zealots/stalkers freeing the probes in the middle.

Maybe something like increase scan radius (If that's even possible) for every level of the Thor or even decrease the cool down per level, I've walked away with 10+ kills on probes and most if not all were on probes i had tracked down and kill in their bases not just ones escaping from the middle. This would at least make it easier for the Thor's to find everyone again other wise its like starting the game all over again with 5, 10 or 15 minutes left to go and the probes most likely have a large stockpile of money left over. It seems the only aim for this game for Thor's is to kill everyone very early which results in an unsatisfying game for the probes but at the same time it is no fun for the Thor's when all their hard work goes away constantly when they get freed over and over again because one of the Thor's couldn't guard effectively and it now becomes impossible to track them down all over again at there current state.

A similar function could be used for the Vision turret the Thor's have by increasing the distance it can be launched at or even once reached a certain level it can be placed anywhere in the map so that after they scan a location they can place a turret there to help cover more area as I'm fairly sure you need to be able to see the area to be able to place a turret. I'm not even sure if any of this is even possible as I'm not at all familiar with the Map editor but i just thought I'd add it in. Other abilities of course would need to scale but it can't be just in damage wise as that does not serve any practical purpose and of course if they were available it would only be accessible much later in the game, maybe even a timer based thing but it feels like Thor's need to be rewarded more for doing a good job finding and killing probes.

I'm not sure if this really matters or whether I'm just dumb for it but in the lobby it can be annoying when you join a room that is about to start and you have to scramble to find a probe that hasn't been taken before the room fills or you get stuck as a Thor, it has also happened a few times to me when i was one of the first to join a room and when i picked a probe someone changed to that probe just before me making me think i was a probe but when the game starts i realize I'm a Thor. Is there anyway to remove the name of the Probe/Thor once it's been selected from the list kind of like how choosing a color works which i think does that i am not sure. Maybe even just create two races instead of all those character names.

Sorry for making this rather long, i just thought as a player that enjoys the game and have observed a decent amount of the game play i could give some input to help out. Also the game is either becoming dull as a probe when Thor's leave or are having a hard time, or frustrating as a Thor when catching everything is becoming more and more difficult. This is what prompted me to give some input mostly. I know this is kind of like Feedback and suggestions in one but i couldn't really explain everything in separate posts. I'll be happy to give more feedback later on but i thought I'd get this out there to help increase activity on the forums so others can share their feedback and thoughts.

I think everyone feels that way mike. To choose one of ur points, the thors, i agree they only have early game to really lock down the match and if they miss that opportunity it can go downhill kind of quickly especially with noob thors. My suggestion would be to grant the terrans better tree clearing abilities as the game progresses. Trees allow recently dead probes to rebuild in safety so easily, if the thors can tear through trees the probes have to rely more on the pylon farm and depots and sight towers and their units and all that good stuff they build anyway. and since building more pylons is a better economical choice than upgrading and it seems map control is the best choice for probes it seems natural to escalate that conflict. I dunno my 2c anw. love the map

Sometimes there's just a graphical glitch for me that Thor's just glide across the ground and when they go through fallen trees they just get pushed along or thrown aside like a bulldozer. When i first saw that i thought it was one of their abilities to just steamroll through trees but after closer inspection i noticed it was just the dead trees. Wouldn't it be cool for Thor's to have an ability like this that allows them to crush trees in their path for certain amount of time. Of course supply depots would stop them still and hopefully this would encourage the use of them as people just tend to build pylon farms and nothing else as they have a mass amount of trees and Vision Towers to protect them, that would at least give them something to fear and would look scary as hell coming towards you.

Thanks for the input guys. As for the imbalance problem, ive made it 4 terran against 8 probes, until I can get items which should help Terrans immensly. Keep enjoying the game!

That will probably help new players out with Thor's knowing that they have more buddies helping them out, i just hope it wont end with a complete steamroll of the probes with experienced Thor's as it can be hard to compete with three Thor's who know what they are doing. Can't wait till the items at least, maybe that will add a little extra dynamics to the game for the Thor's to enjoy themselves more.

@ FriendlyBus
Just to clarify they do get increased tree clearing ability as the game progesses. They can 1 shot trees with 10 minutes to go with +100 atk, or if they killed 5 probes?? not sure about that one.

Also building more pylons give more gas, where as upgrading tends to leave over more minerals :> So it just depends what your going for. Normally i just try to strike a balance between the two.

@Mike:
Steamroller ability would be pretty cool - maybe in conjunction with the increased movement speed ability if you level it to say lvl3. Would be pretty cool, as i can imagine people will underlook movement speed ability as move leveling becomes implemented.



In regards to Original Post - I do find probes much more enjoyable to play as. Like you said its not hard to play terran when you have a group of friends, but it can be challenging and frustrating when playing with randoms. On Wc3, whenever someone joined tree tag if they were on the infernal (thor) team they would just insta-leave for this reason (those that played infernal and still won where tagged/banned as maphackers haha. So it was sort of lose lose as if you were good you where banned, so probes just waited in the lobby for 30 minutes waiting for someone NEW to go thor/infernal. Hopefully Apex can think of a way to make terran more enjoyable so that people will actually choose to play them. At the moment with 4 thors it seems to be much more enjoyable, even though some of our super probes can last many games without dying

wonderwhite wrote:

@ FriendlyBus
Just to clarify they do get increased tree clearing ability as the game progesses. They can 1 shot trees with 10 minutes to go with +100 atk, or if they killed 5 probes?? not sure about that one.

That's true but it's not exactly terrifying thanks for the pylon tip. I guess i spam too many by default cause i like to blanket areas with 'lons.

hey i was just wondering if pylon/income limit is capped at 200? if i build more than the 200 limit will those extra pylons still generate income?

As for the original post, I agree Thors are quite underpowered right now and not much fun to play... its becoming quite common (and annoying) for people to logout when they realise they are a thor right after joining a game. I dont know if its already set up this way but if you could make it so that the first players to join are terran, instead of probes first that would help. Also decrease the time till game starts from 30 to 10 or 5. I believe it was 5 in WC3.

I really like the idea of an ability/upgrade for the thors to help destroy trees easier.