EPT
Updated.
(new: 26-1)Behemoth:
The original design for the Thor was a terran mech that could lead the charge in large-scale fights. It kind of turned into a pure anti-air support unit later on, so the role of pivotal strong ground unit is slightly missing for the terran race. (excluding tanks, but tanks are purely support) A behemoth is a mythical creature from the bible that is a supernaturally powerful land entity, so it's a good name. I thought the look could remind one of a missile battery, quite blocky and such.
Mechanics: since it will be a 6 food unit it'll need some anti-air missiles to defend itself. Otherwise it can shoot fire bombs at an area. If you're quick (marine with stim, hellion) you can avoid the bomb, letting you outmicro the unit. That won't be too practical in larger scale fights though, so the unit could work well there. Just like with blaze(see below), it would leave a temporary fire behind to damage units standing inside it. And maybe every firebomb attack could cost some minerals, just like the reaver attack from BW.
I kind of like this design, since it might be an improvement over psi storm as far as micro design goes. (just a thought) Unlike storm, you can stand in the fire, take the damage and such, but it will hurt. However, it might be worth it if you can snipe the unit or the expansion or so. You can also spread out to avoid damage, or control your units to avoid the attack entirely. Controlling the unit, you can lay down fire on an area where you think it's going to deal damage.
I read an article about game design the other day that mentioned "double-blind decision making". Basically, you have a dominant move, there is a counter move to that, you also have a counter to his counter-move, and he has a counter to that attack as well. From that point you can just switch back to the first move. Because micro is so twitchy and it's hard to always play purely reactive (there's a limit to your reflexes) you oftentimes have to depend on your intuition as to what your opponent does and use the correct counter. I think micro design could be improved if it had a few such things with it, so it's not purely execution. It's what makes fighting games fun: having to get some sort of intuition for your opponent's moves. With this unit it could be trying to get a feel for where it's going to aim. (same as storm, really)
Blizzard once had a fungal growth that was a projectile in a PTR patch, and that never happened, but that would have been the same thing: try and predict where it's going to hit and avoid that. Kind of hard and is a special kind of micro decision making that is not something every person can do.
(new: 16-1)Changeling Monsters:
In the classic horror movie The Thing you have normal looking humans that are actually constructs by an alien "thing". When their identity is discovered, they are liable to turn into scary looking monsters with various appendages. (see here)
I thought the changelings in a way resembled this a bit, so that perhaps it would be nice if they had some monster-like qualities as well. I was thinking of the following mechanics: 1. a changeling blob has a timer 2. when it spots an enemy unit before its timer runs out it will transform into a unit of that race and a new timer will start 3. if this timer runs out, it turns into a monster.
I think this way there are no good ways to utilize them in a fight, but you can use them as scouting tools - just as now - and then leave them at your opponent's production facilities or mining bases to give him a bit of a headache. And I think it would be especially cool from a spectator perspective, where you can see Tasteless and Artosis making jokes about an impending transformation as the timer is running out, and such.
Hellion Afterburner:
These two games are my inspiration for it:
Diablo 2 - Blaze.
Star Control 2 - Thraddash Melee.
I think most will remember how Blaze worked in Diablo II. You simply would leave flames in a trail behind you as you ran. It was an excellent weapon against the two act bosses Duriel and Andariel, so I would always buy a wand to give me access to that ability. It was a bit of a gimmicky spell as it was often hard to lure enemies into its flames, but I've always liked the concept anyway. In Diablo II you are fighting the monster AI that does not behave intelligently and can therefore easily be tricked, so it would need different applications for Starcraft 2.
I thought it would fit well on hellions as a form of temporary map control. The way I envisioned it, you'd be able to activate the ability for maybe ten seconds. The fire would be left behind for about that long as well. Because of the strain using the afterburners puts on your weapon systems, you can't fire your main weapon at the same time.
Applications for this would be:
- the ability to have temporary firewalls to defend against an enemy attack
- lets your hellions more safely retreat
- you can use the hellions to draw fire hearts instead of boring old offensive mules ^_^
I guess the obvious drawback to my idea is the hellion's regular attack already lets it excel in scenarios where, say, lines of fire would be nice, but maybe it would still have uses even in drone lines or against zerglings.
Rolling Lightning Cloud:
If anyone plays World of Warcraft, there is a silly quest that has you control a medium-size ball of flame to roll over enemies. (see here) Alternatively it could be a spiked metal or plain rock ball, that's not so important. I happened to have watched the Indiana Jones scene where he runs from the giant rock, and that's such a fun scene, so I thought it could be a Starcraft 2 spell too.
You can't really have a giant metal ball to roll over things in Starcraft 2 multiplayer, even if I'm sure a lot of players will enjoy destroying vast ground armies with a single unit. So I thought it could be a flying lightning ball that effectively does the same thing, but merely deals a more modest damage amount to units unlucky enough to be in its path.
One particular aspect of the design is its ever present forward velocity and slow turning rate. It can turn, but way slower than any normal unit, so you will actually get something that's more like a vehicle in an arcade racing game.
It wouldn't work as a unit so well, as why would you ever build a unit that couldn't stop moving? I don't really want to impose such requirements on anyone: imagine a macro cycle that involved steering your lightning balls to safety every 10 seconds? Rather, I think it could be a spell that summoned such a cloud for 15-20 seconds, up to the point it disintegrates.
I actually feel like it could be a sort of improvement over many of the current area of effect abilities as it would require some skill to properly 'steer' and maybe you couldn't avoid the first hits, but you could try to anticipate the next few attempts to have it steered towards you. (like avoiding a boomerang that has gone past you)
I'm a bit sleepy, so that's it for now, but maybe I'll update this post with a few more tomorrow. Be nice please!
