EPTOneGoal: A better SC2 [Project Hub] - Page 47
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Archerofaiur
United States4101 Posts
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Masemium
Netherlands33 Posts
As an unprofessional game-designer I always ponder about game mechanics. This mostly applies to fighting games and strategy games. Why did the designers decide this or that ? What thought process went into putting this and that into the game? As a fan of the original Starcraft and the Zerg race, I am somewhat still unhappy to this day that the Zerg in SC2 is "less fun" and "not as cool" as they were in BW. If I had to point 1 thing that I really dislike in SC2 it's ... spawn larva. Okay, there's a fine line to walk between "the game plays itself" and "having to micro as a pro" but this mechanic takes the cake for me. There is absolutely no decision making involved, you either cast the ability on time, or you don't. That's it. Literally over the past few years I've been pondering how to make Spawn Larva a better mechanic. To make it more fun. To add more choice. My ultimate conclusion was that the spell should cost 50 energy and spawn 3 larva immediately. This makes it so that missing an inject isn't as bad, as you can save up energy and "spam" the spell, just like you would with MULEs and Chronoboost. But still I was never pleased. This past weekend something hit me. I tried a different approach. Spawn Larva is NOT equal to MULEs and Chronoboost. Spawn Larva is not the same as an economical boost. As a Zerg player, you always want to have a million amount of Larva. There is never a choice of, should I inject now, or should I save it for later ? No. You want a million larva. And you want them now. Having more Larva is equal to having more Orbital Commands. Equal to having more Nexi. So what did you do in BW ? You'd build more Hatcheries. Macro Hatcheries all over the place. So what's an easy evolution from BW to SC2 ? Make macro Hatcheries more easy to make. One of my favorite ideas is that Queens themselves can deploy and undeploy. When deployed, they turn into a little 2x2 structure and start making up to 3 Larva just like a Hatchery does. This way, you have 2 mobile combat-able macro hatcheries, for the price of 1 macro hatchery in BW. Or another idea I came up with this past weekend, very similar to this mod's assault colony, the Hatchery itself can construct (for a cost at around 100 minerals) a Hatchery extension (think 2x2 pillar-esque) that will also produce larva. Or if that's somehow unbalanced, it wouldn't even hurt to have a drone spawn into one. Or these "pillars" function as upgrades for the Hatchery, increasing the maximum amount of Larva it can spawn. So yeah, there's plenty of ideas to increase Larva production. But I've now conluded, this is not equal to an economic boost. This means Zerg can have another mechanic to enhance their economy. I've not yet figured out what would be the perfect way, but I did come up with an interesting spell, if I do say so myself. There are plenty of ways to nerf this spell, to make it stronger, weaker, to make it useless or great, so don't explode into "broken!" just yet. Premature Hatch. Most likely the Queen would cast this small area of effect spell on a small cluster of eggs you are morphing. What it does? It forcefully breaks open the eggs and spawns the units inside. I suppose the least function you'd apply to this is % morphing time complete = % starting health. so, if you immediately cast this spell the moment you morph units from larva, units will spawn with 1 HP. If you wait till the unit's morphing time is halfway finished, the unit spawns with half its health. There's a lot more choice with this spell than Spawn Larva. Unless you expect massive mineral harassment, you can cast this spell on your drones. Your drones will spawn with less starting HP, but they will remain safe in your base in the mineral line anyway. Cast it on a morphing Overlord if you plan to keep it in your base. You are being harassed by a couple Phoenix that pick up your queen and drones. Click Hydralisks 3 times, cast Premature Hatch, and you got 3 1 HP Hydra's to fight the Phoenix. But will they be save from the oncoming Stalker attack ? Cast Premature Hatch on an Ultralisk that is 50% ready, and it will spawn with 50% HP. Since it's so tough, this might not be so bad if you need it in a pinch. Basically, Terran spam MULEs, Protoss Chronoboost their probes. And Zerg ? They Premature Hatch their drones so that they spawn faster but with less health. An easy way to nerf this spell is to have units spawn with Premature Birth Sickness. This could basically be anything for X amount of time. Less speed, less sight, less damage, longer cooldown, anything to make the unit not yet in prime condition. I sincerely hope I've given some food for thought for the makers of this mod and I'm looking forward to trying out Assault Colony  | ||
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Spaceboy
United Kingdom220 Posts
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Archerofaiur
United States4101 Posts
Want to help the OneGoal team design good economic macro mechanics? Then help us out! Tell us the basics of your idea and then support its validity in each of these categories. Skill-based Economic Advantage Does this mechanic allow players to express skill to gain economic advantage (Minerals or Gas)? How does it do this? Good Example: Mule Spatial Decision-making Do players have to make decisions about where they use this mechanic? How so? Good Examples: Chronoboost, Scanner Sweep Temporal Decision-making Do players have to make decisions about when they use this mechanic? How so? Good Example: Scanner Sweep Energy Tension Does the player have to make choices between spending energy on two different mechanics/abilities? Are there sufficient restrictions on the amount of available energy to allow choice? Good Example: Mule vs Scanner Sweep Back to Base Does this mechanic encourage players to screen shift back to their base? How? Good Example: Mule | ||
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MNdakota
United States512 Posts
Can't wait to get home! | ||
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ItWhoSpeaks
United States362 Posts
You guys have given me plenty of food for thought. | ||
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vrumFondel
Russian Federation42 Posts
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vrumFondel
Russian Federation42 Posts
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topsecret221
United States108 Posts
On March 29 2013 19:23 vrumFondel wrote: Does design patch 3 is live or this is only planned changes? Patch 3 is currently available as a test build in the Custom Game sections. BEWARE: bringing this mod's concepts and numbers over from our WoL iteration introduced a LOT of bugs. Not everything is working as intended or implemented yet. The version on the Arcade, however, is still v2. | ||
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Spaceboy
United Kingdom220 Posts
-If you have hatcheries/assault colonies in the same control group and you select larva you will get the assault larva only.. and can't select the regular larva, even if you tab around in the control group, until the assault larva is all spent. Ideal behaviour would be that both types of larva would be selected and assault larva given preference for unit building (which I think was mentioned as the intended implementation).. I'd also really like to see the two types of larva visually differentiated on the wireframe (maybe assault larva being red?) when this happens so you can make a choice whether to spend your regular larva on units or not when you probably want to save it for ovis/drones. -Assault colonies can't be built on creep.. but can off creep (could be intentional) -Queens have 10 energy autocasting transfuse, like the campaign (could be intentional) -Venalisks don't have a burrow command -Microbial Haze.. to cast the viper needs to be right in the middle of the target cast spot, i.e. no range (could well be intentional as it's got quite a big radius) -Microbial Haze.. not really a bug but I think the art is a little indistinct as to where the cloud extends to -Nydus/drops seem identical to HotS? I was under the impression they were going to be either cheaper or quicker to tech to... oh hey, actually nydus deploys units a lot quicker, so I guess that was the improvement alluded to? -When you morph mutas to broodlords the muta model persists within the cocoon/broodlord... looks really funny like mutas are riding the broodlords :D | ||
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Archerofaiur
United States4101 Posts
On March 30 2013 05:14 Spaceboy wrote: -Assault colonies can't be built on creep.. but can off creep (could be intentional) So this was an unintended bug. The ironic thing is many of us liked the kind of gameplay this produced. By having to build assault colonies off creep and then having to place creep over them inorder to generate larva it forced assault colonies to well assault out onto the map. You couldn't just place all your assault colonies safely in your base (unless you had an overlord dropping creep and then stop dropping to place new assualt colonies). I used the term "aggressive macro mechanic" to describe how surprising and enjoyable it was to find a production mechanic that discouraged turtling. Some of the things we didn't like about this bug was how unintuitive it was and how little precedent (other than the extractor) their is for a building to require not being built on creep. One of the things we might consider is making assualt colony an ability that the queen casts on active creep tumors to capture the gameplay of this bug but in a much more elegant design. | ||
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ledarsi
United States475 Posts
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Spaceboy
United Kingdom220 Posts
On March 30 2013 07:06 Archerofaiur wrote: So this was an unintended bug. The ironic thing is many of us liked the kind of gameplay this produced. By having to build assault colonies off creep and then having to place creep over them inorder to generate larva it forced assault colonies to well assault out onto the map. You couldn't just place all your assault colonies safely in your base (unless you had an overlord dropping creep and then stop dropping to place new assualt colonies). I used the term "aggressive macro mechanic" to describe how surprising and enjoyable it was to find a production mechanic that discouraged turtling. Some of the things we didn't like about this bug was how unintuitive it was and how little precedent (other than the extractor) their is for a building to require not being built on creep. We are now tinkering with making assualt colony an ability that the queen casts on active creep tumors to capture the gameplay of this bug but in a much more elegant design. That's super interesting! Thanks for the insight :D I have to say that while I can see what you mean about the mechanic forcing zerg out on the map, which I guess is good.. it's got to be an example of unclear optimisation for the player. I mean everything else in the game says "spread creep!".. but then you do and you may well fuck yourself over by having to put your production in an unsafe place. I also think the addition of assault larva is already going to be more than enough to force zerg to be aggressive or fall behind economically.. to the extent (and obviously I'm just theory-crafting here) that it might even be untenable until the economy gets reworked and encourages extra bases. Attaching the colonies to creep tumors strikes me as a little weird straight off the bat.. but I guess you guys'll have a good reason if it goes in so who knows! :D | ||
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Archerofaiur
United States4101 Posts
On March 30 2013 10:04 Spaceboy wrote: That's super interesting! Thanks for the insight :D I have to say that while I can see what you mean about the mechanic forcing zerg out on the map, which I guess is good.. it's got to be an example of unclear optimisation for the player. I mean everything else in the game says "spread creep!".. but then you do and you may well fuck yourself over by having to put your production in an unsafe place. I also think the addition of assault larva is already going to be more than enough to force zerg to be aggressive or fall behind economically.. to the extent (and obviously I'm just theory-crafting here) that it might even be untenable until the economy gets reworked and encourages extra bases. Attaching the colonies to creep tumors strikes me as a little weird straight off the bat.. but I guess you guys'll have a good reason if it goes in so who knows! :D Eh not everyone is sold on the idea. When I said "we are now tinkering" i really meant "im pushing for it but there is discussion among the team how best to proceed". Some have suggested making it an ability that the creep tumor has. Macro is a really complicated issue which is hard for any number of players to come to a consensus on. Hence why we wanted to hear the communities ideas in this post On March 28 2013 10:41 Archerofaiur wrote: OneGoal Community Macro Challenge Want to help the OneGoal team design good economic macro mechanics? Then help us out! Tell us the basics of your idea and then support its validity in each of these categories. | ||
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StandAloneComplex
65 Posts
-Fix the gateway-warpgate-mechanic , for allowing stronger tier 1 units and more tactical depth when 2 switch gateway- warpgate. -Fix the zerg anti-air ,by making hydras armored and allowing some proper roach-swarmhoast play. -Making widowmine less op by restrict them to groundattacks. That been said, I have some unit ideas which could supplement your mod further and would make the gamplay even more versatile and interesting. Zerg unitideas: The wesp: You have invented an antiair unit to keep up with the skytoss and targetfirering vikings, that's good. I still think the unit could be more versatile by making it into this: To produce the unit , you need a building which is called "wespnest". You can build this straight after the spawning pool.And you can upgrade it 2 times. The unit gains new support abilitys by upgrading the hatchery into lair and upgrading the lair into hive. The unit gains new attack abilitys by upgrading the wespnest itself (2-times possible). Its basically an zergling for the air ,with weak attack ,but producable in mass.And it has some interesting support abilitys.It also can morph into the scourge(airbaeling/lategame) In its weakest form the unit sits on the ground, while being idle and it can not be separated for longer than x-seconds from the creep or it will die/lose hp.In this form you can use it for scouting, if your creepspread is good.If you don't move it, it will land on the ground and sit their.If you move it it will fly. Support abilitys: Uprading hatchery to lair: -The unit can stay of creep as long as it wants. -The unit can collect minerals, but you can not auto-route it like drones. You have to klick each time on the mins and on lair. So good players which have the apm will gain some extra mins. Upgrading lair to hive: -The unit can burrow into the ground Attack abilitys: upgradeing the wespnest to level 2(needs lair): -the wesp gains a melee attack against air. It lands on the enemy airship and starts attacking it with its sharp arms/legs. If enough wesps land on one enemy airship,the airship can not move (similar to zergling surrounding enemy's) Upgrading the wespnest to level 3(needs hive): - The wesp is able to morph into the scourge. Its basically an air-baeling then and if it connects to an enemy airship it deals area-damage.The explosives in it can be used to boost it a short time, but if you use half of the explosives in it for x time boosting you will only make have the damage after connecting. This is a great unit for earlygame: scouting midgame: collecting more mins and guarding your base, swarmhosts lategame: unburrow and exploding into skytoss or mass vikings (air-mines) It needs apm to mine, so good player have something to do, improve. It can be upgraded 5 times with different ability. After each upgrade its visuals change like the change from zergling to speedling etc. The viper: -Give it its ability back, that it can spit one any own unit and that unit becomes than an detector for a short time.An glowing eye grows on the back of this unit so enemy and you can see that this unit is an detector. Overseer are so slow and zergs gamestyle is fast , so with mines on the field its an stop and go gameplay by waiting all the time on the slow overseer!! Sorry for poor english. I also have some ideas to make protoss gameplay less lame, they come later.perhaps i will made also some high-res zerg unit modles , if i have time. Keep doing such good work. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9371 Posts
Skill-based Economic Advantage Does this mechanic allow players to express skill to gain economic advantage (Minerals or Gas)? How does it do this? Good Example: Mule First of all; I don't understand why mule is a good example of that? Mule is an extremely easy mechanic that the average platinum terran can use as well as korean GM's. Secondly, I think it is important that we make a clear distinction between mechanically demanding macro mechanics and "decision-oriented" macro mechanics. IMO there is no point in making macro challenging from a mechanical perspective just for the sake of it (no MBS, no automine and inject larva are examples of pointless macro challenges). Im not sure what your general opinion is on this topic. Personally I prefer to increase the mechanical skill cap by rewarding micro/multitasking more rather than "pointless macro clicking". Energy Tension Does the player have to make choices between spending energy on two different mechanics/abilities? Are there sufficient restrictions on the amount of available energy to allow choice? Good Example: Mule vs Scanner Sweep I agree that mule vs scanner sweep is a choice, but there are lots of room for improvement in this area as the choice in most situations comes down to this; Early game --> mules. Late game --> Scans. I think there are relatively few moments in each game where this is a real choice (early midgame is really the only time I am weighting cons and pros). Back to Base Does this mechanic encourage players to screen shift back to their base? How? Good Example: Mule I completely disagree with this one. I would take the game in the complete opposite direction --> Less Sim City and more MOBA (im not advocating to turn sc2 from an RTS into a Dota-clone, but if Sc2 currently is 50% Sim city and 50% dota, then I would prefer 60% dota and 40% sim city rather than the opposite). Basically I believe that looking at your base is a waste of time and quite boring. For instance when I see ultras as terrans, I need to go back in my base and lift off my rax's to change the reactor-addon to a techlab. This actually takes a like 4-5 seconds, and is IMO a complete waste of time that could be used for more exciting stuff such as loading up another dropship or micro'ing my marines against his infestors and lings. While landing mules is less time consuming than changing addons, and thus less of an evil IMO, it is still a waste of time - What does it add to a game when a terran player goes back to his back and lands 4 mules? Is it good for spectators? Is it fun to do as a player? I answer no to both those questions. Going back to the base can still be an mean to an end if it is a neccesary way of promoting an awesome element in the game, however it must IMO never be an end in it self. I believe that you probably added that "back-to-base" element as you believe its a part of RTS games.But I think that in order to improve games we need to be willing to innovate in the places where it is neccesary. The RTS genre can IMO be improved by adding fun stuff (strategical decisions and interesting mechanics) into the game and minimizing the amount of annoying stuff (pointless clicking). Assault colonies Assault colonies seems very interesting. But I still can't really figure out whether there is a "true decision involved". I mean aren't zerg players just going to put down an assault every time their queen gets 50 energy? And then they will use like one queen for spreading creep tumours (and the creep tumour spreading also involves "mindless clicking, though the nice thing about creep spread is that its at least visual way of promoting mechanical skills). I would have thought that when changing zerg macro mechanics you would add new choices to the queen, so that you have to think carefully on how/what to use your energy on. For instance I would have imagined that the queen would have several abilities (maybe 4-5) and when/how to use each of the ability depended on; - Your build order - Your current and expected future unit composition - What your opponent is doing - The map - Whether you want to play safe - Whether you want to be aggressive or passive Can someone explain to me how assault colonies will lead to new decisions/choices? | ||
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Fen1kz
Russian Federation216 Posts
UPD: sry, found it =( place a link to this chapter at top please | ||
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Masemium
Netherlands33 Posts
That's why I propose to tie "more Larva" to spending minerals/gas and to give Zerg a whole other mechanic that helps their economy a little bit. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9371 Posts
On March 30 2013 23:09 Masemium wrote: In response to the assault colonies and as a summary of my earlier post, I think any ability that creates Larva one way or another that is tied to energy or a timer doesn't really work, because there is no choice making. As a Zerg player you'll always want to have a million billion Larva, so you'll simply cast the ability the moment it is ready. That's why I propose to tie "more Larva" to spending minerals/gas and to give Zerg a whole other mechanic that helps their economy a little bit. But the only choice the removal of the timer gives you is whether you want to save up energy or not (scanner sweep is a choice in that regard as you may fear DT's for instance). I guess thats kind of a temporal decision. However, with queens that doesn't really matter as the other abilities are weaker than assault colonies. Like in what imaginable situation wouldn't you just wanna put down as many assault collonies as possible? Also, I think there is another potential problem with it; Zerg will always have enough larva in the late game; When you get to XX amount of assault collonies then you will never run out of larva. It really doesn't matter whether it can only have two larvas if you have 60 assault collonies at the 25 minute mark. This means that zerg needs less APM to macro succesfully compared to WOL/HOTS. Maybe this is intentional though. I don't understand how the "immobile queen" suggestion of yours will promote decisions. Can you enlighten me? Premature hatch can work - Personally I would prefer that the queen had quite a few abilities each with pro's and cons. I prefer an RTS game where zerg players need to spend like hundreds of hours on trying to optimize how they spent their energy in relation to their builds and the other factors I mentioned in the previos post. But as long as the queen just has 3 abilities, any kind of decision will be relatively easy to figure out. | ||
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Masemium
Netherlands33 Posts
Queens are also not as strong as a hatchery ofcourse, but they can undeploy and attack. Also Queens would have to birth from your hatch, whereas Hatcheries are morphed from drones. So yeah, ofcourse if you have to spend money to acquire more larva, you're probably right that it doesn't create layers upon layers of choice and decisions, but it does have you look at your build plan and see where you are gonna fit your Queens and hatcheries. Also, with my deploying Queens idea... you can store some in an Overlord, fly into the map, unload them, have the Overlord generate creep and have your Queens deploy on this creep. Insta unit generating base But yeah, I'll be honest and tell you guys I'm not very good at massing Queens. I know these days it's very common for Zergs to have a ton of Queens for defense. So if all those Queens would be able to deploy into little Hatcheries ... yeah there's my million billion Larva alright. But you know at this point I'm at a stage where I find pretty much anything better than Spawn Larva. That ability is so anti-fun it ruins my mind. | ||
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