EPTNot all of these ideas are mine, but some clever ideas from TL's forumers as well.
Graphics
- Zerg are now less brown and look similar to their sc1 counterparts color-wise, with more player color.
- Terran buildings have less soft edges (Do you know how difficult and time consuming it would be to make those edges so smooth and child-proofed? On a backwater planet with no fancy tech?) and appear similar to sc1 with less tacky bits like two ramps on the factory.
- Terran buildings no longer bounce when producing units when our graphics artists realized that this enrages physics and engineers across the planet.
- Protoss buildings now have player-colored glows and crystals once more.
- Extreme-level options have been added to massively increase the intensity and amount of particles, as well as the resolution of textures for terrain geometry to match the rest of the ingame assets (which at this time are very high detail compared to the blurry terrain). At extreme-level options, more blood, fire, glow, smoke, and related effects are produced. More debris are produced and persist longer. These options are intended to push the engine and your hardware to the limits and are not to be taken seriously in a competitive environment (but I would be using them for multiplayer anyway),
Reasoning;
As a modder who has gone to insane levels to bring extreme level effects to games, I find sc2 as it is very readable and easy to follow. Additionally, unless I am recording the engine does not strain my hardware despite the i7 performance issue Blizzard has made known. I feel that this game can be be brought to the next level in terms of graphics and still be very readable. Of course, these would be options so those poor sots who stick to low-end graphics don't have to be subjected to flashy.
- Air units can now very slightly vary in elevation to prevent ugly "clipping" that can make discerning masses of battlecruisers or carriers difficult compared to a sprite-based engine (no seriously this is my #1 complaint about 3d games in general).
- Archons now actually look like energy beings and not like Void Walkers from World of Warcraft.
- Dark Templar Warp Blades and Warp Scythes now have player-color glowing blades and particles so they don't appear flat and ugly.
- Hellions are now sleeker and more aggressive looking.
- Zealots actually look like they're attacking now and not just flailing around like retards.
- Stalkers actually have a weapon to fire from, and their heads are no longer visible as the Protoss remembered that Dragoons were armored for a good reason and that as a dying race they can no longer afford silly and illogical designs. Also, Stalkers no longer look like Crypt Fiends as Warcraft offends the Protoss considerably and whoever was responsible for the design has been sacked and order restored.
- Immortals no longer jitter around like they're on ADHD.
- Immortal walking animation no longer looks as though they couldn't possibly navigate anything more rough than a perfectly flat road.
- We realized that the Viking as it is would never get off the ground, and the model has been streamlined considerably to appear less bulky. Additionally, the firing animations no longer depict massive recoil from the initial shot of the Gundam mode's twin miniguns, and the baked shadows on the bottom of the barrel sets have been removed as they looked silly during the firing animation.
- Ultralisks now resemble their sc1 counterparts more closely and no longer slump over when they die, instead exploding into impressive and satisfying oceans of blood and gibs.
- Marines now have randomized graffiti on their armor. This is a minor graphical effect that does not detract from the overall color silhouette.
- Ghosts now randomize between Male and Female counterparts in much the same way as Dark Templar, though their overall Silhouette remains easy to identify, just like Dark Templar.
- Battlecruisers now look more aggressive and less out of proportion and ugly. Their cannons look less like civil war vintage weaponry and more like futuristic armaments.
- Tank siege mode siege cannon now actually looks like a cannon and the out-of-place green has been ditched.
- Infestors produce much more blood when they die, or a catastrophic implosion from their pocket dimension collapsing if we choose to keep Infested Terrans as the only way to justify spawning infested terrans is by the Infestor's body being a quantum-compressed pocket dimension filled with an infinite number of infested terrans. Needless to say, when they die the results are game-ending.
Sounds
- Voice acting for Protoss has been totally redone by actual voice actors along with the attack sounds for Phoenixes, Stalkers, Interceptors, Archons, and Zealots.
- Sounds for Zerg have been totally reworked from the ground up by an experienced audio design team from the pits of hell as opposed to a single inexperienced Janitor. You should now actually be able to tell Zerg apart, make out distinct attack sounds, and recover from repeated impacts of your face into your keyboard from the Advisor's mangled English.
- The voice for the Raven has been redone by someone who can actually voice act.
- Stim produces audible moans and responses from dudes again.
Misc
- The game now displays how much supply a unit gives you. How this made it past our internal playtesting we have no idea, but this has been remedied.
- Similarity, the game now displays how much damage your units are getting from upgrades. We apologize for somehow overlooking something so massive and critical. The game now displays Total(Base+Bonus) as opposed to just Total.
- Terran units now have Ranks, with the exception of the Ghost. Instead of ranks, he has a randomized "Agent *" under his name, such as "Agent Butts", "Agent Blonde", and "Agent Lenny". This will add an extreme level of suspense and personality to your Ghosts as they infiltrate enemy lines in their ridiculous racing uniforms.
- Battle.net 2.0 interface and replay interface have been redone from the ground up and make much more intelligent use of space. Key features;
* You no longer need to scroll down to see the whole player list.
* Buttons are no longer measured in multiples of inches.
* Text and icons scale to resolution correctly.
* The identifier system has been appropriately sacked and the standard handle system has returned. If you want to change your name, well too damn bad - make a name you're going to stick with. Maybe enable an account reset option, but make it have a significantly high cooldown to prevent smurfing (something like a year or more).
* Chat rooms, Online Replays and Game listing have been added.
* You can now have up to 16 players in a party to suit the 16 player maximum currently in the game.
* The Friends List merges RealID/Standard friends into one dude now.
* Message windows are no longer needlessly cumbersome.
* We have ditched flash because it's awful.
* Battle.net 2.0 no longer causes your video card to flip out.
* Replays are now saved by Playernames along with races in this format - (Date)-Bob(T)&Scott(P)+John(Z)&Chill(T)
* Maps are now actually stored on your computer and no longer hot-downloaded by battle.net every time you join/make a game.
* The progress par and buttons have been integrated into the console and can be hidden with a small button or a hotkey in a Replay.
* The statistics menus have been greatly reduced in size and make more intelligent use of space and should no longer consume half the goddamn screen in a 1v1, much less a 4v4.
* Icons now have green clock-wise symbols like the Siege Tank's cooldown display to show you the progress of what is being built. Additionally, if you click on an icon the game will jump you to the unit/production's location. If it's a multiple of units, it will jump you to the largest concentration.
Gamplay
Note - I don't pretend to be a master of redesigning Vanilla gameplay, only the gameplay of original creations and mods. However, I feel that the general changes overall are necessary to sc2 evolving near a point of sc1's depth. The new abilities and such are just suggestions to make some units more interesting or have more utility.
- Damage values for many units have been reduced by as much as 50%, such as Roaches and Immortals, and both/or had their attack speed reduced to sc1 counterparts. This will alleviate the issue of five-second 200/200 battles while indirectly reducing the effectiveness of hard counters but keeping unit diversity as strong as it was originally. We realized that the whole "Faster, More Intense!" regime was actually making sc2 battles very uninteresting. This will natively make some units, like the Stalker, a little stronger and more effective as a result. Some units have also seen major health reductions, such as Marauders and Roaches. The Immortal shield may be modified to compensate?
- Most tier2-3 caster spells now require research to obtain.
- Hellions now have a researchable ability - Napalm Mines. These function similar to Spider Mines, but explode into plumes of fire that prevent repairs and regeneration (both health and shield) for a time on their targets. The damage is debatable - I think 25-50 is a good starting point as Terran AoE is already exceptionally high.
- Thors now have 2 armor and can research "deploy", securing themselves into the ground and gaining +2 range against air and an additional +1 armor, but losing the ability to attack ground units.
- Hunter-Seeker missile now does 50 base damage with +25 vs armored and an additional +25 vs Massive.
- Raven auto-turrets now receive damage upgrades from Infantry Weapons.
- Radar towers no longer display their radar circles to your opponents and reveal your position to them.
- Tanks now cost 2 supply.
- Minerals now start off with 2000 resources a patch, with the exception of High Yield minerals which are still 1500. High Yield expansions now have Rich geysers.
- Geyers now give 1/2 gas for normal/rich when depleted.
- The Colossus is no longer an attack-move War of the Worlds clone that defies all sense of logic and reasoning, and is instead a hunched spider-like mech that fires "Scarabs", a cool idea we came up with at random. The Colossus builds "Scarabs" through mana. Scarabs fly through the air and explode on impact with violent force, but there's a catch - they explode on contact with the first enemy they physically touch as they near ground level (which would be at about half distance). (This is just an idea, I absolutely despise the Colossus but if the Reaver concept was to be added back into the game it would need to have some kind of risk-reward associated with it that paralleled the original dub scarab concept, which wouldn't work in this engine as-is.)
- Xel`Naga Watch Towers now simply provide detection in a small region and no longer reveal a quarter of the map. Additionally, maps like Kulas Ravine no longer have 10 of the damn things. Also, they have been renamed Esports Towers.
- The upgrades for Battlecruisers have returned, being: Defensive Matrix, Yamato, and some modification of the anti-air ability. These are all part of one unified research that replaces Yamato. All 3 abilities are dependent on BC mana.
- Void Ray base damage is no longer pathetic and they are no longer useless against anything that can fight back.
- The Mothership has been removed and replaced with the Void Adjudicator, a Dark Templar variant of the Arbiter commanded by mysterious and powerful beings FROM THE DARKNESS because Dark Templar are dark. This unit is no longer unique and possesses the Time Bomb, Recall, Vortex (nerfed in scale), and Shadowform abilities.
Reasoning;
The concept behind the Dark Arbiter is to make it a little different than the regular arbiter but also to keep some of the critical shared abilities in mind. Shadowform is conceptualized as a kind of targeted aura that cloaks dudes, so the Arbiter doesn't cloak them itself but can cloak them in a region. This adds some positional and tactical powress that can enable Protoss players to temporarily fortify a location without putting the Arbiter directly into harms way until you need its debuffs. Although the abilities are highly arguable, I'd give it something similar to this just as a primer.
- Snow Globes (Sentries) no longer out-dps most basic units in the game. We felt this was kind of silly and unnecessary. As a result they aren't insanely expensive anymore.
- The Phoenix has indirectly become stronger from the mass damage nerf on many of the larger units but still suffers from critical mass enemy air. The response is to perhaps have an upgrade that enables its lasers to explode on contact.
- Archons are now beefier and do a bit more damage, and are classified as "Massive" (without physically changing in size). As they should also no longer look retarded, this will make them fairly enticing.
- Storm has indirectly become stronger since the HP nerf to several spammy units and should no longer need a buff.
- The Defiler has returned along with Dark Swarm and Consume. He also has an ability called "Burst of Aggression" that increases the attack speed of allies in a small region at the cost of a significant % health degeneration. Think of it as AoE unholy frenzy without being quite as massive a buff. This effect would scale to the power of units, ie Mustache Lords wouldn't get as big as a buff. The Ultralisk Cavern is turned into the "Slimy Evocative Orifice" and unlocks both units. The Defiler is tier 3.5 and only Dark Swarm is available without research.
- Adrenaline Glands now increases attack speed by 50% insead of 20%.
- Zerglings have slightly larger collision sizes.
- Mustaches spawned from the pits of hell by Mustache Lords now have 10 hp, down from 30.
- The Roach has changed mechanically but I've yet to think of a good alternative. A 145 1.5tier unit for the zerg that does 16+2 goddamn damage is absolutely ridiculous and is a large contributor to the dullness of the race.
- Mutalisks no longer have such a huge acceleration/decceleration time and are more responsive in general.
- Carriers now have the option to build "Bombers" instead of "Interceptors" and can mix and match as they please. Bombers require research from Fleet Beacon and fire slow-moving projectiles that can be avoided by enemy units, but deal more damage than interceptors. Bombers have a longer deployment range than Interceptors but move more slowly. Also, Bombers do not get a free shot when they deploy like Interceptors do. Also, Carriers can be upgraded to have a "Reactive" shield that functions similar to the Immortals but with different mechanics. The Carrier's shields will respond more aggressively to focused fire, increasing their reactivity to about the same as the immortal's the faster they receive damage. This would be in response to the Battlecruiser's upgrades/buffs as they already have an impossible time against bcs but this change would not make a huge difference vs most light anti-air.
- Corruptors are now melee-ranged and have an upgrade to move significant faster. Additionally, their ability to convert air units into temporary immobile snot globs that shoot dudes has returned in the form of an upgrade. Their building disable has been moved to the Infestor, replacing Spawn Infested Terrans, and instead have an ability called Grapple, which pulls an enemy air unit towards them. The larger the target, the more Corruptors it needs grappling it to pull successfully. Channeled, lasts 5 seconds. The enemy unit can still attack and try to move around, it just has "resistance". If the Corruptor is incapable of overpowering the air unit and it keeps moving, the grapple will break at 125% max range.
(This adds some more micro to Corruptors while at the same time giving them an ability to deal with turtled air units. I also love the idea of making them melee, but both grapple and the speed upgrade might be too much.)
- Spawn Larva now costs 50 mana. Transfer Health or whatever it's called now costs 30 mana and is a Heal Over Time that returns about 200 health.
- Overseers can now spawn Symbiotic Creep, a glowing green creep that improves health regeneration of zerg standing on it.
- Nydus Worms now take 10 seconds to create once again, but require creep (either green or normal). Build time can be adjusted accordingly. (Again, just a thought, since a lot of Zerg seemed to think that the build time nerf was considerable in making aggressive worming very difficult, and it was. This adds some synergy and allows the wyrm to still enable quick attacks, but demands user interactivity and gives the opponent an equal chance to stop it by simply paying attention.)
There's a lot more I can add but this would be big enough for one patch.
