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A lot of people have brought up how coop can get somewhat boring once you get higher masteries because they make the Brutal maps easy. Mutations provide one alternative, but some people find them frustrating, and if you don't like the current mutation and find Brutal too easy, you're out of luck.
One option, obviously, is just to add another difficulty above Brutal. This would provide an added challenge, but it has the problem of being one-size-fits all. Since some commanders (like Zagara) are more affected by adjustments in the amount of enemy units coming in then others, it could be difficult or impossible to balance such an extra difficulty so that every commander gets a good challenge at high-masteries.
So here's my suggestion: have each map get a bunch of additional bonus objectives, with some randomization of which objectives appear in a given mission (for instance, a map might have 8 possible objectives, and 5 of them appear in a specific mission). You could then double the maximum XP earned from completing bonuses.
The result is that during a mission, commanders are free to take on as many bonuses as they can, keeping the experience challenging for everyone. If you have a bad ally or the map is poor for your commander, you can take on less bonuses while still trying to push yourself. If there's good synergy with your ally, you can go for all of the bonuses, and things will still be interesting.
The main drawback is that is would require a moderate amount of work from Blizzard on all the existing maps, but I think it would be worth it. Thoughts?
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I'm actually more in favor of a higher difficulty setting.To me, co-op doesn't have to be well balanced. I enjoy the fact that some commanders are weaker than others and thus require more micro and overall skill to be effective. However, I would like it if a higher difficulty didn't give any achievements. Just in place to cater to experienced co-op player looking for more of a challenge.
While I'm not thorougly against the idea of more bonus objectives, I'm a bit of a completionist so not being able to get all bonuses because my ally was bad would really rub me the wrong way.
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I don't think it's necessary to randomize the bonus objectives, it's quite a lot of work to be certain that everything works well
What I would do is give a ridiculously small bonus (like 500 XP, so you have exactly 50k XP for a win instead of the ugly 49500 XP) to a ridiculously hard, hidden in a corner and timed objective.
Don't introduce them as bonus objectives because it is really frustrating to have something always splattered on screen that you know you can't do. Just consider them easter eggs, those who play enough know they are there. One recurring idea from custom maps is bringing a worker in a place they should never go (the middle of the enemy base for example)
For example, if you bring a worker soon enough in the middle left base of the train mission (it won't happen by accident) then when the last pair of trains appear, a special bonus train appear with heavy heavy heavy escort
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On March 12 2017 01:16 fezvez wrote: For example, if you bring a worker soon enough in the middle left base of the train mission (it won't happen by accident) then when the last pair of trains appear, a special bonus train appear with heavy heavy heavy escort
That would be a way to provide an interesting additional challenge for Brutal games where things are looking a bit too easy. The downsides from my perspective are that it seems to be less capable of giving players a way to keep challenging themselves throughout the mission (if you miss the chance to trigger the bonus, the rest of the mission is just same-old, even if you stabilize and want something interesting to do), and that it has the potential to get formulaic just like the missions are now (if you know exactly what's coming, then there's a single optimal path that you follow every time for that mission, but if the next bonus could be any of five possibilities, then you have to keep your build more prepared for adaptations, and do more thinking on your feet).
In terms of the difficulty of making sure everything works well, that's an argument for something like diminishing XP returns for each additional bonus completed. As long as players don't feel too much pressure to complete all the bonuses, they can try to prioritize the ones their commanders are suited for - reducing the amount of balancing needed.
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I recall them saying they were going to rework Hard and Brutal, so that Hard is a bit tougher and Brutal was much tougher. They didn't want to add more levels of difficulty to split the playerbase, and as someone that's played Diablo, I can understand. No news as to when this is going to happen though as they have not provided an update in months. Custom Mutations are neat, but without a server browser of some sort, you can't queue into the madness and try it out.
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On March 12 2017 22:43 DrSeRRoD wrote: I recall them saying they were going to rework Hard and Brutal, so that Hard is a bit tougher and Brutal was much tougher. They didn't want to add more levels of difficulty to split the playerbase, and as someone that's played Diablo, I can understand. No news as to when this is going to happen though as they have not provided an update in months. Custom Mutations are neat, but without a server browser of some sort, you can't queue into the madness and try it out. If they made brutal harder I would really like to have a function that prevented players who lost like 5 games in a row on brutal from playing brutal. Playing with bad allies is pure cancer.
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Russian Federation473 Posts
another suggestion: make custom mutations playable with random allies, with one random mutator
i don't always have an arranged ally, but mutators definitely make it more fun
one should remove the most annoying mutators from the list though
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I feel the rewards of bonus objectives should not be in terms of XP, as it gives no advantage to those who already hit mastery 90.
Perhaps give something tangible that you can use, for example: - rescuable heroic unit - free automated resource generator, chrono boost - free upgrades to weapon and armor - additional toolbar abilities
Let players decide for themselves if it is worth to pursue for the bonuses. And yes, currently there are a few bonuses that are too easily obtainable.
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