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Hey all, just starting here in TL. I am developing an ambitious custom map with highly dynamic gameplay that should cater to competitive ladder players as well custom map players. However, my mind still quibbles over some of the design decisions. Hope you are kind enough to give me your feedback on the following issues:
1- Different victory conditions. Atm I am aiming for three victory conditions for the default mode of the game: i) destroying the enemy main building, ii) accumulating a certain amount of a resource, and iii) holding a control point on the map for a certain time. The idea here is that players would change what victory condition they are pursuing on the fly during a game, making it more dynamic. They also have to "predict" what victory condition the enemy is pursuing. Do you think this would work well / is feasible at all?
I am particularly excited but doubtful about the condition of accumulating a certain amount of a resource. My idea is that some players could decide to use all of the resource to try to gain an advantage, while others could try to save some of it little by little, hopefully making for some interesting decisions players would have to make. Would this work at all? Or would players never save/not use the resource? I am thinking it could maybe work if the amount needed to win was fairly low, but I am not sure.
2- Units going up in rank. I´ll be honest, the design of the game does not call for the feature of units "leveling up" of sorts. It is supposed to be a fast, competitive game -taking perhaps 20-30 minutes to finish at most.
But the feature undeniably adds some level of fun. Plus to make it more dynamic I thought that unit upgrades could be linked to the rank of the unit -ie. a unit is able to use a new ability when he reaches rank 3 for instance. I am just not sure how this would play out. Take into account that I want units/battles to last a bit longer than those in starcraft 2, and that players will control at most 15-20 units.
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The unit leveling sounds a lot to me like someone used to play Warcraft III and misses long, micromanaged battles. I think its a good idea, in fact if I knew how to import skins and other in-depth aspects, I would strive to re-create Warcraft III on the starcraftII Engine.
I think that having the player chose one of the three VCs while the other choses his independently is a great idea, one must now remember to protect his base, and either gain a military advantage to achieve the building kill (costing resources), or protect "the hill", save up the cash and expand (costing resources) and trying to use as few units as possible to fight off the enemy.
It makes for interesting gameplay for sure. If you make it I would give it a go.
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It is hard to give any valuable feedback when we don't know about your game concept - is it like sc2 melee maps in other aspects?
On 1. The problem that I see is if one condition is much easier to achieve than the others, making it the only valid path to go. If one player makes a more expensive army while you save resources, you can only hope to pull him off the victory point(s) if your army is more effective. I think this might work beacuse of the rock, paper, scissors-mechanic in sc2. You might want to tune this more, so that resources are less valuable and thus saveable IF you counter your opponent army well enough.
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If you want to go in depth about UMS maps and discuss about game- / leveldesign elements, I would recommend you sc2mapster. They offer these things on a higher level than TL, wich can provide more discussion about melee maps. Although you will still get decent answers here.
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<3 1/ "variation" of winning victory conditions" but it's going to be long to implement/create (loads of things/galaxy objects to consider)
however, your variations seem "blizz regular" to me... nothing crazy or out of the box...
not exiting to me: one main building? ... macro turtling.. control?... well i do like "control"
You can do better than that (hard to do but that's not the issue)
<3 2/ i would love "leveling units" ..not sure if most sc2players would !?
(difficult to learn for players to id which is which ..., and they are a lazy bunch ;p )
To get it "out of melee issues/discussions" just make it a mere... graph/sound issue (ie: a veteran marine has a changed sound/model to the unit (player's unit menu ingame and model displayed ingame), no stats change ;p
Crossing the two seems a nice victory trigger idea: have a unit "m"with "x" kills do "z"
glhf creating a cool galaxy
edit: fixing typo
@oneil: the 1 building would not be so easy to destroy (a 10000hp building would do it)
but i agree with the feeling though
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Am I the only one who would 1 base rush mutas, mass 15-25 of them and go two shot the enemy's nexus?
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I should have said that this game will be quite different from melee, though still geared towards competitive players, so issues such as the one oneil brings up do not apply (there are different rules). Thanks Meltage for the heads-up.
Basically the concept is:
Each player starts with a main building, from which it can create only 3 unit types. Players do not create buildings or a base, but rather claim neutral buildings spreaded around the map. These neutral buildings are quite diverse and form the core of the game: some let players train 11 types of units, some give resources, some give points, etc.
Many thanks for the great answers
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Woah. Based in what you just said, it sounds like you are trying to retrofit SC2 into Advanced Wars. Awesome.
The only problem I've run into with victory conditions like this are them being exploited by the melee game balance that already exists. But, if you're going to redo the gameplay mechanics like that, you can probably overcome them. It will still take a lot of work on your part to balance it, and I can't really comment on how well it will work until it is further along in development.
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You mean Advance Wars for Nintendo DS? I am reading about it now. The more ideas I can get the better.
I think the victory conditions part is probably a non-issue; I can always have different game modes. Plain units going up in ranks or not is probably more important at this stage of development.
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From one review of Advance Wars:
"Although every unit comes standard with 10 stamina points, each has its own specific limitations on armor, movement, attack range, and sight. For example, infantry and mechanized troops can move only short distances and must attack adjacent enemies, but they are also the only units that can capture cities or bases; APCs have thick armor and can transport troop units a great distance, but they have no attack capabilities of their own; and bombers have excellent range and insanely killer firepower, but they have very little armor and are especially vulnerable to antiaircraft guns and missiles.
Mixed in with the unit strategy, terrain type and morale level also affect your units' movement, sight, and attack capabilities. Mountains, forests, and reefs offer a defensive boost and an increased sight range, but it takes longer to traverse them, while highways offer a speed advantage to land vehicles, but only at a cost of higher vulnerability and narrowed sight. If you're playing with fog of war enabled, you can also hide units within forests and reefs for an added element of surprise. Morale is a factor to consider, as it gives attacking units a slight strength advantage over those on the receiving end. This alone can turn the tide of many battles, because it can help you gang up on enemy tanks with cost-efficient antiaircraft guns and jeeps.
Overall, Advance Wars is a highly balanced game that is easy to learn but full of strategy. Whether you excel with land, sea, or air units, you can usually find a way to exploit your own inherent strengths in battle. To make the game more interesting, however, the commanding officer you choose will also bring his own distinct strengths, weaknesses, and CO power into the equation. Andy, the first CO you'll play with, is average in all respects, but his CO power, hyper repair, is a formidable ability that can repair all allied units by two stamina points. Eagle, another CO, is known for his superior air units, but he earns most of his reputation from his CO power, lightning strike, a skill that lets all of his units attack twice in the same turn. Thankfully, CO powers are difficult to abuse, as they often take between three and eight turns to recharge, depending on how many cities you capture or how many enemy units you destroy in the meantime."
It´s kinda crazy/scary how most of those ideas are in my game -in the design document, that is- in one way or another, adapted to RTS of course -Advance Was is turn-based. Thanks 41d3n!!
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I was actually talking about how most AW maps have neutral cities (income), factories (land units), air ports (air units), and sea ports (sea units) that you can capture and use - which is a large part of the game. I take it you haven't played an AW games (based on you having to read up on it). I recommend you do - especially the original and AW2 (both for the Gameboy Advance).
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I would NOT look at AW unless you are afraid of being inadvertently redundant. Originality is a false grail if you ask me, though. Most game mechanics are abstractly interchangeable anyway, and they are always camouflaged by the packaging.
I think the low number of units lends itself well to bonuses for leveling up. Individual units already stand out in a low units environment, but it adds more depth, a sort of investment trade-off, if you are not just micro'ing as usual but making sure to preserve a certain guy to level it up for later use. You will have to be very precise about what sort of bonus you get to make sure there are diverse and balanced strategies.
Multiple victory conditions will be perceived as unnecessary complexity unless there is good tension between them. Imagine if SC2 had a few different victory conditions analogous to what you described. Most games of SC2 wouldn't look that different, because the way to win at starcraft is to put yourself in a position of unstoppable advantage. The built-in victory condition of building elimination is more of a formality. You could add other ones that would be similarly extraneous to the "gg moment". What I'm trying to say is that you need to create attainable goals in distinct but interactive wings of the mechanics. Another way to put it is that it's never entirely clear who has the upper hand. Otherwise one player is already ahead and the way they win doesn't matter.
It's an interesting situation for a strategy game, because the point of them is to provide different routes to victory, different strategies. It's sort of equivalent to multiple distinct victory conditions anyway. You could, for example, provide ways to convert the different goals into things that win the game, like more / better units. But it's more exciting probably to have them be literal victory conditions. From the description so far, I think it's a good choice.
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41d3n: I know you were referring to the diverse neutral buildings hehe. I was planning on having all neutral units trainable at one building type though; it´s interesting to think about the alternative way similar to how AW does it.
EatThePath: thanks for the detailed feedback. Another way to look at the victory conditions issue is that, if it´s never entirely clear who has the upper hand, a player would just pursue his victory condition without trying to stop the enemy from achieving his. It´s hard to get a proper view of how it would play out though. It is apparent, though, that it is a very subtle / hard to balance issue which is probably why most games stick to one victory condition.
I am quite impressed at the responses in the thread. Should I explain the game in more detail? Perhaps in a new thread sort of presenting it?
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On March 15 2011 22:37 adso wrote:
yes you should showcase (when ready with lots of stats/eye candy and such)
yes you should create a separate thread
Second. I'd especially like to know, in greater detail, what the mechanics would entail. Whether you are focusing more on the worth of individual units or are simply trying to change how armies are built and games won.
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I am just starting with the editor and predict that it will still take me 3-4 months to have something playable, so I´d rather wait a bit more to present it in a new thread -so I don´t put more pressure on myself to get it done; I have a normal job and can´t put as much time in as I would like.
But make no mistake, I will get it done. I want this game to be extremely dynamic. Players have to be able to win ala Starcraft -groups of units with upgrades overwhelming a less numerous army-, ala Warcraft -taking special care of individual units within a group-, and something in between -a small group of high ranked units.
Now, that sounds like wishful thinking...ultimately most players would end up trying to babysit units to the limit, trying to save them at all costs, which would turn the game into a micro-fest. I want games to be decided via higher-level decisions as well, so I have placed some rules to keep micro-fests in check:
- units will move slower as they get closer to dying.
- units that are standing still will take a slight time to get to full move speed (acceleration). This affects ranged units´ hit and run the most.
- limited / slow methods to heal units.
This way, aggressive players will still be able to compete with the overprotective ones. It lets me give significant bonuses to units as they go up in rank. Also note that units will get most of the experience points by being alive -only a few points for killing enemies. Hiding units -sort of an investment- will be a possible strategy, waiting for them to go up in rank before using them to fight. Weaker units will take less experience to go up in ranks, so aiming for a group of low-tier, high-rank units will be a viable strategy.
Moreover, terrain will play a part. Air units will be scarce, so most units´ move speed will be affected depending on where they are standing. A "jungle" type of terrain will block LOS, meaning that melee units can hide and jump on enemies.
Stats of units will change dynamically through buffs and permanent bonuses. Couple this with the different ranks, and it won´t be as simple as "5 marines beat 2 zealots".
Moreover, there will be a unit-type limit, which means that only X amount of units of a certain type can be on the map at the same type; if player A has X-1 of them, and player B has 0, then only 1 more unit of that type can be created between them until other units of that type die. This is most controversial, but I am looking forward to seeing how it affects games.
All this stuff about units is not the core of the game, however. I want to put special emphasis on the early game. Players will get out and fight for buildings from the get-go, and many options have to be viable. The concept of optimal build order will not exist, or at the very least it will require a lot of effort to "come up" with it.
Players will start with an Engineer -a type of unit that can go up in ranks- which can instantly capture a neutral building -the engineer disappear from the map upon doing so-, a few fighting units, and a "leader" unit. Leader units cannot be trained, revive upon dying, and cannot go up in rank. They are more support-oriented, although their main function is that they can convert neutral buildings after channeling near them for 15-20 seconds. They also have a "Fast Convert Building" ability, which can be used only 2 times, which converts a neutral building after just a couple seconds channeling. This kick-starts the early game and represent a hard decision for players: should I use the ability asap on an unclaimed neutral building, or save it to convert a neutral building claimed by an enemy? Not only this, but neutral buildings can be upgraded to offer greater bonuses; however, these upgrades stay if the enemy converts the building.
Also, players can build an "add-on" upon succesfully claiming a neutral building, so that the enemy must first destroy the add-on before capturing or converting the neutral building. This is to give players more hard decisions to make, and to keep in check the usual problem of constant hit and run.
Hopefully, this post offers greater insight of the game I have in mind. It´s intricate, and it will be a nightmare to balance, but I am positive it can compete with the best custom maps in the future.
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ill play your map give me a download
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I would use iterations for such a huge project. Make the core first, test it out and when it works you can build on it. You have many experimental concepts for reaching your design goals and throwing them in all at once will just be messy to handle, from a design and balance perspective.
The idea with limit to unit types is interresting - locically it's like the units are not trained but rather hired and there is only that many available to hire. Gameplay-wise I can see how it leads to a greater variation in army, than it would otherwise (asuming you won't have 3 distinct playable races as sc2 does). It would force players to customize their army further than the unit composition. A downside might be that players will be able to predict what army the opponent has. I woudl limit thsi in some way, such as having most unit types hireable from a neutral building that players has to fight over.
I don't see why you'll want experience reward over time for just being alive - why make hiding units a valid strategy? It's the oposite of what wc3 achieves with heroes gaining XP on kills. Victory point control may have the same effect, though and make hiding units invalid, since you'll need all units on the field.
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Thanks for reading the wall of text and giving feedback, Meltage.
Actually, I think you are completely right, there´s so much I can do at a theoretical design level with such a project with so many experimental concepts. Once that point is reached I should organize tests regularly and make tweaks to the the concepts as necessary.
On the unit-type limit, it will be exactly as you mention: the factions here will have 3 unique unit-types they can train, and then there´s a neutral building that can train another 11 unit-types for all players/factions. For the unique units there´s also a unit-type limit, else players would just mass their unique units.
With the experience for units I am not trying to simulate WC3 though. I am using it more as a way to dynamically upgrade units -I dislike how every unit of a certain type is always the same in Starcraft and most RTS-, and less as a hero system of sorts. Units have to be able to gain xp by being alive, it will streamline the system and help later in balancing. In WC3, a losing player can overcome a bad loss in a fight by quickly gaining xp killing creeps, but in this game a player who wins a battle could run away with the game all too easily if units could only gather xp via killing. We´ll see anyhow.
Gaining xp by being alive might be odd, I´ll give you that. Note that, as you say, a unit that is BOTH fighting and being alive is helping a lot more, so I don´t predict "hiding" units will be the name of the game. I think it is an strategical decision though, making sure a unit does not die so after a while you have access to a special ability. I think this offers another option to players and makes it more dynamic -as in, making comebacks possible, surprising opponents, appearing weaker than you really are, etc. I just love the mind games! I´d just like to see where this all leads!
Another high-level decision for which I could use feedback
Given that, as I have repeated in this thread, the game should cater also to ladder players, and given that I can´t compete with 1v1 SC2 melee, I was wondering if I should focus on delivering the best experience possible for the 2v2 format. This is, approaching the design of the map and its size, number of neutral buildings, etc, with 2v2 games in mind. I can imagine melee players taking a break to play this game 2v2 with a friend, but maybe not so much 1v1. What do you guys think? Is melee 2v2 played a lot? is there a niche I can fill by focusing on 2v2?
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i think both 1v1 and 2v2 are valid targets...
Layout is the only drawback/difficulty if you want 1 map to cater to both at once.
I'd say the mod could be good for 1v1 "ladder relaxation"
and
if it gets players...
it will be even better for 2v2...
(getting 3 players for a 4 game is more difficult than finding 1 player)
Waiting in a lobby is awful (bratchannel is compulsory)
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I think you shoudl aim for balanced 1v1 matches played on 4 player maps. That way, you leave 2v2 open as a possibility.
I like the concept with 3 basic units and the rest neutral. I also suggest something like Dawn of War's headquarter building with static defense from startup. That prevents rushing with your first basic units and encourages players to take neutral buildings before you attempt to end the game.
About the hidden units/passive XP gain. You could limit that feature to the basic units and let them up like 4 levels and have a deeper ability tree (most skills could be passives) than the other levelable units. You'd need some trade-off too .. or it will be totally given that both players must get all basic units as early as possible and then sit ducks with them as they level up. I think that fixed if at least two of the basic unit types are 'engineers' with that capture-neutral-structure ability. If that ability is limited to them, you'd recreate them if they die and you will have them out with your army(ies) and not in the back of your base, which I think would be standard otherwise. The third basic unit type could have that function though - a defensive support/ranged unit?
brainstorming is fun ^^
Edit: By engineer-units I mean what you mean by the support-units. I didnt realize on the first read of the wall of text that engineers woudl be spent as they capture. That's cool, but I bet they have anothe function also, why else level those up?
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I like the brainstorming too
You mentioned the possibility of rushing with your first units, and also that players would keep a few units in the back of their base from the start. But these can´t happen at the same time. I think realistically none of the 2 options would be the most used, but rather the early units would be used to scout and fight for the neutral buildings / protect the leader unit. I´d want the possiblities to be many, and yes, turtling should be one also -with tradeoffs/risks of course.
At the moment, Engineers are trained at the neutral building. At rank 2 they can build turrets, and at rank 3 they can build a Starport, which produces victory points -"resource" that also counts for a victory condition- periodically, and can also act as a rally point for newly created units. So players have to decide whether to use the Engineers to capture a building or to level them up. I have designed quite a few units like this: a little less powerful at some ranks, but worth it if you make it to a higher rank. For instance the ability to sacrifice themselves at X rank, but at X+1 they get a better-than-average ability to make up for not using the ability at rank X.
There might be an issue if a player is pushed and cannot train Engineers from the neutral building, because he needs to capture buildings to have the chance of coming back into the game. I am thinking that there could be a technology to allow the training of Engineers at the headquarters of the player. Also, there could be a one-time ability at the headquarter to summon a couple Engineers, probably with some prerequisite to unlock it -ie. level 2 Headquarters.
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No, I said that I think rushing early game is something you should avoid by design, beacuse players only have the basic three unit types to use, and a limited amount of each. Most games played on the map will come down to whoever gets out the most amount of early attacking units first, or how well they micro them. The short story - making rushing viable is a worse player experience compared to a rts where it is not viable.
To prevent early rushing I suggested that you'll have some static defense on the 'main building' that has to be protected (asuming killing the main building of the enemy is a victroy condition). That way it becomes hard or even impossible to destroy early game. It might be an idea to have victory points protected by creep (hostile mobs) for the same reason (asuming one can instawin or win early by capturing all victory points on the map).
I would avoid having three distinct races in the first iteration of the game. Playttest and balance race A vs race A before you start on race B. I believe that makes the development and balancing much smoother.
And no, I don't think keeping a few units back in the base will be fun. I think a good design rule for this project is that those units that gain XP over time should be useful all the time out on the map. For isntance, as a support to the army, or be out capturing points. Perhaps even risking them for some ecffective harrassment?
If you don't have too much against micro as a valid skill in this game hit-and-run tactics should be something to encoruage with those auto-leveling units. For example - the support "leader" unit can fly (or cloak), can't attack, and the ability to temporary freeze units / disable buildings for a short period of time (like that overseer ability - neural parasite?).
See where I'm heading? That's a supprot unit for battles but also valid for harrassment (hit-and-run on workers, or similar).
I like the trade-off idea that engineers can either be saved for later as investment, or be traded for an early advantage. Sending one into battle is a gamble for the same thing (will my unit die in battle or survive to reach another level?), which I believe is even more fun.
Edit: btw,I think it will be cool if engineers can only be trained (hired?) at captured neutral buldings. IF players can train 'leaders' from theeir main building/s, right? Or there will be no unit that can capture the engineer-building if you loose all the engineers and leaders you start with.
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Thanks Meltage. Just to clarify a few points so the discussion can keep progressing -I have like 20 pages written of the design but I don´t think I should disclose all details at this time:
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- The "races" here are called Leaders. For the first released version of the game, I am aiming for 7 Leaders: 3 Terran, 2 Zerg, and 2 Protoss. For alpha testing I´ll only have 1 Leader ready.
Each Leader has:
a) a unique "leader unit". This can convert neutral buildings after channeling an ability for some 15 seconds, and revives automatically if killed after some 30 seconds. It cannot go up in ranks, and gives a small combat bonus to allies around it.
b) a unique Headquarters building, with access to 3 Unique Warriors -we´ve been calling them units but they are actually warriors-, and 1 unique technology.
c) 2 unique bonuses
- The player Headquarters has 3 levels, each giving access to 1 type of the Unique Warriors.
- There are 3 different simple tech trees for each race at the Headquarters. For instance, all Terran Leaders can opt between an "offensive" tree, a "turtling" tree, and a "utility" tree. Once the first tech of a tree has been chosen, then one more tech is unlocked at each level 2 and 3 of the Headquarters, but the other tech trees disappear. This makes it so the same Leader can be played with 3 slightly different playstyles.
- The warriors trainable at the Academy of War -neutral building- are called Neutral Warriors. Both Unique and Neutral warriors are the only types of units that can go up in ranks:
a) they start out at rank 1 with no abilities.
b) at rank 2 they have access to the first ability.
c) at rank 3 they have access to a second ability.
d) at rank 4 a few of them have acess to a third ability, but most just get a bonus to some stat.
e) at rank 5 they are able to convert buildings similar to Leader units, and also give a small combat bonus to allied units around it.
- The Academy of War can be upgraded 2 times, giving access to better Neutral Warriors. There are 4 types of tier 1 Neutral Warriors, 4 types of tier 2 Neutral Warriors, and 3 types of tier 3. There will be between 4 and 6 Academies of War spreaded on the map.
- At another neutral building called the Neutral Headquarters, players can hire Mercenaries, which cost some minerals up front, and then a few victory points per second they are fighting for you. They can be dismissed at any time.
- Headquarters and player-built buildings cannot be claimed by an enemy, only destroyed.
- Neutral buildings cannot be destroyed, only claimed -converted by leaders or captured by engineers.
-There will be a neutral building -the Training Camp- in which players can introduce warriors so they get experience faster -sort of an investment. These units can be called back to action at anytime.
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So Meltage basically I agree with you with regards to rushing and xp while being alive, although I am a bit more moderate. I think rushing should be possible but hard, this is, easier to defend from than to perform succesfully. It should be able to win if the defender does not take any measures against it.
About xp, it is clear that, given how controlling/stopping the enemy from controlling neutral buildings will be so important -not just for the explicit victory condition of control points-, "hiding" Warriors so they go up in rank will not be useful game in game out.If you really want them to level faster you´ll aim for controlling the Training Camp, but then the opponents knows what´s up. However, I think that having this off-chance option of keeping 1-2 units on the map that the enemy is unaware should be possible, and I can´t see it breaking the game. Besides, we could always tweak the amont of xp that is being given for free and that which is given for killing.
Say you save one of the starting Warriors you start with -even the Engineer!- to make sure it does not die. You might be aiming to have it reach rank 5 asap to have another unit that can convert neutral buildings, but until then it has not been of much help -curiously enough, the Engineer would be a good Warrior to try this with, although it would die fairly quickly even at rank 5 if caught out of position. I personally think this a fun option. Now, if something like this happened every game and was the optimal way to play, we would have a problem, but I don´t think we can tell at this point. It´s things like this -there will be a lot of "investment" type of decisions in the game- that I want to test and hopefully make some innovation that works.
Edit: note that "saving" -not talking about hiding or not, but about taking care of the unit so it does not die- for a rank 5 tier 1 Warrior such as the Engineer would have less impact on the player/be more feasible than doing the same with an expensive tier 3 Warrior: the tier 1 Warrior would level up faster than the tier 3 one -conscious design decision-, bringing great utility to the player if it gets to rank 5 while not being that much better on the battlefield than a low rank counterpart, whereas a rank 5 tier 3 Warrior would be a behemoth wherever it goes! This is the kind of dynamics I am looking for!
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A great read, thanks! However, I feel we are leaving the field of high level design decisions, so it's your call if you want to go on discussing details.
By unique leaders, I supose you mean unique per race? You don't mention how they are unique. I'm asuming different stats and abilities. Great call to keep races down to 1 for alpha.
3 unique warriors, also unique per race? I don't know what you mean by warrior in opose to unit. A unit for me is one zealot, one marine, one brood lord, etc. Perhaps you use the term as it is used in military, rather. One unit is a 'grup' of soldiers/warriors?
Great idea with tech trees and hard choices. Will choices in the tech tree lead to different leader abilities and those general bonouses you've mentioned? I picture one of those as "extra mineral income per minute" and bonouses that applies to all leaders or units, etc.
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You have thought this over and know what you are pursuing and I'm just nodding along as I read. The investment options and the mechanic that low tier units level up faster are interresting takes, although I have no idea at this point how it wil work out  I like to hunt for possible exploits and unwanted dynamics by predicting from the design, before there is an alpha build but my picture of the game now is more complex and it's harder to do so.
Except for one race only, what limititations do you have in mind for a first testable build? Also, do you have clear design guidelines/goals written down? I'm asking for keeping discussion on a high level and I mean guidelines such as "high dynamic army building - both wc3 style and sc style" and "higher level desicions have great impact, micro not as much as sc2".
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Unique leaders and warriors are unique to a Leader. Terminology could be changed for the better perhaps, but basically race = Terran, and Leaders = Arcturus Mengsk, Raynor, etc. Leader units might have slightly different stats, but their main difference comes from each having a different ability -apart from Convert Building.
By unit I mean a single leader unit, warrior, mercenary, etc. The general term. I call them Warriors to differentiate them from other units. Warriors are the only units that can be trained.
Let me copy-paste the tech tree for the 3 Terran Leaders so you get a better picture:
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Offensive tree
- Sniper shot ability added to leader units. (lvl 1 HQs)
- +2 armor and +6 damage vs buildings for Mules/SCVs/MCVs -depending on Leader- and Engineers, and they build structures 25% faster. (lvl 2 HQs)
- +15% damage to explosions. (lvl 3 HQs)
Turtling tree
- Can use minerals to slowly repair buildings. (SCV´s, MCV´s, and Mules cannot repair buildings).
- +10% HP for all buildings and units.
- Buildings cost half victory points.
Utility tree
- Allows SCVs, MCVs, and Mules to build Barracks. Barracks can train neutral Warriors with bonus starting xp if the player controls an Academy of War.
- Produces an SCV/MCV/Mule -depending on the Leader-, a Marine, and a Berserker/Ghost/Vulture instantly at the desired point on the map.
- +2 unit-type limit to Marines, and a rank 2 Marine can be summoned instantly at each Supply Depot for increased cost -does not require control of an Academy of War.
Note: Marines are a tier 1 Neutral Warrior.
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For the first testable build I am looking to have the terrain and all neutral buildings ready, even if I only include the tier 1 Neutral Warriors at first. I also plan to have the tech tree for the included Leader -such as the tech tree above for Terran Leaders.
Design guidelines are, more or less in order of importance:
1) Extremely dynamic: units stats change constantly, aiming for different victory conditions on the fly, fast-paced, investments, comebacks possible, individual unit upgrades through ranking system, etc.
2) Replayable: core of the game -neutral buildings, strategies with Neutral Warriors / Mercenaries- deep and with many options available, to which Leaders can be plugged in easily during the lifetime of the game.
3) Especial focus on the early-game gameplay options so as to discourage using set "build orders" of sorts. "Fast start". This point is tied to 2). Players should feel like playing another round of the game just to try a new start.
4) Players really caring about (some of) their units, creating a sentimental link that will heigthen the player experience.
5) High-level decisions should be as important as micromanagement.
6) Engrossing 2vs2 experience, possibly the desired format for the game.
7) Balance, only when all of the above has been achieved.
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EPT
