Loving the update! Before it was tough finding a group where I could level my high level chars, now it's incredibly easy!
Some small complaints
Fire seems to last a bit after it disappears
The eagle's missile hitboxes seem pretty big
Fast Devastators are OP. Not many characters can kill one chasing them, and they can one or two shot most chars.
I think the level buff should be slightly higher (items are a good portion of stats) but decrease with the buffed players item level (trying to keep them from being too equal)
YOU HEREBY ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT YOUR PARTICIPATION IN THE REWARDS PROGRAM DOES NOT GUARANTY THAT YOU WILL EARN ANY POINTS. CURSE MAKES NO REPRESENTATION, WARRANTY OR GUARANTY THAT YOU WILL RECEIVE ANY POINTS THROUGH YOUR PARTICIPATION IN THE REWARDS PROGRAM.
Nothing that bad. I mean if you don't do anything points-worthy, you won't get points. Sounds more like CYA than anything.
Compare to the 11th bi - weekly, robinicus map get better amount of feedback.
And the 11th is part of 9 maps campaign.
I was comparing it to the first monthly campaign, SC2BiS, which did have a lot. I think Rob's didn't get feedback because of the learning curve the map adds (not necessarily a bad thing, rob)
If you want feedback, I could correct all the English for you.... (also I could reiterate that I find the 9th part to be way to dialogue/cutscene heavy)
I could also do a playthrough on hard once I finish up lifeforce (hopefully by this weekend), if you'd like.
Regarding this month's monthly testing thread and the low amount of feedback it got, it seems that people are much more comfortable with testing non-random, 1-player maps than multiplayer and random maps.
What extreme commanders are allowed to exist by the AI not defending itself when attacked? What extreme playstyles are facilitated by having zero interactivity surround attack waves? Are you seriously stating that, if the players are good enough to wipe the entire map of enemy units and structures, that they shouldn't be rewarded for that? Because currently, doing that offers you just as many benefits as sniping workers or tech structures. Hint: there are no benefits to doing that, just like in the majority of the campaign maps.
Okay first off you're maliciously picking "attack waves". I picked the stuff you wanted to add, harass/base destruction, not this ghost concept of "wave interactivity" as my example. if you want examples of commanders with poor harass, take Alarak/Zagara and maybe even stukov.
Second, yes, I am seriously stating that, if the players are good enough to wipe the entire map of enemy units and structures, that they shouldn't be rewarded for that. Why should you make the missions even easier when you complain they're too easy to begin with?
Third, you've changed your phrasing. First, you say that they HAVE to clear the bases. See here:
For everyone who enters into this contest, buck the trend. Make a map that has truly-engaging gameplay with AI that feels like alive; have it defend itself when attacked, lose map control when its harvesting is disrupted, attack with less-terrifying forces when its tech structures are sniped, but will tear you a new one if you leave it unchecked.
Now you're saying that it should be a reward for being "good". There is a difference between the two. One is a requirement, the other is a reward. Please make consistent.
Obviously, the commanders in their current form (especially Raynor/Vorazun/Alarak)
"especially Raynor/Vorazun/Alarak" Man if you think those are the most powerful commanders.... Vorazun and Alarak sure, but Raynor has a lot of issues with high skill requirement to play extremely well. Nova far outperforms him.
are incredibly overtuned and their abilities trivialize most encounters. The issue of certain commanders feeling underwhelming vs other commanders feeling overwhelming is not solved even partially by the current system, and would need to be addressed as a balance problem of its own in tandem with an overhaul of the AI and terrain. That the current system has an issue doesn't invalidate the merits of a new system that would also change the mechanics by which the original issue is created in the first place.
True, but we haven't seen this "new system". Just complaints that the old one sucks. You can't judge a new system on merit if it hasn't even been planned yet.
What a joke. As if a massive overhaul of the current co-op gameplay systems is the same thing as a 'different perspective'. If you want meaningful discussion that could assist someone in designing a unique map for this contest, either leave it be or contribute something worthwhile as opposed to misleading.
...
I noticed that you left out my paragraph of sacrificing commander variety so that they can do at everything decently.
Most of your post assumes that this massive overhaul of co-op that I'm recommending would leave all current issues (or mechanics that would cause issues what what I've proposed) intact. Yes, all of those problems you've outlined would exist if you just blindly applied all of my suggestions, but the point of being more mindful of interactivity and variety is to keep all these concerns and more in mind during development. Make the AI harass more often, or give them multiple attack patterns that vary based on their race to make them more distinctive (would easily give more replay value since currently it really doesn't matter what race you play against in co-op, they all feel very similar). Allow the zerg be able to harass more, or give them something else that allows them to facilitate disruption against the AI. These are all changes that would increase the amount of interactivity and variety that is currently displayed in the co-op mode, and would also stand a greater chance of Blizzard recognizing your map, since it bucks the trend in that manner.
If players have problems adapting and fighting, they can play on lower difficulties until they get used to the changes. Brutal is incredibly easy and its difficulties come from unfair and uninteractive elements, i.e. massive waves that spawn shit with no way to stop them or thin their ranks.
You're proposing that we enable more methods of play (air harass, tech sniping, etc.). And the problem I pointed out is that some commanders have many things better than other commanders (most commanders have better air units than Alarak for example), which doesn't go well with your specialized enemy macro. But you're proposing to "fix" other commanders to help that. So:
Don't you worry that you'll make commanders more generic as you make maps more "special"? Instead of having commanders that have extremities, you have to make sure every commander has units that are "good enough" to harass, hit tech units, etc. Is that really depth and replayability? People need to be incentivized to buy these commanders, and extremes is (I would guess, based on the success) a great way to do so. Maps are probably simple to allow these extreme commanders to exist, as less requirements are needed for a commander (pretty much all they need to do is hit ground, hit air, and at least have some mobility).
Or of course you could just make it easier to destroy the tech trees/harass, but then what makes it different from a co-op map except you need to send a few units somewhere before the "x minute" mark. Is that really depth?
Is it really fun to use a calldown to wipe out a base? Is it interesting to "lock" one of your abilities just so you can actually play the mission?
It shouldn't be 'truly random', but having a number of different maps or variations on a singular map (i.e. sometimes your expansion is farther away, sometimes the enemy bases are closer) and attaching the likelihood of those variations to other variations (i.e. your expansion is farther away more often when you are playing against zerg because they harass more) is a good way to cultivate more varied experiences.
Why are you assuming all zerg builds are harass-heavy? There are ~4-7 builds for each race afaik and each build has a chance for a unit substitution.
What can you randomize besides enemy comps (and randomizing the units in comps).
Anything. These are supposed to be servants of a fucking deity. Make them have powerful units.
You mean like hybrid? I mean that's the entire concept of them.
Make it so that something sets them apart from the melee gameplay. Make them attack intelligently instead of arbitrarily spawning attack forces. Design an actual AI for them so that if the players have to cut through an enemy base to complete an objective, the AI actually defends itself instead of sitting there with all its preplaced units to make it harder for the players to progress in an artificial manner.
That's a bad idea. Group up all units so they can be annihilated a single ability (like Artanis's/Karax's laser beams), or just splash damage, like (Raynor's) mines or vikings? Why would you do this?
Of course, there's always the idea of just luring the enemy away with a small group (perhaps some dropped Raynor marines) while the main force sneaks in.
Make it so that if I harass the computers' resource gathering, it slows their attacks while they replace the harvesters.
Who needs to harass? Just scan -> air strike or drop 10-20 supply of [insert any raynor unit here]. Raynor isn't good enough yet?
Make it so that if I destroy certain tech structures, the AI doesn't get to use those units until they replace those structures (goes hand in hand with not artificially spawning them).
Problem with that: raynor (he's becoming a recurring feature) players can drop into fog of war, or toss players can sneak around observers to get to the backline. Lotta broken combo's you can do with that.
Vision -> timestop -> pylon -> mass DT everything dies
Vision -> griffin
Vision -> Artanis murder strike
Vision -> Karax death laser
Poor zerg, who don't have those sorts of global abilities.
All of these grievances can additionally be extended to the campaign, where there can be 200 battlecruisers and thors on the right side of the AI's base, but they won't defend the left side of their base with them because that function hasn't been programmed into their script. There are user-made scripts that function better than Blizzard's own when it comes to performance (i.e. 1 million actions that clog up the pathfinding aren't present), strength, and variety. That should very rarely happen, and when it does, the solutions discovered by the users should be worked into the game by the developer and the developer should give the users credit for creating them. Instead, we get nothing.
Won't disagree with you there.
For everyone who enters into this contest, buck the trend. Make a map that has truly-engaging gameplay with AI that feels like alive; have it defend itself when attacked, lose map control when its harvesting is disrupted, attack with less-terrifying forces when its tech structures are sniped, but will tear you a new one if you leave it unchecked.
You are assuming that the majority of players playing co-op understand these sorts of playstyles. Please remember that Co-op has the most players, and thus has some of the more casual players. Not only do they have to worry about the objectives, but now they have to worry about the enemies macro/positioning/rebuild status.
Incorporate spawning by attaching unit spawns to structures, so that the player has a recourse when they feel overwhelmed by the spawned forces and can interact with the game by destroying those production structures to stop their foes from creating more units, as opposed to having to wait out some timer for when the enemy AI is magically granted reinforcements via drop-pods. There is so much untapped depth and fun to be had that nobody is bothering to unearth, and the longer we as a community take to show people that Blizzard's way is boring and uninteractive (and therefore completely unfair at higher difficulties),
As opposed to your way, which is about making zerg commanders literally unplayable, and having Raynor edge out Vorazun to be the #1 commander in power. :P
Seriously, the protoss and terran get all these cool, easily usable harass tools, but what can the zerg do on the map besides run from objective to objective. God forbid you get 2 zerg commanders on your map, because it's GG with such low harass potential.
the longer they'll receive credit where credit simply isn't due.
If you want them to improve as a company, you should criticize them whenever criticism is due. The co-op maps lack a lot of depth and don't even have many randomized elements that would increase replayability.
Not like you can randomize terrain. What can you randomize besides enemy comps (and randomizing the units in comps).
Objectives are randomized in the newest co-op mission, but the difficulty doesn't come from clearing out the enemies like most missions, moreso from the waves it sends.
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Loving the update! Before it was tough finding a group where I could level my high level chars, now it's incredibly easy!
Some small complaints
I think the level buff should be slightly higher (items are a good portion of stats) but decrease with the buffed players item level (trying to keep them from being too equal)
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Update: template map is out!
http://us.battle.net/arcade/en/blog/20500321/co-op-template-map-for-rtc2017-1-24-2017
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Compared to your last (tHoD) campaign, it seems quite a bit easier because:
I think the stalkers are pretty interesting, certainly have to fight a little carefully around them.
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Regarding this month's monthly testing thread and the low amount of feedback it got, it seems that people are much more comfortable with testing non-random, 1-player maps than multiplayer and random maps.
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https://support.curse.com/hc/en-us/articles/204270345-What-is-Curse-Premium-
TL;DR: Nothing applies to you but "you can browse curse.com with no ads" is the closest to any relevant thing...
Oh, and a golden name, and the ability to rub your premium in the plebian's faces.
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k.
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