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I love SC2, I really do, much more than even BW in fact. After ~20 years of "similar" gameplay it still manages to feel rather fresh, very-very engaging and fun. But I'm pretty sure lots of people though about some kind of expansion, which Blizzard is simply incapable to do due to aforementioned reason.
Just to lay out possibilities floating on the surface, we could easily get Hybrid faction f.e. Each race can be divided into 3+ (some rather countless) factions, for example: Terran - Raynors' Raider (main) into Dominion/UED/Han's marauders/etc Protoss - Aiur (main) - Tal'darim/Nerazim/Purifiers I can't even list how many things can be done with Zerg, from per-faction mutation, focus on specific units/no base or one HQ research type to entire faction such as Stukov with Terran/Zerg hybrid armies.
Anyone remember C&C series, Generals ZH/Kane's Wrath? So, SC2 can do it WAY better.
We already have some sort of that in Co-op, which is fun at some extent, but bringing this stuff in player vs. player environment would be better IMO. Lots of units and tech are campaign exclusive and countless other stuff is just unused. Most curious that assets already exist including anims, voice overs, etc. It just needs few models to be added (while Blizz have no problem releasing pretty new skins every so often) and a little polish.
Other point that is kinda sad to me that melee customs are dead, plain and simple, while there are SO MANY awesome maps just sitting there useless. Anyone who wants to play SC2 in versus mode has to endure several maps chosen for the ladder over and over and over again. I perfectly understand that it's best that way for balance and competitive play purposes, but so much content can't be just wasted...
I can write whole essay on how to design it and bring more life into it, which would be pointless, since I'm pretty sure Blizz knows and understands all these possibilities better than any of us, the question is however: what are the real reasons they not doing anything about it? Since it doesn't require over the top resource investment for widening attractiveness of the game for more casual/average crowd uninterested in ladder seasons only. Plus since game went F2P, I'm pretty sure lots of people would be willing to pay for each faction any reasonable price. They would be killing like 10 birds with one stone with that move. General idea is that since this won't have main competitive focus, perfect balance wouldn't be such a priority as 3 main races for ladder.
Also, I'm curious, how community feels about it, would any of you guys be interested in something like this or it's just my personal pipedream and I'm full-time nutjob?...
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it is an interesting proposal. However, i don't want SC2 to employ sub-factions the way C&C3 and Kane's Wrath did. I'm happy with SC2's current approach. Leave it alone.
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The 3 races are already hard enough to balance by themselves--subfactions would be a nightmare.
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I don't think this is an issue with esports so much that customs is dead, but more just the interface. I tried to even just make a standard lobby on Saturday for my AHGL game and it took me forever to figure out how to even host a normal lobby.
This topic just seems to conflate two ideas, esports vs custom games, and 'how cool would CCGZH style SC2 be'. On the second topic, I'd love a 3 main army/ 3 subarmy thing like the old CCGZH games. I played that so much!
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On February 21 2018 10:11 mierin wrote: The 3 races are already hard enough to balance by themselves--subfactions would be a nightmare. If you gave each race one subfaction, you now have 21 matchups to balance. If each race had two subfaction, you have 72 matchups to balance. Based on that math alone, I would say no to subfactions.
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Of course sub-factions would be a total nightmare to balance, but in casual custom moshpits not many would really mind it that much I think, and that would be completely unrelated to 3 standard factions, which would be still main competitive focus, treated like e-sport with balance and etc. I mean co-op commanders are nowhere near balanced, but nobody really mind it. My proposal is to literally treat sub-factions the same way Blizz treats co-op.
It all just contributes and reaches out to more players and tastes out there, to more expanded gameplay, just too keep the game from stagnating while winning more audience. Let's face it, currently SC2 has absolutely no competition on the market, especially since F2P update. There's also no real possibility of new SC game in 10+ years, and there's not even any sense in making it since SC2 still looks and plays amazingly well. Blizz won't be making WC4 any time soon either. They have enough projects to maintain already and two competitive RTS would be literally impossible to run at the same level of quality.
I'd really like to hear (read) more opinions with reasons on why would or wouldn't you like to have such a thing in the game, just really curious.
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On February 21 2018 12:10 Sundr wrote: It all just contributes and reaches out to more players and tastes out there, to more expanded gameplay, just too keep the game from stagnating while winning more audience. Let's face it, currently SC2 has absolutely no competition on the market, especially since F2P update. There's also no real possibility of new SC game in 10+ years, and there's not even any sense in making it since SC2 still looks and plays amazingly well. Blizz won't be making WC4 any time soon either.
Well I think you kind of answered your own question here with why Blizzard is hesitant to invest in sub factions. It makes more sense for Blizzard to focus all their infrastructure onto increasing the market penetration of multiplayer and the overall profitability of SC's main line features as opposed to adding in more features to this already content packed game. Co-op makes a lot of sense from a business stand point because its blizzard sold quality assured versions of what people have been making on the arcade for years, and the arcade games that most people play with similar properties rose up because they are passion projects, which is hard to do for blizzard as a public business that is very sponsor facing. With Blizzard supporting the campaign, co-op, competitive ladder and of course the competitive scene in general, every other projects represents cutting back on these 4 main endeavours. While we might see this happen eventually if Blizzard stops the esports focus or the campaign suddenly start selling like hotcakes but I think thats basically impossible when you see what niche starcraft represents in the market. On an ending note WC4 isn't coming out anytime soon but the talks of WC3HD are reaching a fervour pitch to the point where people are thinking we might see an announcement at the end of Katowice. If anything, we might see a new faction in starcraft 3 due to the ending of LotV implying a new life form in the kaprulu system, but we're going to need to burn out on SC2, start on a new blizzard RTS and then transition to SC3 from there. At this point SC2 might just never die because of its incredibly devout audience if blizzard continues with the support so I highly doubt we're going to see anything of the above in the next decade.
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I think you vastly underestimate the amount of time and effort that would be necessary for the design, balance, marketing and maintenance to create a brand new game mode with sub-races that provide any kind of unique and fulfilling gameplay. Even if they did dedicate the resources to create that type of game mode, who are they appealing to? Current 1v1 SC2 players would not want to switch to something that isn't competitively balanced. There also isn't really some magic untapped casual audience that is interested in 1v1 RTS which is why no other game companies have tried to put out new RTS games fitting those categories.
Basically it wouldn't be worth it to dedicate new or existing resources for Blizzard or the majority of the SC2 community.
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Hey OP, you know that C&C isn't the only RTS series other than SC right?
Just because C&C had some things doesn't mean that all RTS should have them, or that they're somehow objectively good design choices. It worked for them, but that's that.
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Sure it isn't only RTS, but iconic one in the game industry, along with Blizz RTS some others. I suggested it because I believe it would work in SC2 much better than it did in C&C. Just my take on things, but you never know until you see and be able to taste it. Plus I can't believe some folks aren't tired of playing same 3 races for over ~20 years now.
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I think the problem is that the game you're looking for isn't the same one most SC2 fans are looking for, so it doesn't make financial sense for Blizz to invest in it. I imagine most players who want that sort of game would have gone to, like you mentioned, C&C, and not SC2. Trying to invade a new genre from one where you're decidedly king (single player RTS esports) is never going to work out, you'll lose existing fans, likely irreversibly, to try and compete against much more mature product lines.
I like the identity SC has as *the* competitive single player RTS. It may not be the biggest scene but it's better to have that identity than just one of many games that try to do a little bit of everything.
I'm not sure the SC2 arcade can ever be the BW UMS either, BW UMS was when other games were so behind and BW was so overplayed that it made sense to piggyback off BW. Now, other genres are very fleshed out so it's a lot harder for the SC2 arcade to fulfill the one-stop-shop that BW UMS was
Just my 2 cents. As respectfully as I can say it, I would be less interested in the Starcraft 2 you're proposing than the present one. It is only my opinion, and I am curious to see whether others would share it
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There must be big misunderstanding judging by your post. I would appreciate if you could elaborate on how did you see ideas I proposed exactly?
To be perfectly clear, I didn't make a single point on remaking SC2 into something else, just ideas to expand. Same idea to expand for other demographics are, f.e. Arcade, Co-op, Campaign which Blizz made reality. All these modes are absolutely unnecessary for main SC2 focus that always was and will be: ultra-competitive 1v1 e-Sport. All you need is 5-10 maps (for rotation) and ladder, that's it, that's the whole game. But with other modes I mentioned, Blizz just reached out to different audiences and piqued their interest. My suggestions include only ideas to put already existing assets to use: whole unused map pool from custom melee and literally already existing co-op commanders plus some campaign assets into sub-factions (f.e.) with few additions and polish. That's it.
And yeah, Arcades are pretty lively as far as I can judge, as well as Co-op, because I'm pretty sure some people simply want different experience, when they get tired of ladder. With the name of this thread, I tried to point out that Blizz are too attached to e-Sport and that makes them ignore whole layer of different audiences untapped, while that's not entirely true, because they did create co-op, arcades and etc, but more is merrier, no?
And on C&C, I did say that SC2 has no competition on the market for a reason. It's the only RTS that is alive in our day and age, with big enough playerbase. Fans of RTS games have literally no where else to go, pretty much all other games in that genre are either dead and buried, too old or maintain microscopic playerbases so there's hard to find competition or play with alive people.
To be honest it's quite baffling to see that people don't want more content/game modes for their favorite game, judging by the posts. First time I see something like this. Very unexpected and quite interesting.
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Russian Federation93 Posts
You should stop expecting any major changes to happen in starcraft 2. Blizzard just gave up on it. The game is so newbie unfriendly that there are literally no income increase whatsoever. Expect a few changes in a coop mode each month. A new coop hero every year. And a "major" balance tweaks like changing a widow mine range for 1% and then rolling it back every quarter. And you won't be disappointed.
And stop saying that this in an RTS problem. It's an incompetent people problem who say things like:
Our main goal for StarCraft 2 is to create the best game of its type that it can ever be, and not necessarily selling more copies of the game or increasing the playerbase. and happen to work as an lead game balance designer for 8 years on a game which had a potential to become a world biggest esport.
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if all of the sub-factions are almost identical, with only 1-2 unique units and minor stat changes, then i think balancing them would be feasible.
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On February 22 2018 06:21 yubo56 wrote: I think the problem is that the game you're looking for isn't the same one most SC2 fans are looking for, so it doesn't make financial sense for Blizz to invest in it. I imagine most players who want that sort of game would have gone to, like you mentioned, C&C, and not SC2. Trying to invade a new genre from one where you're decidedly king (single player RTS esports) is never going to work out, you'll lose existing fans, likely irreversibly, to try and compete against much more mature product lines.
I like the identity SC has as *the* competitive single player RTS. It may not be the biggest scene but it's better to have that identity than just one of many games that try to do a little bit of everything.
I'm not sure the SC2 arcade can ever be the BW UMS either, BW UMS was when other games were so behind and BW was so overplayed that it made sense to piggyback off BW. Now, other genres are very fleshed out so it's a lot harder for the SC2 arcade to fulfill the one-stop-shop that BW UMS was
Just my 2 cents. As respectfully as I can say it, I would be less interested in the Starcraft 2 you're proposing than the present one. It is only my opinion, and I am curious to see whether others would share it
Same with Wc3 the custom user maps spawned MOBA's but sc2 doesn't have the push like you said, most genres are fleshed out and the amount of games and fan bases for them are much larger.
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I honestly think it would be nice to be able to have a permanent co-op commander PvP game mode, just for fun. I wouldn't think it'd be balanced, but it would be sort of hilarious to play. I think the overall feel of the thread is consistent with my opinions, as well: the thing you're looking for really belongs in the arcades.
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On February 22 2018 05:15 Sundr wrote: Sure it isn't only RTS, but iconic one in the game industry, along with Blizz RTS some others. I suggested it because I believe it would work in SC2 much better than it did in C&C. Just my take on things, but you never know until you see and be able to taste it. Plus I can't believe some folks aren't tired of playing same 3 races for over ~20 years now.
Its also not about the races its about the game play. The stories the birth of professional Esports, this game spawned so many amazing moments, that is why people aren't tired of it and you rarely see topics like this come up. Dustin Browder had lots of ideas to make things " interesting" or "fun" and focused less on the things that made the game amazing in the first place (obviously talking about BW aspect).
In SC2 the cool factor took precedence over the competitive factor lots of things that make the games "cool" ruin the competitive aspect of the sport Colossi are cool units for sure. Huge siege walker that can walk over cliffs and has huge range. Sounds really sick but it took a lot of time and tweaking before it is where it is now. Lots of things have to be balanced or else games lose fun because you can't win playing the faction or race you want to against someone who is similar skill as you.
Thats why people say it doesn't make sense the man power needed to balance design and test that is crazy, even some of the UMS maps that use factions don't get much traction, either from lack of interest or just straight up imbalance. Great idea, like I would love a game that had that kind of depth, but balancing three races over almost ten years is hard enough and took tons of time. The issues with Sc2 that happened early really killed a lot of the player base and that was with 3 races, Wc3 suffered tons of issues with certain race matchups, undead vs orc comes to mind. Just isn't currently feasible, especially now vs games like DOTA and LoL there is depth without changing too much of the overall game and tweaks are small and don't always have game breaking effects.
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On February 22 2018 22:58 intotheheart wrote: I honestly think it would be nice to be able to have a permanent co-op commander PvP game mode, just for fun. I wouldn't think it'd be balanced, but it would be sort of hilarious to play. I think the overall feel of the thread is consistent with my opinions, as well: the thing you're looking for really belongs in the arcades.
It would be fun but there are a lot of UMS games that had factions and other things like that. It is just easier to do when you don't have players working against each other but in tangent. Less anger, just tears over perceived or real weaknesses.
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Impossible. I like SC2 but not BW,because BW's micro is too stupid that limit players performance,just like dancing is chains,SC2's system can provide more fluent micro. But,now most of people are not to learn and practice a "tiring" game,it is too tired to play SC2 and BW.Most of people likes a game is easy to micro and SHOW OFF.Just like PUBG and LOL. SC2 is the best E-sport now.But also deadgame……
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Id prefer starcraft 3 over new factions/races. The rock paper scissors mechanic of sc2 is what makes the game so good. Adding more content would just dillute perfection.
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