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https://www.axiommod.com/
lots of features in this MOD remind me of how C&C games handle production and macro mechanics.
Our goal with the Axiom mod was to provide an experience that captured the essence of what makes Starcraft and Real time Strategy so compelling, while taking away barriers such as high actions-per-minute and complex UI. This mod focuses on the 3 core tenets of great RTS gameplay.
Build your Dream Base
Recruit a powerful army
Annihilate your Enemy
It's the kind of game that you can play with someone who is much better or worse than you and still have a great time. This game mode lowers the barrier to entry and allows friends to play with each other without having to be the same skill level. It provides a gateway to competitive play, a version of the game that is visually almost identical to competitive Starcraft 2.
Watching Starcraft is one of the best eSports spectator experiences there is and many viewers would love to play like the pros but simply can’t meet the demanding requirements of the base game. Axiom aims to change all that and let you play a version of competitive Starcraft that is easier to get into, yet gives you access to all of the tools and strategies that a pro-gamer would employ in front of crowds of cheering fans in an arena.
Everyone should be able to enjoy competitive Starcraft. Axiom makes that possible.
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Seems cool.
Not sure about doubling the health of everything--this seems like it could cause balance problems even at the level of the intended audience. Some units might not even be worth building.
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This is a fantastic idea. Well done.
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I played my first game and some dude 13/12'd me.
I played a second game and it's pretty bug filled and the hotkeys are all sorts of hard to adjust to. This isn't for me
I do like everything dying a little slower though, that's neat
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My first impression of the game is the hotkeys make no sense and nothing dies.
I ran like 10 marauders through 3 drone lines and killed everything before they died rofl...
I played another game and it's really hard to understand how the economy works. It seems hard to run out of money, or to even spend it quickly enough to not be climbing into the thousands.
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The hotkeys will keep me away from this unless I'm drunk and want to play with one hand.
Too much work to relearn all the hotkeys.
I'd have preferred the standard UI with all the quality of life stuff.
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Trust me if you have a TL account, you aren’t the target audience for this.
All this talk of relearning hotkeys, we built a game for people that don’t know what a hotkey is/
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On October 17 2017 08:59 ClanWars wrote:
Trust me if you have a TL account, you aren’t the target audience for this.
All this talk of relearning hotkeys, we built a game for people that don’t know what a hotkey is/
Neat stuff, it would have been awesome to have it in 2010. Do you plan to post data on any sort regarding the success of your mod ? Would be really interested by it.
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Wow, such interesting concept :O
Just curious but have u ever thought about rising maximum supply limit and adding minerals inflation system like it is in War3? Since units are basicly a smaller War3 versions.
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Good work TB. Great display of passion once again.
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your Country52797 Posts
Looks interesting. I might run it past my little brothers and see what they think. Might try it myself, actually, since I never actually used hotkeys all that much.
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Question for @ClanWars aka TB
Can we actually make little tournaments in it? Like for fun events on stream? or is it still in beta etc..
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On October 17 2017 07:10 ZigguratOfUr wrote:
Seems cool.
Not sure about doubling the health of everything--this seems like it could cause balance problems even at the level of the intended audience. Some units might not even be worth building.
It's a huge buff to melee units.
Anyway I am sure its a nice little fun mode that non Sc2 players will play for a bit (due to Totalbiscuits brand) and then after a little while they will move on, and the mod will be forgotten about.
If you want to attracht a stable and large new playerbase you need to make a brand new game on a brand net platform.
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Some great ideas and implementations on simplifying the game for a new audience. Starcraft sprinkled with some Total Annihilation and Command and Conquer. I only wonder if the double health won't lead to some tough balance issues.
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Sounds fun. Honestly, I always wanted SC2 to be more like this  I know I am not the "target audience", but if this - or something similar - gets popular, I might play it a lot. Probably won't be very interested if it's just a niche custom game, because I really like playing a game with large base, tourneys and community, but if it break through, I might eventually ditch SC2 for this.
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On October 17 2017 17:48 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2017 07:10 ZigguratOfUr wrote:
Seems cool.
Not sure about doubling the health of everything--this seems like it could cause balance problems even at the level of the intended audience. Some units might not even be worth building. It's a huge buff to melee units. Anyway I am sure its a nice little fun mode that non Sc2 players will play for a bit (due to Totalbiscuits brand) and then after a little while they will move on, and the mod will be forgotten about. If you want to attracht a stable and large new playerbase you need to make a brand new game on a brand net platform.
Preferably designed with microtransactions and continuous development in mind, I feel that games that are complete are not attracting people anymore. Or they are but for a really short period compared to other titles
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On October 17 2017 19:16 aQuaSC wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2017 17:48 Hider wrote:On October 17 2017 07:10 ZigguratOfUr wrote:
Seems cool.
Not sure about doubling the health of everything--this seems like it could cause balance problems even at the level of the intended audience. Some units might not even be worth building. It's a huge buff to melee units. Anyway I am sure its a nice little fun mode that non Sc2 players will play for a bit (due to Totalbiscuits brand) and then after a little while they will move on, and the mod will be forgotten about. If you want to attracht a stable and large new playerbase you need to make a brand new game on a brand net platform. Preferably designed with microtransactions and continuous development in mind, I feel that games that are complete are not attracting people anymore. Or they are but for a really short period compared to other titles
Back in the days of Wc3, custom games/mod were very attractive they were one of the only (decent) F2P options. Today there are so many opportunities ot play cheap/free games.
There are also a ton of things a new RTS game needs to do corect from a design-perspective. It's quite challenging and 99% of developers have failed and a large portion of new developers will fail because they don't understand how to make an easy-to-learn difficult to master game.
E.g. Day9's atlas is a prime example of what not to do when making an RTS game. Instead developers needs to figure out how you make awesome and skill-based micro interactions. If you don't understand that, then nothing else (including business model / overall gameplay model/strategic choices etc.) will matter - the game will fail.
It's easier to make an FPS that is "fun" for a large audience than an RTS, however I think if you do everything right, then the RTS game can be even more fun for casuals as well - hence why I am predicting a return to popularity in 5-10 years.
So even though I am a long-term "Bull" on the the potential of the RTS-genre, it's been easy to predict that all the RTS games launched previouosly would fail and I don't see any new game completely breaking that trend over the next 2-3 years.
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Slightly going out of topic, but to me personally biggest flaw SC2 has had over the years is the fact that there are many units that are present across campaign, multiplayer and co-op in which they work completely differently. What SC1 has best is the fact that you get the same tools in multiplayer as in campaign - single player in SC1 is an amazing introduction to the multiplayer part of the game. If you can handle units in campaign there you can do it in multiplayer. Future RTS should take this into account. One thing in the game needs to be identical across all of the game modes.
It's understandable that Blizzard wanted SC2 campaigns and other stuff being as explosive, fun and varied as possible and to me they did, but it shouldn't take priority in development of all of the game modes. It ended up dividing the game in itself, I mean you have Adepts shooting air in LotV campaign and in co-op, but not in multiplayer? Why? A tooltip before a regular multiplayer match saying that campaign units are heavily modified compared to multiplayer is not a fix for this.
In my opinion multiplayer should have and be a base set of game units/mechanics with campaign/co-op having stuff exclusive to them and every change affecting multiplayer should affect other modes too, but it's too late to change any of that.
Axiom is only going further that way. If it was ever made with a thought of being an entrance to regular SC2 1v1, well it won't be. It's a completely different game mode, it shouldn't be compared to regular competitive experience, it's more of an RPG where you play a person that can play SC2 or something. If someone happens to get into SC2 through it they will be in for a surprise when they try the real thing, hopefully they will stay for the challenge. Or maybe I'm overthinking it all 
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Wow just skimmed quickly and saw some neat design ideas
Pay as you go economy! Don't have to pay unit costs up front!
Global rally points! Nice!
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On October 17 2017 19:56 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2017 19:16 aQuaSC wrote:On October 17 2017 17:48 Hider wrote:On October 17 2017 07:10 ZigguratOfUr wrote:
Seems cool.
Not sure about doubling the health of everything--this seems like it could cause balance problems even at the level of the intended audience. Some units might not even be worth building. It's a huge buff to melee units. Anyway I am sure its a nice little fun mode that non Sc2 players will play for a bit (due to Totalbiscuits brand) and then after a little while they will move on, and the mod will be forgotten about. If you want to attracht a stable and large new playerbase you need to make a brand new game on a brand net platform. Preferably designed with microtransactions and continuous development in mind, I feel that games that are complete are not attracting people anymore. Or they are but for a really short period compared to other titles Back in the days of Wc3, custom games/mod were very attractive they were one of the only (decent) F2P options. Today there are so many opportunities ot play cheap/free games. There are also a ton of things a new RTS game needs to do corect from a design-perspective. It's quite challenging and 99% of developers have failed and a large portion of new developers will fail because they don't understand how to make an easy-to-learn difficult to master game. E.g. Day9's atlas is a prime example of what not to do when making an RTS game. Instead developers needs to figure out how you make awesome and skill-based micro interactions. If you don't understand that, then nothing else (including business model / overall gameplay model/strategic choices etc.) will matter - the game will fail. It's easier to make an FPS that is "fun" for a large audience than an RTS, however I think if you do everything right, then the RTS game can be even more fun for casuals as well - hence why I am predicting a return to popularity in 5-10 years. So even though I am a long-term "Bull" on the the potential of the RTS-genre, it's been easy to predict that all the RTS games launched previouosly would fail and I don't see any new game completely breaking that trend over the next 2-3 years.
what was wrong with atlas??? it was fun to play during the betas/alphas, although it wasn't as good as broodwar or traditional RTS. it just needed some design changes and it could have been lightning in a bottle i think. especially if day9 had added anime girls and marketed it to korea and china instead of western markets..
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On October 17 2017 23:51 Endymion wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2017 19:56 Hider wrote:On October 17 2017 19:16 aQuaSC wrote:On October 17 2017 17:48 Hider wrote:On October 17 2017 07:10 ZigguratOfUr wrote:
Seems cool.
Not sure about doubling the health of everything--this seems like it could cause balance problems even at the level of the intended audience. Some units might not even be worth building. It's a huge buff to melee units. Anyway I am sure its a nice little fun mode that non Sc2 players will play for a bit (due to Totalbiscuits brand) and then after a little while they will move on, and the mod will be forgotten about. If you want to attracht a stable and large new playerbase you need to make a brand new game on a brand net platform. Preferably designed with microtransactions and continuous development in mind, I feel that games that are complete are not attracting people anymore. Or they are but for a really short period compared to other titles Back in the days of Wc3, custom games/mod were very attractive they were one of the only (decent) F2P options. Today there are so many opportunities ot play cheap/free games. There are also a ton of things a new RTS game needs to do corect from a design-perspective. It's quite challenging and 99% of developers have failed and a large portion of new developers will fail because they don't understand how to make an easy-to-learn difficult to master game. E.g. Day9's atlas is a prime example of what not to do when making an RTS game. Instead developers needs to figure out how you make awesome and skill-based micro interactions. If you don't understand that, then nothing else (including business model / overall gameplay model/strategic choices etc.) will matter - the game will fail. It's easier to make an FPS that is "fun" for a large audience than an RTS, however I think if you do everything right, then the RTS game can be even more fun for casuals as well - hence why I am predicting a return to popularity in 5-10 years. So even though I am a long-term "Bull" on the the potential of the RTS-genre, it's been easy to predict that all the RTS games launched previouosly would fail and I don't see any new game completely breaking that trend over the next 2-3 years. what was wrong with atlas??? it was fun to play during the betas/alphas, although it wasn't as good as broodwar or traditional RTS. it just needed some design changes and it could have been lightning in a bottle i think. especially if day9 had added anime girls and marketed it to korea and china instead of western markets..
The micro interactions were nonexistant (various reasons for this - won't go into more detail). It's the single most important aspect of an RTS. It's like playing an FPS and if the shooting part is hella boring, nothing else matters.
That's obviously not to say other stuff isn't important either. There are alot of things that needs to be done correct for an RTS to succeed.
(note: to anyone wanting to talk about atlas, don't bring up the "lack of marketing" excuse. No start-up company is gonna have a big marketing budget. It's all about word of mouth from the initial testers who really liked the game + streaming/youtube exposure. Investors clearly evaluated that the game lacked interest on multiple metrics and thus shut it down. Just because you had a fun experience doesn't imply that it interested the majority of the potential target group).
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didnt they have a massive chinese corporation sponsoring them?????
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Ill just copy paste what I said about the "SC2- Powered" mod:
Oh look, another community mod that tries to make the game more like BW(not this time actually! Good job!) and that nobody will play after trying it out once or twice....
Honestly, I appreciate the effort everybody puts into these mods, but it seems like a waste of time to me. If you want to help the development of this game then give feedback in the community update threads. Now, that a big organisation like o'gaming TotalBiscuit does it this might actually gain some track, but I dont believe it will last longer than a few weeks without a dedicated ladder and playerbase.
Again, I appreciate the effort, but I just cant believe it will work.
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On October 18 2017 01:28 Kerdinand wrote:Ill just copy paste what I said about the "SC2- Powered" mod: Show nested quote +Oh look, another community mod that tries to make the game more like BW(not this time actually! Good job!) and that nobody will play after trying it out once or twice....
Honestly, I appreciate the effort everybody puts into these mods, but it seems like a waste of time to me. If you want to help the development of this game then give feedback in the community update threads. Now, that a big organisation like o'gaming TotalBiscuit does it this might actually gain some track, but I dont believe it will last longer than a few weeks without a dedicated ladder and playerbase. Again, I appreciate the effort, but I just cant believe it will work.
If you're just going to shitpost and not even go into the effort of doing it properly I cannot imagine what result you expect to accomplish here.
You don't believe it will last longer than a few weeks. Cool yeah because I definitely just thought that just putting a mod out and not having a plan for promotion and playerbase building would be a good idea.
It's not like we have a 6 month plan of promotion and playerbase building that covers exactly that. It's not like we have a channel of over 2m people to promote to, or a big network of promotional partners.
Oh no wait we have all of those things and totally prepared for all of that.
This kind of snark is worthless. Either contribute or get out of the way. We didn't build it for people that post on TL in the first place, you're not the target audience and not who we are promoting to. If you want to help thats great but if you don't, you're just noise
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On October 18 2017 02:18 ClanWars wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2017 01:28 Kerdinand wrote:Ill just copy paste what I said about the "SC2- Powered" mod: Oh look, another community mod that tries to make the game more like BW(not this time actually! Good job!) and that nobody will play after trying it out once or twice....
Honestly, I appreciate the effort everybody puts into these mods, but it seems like a waste of time to me. If you want to help the development of this game then give feedback in the community update threads. Now, that a big organisation like o'gaming TotalBiscuit does it this might actually gain some track, but I dont believe it will last longer than a few weeks without a dedicated ladder and playerbase. Again, I appreciate the effort, but I just cant believe it will work. If you're just going to shitpost and not even go into the effort of doing it properly I cannot imagine what result you expect to accomplish here. You don't believe it will last longer than a few weeks. Cool yeah because I definitely just thought that just putting a mod out and not having a plan for promotion and playerbase building would be a good idea. It's not like we have a 6 month plan of promotion and playerbase building that covers exactly that. It's not like we have a channel of over 2m people to promote to, or a big network of promotional partners. Oh no wait we have all of those things and totally prepared for all of that. This kind of snark is worthless. Either contribute or get out of the way. We didn't build it for people that post on TL in the first place, you're not the target audience and not who we are promoting to. If you want to help thats great but if you don't, you're just noise
If stating your opinion is calling "shitposting" nowadays, I guess I'm guilty of that. I'm saying none of these mods has worked so far, and thus I do not believe this one will either. I think older players will prefer the standard SC with easy laddering and a 7 year old playerbase instead of some new mod they have to adapt to while newer players will not even be experienced enough to use a mod instead of the easier way, standard multiplayer (that can also be pretty funny and relaxing in the lower levels).
I dont say it wont work. I just say I dont believe in it. And thats just my opinion. I'm sorry if you cant accept people posting an opinon other than your own here, but I guess I have the right to say what I think.
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damn that are some clever make things easier options.
And I didnt know there were mods that tried to make the Sc2 experience easier ... could have needed those to play with friends.
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On October 18 2017 02:47 Kerdinand wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2017 02:18 ClanWars wrote:On October 18 2017 01:28 Kerdinand wrote:Ill just copy paste what I said about the "SC2- Powered" mod: Oh look, another community mod that tries to make the game more like BW(not this time actually! Good job!) and that nobody will play after trying it out once or twice....
Honestly, I appreciate the effort everybody puts into these mods, but it seems like a waste of time to me. If you want to help the development of this game then give feedback in the community update threads. Now, that a big organisation like o'gaming TotalBiscuit does it this might actually gain some track, but I dont believe it will last longer than a few weeks without a dedicated ladder and playerbase. Again, I appreciate the effort, but I just cant believe it will work. If you're just going to shitpost and not even go into the effort of doing it properly I cannot imagine what result you expect to accomplish here. You don't believe it will last longer than a few weeks. Cool yeah because I definitely just thought that just putting a mod out and not having a plan for promotion and playerbase building would be a good idea. It's not like we have a 6 month plan of promotion and playerbase building that covers exactly that. It's not like we have a channel of over 2m people to promote to, or a big network of promotional partners. Oh no wait we have all of those things and totally prepared for all of that. This kind of snark is worthless. Either contribute or get out of the way. We didn't build it for people that post on TL in the first place, you're not the target audience and not who we are promoting to. If you want to help thats great but if you don't, you're just noise If stating your opinion is calling "shitposting" nowadays, I guess I'm guilty of that. I'm saying none of these mods has worked so far, and thus I do not believe this one will either. I think older players will prefer the standard SC with easy laddering and a 7 year old playerbase instead of some new mod they have to adapt to while newer players will not even be experienced enough to use a mod instead of the easier way, standard multiplayer (that can also be pretty funny and relaxing in the lower levels). I dont say it wont work. I just say I dont believe in it. And thats just my opinion. I'm sorry if you cant accept people posting an opinon other than your own here, but I guess I have the right to say what I think.
If the opinion doesnt help make the game better the opinion has no worth. It's not even unconstructive criticism, its a tier below that, his post consisted of "hurrdurr will die in a few weeks". Its useless shit, shitposting.
Why are we talking about a "7 year old playerbase". None of them are the target audience for this. Nobody here is, with the exception of those who want to play with inexperienced friends and have a more even experience.
That's what people on forums dont understand. Not everything is tailor-made for them. In this case its explicitly NOT made for experienced players, so any opinion they have is going to be of limited value to begin with. When that opinion consists of nothing but bullshit speculation about how long the playerbase will last, what respect do you think I'm going to give to a post like that?
None, exactly as much as it deserves. For some reason people massively overvalue their opinions on the internet. Opinions are the cheapest, easiest thing you can have and the most abundant thing on the internet. Their individual value is effectively nil and yet people get really uppity when you mention that their opinion might not be a special valuable snowflake that we all cherish. Sooner the internet learns that the better off we'll be.
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On October 17 2017 20:58 aQuaSC wrote:Slightly going out of topic, but to me personally biggest flaw SC2 has had over the years is the fact that there are many units that are present across campaign, multiplayer and co-op in which they work completely differently. What SC1 has best is the fact that you get the same tools in multiplayer as in campaign - single player in SC1 is an amazing introduction to the multiplayer part of the game. If you can handle units in campaign there you can do it in multiplayer. Future RTS should take this into account. One thing in the game needs to be identical across all of the game modes. It's understandable that Blizzard wanted SC2 campaigns and other stuff being as explosive, fun and varied as possible and to me they did, but it shouldn't take priority in development of all of the game modes. It ended up dividing the game in itself, I mean you have Adepts shooting air in LotV campaign and in co-op, but not in multiplayer? Why? A tooltip before a regular multiplayer match saying that campaign units are heavily modified compared to multiplayer is not a fix for this. In my opinion multiplayer should have and be a base set of game units/mechanics with campaign/co-op having stuff exclusive to them and every change affecting multiplayer should affect other modes too, but it's too late to change any of that. Axiom is only going further that way. If it was ever made with a thought of being an entrance to regular SC2 1v1, well it won't be. It's a completely different game mode, it shouldn't be compared to regular competitive experience, it's more of an RPG where you play a person that can play SC2 or something. If someone happens to get into SC2 through it they will be in for a surprise when they try the real thing, hopefully they will stay for the challenge. Or maybe I'm overthinking it all
I'm of the opposite opinion. Each mode should be optimized and designed for their respective audiences without affecting or being restricted by the other. For regular multiplayer, Blizzard did try very hard to provide a transition for casual players in the form of challenge missions, training mode, and vs ai matchmaking.
One game where I didn't like multiplayer balance changes affecting single player was C&C3. Changes to things such as harvester health and building radii might've made sense in multiplayer, but they felt clunky when bleeding over into the campaign. I actually preferred the 1.0 version for the campaign instead of the latest patch.
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Very interesting mod. I'm suprised it works so well as it does. I hope you guys keep supporting and patching it!
Here are a couple pointers I noticed:
- I think the next step is to create a 4th tab called "Abilities" or "Unit Powers". Currently, the unit specific abilities are shared with the tabs, and as such, it becomes a bit of a jumbled mess of buttons. Like I said, the next step is to put all spells and abilities under a new tab, so that PSionic Storm will show a number of how many times I can cast it, and the game will pull the closest High Templer to it for casting.
- The Terran Auto Wall is a noble idea, but I found it doesn't really work wonders, many times the Wall closes while units still want to pass through, preventing in these units to sit idle next to the Wall. At this point I'm not sure what a good sollution might be.
- The game is build upon the latest LoV patch, but do you guys have intentions to start modding units and steering away from Blizzard's vision? It would be fun if you guys would tweak units to suit your own vision. In my opinion, LoV suffers from "bloat", as in there's too many units and abilities. Maybe trimming this stuff would further help with the "beginner friendly" approach this mod has!
Alright, keep on truckin' !
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On October 18 2017 07:05 Masemium wrote:
Very interesting mod. I'm suprised it works so well as it does. I hope you guys keep supporting and patching it!
Here are a couple pointers I noticed:
- I think the next step is to create a 4th tab called "Abilities" or "Unit Powers". Currently, the unit specific abilities are shared with the tabs, and as such, it becomes a bit of a jumbled mess of buttons. Like I said, the next step is to put all spells and abilities under a new tab, so that PSionic Storm will show a number of how many times I can cast it, and the game will pull the closest High Templer to it for casting.
That was our initial plan but its not possible. The game can't be forced to select tabs under certain circumstances, meaning you'd be in a fight and have to click abilities to even use anything, nothing would work otherwise. The current QWER system makes sure that regardless of which tab you'r eon, you can use all your abilities.
- The Terran Auto Wall is a noble idea, but I found it doesn't really work wonders, many times the Wall closes while units still want to pass through, preventing in these units to sit idle next to the Wall. At this point I'm not sure what a good sollution might be.
We just fixed that.
- The game is build upon the latest LoV patch, but do you guys have intentions to start modding units and steering away from Blizzard's vision? It would be fun if you guys would tweak units to suit your own vision. In my opinion, LoV suffers from "bloat", as in there's too many units and abilities. Maybe trimming this stuff would further help with the "beginner friendly" approach this mod has!
Alright, keep on truckin' !
There will be balance changes but we're not going to stray too far from the regular game, it would defeat the purpose of making a version that looks like the eSports versions and is relatable to the audience.
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On October 18 2017 01:28 Kerdinand wrote:Ill just copy paste what I said about the "SC2- Powered" mod: Show nested quote +Oh look, another community mod that tries to make the game more like BW(not this time actually! Good job!) and that nobody will play after trying it out once or twice....
Honestly, I appreciate the effort everybody puts into these mods, but it seems like a waste of time to me. If you want to help the development of this game then give feedback in the community update threads. Now, that a big organisation like o'gaming TotalBiscuit does it this might actually gain some track, but I dont believe it will last longer than a few weeks without a dedicated ladder and playerbase. Again, I appreciate the effort, but I just cant believe it will work.
Wasn't a useful contribution then. Still isn't. You're providing your own bar for success (not necessarily that of the mod-makers) and deciding that anything less or different makes the effort a waste of time, but it's not up to you.
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I played several games yesterday evening. I enjoyed them. I had a few questions about the mod.
If I understand correctly, this mod is targeted at more casual players who find competitive StarCraft too intimidating. To quote the website, "this game mode lowers the barrier to entry and allows friends to play with each other without having to be the same skill level."
In that case, why was the 1v1 game mode chosen? That feels to me much more intimidating than team games, especially comp stomps. I would like to try this with more casual friends in a 4v4 against the AI. However, I'm not sure the same applies to 1v1. For instance, the game's description cites the three core tenets of great RTS gameplay as "build your dream base, recruit a powerful army, and annihilate your enemy". But the nature of 1v1 is that, typically, one player does the annihilating and the other player gets annihilated. Now, if you play the ladder and force yourself to always play opponents very close to you in skill level, then you can usually avoid this problem. But, the target audience is supposed to not like this, and anyway the mod is intended for players with potentially very large skill differences.
Based on your responses in this thread, you're trying to "[make] a version that looks like the eSports versions and is relatable to the audience". Is it not possible to do this with a team game, or any other game mode? For instance, does Blizzard have data on the attachment rate of the co-op player base to StarCraft esports compared with players who only play 1v1?
Thanks for making this mod and I look forward to playing it again this evening.
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In that case, why was the 1v1 game mode chosen? That feels to me much more intimidating than team games, especially comp stomps. I would like to try this with more casual friends in a 4v4 against the AI. However, I'm not sure the same applies to 1v1. For instance, the game's description cites the three core tenets of great RTS gameplay as "build your dream base, recruit a powerful army, and annihilate your enemy". But the nature of 1v1 is that, typically, one player does the annihilating and the other player gets annihilated
I still wonder why people keep spreading the myth of 1v1 being anti-casual per definition while ignoring Heartstone disproved that myth.
No, with proper game-design you can significantly reduce the learning barrier and make a fun experience for a novice player.
Sc2 is not a shitty experience for new players because its a 1v1 game. It's a shitty experience because you can and will die to a shitton of different things while feeling mechanically overwhelmed and having no idea what your doing.
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On October 18 2017 07:51 grizzlybear wrote:
I played several games yesterday evening. I enjoyed them. I had a few questions about the mod.
If I understand correctly, this mod is targeted at more casual players who find competitive StarCraft too intimidating. To quote the website, "this game mode lowers the barrier to entry and allows friends to play with each other without having to be the same skill level."
In that case, why was the 1v1 game mode chosen? That feels to me much more intimidating than team games, especially comp stomps. I would like to try this with more casual friends in a 4v4 against the AI. However, I'm not sure the same applies to 1v1. For instance, the game's description cites the three core tenets of great RTS gameplay as "build your dream base, recruit a powerful army, and annihilate your enemy". But the nature of 1v1 is that, typically, one player does the annihilating and the other player gets annihilated. Now, if you play the ladder and force yourself to always play opponents very close to you in skill level, then you can usually avoid this problem. But, the target audience is supposed to not like this, and anyway the mod is intended for players with potentially very large skill differences.
Based on your responses in this thread, you're trying to "[make] a version that looks like the eSports versions and is relatable to the audience". Is it not possible to do this with a team game, or any other game mode? For instance, does Blizzard have data on the attachment rate of the co-op player base to StarCraft esports compared with players who only play 1v1?
Thanks for making this mod and I look forward to playing it again this evening.
I don't believe 1v1 is inherently "not casual friendly". What I do believe is that there's a lot of things put in the way of people who want to play 1v1 that aren't the opponent and that should be the only thing between them and winning.
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On October 18 2017 08:47 ClanWars wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2017 07:51 grizzlybear wrote:
I played several games yesterday evening. I enjoyed them. I had a few questions about the mod.
If I understand correctly, this mod is targeted at more casual players who find competitive StarCraft too intimidating. To quote the website, "this game mode lowers the barrier to entry and allows friends to play with each other without having to be the same skill level."
In that case, why was the 1v1 game mode chosen? That feels to me much more intimidating than team games, especially comp stomps. I would like to try this with more casual friends in a 4v4 against the AI. However, I'm not sure the same applies to 1v1. For instance, the game's description cites the three core tenets of great RTS gameplay as "build your dream base, recruit a powerful army, and annihilate your enemy". But the nature of 1v1 is that, typically, one player does the annihilating and the other player gets annihilated. Now, if you play the ladder and force yourself to always play opponents very close to you in skill level, then you can usually avoid this problem. But, the target audience is supposed to not like this, and anyway the mod is intended for players with potentially very large skill differences.
Based on your responses in this thread, you're trying to "[make] a version that looks like the eSports versions and is relatable to the audience". Is it not possible to do this with a team game, or any other game mode? For instance, does Blizzard have data on the attachment rate of the co-op player base to StarCraft esports compared with players who only play 1v1?
Thanks for making this mod and I look forward to playing it again this evening. I don't believe 1v1 is inherently "not casual friendly". What I do believe is that there's a lot of things put in the way of people who want to play 1v1 that aren't the opponent and that should be the only thing between them and winning.
I see. If I understand correctly, the idea is that many people who would otherwise play 1v1 don't do so because there are things getting in their way? In this case, those things would be the game's mechanics - like the need to select a building to construct a unit instead of having a universal command bar, or the need to consistently place supply buildings?
Would you say that skill differentiation isn't a core goal of this mod, i.e. wins or losses shouldn't feel skill-based? Or do you still want a winning player to feel like they played better than their opponent and a losing player to feel like they played worse than their opponent? Or, is it that skill differentiation is still important, it's just that you want to eliminate particular areas of skill differentiation, e.g. consistently placing supply buildings?
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On October 17 2017 23:51 Endymion wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2017 19:56 Hider wrote:On October 17 2017 19:16 aQuaSC wrote:On October 17 2017 17:48 Hider wrote:On October 17 2017 07:10 ZigguratOfUr wrote:
Seems cool.
Not sure about doubling the health of everything--this seems like it could cause balance problems even at the level of the intended audience. Some units might not even be worth building. It's a huge buff to melee units. Anyway I am sure its a nice little fun mode that non Sc2 players will play for a bit (due to Totalbiscuits brand) and then after a little while they will move on, and the mod will be forgotten about. If you want to attracht a stable and large new playerbase you need to make a brand new game on a brand net platform. Preferably designed with microtransactions and continuous development in mind, I feel that games that are complete are not attracting people anymore. Or they are but for a really short period compared to other titles Back in the days of Wc3, custom games/mod were very attractive they were one of the only (decent) F2P options. Today there are so many opportunities ot play cheap/free games. There are also a ton of things a new RTS game needs to do corect from a design-perspective. It's quite challenging and 99% of developers have failed and a large portion of new developers will fail because they don't understand how to make an easy-to-learn difficult to master game. E.g. Day9's atlas is a prime example of what not to do when making an RTS game. Instead developers needs to figure out how you make awesome and skill-based micro interactions. If you don't understand that, then nothing else (including business model / overall gameplay model/strategic choices etc.) will matter - the game will fail. It's easier to make an FPS that is "fun" for a large audience than an RTS, however I think if you do everything right, then the RTS game can be even more fun for casuals as well - hence why I am predicting a return to popularity in 5-10 years. So even though I am a long-term "Bull" on the the potential of the RTS-genre, it's been easy to predict that all the RTS games launched previouosly would fail and I don't see any new game completely breaking that trend over the next 2-3 years. what was wrong with atlas??? it was fun to play during the betas/alphas, although it wasn't as good as broodwar or traditional RTS. it just needed some design changes and it could have been lightning in a bottle i think. especially if day9 had added anime girls and marketed it to korea and china instead of western markets..
I think atlas was a decent game, and it certainly had great room for growth. Not sure why people love to bash Atlas, I quite enjoyed it.
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On October 18 2017 13:33 SlammerIV wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2017 23:51 Endymion wrote:On October 17 2017 19:56 Hider wrote:On October 17 2017 19:16 aQuaSC wrote:On October 17 2017 17:48 Hider wrote:On October 17 2017 07:10 ZigguratOfUr wrote:
Seems cool.
Not sure about doubling the health of everything--this seems like it could cause balance problems even at the level of the intended audience. Some units might not even be worth building. It's a huge buff to melee units. Anyway I am sure its a nice little fun mode that non Sc2 players will play for a bit (due to Totalbiscuits brand) and then after a little while they will move on, and the mod will be forgotten about. If you want to attracht a stable and large new playerbase you need to make a brand new game on a brand net platform. Preferably designed with microtransactions and continuous development in mind, I feel that games that are complete are not attracting people anymore. Or they are but for a really short period compared to other titles Back in the days of Wc3, custom games/mod were very attractive they were one of the only (decent) F2P options. Today there are so many opportunities ot play cheap/free games. There are also a ton of things a new RTS game needs to do corect from a design-perspective. It's quite challenging and 99% of developers have failed and a large portion of new developers will fail because they don't understand how to make an easy-to-learn difficult to master game. E.g. Day9's atlas is a prime example of what not to do when making an RTS game. Instead developers needs to figure out how you make awesome and skill-based micro interactions. If you don't understand that, then nothing else (including business model / overall gameplay model/strategic choices etc.) will matter - the game will fail. It's easier to make an FPS that is "fun" for a large audience than an RTS, however I think if you do everything right, then the RTS game can be even more fun for casuals as well - hence why I am predicting a return to popularity in 5-10 years. So even though I am a long-term "Bull" on the the potential of the RTS-genre, it's been easy to predict that all the RTS games launched previouosly would fail and I don't see any new game completely breaking that trend over the next 2-3 years. what was wrong with atlas??? it was fun to play during the betas/alphas, although it wasn't as good as broodwar or traditional RTS. it just needed some design changes and it could have been lightning in a bottle i think. especially if day9 had added anime girls and marketed it to korea and china instead of western markets.. I think atlas was a decent game, and it certainly had great room for growth. Not sure why people love to bash Atlas, I quite enjoyed it.
i think Atlas gets bashed because the company behind the game did a very bad job of "managing expectations" of their customer base. how many people at the company had experience marketing a game? it felt like that # was right around 0.
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On October 18 2017 08:47 ClanWars wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2017 07:51 grizzlybear wrote:
I played several games yesterday evening. I enjoyed them. I had a few questions about the mod.
If I understand correctly, this mod is targeted at more casual players who find competitive StarCraft too intimidating. To quote the website, "this game mode lowers the barrier to entry and allows friends to play with each other without having to be the same skill level."
In that case, why was the 1v1 game mode chosen? That feels to me much more intimidating than team games, especially comp stomps. I would like to try this with more casual friends in a 4v4 against the AI. However, I'm not sure the same applies to 1v1. For instance, the game's description cites the three core tenets of great RTS gameplay as "build your dream base, recruit a powerful army, and annihilate your enemy". But the nature of 1v1 is that, typically, one player does the annihilating and the other player gets annihilated. Now, if you play the ladder and force yourself to always play opponents very close to you in skill level, then you can usually avoid this problem. But, the target audience is supposed to not like this, and anyway the mod is intended for players with potentially very large skill differences.
Based on your responses in this thread, you're trying to "[make] a version that looks like the eSports versions and is relatable to the audience". Is it not possible to do this with a team game, or any other game mode? For instance, does Blizzard have data on the attachment rate of the co-op player base to StarCraft esports compared with players who only play 1v1?
Thanks for making this mod and I look forward to playing it again this evening. I don't believe 1v1 is inherently "not casual friendly". What I do believe is that there's a lot of things put in the way of people who want to play 1v1 that aren't the opponent and that should be the only thing between them and winning.
Btw, did the mod attempt to do anything to make it easier to survive without a "good build" in the opening game?
E.g. if a new player plays the mod and plays against a slightly better player that does a basic rush and losses the game in 6 minutes, that might not be a fun experience.
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United Kingdom20304 Posts
On October 18 2017 13:45 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2017 13:33 SlammerIV wrote:On October 17 2017 23:51 Endymion wrote:On October 17 2017 19:56 Hider wrote:On October 17 2017 19:16 aQuaSC wrote:On October 17 2017 17:48 Hider wrote:On October 17 2017 07:10 ZigguratOfUr wrote:
Seems cool.
Not sure about doubling the health of everything--this seems like it could cause balance problems even at the level of the intended audience. Some units might not even be worth building. It's a huge buff to melee units. Anyway I am sure its a nice little fun mode that non Sc2 players will play for a bit (due to Totalbiscuits brand) and then after a little while they will move on, and the mod will be forgotten about. If you want to attracht a stable and large new playerbase you need to make a brand new game on a brand net platform. Preferably designed with microtransactions and continuous development in mind, I feel that games that are complete are not attracting people anymore. Or they are but for a really short period compared to other titles Back in the days of Wc3, custom games/mod were very attractive they were one of the only (decent) F2P options. Today there are so many opportunities ot play cheap/free games. There are also a ton of things a new RTS game needs to do corect from a design-perspective. It's quite challenging and 99% of developers have failed and a large portion of new developers will fail because they don't understand how to make an easy-to-learn difficult to master game. E.g. Day9's atlas is a prime example of what not to do when making an RTS game. Instead developers needs to figure out how you make awesome and skill-based micro interactions. If you don't understand that, then nothing else (including business model / overall gameplay model/strategic choices etc.) will matter - the game will fail. It's easier to make an FPS that is "fun" for a large audience than an RTS, however I think if you do everything right, then the RTS game can be even more fun for casuals as well - hence why I am predicting a return to popularity in 5-10 years. So even though I am a long-term "Bull" on the the potential of the RTS-genre, it's been easy to predict that all the RTS games launched previouosly would fail and I don't see any new game completely breaking that trend over the next 2-3 years. what was wrong with atlas??? it was fun to play during the betas/alphas, although it wasn't as good as broodwar or traditional RTS. it just needed some design changes and it could have been lightning in a bottle i think. especially if day9 had added anime girls and marketed it to korea and china instead of western markets.. I think atlas was a decent game, and it certainly had great room for growth. Not sure why people love to bash Atlas, I quite enjoyed it. i think Atlas gets bashed because the company behind the game did a very bad job of "managing expectations" of their customer base. how many people at the company had experience marketing a game? it felt like that # was right around 0.
I hadn't even heard that it had released yet
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On October 18 2017 18:05 Hider wrote:
Btw, did the mod attempt to do anything to make it easier to survive without a "good build" in the opening game?
E.g. if a new player plays the mod and plays against a slightly better player that does a basic rush and losses the game in 6 minutes, that might not be a fun experience.
No it did not. Which should have been the first thing they looked at, imo.
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On October 18 2017 19:12 NickHotS wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2017 18:05 Hider wrote:
Btw, did the mod attempt to do anything to make it easier to survive without a "good build" in the opening game?
E.g. if a new player plays the mod and plays against a slightly better player that does a basic rush and losses the game in 6 minutes, that might not be a fun experience.
No it did not. Which should have been the first thing they looked at, imo.
actually....free workers, that auto produced is kinda thing that help you survive
...if you dont have forces to deal with rush attack , its not the build problem actually, and can be easly fixed next game by gaining forces earlyer
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...if you dont have forces to deal with rush attack , its not the build problem actually, and can be easly fixed next game by gaining forces earlyer
Isn't there the whole issue still of the oponent going for various types of cheese, like how do you stop mass VR/oracle/dt all in which isn't neccasarily only related to army forces.
The only way to reduce that learning barrier is to boost natural defenses early on.
Though obviously there is no easy fix for that because it may also make the game egen more stagnant. Hence why I also believe building a game around Sc2 won't work because the game is just too fundamentally flawed to attract casual players.
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Do you guys think that lowering attack speed or damage would do better than doubling HP, or will balance just have to be manually tweaked a bit to keep zerglings from being the only unit you ever need to make?
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I think straight double health doesn't work very well. Break's unit interactions with banelings, widow mines, liberators, any high damage unit. Slowing down movement/attack speed and lowering overall damage would make for good changes to test.
More room to react would be better than simply not having to react at all. I think much of the frustration with high damage interactions in low skill levels is that players aren't able to react quickly enough and get punished before they feel they had a chance to influence the fight.
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On October 19 2017 00:04 ruypture wrote:
I think straight double health doesn't work very well. Break's unit interactions with banelings, widow mines, liberators, any high damage unit. Slowing down movement/attack speed and lowering overall damage would make for good changes to test.
Things we have already begun to patch out with balance changes. Banelings and Mines already got buffed to compensate, Liberators as far as we are concerned are currently fine and still performing well.
Doubling the HP makes balancing far easier since it provides a solid baseline to work from. Slowing down movement/attack speed introduces far more problems that would be much trickier to balance.
More room to react would be better than simply not having to react at all. I think much of the frustration with high damage interactions in low skill levels is that players aren't able to react quickly enough and get punished before they feel they had a chance to influence the fight.
Yes and increased HP solves that.
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On October 18 2017 19:12 NickHotS wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2017 18:05 Hider wrote:
Btw, did the mod attempt to do anything to make it easier to survive without a "good build" in the opening game?
E.g. if a new player plays the mod and plays against a slightly better player that does a basic rush and losses the game in 6 minutes, that might not be a fun experience.
No it did not. Which should have been the first thing they looked at, imo.
You can't "fix" builds. Rushes are going to happen in every RTS. There is no way to stop that without putting artificial limitations (such as Supcoms no-rush X minute forcefield) into the game that take it way too far away from the SC2 experience.
The game doesn't play itself. You're going to have to learn to deal with early aggression. You're just not going to lose because you forgot to build workers or got your units stuck behind a supply depot anymore. You'll lose because the other guy had more dudes that you and that's absolutely ok.
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The only way to reduce that learning barrier is to boost natural defenses early on.
No, that is not the only way to deal with it. A way to deal with it, which we did, was to reduce the impact that early game cheese would have on the economy by making individual workers less valuable and easier to replace while reducing massive burst damage from units like Oracles that could quickly wipe out mineral lines.
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On October 19 2017 03:03 ClanWars wrote:
Things we have already begun to patch out with balance changes. Banelings and Mines already got buffed to compensate, Liberators as far as we are concerned are currently fine and still performing well.
nice to read that balance patching is already happening.
On October 19 2017 03:03 ClanWars wrote:
Doubling the HP makes balancing far easier since it provides a solid baseline to work from. Slowing down movement/attack speed introduces far more problems that would be much trickier to balance.
slowing down movement speed and attack speeds makes the game "feel" less fun. i realize this is 100% subjective.... but SC2 just doesn't "feel" as fun at the slower speed options Blizzard provides.
please Mr. ClanWars sir,
please keep the attack speeds and animation speeds the same
keep the unit movements the same speed.
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On October 19 2017 03:05 ClanWars wrote:
You can't "fix" builds. Rushes are going to happen in every RTS. There is no way to stop that without putting artificial limitations (such as Supcoms no-rush X minute forcefield) into the game that take it way too far away from the SC2 experience.
Sure you can. Since you're citing Supreme Commander you're halfway there. In that game, you start with a unit which is very powerful at the early stage of the game but scales worse as more powerful units are coming out.
So you can do the same thing here, but you have even more control than that. You can introduce a Hyperion "hero" unit, which is not controlled by the player directly, but that will hover around his bases and defend them for him. In turn you can put more emphasis on map objectives to reward players who prefer to be more active in the early game.
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On October 19 2017 08:02 WaesumNinja wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2017 03:05 ClanWars wrote:
You can't "fix" builds. Rushes are going to happen in every RTS. There is no way to stop that without putting artificial limitations (such as Supcoms no-rush X minute forcefield) into the game that take it way too far away from the SC2 experience.
Sure you can. Since you're citing Supreme Commander you're halfway there. In that game, you start with a unit which is very powerful at the early stage of the game but scales worse as more powerful units are coming out. So you can do the same thing here, but you have even more control than that. You can introduce a Hyperion "hero" unit, which is not controlled by the player directly, but that will hover around his bases and defend them for him. In turn you can put more emphasis on map objectives to reward players who prefer to be more active in the early game.
But why?
Why do you want to take rushing out of the game? Rushing is part of RTS. I have no interest in removing things from the game that add to the strategy of it, only unnecessary mechanical obstacles.
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On October 19 2017 08:02 WaesumNinja wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2017 03:05 ClanWars wrote:
You can't "fix" builds. Rushes are going to happen in every RTS. There is no way to stop that without putting artificial limitations (such as Supcoms no-rush X minute forcefield) into the game that take it way too far away from the SC2 experience.
Sure you can. Since you're citing Supreme Commander you're halfway there. In that game, you start with a unit which is very powerful at the early stage of the game but scales worse as more powerful units are coming out. So you can do the same thing here, but you have even more control than that. You can introduce a Hyperion "hero" unit, which is not controlled by the player directly, but that will hover around his bases and defend them for him. In turn you can put more emphasis on map objectives to reward players who prefer to be more active in the early game.
Having a unit like the ACU would never work in sc2 and it doesn't stop rushes at all. It also scales a lot better than you think.
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On October 17 2017 20:58 aQuaSC wrote:Slightly going out of topic, but to me personally biggest flaw SC2 has had over the years is the fact that there are many units that are present across campaign, multiplayer and co-op in which they work completely differently. What SC1 has best is the fact that you get the same tools in multiplayer as in campaign - single player in SC1 is an amazing introduction to the multiplayer part of the game. If you can handle units in campaign there you can do it in multiplayer. Future RTS should take this into account. One thing in the game needs to be identical across all of the game modes. It's understandable that Blizzard wanted SC2 campaigns and other stuff being as explosive, fun and varied as possible and to me they did, but it shouldn't take priority in development of all of the game modes. It ended up dividing the game in itself, I mean you have Adepts shooting air in LotV campaign and in co-op, but not in multiplayer? Why? A tooltip before a regular multiplayer match saying that campaign units are heavily modified compared to multiplayer is not a fix for this. In my opinion multiplayer should have and be a base set of game units/mechanics with campaign/co-op having stuff exclusive to them and every change affecting multiplayer should affect other modes too, but it's too late to change any of that. Axiom is only going further that way. If it was ever made with a thought of being an entrance to regular SC2 1v1, well it won't be. It's a completely different game mode, it shouldn't be compared to regular competitive experience, it's more of an RPG where you play a person that can play SC2 or something. If someone happens to get into SC2 through it they will be in for a surprise when they try the real thing, hopefully they will stay for the challenge. Or maybe I'm overthinking it all
I couldnt disagree more, I think that makes SC2's campaign so fun and dynamic is that the fact you got access to really cool and fun units that wouldnt be balanced in a PVP mode, it also made the game rewarding to get all the side/bonus objectives, not to mention replayable as you sought different upgrades through different playthroughs. And for the case of LOTV, it was a min/max decision and you decided what units you wanted to bring into battle with you.
That's kind of sets Blizzard RTSes apart from shitty Relic/Petroglyph campaigns, where they give you the same units, the same maps and the campaign is essentially a bunch of skirmish maps.
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On October 19 2017 08:23 ClanWars wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2017 08:02 WaesumNinja wrote:On October 19 2017 03:05 ClanWars wrote:
You can't "fix" builds. Rushes are going to happen in every RTS. There is no way to stop that without putting artificial limitations (such as Supcoms no-rush X minute forcefield) into the game that take it way too far away from the SC2 experience.
Sure you can. Since you're citing Supreme Commander you're halfway there. In that game, you start with a unit which is very powerful at the early stage of the game but scales worse as more powerful units are coming out. So you can do the same thing here, but you have even more control than that. You can introduce a Hyperion "hero" unit, which is not controlled by the player directly, but that will hover around his bases and defend them for him. In turn you can put more emphasis on map objectives to reward players who prefer to be more active in the early game. But why? Why do you want to take rushing out of the game? Rushing is part of RTS. I have no interest in removing things from the game that add to the strategy of it, only unnecessary mechanical obstacles.
+1 +1 +1 +1 +1
Rushing is a perfectly acceptable strat. If people don't lile it then they should practice a way to beat it.
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This trend is why the rts genre died and sc2 being the last survivor.
Noobification.
Rts games are not supposed to be easy.
This is why they are fun.
Like a command and conquer dev once told me ''we had to figure out something for the people who don't realize they need to build multiple harvesters''. Cnc4 was released shortly after.
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On October 19 2017 08:23 ClanWars wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2017 08:02 WaesumNinja wrote:On October 19 2017 03:05 ClanWars wrote:
You can't "fix" builds. Rushes are going to happen in every RTS. There is no way to stop that without putting artificial limitations (such as Supcoms no-rush X minute forcefield) into the game that take it way too far away from the SC2 experience.
Sure you can. Since you're citing Supreme Commander you're halfway there. In that game, you start with a unit which is very powerful at the early stage of the game but scales worse as more powerful units are coming out. So you can do the same thing here, but you have even more control than that. You can introduce a Hyperion "hero" unit, which is not controlled by the player directly, but that will hover around his bases and defend them for him. In turn you can put more emphasis on map objectives to reward players who prefer to be more active in the early game. But why? Why do you want to take rushing out of the game? Rushing is part of RTS. I have no interest in removing things from the game that add to the strategy of it, only unnecessary mechanical obstacles.
A game-designers job is to identify what the fun parts of the game is and remove the unfun parts. You can never make everyone happy at the same time so compromises must be made in relation to the target group.
With regards to rushing, it depends on what your target group finds fun. Is it to play a game where you are spread out over multiple bases and where you can have multiple attacks all over the map before the game ends?
Or is it a 5 minute attack where one guy has a 30% larger army and can thus a-move to victory?
One of the reasons the MOBA-genre is popular is that the game clearly defines a natural defenders advantage (through towers) so you just can't go for a surprise early game strategy and kill the enemy nexus after 7 minutes. That's unlikely to be a fun experience.
Instead it guarantees that you have actual duels and can fight the enemy opponent at somewhat even ground which tends to be what people prefer.
Regardless I would never criticize the mod for not adding more natural defenders advantage. I think you are doing the right job at making harass/cheese openings more forgiving, but I don't agree that those should be considered long-term fundamental fixes for the RTS genre.
Eventually the RTS genre (to survive long-term) needs to learn from moba's and develop some type of structure that almost guarateens "even fights" all across the map.
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On October 19 2017 23:01 lestye wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2017 20:58 aQuaSC wrote:Slightly going out of topic, but to me personally biggest flaw SC2 has had over the years is the fact that there are many units that are present across campaign, multiplayer and co-op in which they work completely differently. What SC1 has best is the fact that you get the same tools in multiplayer as in campaign - single player in SC1 is an amazing introduction to the multiplayer part of the game. If you can handle units in campaign there you can do it in multiplayer. Future RTS should take this into account. One thing in the game needs to be identical across all of the game modes. It's understandable that Blizzard wanted SC2 campaigns and other stuff being as explosive, fun and varied as possible and to me they did, but it shouldn't take priority in development of all of the game modes. It ended up dividing the game in itself, I mean you have Adepts shooting air in LotV campaign and in co-op, but not in multiplayer? Why? A tooltip before a regular multiplayer match saying that campaign units are heavily modified compared to multiplayer is not a fix for this. In my opinion multiplayer should have and be a base set of game units/mechanics with campaign/co-op having stuff exclusive to them and every change affecting multiplayer should affect other modes too, but it's too late to change any of that. Axiom is only going further that way. If it was ever made with a thought of being an entrance to regular SC2 1v1, well it won't be. It's a completely different game mode, it shouldn't be compared to regular competitive experience, it's more of an RPG where you play a person that can play SC2 or something. If someone happens to get into SC2 through it they will be in for a surprise when they try the real thing, hopefully they will stay for the challenge. Or maybe I'm overthinking it all I couldnt disagree more, I think that makes SC2's campaign so fun and dynamic is that the fact you got access to really cool and fun units that wouldnt be balanced in a PVP mode, it also made the game rewarding to get all the side/bonus objectives, not to mention replayable as you sought different upgrades through different playthroughs. And for the case of LOTV, it was a min/max decision and you decided what units you wanted to bring into battle with you. That's kind of sets Blizzard RTSes apart from shitty Relic/Petroglyph campaigns, where they give you the same units, the same maps and the campaign is essentially a bunch of skirmish maps.
I never meant that all of the modes should have the same stuff. I just merely pointed out that the same units should work in the exact same way across different game types and the anti-air Adept in co-op and campaign was an example of that.
Multiplayer = multiplayer units. Co-op/campaign = multiplayer units + all other stuff. All of this to prevent numerous situations like like player going to multiplayer while having co-op or campaign experience where he used adepts against mutalisks thinking he could do the same in 1v1.
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On October 20 2017 00:45 aQuaSC wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2017 23:01 lestye wrote:On October 17 2017 20:58 aQuaSC wrote:Slightly going out of topic, but to me personally biggest flaw SC2 has had over the years is the fact that there are many units that are present across campaign, multiplayer and co-op in which they work completely differently. What SC1 has best is the fact that you get the same tools in multiplayer as in campaign - single player in SC1 is an amazing introduction to the multiplayer part of the game. If you can handle units in campaign there you can do it in multiplayer. Future RTS should take this into account. One thing in the game needs to be identical across all of the game modes. It's understandable that Blizzard wanted SC2 campaigns and other stuff being as explosive, fun and varied as possible and to me they did, but it shouldn't take priority in development of all of the game modes. It ended up dividing the game in itself, I mean you have Adepts shooting air in LotV campaign and in co-op, but not in multiplayer? Why? A tooltip before a regular multiplayer match saying that campaign units are heavily modified compared to multiplayer is not a fix for this. In my opinion multiplayer should have and be a base set of game units/mechanics with campaign/co-op having stuff exclusive to them and every change affecting multiplayer should affect other modes too, but it's too late to change any of that. Axiom is only going further that way. If it was ever made with a thought of being an entrance to regular SC2 1v1, well it won't be. It's a completely different game mode, it shouldn't be compared to regular competitive experience, it's more of an RPG where you play a person that can play SC2 or something. If someone happens to get into SC2 through it they will be in for a surprise when they try the real thing, hopefully they will stay for the challenge. Or maybe I'm overthinking it all I couldnt disagree more, I think that makes SC2's campaign so fun and dynamic is that the fact you got access to really cool and fun units that wouldnt be balanced in a PVP mode, it also made the game rewarding to get all the side/bonus objectives, not to mention replayable as you sought different upgrades through different playthroughs. And for the case of LOTV, it was a min/max decision and you decided what units you wanted to bring into battle with you. That's kind of sets Blizzard RTSes apart from shitty Relic/Petroglyph campaigns, where they give you the same units, the same maps and the campaign is essentially a bunch of skirmish maps. I never meant that all of the modes should have the same stuff. I just merely pointed out that the same units should work in the exact same way across different game types and the anti-air Adept in co-op and campaign was an example of that. Multiplayer = multiplayer units. Co-op/campaign = multiplayer units + all other stuff. All of this to prevent numerous situations like like player going to multiplayer while having co-op or campaign experience where he used adepts against mutalisks thinking he could do the same in 1v1.
Gotcha, I guess this makes sense. I think they tried to do this, I recall like the zealots and sentries had 3 different names in the LOTV campaign, whereas the Adept doesn't, maybe thats the ideal solution.
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