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On April 30 2008 19:53 Doctorasul wrote:Show nested quote +On April 30 2008 13:31 zobz wrote:
I think it might be awkward for a very timing-based game to have a day/night cycle. I think it might be too hard to forsee what time of day it will be when a certain timing comes up, a timing when you might want to be making your big push, and if it became night unexpectedly the timing might be lost, due to increased threat of ambushes. You can't really anticipate while designing your build order and game plan pre-match, what time of day it will be when you reach a certain supply or anything, because of all the various adaptations you have to make throughout the game. That means you'd have to be able to sense this independent linear time cycle and how it will overlap your non-linear adaptive push timing, and further adapt your timing with that in mind. Worse, if some more unexpected developements suddenly changed your ideal push timing to night time after you'd already invested alot towards that timing, it could be really hard to adapt. Everything you said makes me want day/night cycles even more. How is making the game more difficult a bad thing? Well actually I remember reading an interview with one of the blizzard devs where he said that in his opinion games like Guild Wars didn't succeed because they were way too complicated (every class had over 200 unique spells to choose from), so people would take too long trying to learn the basics and would lose interest before they got any good with the game. Which was why Blizzard was trying to keep the number of units limited, the number special abilities limited etc. SC1 has very simple mechanics and it's a great game, you don't need excessive complexity. So if we can keep the game as clean and simple as possible it will be probably better.
While I think day/night could bring some interesting new tools to map makers to balance different MUs on their maps. We must also try not to make it too complicated.
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I wouldnt mind it as a graphical element, as long as its not too distracting, but I dont want it to affect anything as far as abilities or upgrades. It should be eye candy only if it happens
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yeah, it should be purely aesthetics o__O
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I don't really like this idea at all. It doesn't add anything to the game as a cosmetic option - nobody's going to care if it's day or night when they're playing a melee game or even an UMS game, because nobody will notice it. It would sure mix it up as a non-cosmetic option, but that's a terrible idea too. Suddenly your army is less effective because it's night-time? Yeah, no. That sounds horribly imbalanced.
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Sweden33719 Posts
Uhm it's not imbalanced if it happens to everyone/you balance the game around it..?
Yes, it would greatly enhance UMS games, I'm pretty sure it will be in the map editor at the very least. The question is more if we should have it on ladder maps. Eventually, if it's in the map editor, OGN or some other league will make a map with it as a feature but if it's a good feature there's no reason to not have it before that happens.
Bleh.
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That makes gameplay way too random, which is wrong. Like someone above already mentioned it would cause the game to become imbalanced, as certain races would have an advantage over others during nighttime and none of the players in a game have any influence on the cycle.
The best way is to have it in the map editor and make it possible for map makers to choose how nighttime affects gameplay. It shouldn't be used in any ladder maps though.
I'm all for new mechanics, but putting tons of new stuff in the game just for the sake of having a lot of them is wrong. Starcraft is very easy to learn & understand, but it's pretty much impossible to master - and it should stay that way; not "impossbily complicated, impossible to master" 
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It wouldn't be random if the day/night duration is predetermined and known by the players.
it would cause the game to become imbalanced, as certain races would have an advantage over others during nighttime and none of the players in a game have any influence on the cycle.
The same can be said of cliffs, narrow pathways, islands or any other map feature - some races fare better than others with these features. Players adapt, they time their builds to correspond to them and the game is more dynamic. It's called asymmetry, not imbalance, and is one of the best things about Starcraft.
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On May 04 2008 23:02 True_Spike wrote:I'm all for new mechanics, but putting tons of new stuff in the game just for the sake of having a lot of them is wrong. Starcraft is very easy to learn & understand, but it's pretty much impossible to master - and it should stay that way; not "impossbily complicated, impossible to master" While I think that adding more balance control to map makers is good. I have to agree with True_Spike here. Day/night could just add unnecessary complexity. It's indeed the "easy to learn, impossible to master" that makes sc so popular. And, while new balancing elements are good, they don't need to add more complexity.
The game is in-depth enough. We don't need newcomers watching a VOD and asking
"WTH did the zerglings stop attacking and ran away from nothing???"
"cuz they daylight is coming and it's gonna burn them"
lol the game needs to be intuitive ^^
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Sweden33719 Posts
Most people know how day and night works.
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Lesseee, day and night cycles for melee maps where cycles (whether it'll cycle or be constant) can be set by the mapmaker. I guess, I'm fine with or without this.
If implemented, I'm a little uncomfortable with the balance changes because of a change in the cycle but if blizzard can get the balance right then I'm all for it... but this may be quite impossible. However, if they want dynamic stuffs because of the cycle, I would suggest they do it to the neutrals/npc/hostiles.
For example, some trees to come alive at night, sandworms come out during the day, shopkeepers to become hostile at night, certain animals/creeps/npc appear or disappear or at certain locations certain times of day, solar power generators to some weapon/scanner/machine/teleporter.... et cetera.
Of course, to the effect it doesn't imbalance the game.
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Sweden33719 Posts
The last bit would be either purely aesthetical/in UMSes right? 
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I would really dislike having to reset my gamma setting for every map.
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On April 30 2008 18:31 sushiman wrote:I like it as something that is purely esthetic. It makes sense in WC3 to have units lose vision during the night, but the high-tech armies and mutated-beyond-recognition creatures of SC doesn't really have any reason to why they would see less during the night. Besides that, I'd probably be annoyed with constantly floating buildings around to see a bit further. But if there's no impact on gameplay from it, I think it's nice. Seeing marines with small shoulderlamps and glowing protoss units during the night would be nice eyecandy.
I have to agree here. I'd like to see TvZ on a snow terrain map at night. Got the floodlights and everything, but if night isn't too distracting, I would like to see it :D
Just like that thread a while ago about the track marks on the ground (footprints, etc), it would be just a nice aesthetic feature for SC2 
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I wonder if SC2 will have shallow water passage like warcraft 3. Would be nice for UMS deisgns or maybe even melee.
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EPT
