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I was thinking about the differences in feel between Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2, the two rts games I play. The obvious difference is the bigger units in Warcraft 3, and the heroes. To test this, I made a simple custom game on starcraft two, and used bigger units and some heroes. But the game still didn't feel like wc3. I went back to the drawing board, and here is what I came up with.
First take a look at this typical starcraft minimap.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fxj0M.png)
This is what most game looks like. Both players are on 2base.
Now I have circled possible military objectives.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/XX9zo.png)
As you can see, there are really only two places that each player would ever want to move their army to. The battles are most likely going to happen at either base, or between bases.
You might think I am overlooking a large part of this map. Surely all of those empty bases are important? While they may become important later in the game, right now they are empty. There is never a good reason to attack an empty base.
Here is a picture of a warcraft 3 minimap.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/XDP9d.png)
Circled in blue are the main military objectives. The green dots are smaller military objectives (creeps). Unlike in sc2, in wc3 there is a secondary reason to move your army out of your base. Creeping isnt as big of a deal in wc3 as attacking your opponents base, but it allows armies to be in potentially many more places. The arrangement of the creep locations can allow for much more complicated interactions between armies.
In warcraft 3, the effect of the creep spawn locations is severely dampened by the controversial town portal. But I feel that they still change the feel of the game.
To explore what kind of effect secondary military objectives have on games, I made a simple game that can be played on a chess board. Here are the rules:
1s can move 1 space
2s can move 2 spaces
3s can move 3 spaces etc.
Green spaces upgrade from 1 to 2, 2 to 3, etc.
Each upgrade space can be only used once per peice.
To take a peice, move into it.
The game is lost when all peices are gone
Here is a picture of the starting position of the game
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/csJ8g.png)
If you guys want to try this game, and see how the upgrade spaces affect it, you can play on a chess board, using pawns for level 1, horses for level 2, bishops for level 3, queen for level 4, and king for level 5. You may need to improvise if you run out of pieces.
I also programmed a version of the game on my website for my friends and I to play on. My next blog post is going to about meta game shifts and dominance in this game with a few of my friends as other players, but if you guys want to join in on the fun, the link is www.firecaster.com/joelgame.html
 
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I feel like I missed the main point you're trying to argue. Are you saying that it's better to have secondary objectives all over the map to provide incentives to explore more of the map? If so, why is it better?
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I'm not trying to argue that one thing is better than the other. Im trying to show the difference in feel that secondary objectives make.
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It'd be cool to have like zerg creeps on a TvP mu, or whatever race isn't in the 1v1. And have the unit ranks actually give a little bonus.
Or like in halo wars, you can get extra reactors without building them, you just have to garrison them. Or get more supplies, or even garrison a garrison! Secondary objectives rule.
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Starcraft works well without secondary objectives because its economy driven. But i really wonder what wc3 would be like if they found a way to make the game work without TP. It would probably feel like a much more tense game.
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16981 Posts
It's certainly a fun game (the flash one you programmed), but I'll repeat the points I made when we played (listerine).
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On December 26 2011 10:18 JoelE wrote:
Starcraft works well without secondary objectives because its economy driven. But i really wonder what wc3 would be like if they found a way to make the game work without TP. It would probably feel like a much more tense game.
nobody would go to creep because 1 atack would killl entire main and you cant scout to see someone coming its not like you will leave worker or unit in between bases and invi unit like blademaster would scout wheres your army and you would never move out of your base because of posibility of atack
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On December 26 2011 11:04 taitanik wrote:Show nested quote +On December 26 2011 10:18 JoelE wrote:
Starcraft works well without secondary objectives because its economy driven. But i really wonder what wc3 would be like if they found a way to make the game work without TP. It would probably feel like a much more tense game. nobody would go to creep because 1 atack would killl entire main and you cant scout to see someone coming its not like you will leave worker or unit in between bases and invi unit like blademaster would scout wheres your army and you would never move out of your base because of posibility of atack
Yes, but you could creep the small camps with a few grunts or an AoW.
It seems there are a lot of people who want to play the game, but nobody else is online for them to play vs. I suggest bringing a friend. The server is pretty empty. Also, the game is in javascript (html5), and doesn't work in IE or old versions of firefox.
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I've been playing the game, and it's really fun! :D more people should join though, its not many people on the server.
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Great game, although I got owned every single game
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Just played a couple of games, really fun, and the positional element makes it interesting. I managed to rush one piece to level 5, and then had to use that to hold on as everyone else on my side was underleveled. Cool stuff.
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what about the watchtower...
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The watchtower is something you send one unit to. I haven't seen anyone ever fight over a watchtower that wasn't simply the midway point between two bases.
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fantastic read. I certainly agree that compared to WC3, SC doesn't really reward you as much by "taking risks" and moving your army away from safety to clear a new base etc. There simply is no good reason as it is right now to have your army in the middle of the map idling around (not that there should be). But there are really only 3 options as I see it. Kill rocks, attack, or sit in your base. I don't see how those scenarios could change without major game changes. Hopefully in HOTS, they'll give us a few more options rather than just sitting in your base with an army, macro-ing up. I think they're adding destructable rocks that you can break that will block paths. That might be something interesting.
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I may be missing something important here, but if you added secondary objectives apart from the Xel'Naga watch towers, wouldn't Zerg become significantly more powerful? It would allow for more run-bys and backstabs, and Zerg is very good at map control. They also like to force engagements out in the open, such as between objectives, whereas bases tend to make it much harder for Z to get a surround. And of course, if you're unwilling to fight according to Zerg's terms, they just take map control and the secondary objectives that go with it. Either way, Zerg wins.
Seems that it would mess up the game at this point, but if SC3 was designed with secondary objectives in mind, it could work.
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Canada11349 Posts
So what is this really? This issue that SC2 2base can mass units a lot better than for instance BW? Because there also you don't have creeps to deal with, but there is a higher likelihood of multifront wars because units function well separately as well as a part and you need a lot more bases (compared to SC2) to keep up this by nature pushes the attacks all over the map in harass, defence, and maneuvers.
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Ah, people are misinterpreting what im saying. I don't think there is anything wrong with sc2, and im not trying to suggest changes to blizzard. I'm just trying to isolate why wc3 feels different then sc2. I don't think secondary objectives really have a place in Starcraft. It would probably make the game feel a lot less focused and paranoid.
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In Starcraft 2 armies are much larger and also the possibilities are more diverse. If you want to navigate your army or want your opponents army to move, make him do so. You have enough tools with every race. Drops, runby etc.
Thats the real art of playing the game - put your opponent in a different spot or in a place where he has to make a decision what he wants to defend. If he's clutch and spot on with he decisions, you will potentially not get ahead neither will he suffer damage - yet there was much going on. If you screw up your timings and let yourself put in a situation where you need to decide - its up to him to gain an advantage.
I think maps are fine from that point. Some of them are not easil to play and its not easy to force someone to make a decision (Shakuras, very linear, only 1 attack 'path' (attack from only the left or right)) but other than that, I think its fine.
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On December 27 2011 00:11 mTw|NarutO wrote:
In Starcraft 2 armies are much larger and also the possibilities are more diverse. If you want to navigate your army or want your opponents army to move, make him do so. You have enough tools with every race. Drops, runby etc.
Thats the real art of playing the game - put your opponent in a different spot or in a place where he has to make a decision what he wants to defend. If he's clutch and spot on with he decisions, you will potentially not get ahead neither will he suffer damage - yet there was much going on. If you screw up your timings and let yourself put in a situation where you need to decide - its up to him to gain an advantage.
I think maps are fine from that point. Some of them are not easil to play and its not easy to force someone to make a decision (Shakuras, very linear, only 1 attack 'path' (attack from only the left or right)) but other than that, I think its fine.
I agree that starcraft is fine the way it is. But large scale positioning is a very small part of the game. It is all about timing, like you said. When you attack in starcraft matters a hell of a lot more then where you attack.
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EPT
