[TerranCraft] Testing QoL changes with .SC2Mod

bobo38

France220 Posts

October 28 2018 12:02 GMT

Max from Terrancraft contacted me to elaborate a bit more my few comments on his balance update article and a subsequent reddit terran QoL community thread. We converged in a 2 articles approach because we wanted to be as inclusive as possible, starting from basics of SC2 game design and current capabilities
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The 1st article is out:
https://terrancraft.com/2018/10/27/guest-article-testing-and-implementing-quality-of-life-changes-with-sc2mod-part-1/

Mainly my content for this one, with a tutorial how I built the .SC2Mod step by step, showing at the same time the SC2's inside (that I know). It will serve as foundation for part 2 article, which will deal with game change design with an attempt of programming perspective and community impact, Max wants to talk about asymmetry in knowledge about QoL changes and game design and the consequences it could have

Enjoy the reading

propagare

Germany93 Posts

October 29 2018 23:03 GMT

Wow!
I can't stress enough how deep this project goes and how sad it is to see it end unrecognized. I thought this was TeamLqiuid, home of the Sc2 nerd geeks who appreciate manipulating unit priorities with an in-game mod to test potential Blizzard QoL changes! That there was no comment on r/starcraft is already a thing, but here? It's strange. Too special? Not from my point of view! gg wp @bobo38 !

propagare

Germany93 Posts

November 28 2018 15:51 GMT

bump for visibility.

DieuCure

France3713 Posts

November 28 2018 16:44 GMT

Please no, it's not a "QoL" but just a "make the game easier please i cant stand the micro" ...

I find it surprising that it comes from Terrancraft.

But the QoLs affect more and more the gameplay ( gates for example ), and this is absolutely not a good thing, nor their role.

BisuDagger

Bisutopia19322 Posts

November 28 2018 16:54 GMT

On November 29 2018 01:44 DieuCure wrote:
Please no, it's not a "QoL" but just a "make the game easier please i cant stand the micro" ...

I find it surprising that it comes from Terrancraft.

But the QoLs affect more and more the gameplay ( gates for example ), and this is absolutely not a good thing, nor their role.

The point regarding having to tab through your control group for an ability is intriguing to me. From 20 years of BW and using control groups to quickly get to abilities (or ctrl clicking), tabbing through is an extreme quality of life improvement. But I had actually thought, through the eyes of a game designer how can this be improved any further.
I think it would be interesting to see if someone could implement a QUERTY MOBA style list of actions based on the units in your control group. That way all the abilities of every unique unit type (minus workers) is available at once without having to tab at all. I see that as an improvement as opposed trying to build a unit ability priority list as discussed in the OP article.

bobo38

France220 Posts

November 28 2018 18:56 GMT

@DieuCure: it's about muscle memory, once you've ghost in main army you can no longer stim, for this reason certain players just don't use ghosts… fundamentally this hardcoded setting is arbitrary and could be placed in hands of player, part 1 is about how it comes its like that, and expose how simple it could be to change it with game design as of today

@BisuDagger: this orientation has been chosen to see how the game is built, and see what could be done with minor changes. The QWERTY MOBA style sounds appealing but it's a major redesign. The amount of possible unit combination in such a game as SC2 makes it a big challenge. This type of feature will probably come at some point with a new RTS, built from scratch on this principle

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