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Sweden33719 Posts
Theorycrafting ~New Ideas~: Units, UI, Gameplay
This thread is intended for discussion of your thoughts and ideas for Starcraft 2, collected in one place. You will still be allowed to create separate topics on these subjects, however the quality standards will be high and you should have a good reason for not posting it in here.
A good example of a quality thread would be Bluzman's excellent post on Territory-independent production. I will refrain from including an example of a bad post, but use common sense - put some effort into it and you'll be fine. Avoid well-worded (as well as not so well-worded) shit, make sure you have a point/idea and that you present it well.
What goes in this thread?
Well, anything from thoughts on the user interface (and how to improve it) to unit ideas. Keep in mind, however, that just because this is a very general thread it does not give you a license to post crap, stay on topic and contribute intelligently.
* Try to make sure that you are somewhat up to date on the development of the game, ie making posts about how much you hate the mothership being a one of a kind unit, when that is ancient history, is not a great idea.
* Don't post something that has already been posted, unless you have something new to add. This means read the thread before posting!
* Be civil. Giving constructive criticism on someone’s idea is great; however, calling him a "retarded noob" is not conducive to promoting a civilized discussion, I don’t think I have to explain why.
* As with all other parts of this forum, please - no polls!
Follow the rest of the SC2 forum guidelines and you'll be fine.
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Here goes.. wouldn't it be great if you could move around the HUD, or parts of it? Like you could put the minimap on the top left, or have your minerals/gas counts near the middle of the screen for easy access, or even get rid of the button panel if you have all your hotkeys memorized. This would appeal to all those minimalists out there like me that want to see more of the battlefield.
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Oh one more.. what does everyone think about a resource donating system? If any of you have played Age of Empires you'd know you could send some of your resources to your teammates if they needed some. I think this would be a GREAT addition to team play.
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Sweden33719 Posts
I think a resource sharing system is already in place.
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Well on the topic of resource sharing, do you think there should be a time limit when you can share resources (like 3 mins) so that you dont get any rediculous rushes due to one player funding another? Its not a problem in warcraft 3, but I could see it becoming a problem in starcraft 2.
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On November 09 2007 13:38 Fen wrote:
Well on the topic of resource sharing, do you think there should be a time limit when you can share resources (like 3 mins) so that you dont get any rediculous rushes due to one player funding another? Its not a problem in warcraft 3, but I could see it becoming a problem in starcraft 2.
I think it works fine. If the 2 players decided to share resources early game, then it is up to them, but realize that the one player donating the money is at a big disadvantage because he is now behind in progression compared to the other players. All in all I think it would work great, it did in Age of Empires.
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No, it would be broken if you could donate all of your cash to someone right away, because if you can eliminate one of the players then the sacrifice will be worth most of the time.
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On November 09 2007 14:18 A3iL3r0n wrote:
No, it would be broken if you could donate all of your cash to someone right away, because if you can eliminate one of the players then the sacrifice will be worth most of the time.
Good point, but it doesn't have to be right away. Maybe a 1 minute delay or something.
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Why would slinging in SC2 be suddenly way more powerful than in games like W3 or the AOE games? It's fun to do and allows for a lot of creative builds in both those games, but it isn't imbalanced in either - in almost all circumstances the slings are very easily countered.
On the subject of team games, I'd say its almost guaranteed they have shared unit control like in W3 - hopefully they will allow for full shared control too (building units and buildings for your ally) as there are sometimes frustrating moments that could be solved with this and I see no reason at all not to include it.
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I think with issues like "noobifying" the game, there should be ways of "automating" micromanagement, but at the cost of doing it well. For example, reavers automatically shoot, but unless u micro them, they're just going to attack what is closest, so to play at a high level, you'll need to micro them even if they manage themselves.
Others:
1- make it so 2 scvs per mineral patch is the best. Once you micro so it's exactly 2 scvs mining for each mineral patch, the scvs stay mining their own minerals and don't move around. This is most efficient. (Just make it so if an scv approaches a mineral and it's already occupied, for the new scv to wait at their mineral patch for a while instead of moving to another one immediately) On the other hand, if you don't micro ur scvs so it's 2 per mineral patch, or if you put more than 2 per mineral patch, the scvs start wandering around and makes the mining inefficient.
2- mbs: make it so when you press the button, each building makes that unit unless you run out of minerals. Good for noobs. Bad for pros.
3- make shield regenerate like in halo. creates more room for micro.
4- make line of sight so that units see what is in front of them and to their side, and almost nothing behind them. This opens up room for microing troop movement and taking advantage of sloppy troop movement. also means that scouting units like obs should use the patrol command, so when they change directions, they can see 2x as much as when they don't change directions. finally, something useful for the patrol command to do.
5- storm can be auto of course... but the AI should be as retarded as the reaver = attack first unit in sight... which is probably a unit that is surrounded by ur own units, or a mutalisk that is right over a clump of probes.
6- the damage/hp ratio needs to be high enough so units die. This is one of the big differences between starcraft and warcraft3. In starcraft, saving the "damage dealing" units is extremely dependent on positioning as they enter battle. Making units take too long to kill will negate this factor of the game.
7- I want to see micro players be able to compete with macro players to the point where they can keep up even if they are one base down. keep the little things in like vulture attack movement micro when attacking and running away from zealots, muta micro, scourge, etc, and make them more powerful. players need to be overwhelmed at any point in time by the things they need to do. each player's preference for what they like to do should be just as unique as their preferred build order. Boxer's marine micro is inscrutable, but why should marines be the only unit who's effectiveness increases by 500% when microed properly? Other units like reavers and templar and muta may increase by 200% or so, but still, all units should be designed so when they are microed, their effectiveness increases to 500%.
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On November 09 2007 17:09 Gobol wrote:On the subject of team games, I'd say its almost guaranteed they have shared unit control like in W3 - hopefully they will allow for full shared control too (building units and buildings for your ally) as there are sometimes frustrating moments that could be solved with this and I see no reason at all not to include it.
I'd completely disagree with having shared unit control by default. They should just keep Team Melee as a game type in SC2.
Edit: If you realy think about it, what if you're in a public game and your random partner is messing up your shit. But then again I don't know how it works in W3, care to elaborate?
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On November 09 2007 18:14 LoveandPeace wrote:1- make it so 2 scvs per mineral patch is the best. Once you micro so it's exactly 2 scvs mining for each mineral patch, the scvs stay mining their own minerals and don't move around. This is most efficient. (Just make it so if an scv approaches a mineral and it's already occupied, for the new scv to wait at their mineral patch for a while instead of moving to another one immediately) On the other hand, if you don't micro ur scvs so it's 2 per mineral patch, or if you put more than 2 per mineral patch, the scvs start wandering around and makes the mining inefficient.
Actually.. isn't it less efficient to have idle workers waiting in line rather than spending those few milliseconds looking for the next available/closest patch?
On November 09 2007 18:14 LoveandPeace wrote:2- mbs: make it so when you press the button, each building makes that unit unless you run out of minerals. Good for noobs. Bad for pros.
That was the original purpose of MBS afaik. I still don't like it though.
On November 09 2007 18:14 LoveandPeace wrote:3- make shield regenerate like in halo. creates more room for micro.
They did say in one of the Q&A batches that Protoss shield regeneration is at least two times faster.
On November 09 2007 18:14 LoveandPeace wrote:4- make line of sight so that units see what is in front of them and to their side, and almost nothing behind them. This opens up room for microing troop movement and taking advantage of sloppy troop movement. also means that scouting units like obs should use the patrol command, so when they change directions, they can see 2x as much as when they don't change directions. finally, something useful for the patrol command to do.
I like the idea, but it wouldn't work for SC at all.. I can't give a good reason, but I just don't think it'll work period. It just asks too much of the player to watch every unit at all times.
On November 09 2007 18:14 LoveandPeace wrote:5- storm can be auto of course... but the AI should be as retarded as the reaver = attack first unit in sight... which is probably a unit that is surrounded by ur own units, or a mutalisk that is right over a clump of probes.
I just don't want really smart AI that will basically play the game for you. Like the Zealot's charge ability, yeah its cool, but I'd rather see it user controllable to use the charge ability like a stimpack.
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Well im sure this is like auto for the game but ive never seen it said in the forums is
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Have adjustable Mouse speed not just scroll speeds on mouse and keyboard I think this is necessary when dealing with games with multiple screen resolutions.
I mean at 1280 by 1024 my screen size it's impracticable to use 800 dpi too much hand movement; so I have my mouse speed all the way up in OS settings.
I mean if they don’t do it people just buy those 348927389432798472 dpi mice.
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And I really think the green circle around units when you select them doesn't look nice in 3d. I think instead, it should be like a green circle "shadow" that is filled in. green unfilled in circle is good for sprites but not for 3d. just looks bad.
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On November 09 2007 17:09 Gobol wrote:
Why would slinging in SC2 be suddenly way more powerful than in games like W3 or the AOE games?
Compare rushes in starcraft with rushes in wc3/aoe and you'll get the point.
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On November 09 2007 18:19 Spartan wrote:
Like the Zealot's charge ability, yeah its cool, but I'd rather see it user controllable to use the charge ability like a stimpack.
I agree fully with this. In starcraft, a frustrating thing is when one of your zealots gets attacked and they all go to attack their attacker, running themselves into even more fire. However if you pull em out as soon as they are shot, no probs. However with an automatic charge, baiting zealots is going to become a problem for Protoss players and I fear It might become an upgrade which ends up being detrimental rather than benificial. By giving the players control over the charge, it opens up more micro opportunities and prevents baiting. But then if you do that, youve basically just given zealots stim packs.
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On November 09 2007 18:14 Spartan wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2007 17:09 Gobol wrote:On the subject of team games, I'd say its almost guaranteed they have shared unit control like in W3 - hopefully they will allow for full shared control too (building units and buildings for your ally) as there are sometimes frustrating moments that could be solved with this and I see no reason at all not to include it. I'd completely disagree with having shared unit control by default. They should just keep Team Melee as a game type in SC2. Edit: If you realy think about it, what if you're in a public game and your random partner is messing up your shit. But then again I don't know how it works in W3, care to elaborate?
Of course you can enable/disable it from the allies menu at any point in the game you want, it's RIDICULOUS to even think there would be such an obvious flaw in the system in a BLIZZARD game. Gobol was reffering to restrictions like that you can't queue new units in an allie's buildngs, when the control is shared.
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Russian Federation4235 Posts
Well, I think I've had some stuff circulating in my mind for some time, maybe it's the moment to materialize the ideas.
1) Several methods of replay saving:
a) conventional *.rep that consists of commands issued by players - very small, but requires full engine to handle commands, is NOT open to analysis as it doesn't record gamestate.
b) extended replay, *.erp, still requires engine, but also records gamestate like how much minerals are owned by the players at every game tick and other stuff. Watchable in SCII, but is open to analysis in standalone applications. Medium size.
c) video replay, *.vrp, a video file being recorded by SCII during the game. The difference from conventional VODs is that it does not necessary record messages, stops recording under pause etc. Largest size, but watchabale without SCII engine.
2) Ladder observing mode:
- Anyone can join ladder games as an observer with a new AMM feature. This is, of course, only possible is both contenders set a flag "enable external observers" as "true". Any of the contenders may choose to boot the observer at any time if they find his lag and/or behavior unacceptable.
3) Peer-to-peer connection system INSIDE battle.net.
- If people live close to each other, they might want to have reduced latency especially if they are not playing a ranked game. Since p2p opens some possibilites for hacking, it might be impossible to set up p2p ladder games, but it would be welcome to enable them at least for non-ranked games.
4) A "split group" button. There's nothing more annoying than selecting 24 probes and shift-clicking to reduce group size to 12. Before someone starts whining about progaming and lewt skillz, this only happens once or twice during a game and is nothing but annoyance.
5) A worker-meter. That simple, monitors how many workers you have.
Should be it for now, I'm sure there are more but can't recall them.
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On November 09 2007 12:50 Spartan wrote:
Oh one more.. what does everyone think about a resource donating system? If any of you have played Age of Empires you'd know you could send some of your resources to your teammates if they needed some. I think this would be a GREAT addition to team play.
Well this is something interesting.
But if I recall well you have to get a market in AOE/TC to do this. There is a real need for such a thing either an upgrade or building. To avoid this being free and straight ready to use.
Moreover due to the heavily developed flying unit parts of SC2 you would have to limit this with a given amount authorized at a time with a cooldown or something to avoid air superiority to be influenced in an impossible to counter way. I am thinking of mutalisk because they are so powerful and fast while shooting both air and ground units.
Third I think warning the other team of the donation would be fair allowing them to know what's going on and to pull out some counter.
Then I'll go with my own idea:
In team plays it would be great if you could switch to an observer mode. Imagine you are screwed but you did great in defending yourself thus having no way to recover. You go in obs mode which means you can't interfere in the game anymore but you aren't kicked when you don't have buildings anymore and if your mate(s) do take the win you get it too.
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I've been thinking of a spell for a zerg magic caster, like a queen.
It would be a medium area-of-effect spell that would affect enemies or friendly units. Once cast on the targets units they would become buffed (either increased attack, defense, speed, or a combination thereof) for a short duration of time (maybe 15 seconds or so). The downside is that when the effect ends, the units would have their health reduced or maybe even become 1-hit kills.
This could either be used defensively of aggressively. If cast on your units it would be very powerful for certain strategic attacks. If used on the enemy, it could reduce their health (great against a slow terran push, for example). But be very careful, because it could back fire (specially if their speed has been increased).
It might be a little imbalanced if used together with dark swarm, however.
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EPT
