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So I just had a thought, nothing too major but I think it would be useful and interesting.
A dynamic/living manual. Let me explain.
When a game like SC2 comes out it might have numbers of things listed on a manual or a webpage, marine hitpoints, hydralisk damage etc etc. But those quickly become outdated.
Right now if you want exact numbers of units in the game you would have to either trust a webpage (never kept up to date), possibly get the info from patch notes (which are usually not specific) or crack open StarEdit. Opening StarEdit is just not something the majority of people do, especially to just look through in game numbers.
So there could be an addition, sort of like a bestiary, which lists all the units with all their respective numbers, damage type, shows an attack animation, shows a death animation, building produced from etc. Without all the map editor fluff. This way it's a nice reference for new players to quickly figure out the basics and for more advanced players a good way to keep track of specifics through patch changes.
Are there any game out there right now with "living" manuals?
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I apologize if this idea has already been mentioned before, but what if a drone could morph into two drones (or into a pair of a new unit that could gather resources and have limited construction capabilities?)
I believe this can be used to increase macro for Zerg as well as potentially introducing new strategies depending on what the drone actually morphs into.
My suggestion would be to let drones morph into a pair of "Hatchlings" for about 25~50 minerals. Hatchlings are basically a mix of a drone and a zergling.
- Time to morph: same as drone
- 35 HP
- 0 Armor
- 5 Attack (which benefit from attack upgrades)
- Attack speed equivalent of an zergling without Adrenal Glands
- Movement speed will be the same but will not hover anymore (so they do trigger mines - if mines will be back in SC2)
- Does not benefit from creepwalk (or benefit only when not gathering resources)
- Can gather minerals and gas
- Can Burrow
- Can construct basic buildings such as Hatchery, Sunken Colony, Spore Colony
Benefits:
- Greatly increases Zerg's worker production capability. Zerg no longer have to choose between making drones or unit with their larvae (until they run out of drones to convert to hatchlings anyways.)
- Zerg's base defense is now somewhat stronger since Hatchlings are offensively stronger than drones.
- Zerg are able to recover from economic raids significantly quicker.
- Hatchlings are better at defense than drones mid and late game due to attack upgrades.
- Increases macro due to drones need to be commanded to morph into hatchings separate from producing drones from a hatchery.
Pitfalls:
- This ability may potentially give Zerg too much advantage in resource gathering.
- Hatchlings are easier to kill in econ raids.
- Making too many hatchlings at a time early game can hinder your economy.
- Are vulnerable to mines.
- Cannot be used to tech.
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I'd recommend that hatchlings not be able to build anything at all, for simplicity's sake.
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I think there needs to be a serious NERF on the Hunter Seeker missiles. They need have less time in the air, according to what i have read you need to evade them for 15 seconds, and i think 8-10 is more fair. Also, are they calling the ship that uses them Nighthawks or Ravens? Because i have read and heard both used.
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Marshall Islands104 Posts
Zerg Creep Drop Improvement
Most people who have played Blizzard's most recent build have written that the Zerg stick out as the weakest race.
One tech moved just a little earlier would change it all. The overlord's spread creep ability is T2 I believe, which makes it useful for the 30% speed boost and moving units via nydus worm. Move the tech earlier. If people have access to quick creep anywhere on the map--sunkens will take on a whole new aspect for the zerg.
There are two ways to make this change:
(1) Move the tech to T1 and make it expensive (minerals and some gas). This allows for creep to block people's naturals as well as lets the Zerg put a sunken on the map.
(2) Keep the tech at T2, but make it very, very cheap ( just a few minerals, and no gas). This delays the tech to T2, but will immediately let Zerg take control of the map with sunkens.
The benefits to the Zerg would be huge--maybe even to much. Testing will need to determine that. A Zerg who goes straight for this tech at the cost of something else (say his eco or the first 3 lings) will gain many abilities.
(1) Zerg will be able to block expos (or maybe even the natural) with creep provided the tech is a Hatch tech (T1). This may prove too powerful--though if an opponent kills the Zerg's overlord, no expo harass can occur.
(2) Zerg will be able to put down a sunken colony down. This is the tricky one. If any Zerg can get a sunken down anywhere too easily, sunken rushes would be too powerful. Set the T1 tech cost high enough, and sunken rushes should be at least possible, though not too powerful. I think, though, that the ability to place sunkens on the map in general and especially on cliffs will help the Zerg tactically. You can put a sunken near your opponents base simply so slow him down. You can put the sunken up on a cliff that his units need to path by. You can even put it up near your choke. Early sunkens on the map also makes the Zerg somewhat map-dependant (certain cliff locations will benefit them). Map-dependance is a good thing and helps balance. Read RaGe's article named Racial Balance: The Lazy Way Is The Good Way for more on this. Technically, cliff dependancy might not be great because the Zerg usually profit from open areas for flanking, but....
(3) Zerg will be able to hide tech buildings on creep in another spot on the map. This is probably not a major consideration.
(4) Zerg will be able do do interesting things to bunker rushes and Protoss forge expands. Say a bunker goes up at the Zerg's choke in an attempt to contain/rush. Provided you were spending your resources on the tech for creep spewing, you can spread creep the proper distance from the bunker, and set up your sunken. Terran may still try to kill your sunken while it is morphing--but then that actually sounds pretty good for balance.
(5) This is somewhat general, but sunkens + your army will definitely help out (as I believe sunkens in SC2 can move). A player will have to decide if the cost of researching the tech early on is worth with having sunkens with his zerglings.
This whole "early creep spwewing" idea first sounded too powerful, but a proper cost for the tech can delay it to exactly where it is effective, but balanced. It shouldn't be so cheap that Zerg always gets it--Zerg must be specifically going for the tech in order to allot enough minerals for the tech. Also each race has it's own responsibilites. For instance, it is the Zerg's responsibility to be ready to dance Hydras out of a psi storm's way. It is also Terran's responsibility to check if Protoss is trying to hide DT tech. Now it will be Terran and Protoss's responsibility to check if Zerg is trying to put sunkens on key positions in the map. Remember, though, that the Protoss gets the Nullifier and Terran gets the Marine early enough to prevent extended harassment of expos or the main (both the Nullifier and Marine will chase off the overlord).
Of course early creep spewing could be way too powerful if it comes too cheaply in T1. Balance will have to decide EXACTLY when it should be available (but definitely earlier than the current SC2 build). For instance, a little testing might show that the Zerg shouldn't be able to block a person's natural with creep. Then it will have to cost a little more--just enough to make it late for blocking someone's natural but still viable for sunkens. Et cetera.
Finally, I am sorry for being somewhat vague about the "exact critical cost" for this tech. I do not work at blizzard  and thus have no way to test this with the latest build of SC2. If I had to guess I might say something like 200 minerals 100 gas T1. Maybe even 100:100 with the prerequisite of the spawning pool.
Thank you for reading. Your thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.
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Observation mode:
Have the ability to observer the top X number of players on the ladders ranked games. Press a button on the battlenet interface and it opens a list that shows all ranked games played by the top X number of players in the last Y hours. Each game will loop itself repeatedly and if you just click the game to join you will be put into whatever time that the game is currently at along with all other people and be allowed to chat with them about the game. Also have the ability to type in an "observer password" to a game that starts the game at its beginning and other players can type the observer password to sync the game with you.
Games on observer mode are put into 15 minute delay so that the risk of "ghosting" for players does not exist.
This helps the game with three main points.
1. Players are given something to do within the game, enjoyable just to watch top level games.
2. Lower level players have direct access to build orders used by players who are successful. Although this takes some of the "creative aspect" out of the game, the build orders will be copied regardless of an existence of this system and this puts more emphasis on who can execute the build the best rather then who can make the best BO.
3. Players who achieve extremely high ranks on ladder using pure cheese builds will be much more well known and easy to counter, encouraging standard and well-rounded play. This also encourages players to constantly adapt and learn new strategies, because a player will only stay at the top doing 1 single build if he can execute it extremely well.
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On June 04 2009 00:18 GogoKodo wrote:
So I just had a thought, nothing too major but I think it would be useful and interesting.
A dynamic/living manual. Let me explain.
When a game like SC2 comes out it might have numbers of things listed on a manual or a webpage, marine hitpoints, hydralisk damage etc etc. But those quickly become outdated.
<snipped for brevity>
Are there any game out there right now with "living" manuals?
Has any other game done this. Yes but they are all unfinished compared to what the end product should be like you are describing because it is harder to pull off than you might be thinking it is.
Considering what Blizzard has done for SC in the past expect to have this type of service. Whether or not it will have the same level of detail as the WoW Armory is unknown because SC2 will have to rely moreso on box sales unless they have some other ideas for an additional stream of revenue via BNET.
I've posted this on bnet forums but I would like to also post the following here as well.
I'm not too thrilled with the Thor being a factory unit and not providing anything different for the Terrans that the Battlecruiser couldn't already fill.
My suggestion then is to create a new hover unit with a top speed similar to the Vulture with Ion Thrusters. It attacks ground only but it has an alternative passive mode that allows it to use its own ground attack to protect itself and friendly ground units from incoming air to ground missile attacks.
Typhoon
2 Damage x 8 hits, Fast, spiked
Defense 2, Mechanical, Armored
Range: 3
125 Min 125 Gas
HP 90
Upgrades
Defensive Matrix - (125 Energy) Creates an energy grid anchored on a specific terran object. Any terran unit and building is shielded reducing incoming damage by 50%.
Grid Fire - (Passive) Integrates new targeting computers into the Typhoon allowing it to intercept missile attacks reducing damage.
The following units' attacks would be affected by Grid Fire.
Mutalisks' Glave Wurms
Brood Lord Spores (but broodlings will still be spawned even if the attack itself is negated)
Carriers' Interceptors (It won't negate the damage Interceptors deal but instead deal damage to the Interceptors themselves)
Banshee missles
This would a better way of replacing the goliath with a unique unit.
Just to clear up any questions about Gridfire.
Each of the 8 shots don't immediately destroy a missile attack. For example the new glave worm is a 10+3+1 damage attack while the brood lord spores do 20 damage.
When the Typhoon Gridfires it completely negates the mutas attack with 7 of its hits and the eighth hit can be used to reduce another incoming air attack or hit an enemy ground unit.
But for the spore the Brood lord will be able to deal 4 damage to its target because gridfire wasn't strong enough to reduce all of the damage.
When the Typhoon receives a +1 attack upgrade it is then able to negate Brood Lords' attack entirely.
For balance purposes I'm guessing the Typhoon may have to be forced to do 1x8 damage from the start so that way upgrading weapon attacks mean a lot more with two upgrades instead of just the first one.
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Just a minor issue - I'm not sure if this is an option in War3 or not
Please allowing unallying a teammate after they've left the game. It's very annoying to have somebody leave in a team game when they have thigns in your base. You have to manually target their units one by one if you want to get ride of them, which is extraordinarily annoying. IF i could make my units do it themselves, that would be much better
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In a replay you can watch from any players first person view, or in a free cam observation view. I think they should add the option for a person to watch a replay and RECORD their own viewpoint. Then when the replay is viewed again or by others an extra view mode will be available, 1st person observer. This combined with voice recording would allow commentaries like you see in a BR or on YouTube etc rendered on your pc on the fly for perfect quality.
It might also be an option to lock the replay to only 1st person observer mode if one is created to allow the author of the replay to keep their exact build order and techniques hidden.
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On December 12 2009 07:35 GeneralStan wrote:
Just a minor issue - I'm not sure if this is an option in War3 or not
Please allowing unallying a teammate after they've left the game. It's very annoying to have somebody leave in a team game when they have thigns in your base. You have to manually target their units one by one if you want to get ride of them, which is extraordinarily annoying. IF i could make my units do it themselves, that would be much better
You necro-posted here just say that?
Of course you will get control of your ally's troops and buildings if he leaves the game. It already works that way in war3, and Blizzard is certainly not going to take away that feature.
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On December 12 2009 09:27 Drunken.Jedi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2009 07:35 GeneralStan wrote:
Just a minor issue - I'm not sure if this is an option in War3 or not
Please allowing unallying a teammate after they've left the game. It's very annoying to have somebody leave in a team game when they have thigns in your base. You have to manually target their units one by one if you want to get ride of them, which is extraordinarily annoying. IF i could make my units do it themselves, that would be much better You necro-posted here just say that? Of course you will get control of your ally's troops and buildings if he leaves the game. It already works that way in war3, and Blizzard is certainly not going to take away that feature.
Not just speculation either. Blizzard has confirmed that this is how it works a long time ago. But they went a step further and said that in a 2v2 for example, you can allow your allies to control your troops and vica versa while you are both still playing. Which would add a lot of cooperative options for 2vs2. Have one player perform macro while other micros all the troops, build specific units for your ally to use. So he can for example use a Stalker/Ling army while your doing something else etc.
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Zerg scourge replacement
corrupter upgrade: explosive sacs
When activated, the corrupter does AoE damage to all surrounding air targets.
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Give roaches the devourer's old attack, and nerf the regeneration rate a bit.
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EPT
