![]() ![]() The ability does what it does and does it good. By the way I you are interested in game design I would highly suggest you start reading Mark Rosewaters "Making Magic" colunm.Īnyway what it boils down to is that each ability is simplistic in application with emergent complexity. Its Blizzards spin on the concept of Elegant game design. But the unit speed up ability is actually simpler if it's not restricted to specific types of units, rather than more complex! So I think it's too bad if Blizzard thinks like that.īlizzard has a motto "Concentrated Coolness". Your contest submission had some abilities (for drones/SCVs) which were overly complicated and had two different modes. I do disagree with that reasoning, though. OK, that's a decent explanation (and that was an interesting read). Not to mention that the idea is really not in keeping with what I believe to be appropriate for Starcraft. ![]() ![]() Otherwise, the addition income will easily pay for an extra cannon or two to keep the workers safe. If the enemy is already knocking on your door, of course you will not use if you need workers to defend with. It wouldn't really be a real choice though. Is it safe to use it? Also, you have to alternate between the two abilities.Īnother result of a change like this is that opponents now can pressure you (with a attacks or threats of attacks) to lower your income. This way you'd have to think a bit before using proton charge. Make Obelisk have Shield Recharge and Proton Charge, and have Proton Charge drain the shields of the workers affected. So how about, building on motbob's idea above about making it a shield battery and also SevenSpirits analogy with the stimpack: So the problem with the Obelisk is that there is too little dynamic and tension between the energy recharge and the proton charge, right? After you build it, though, I'd say proton charge is a boring ability. The best I can say about the obelisk is that choosing when to build it is a strategic choice because it interacts with the time value of money and your build order. There's less for them to interact with in unexpected ways. Combat on the other hand is dynamic and tactical, so there's a higher bar for economic abilities to be interesting. There's another aspect to the sentence you quoted, which is that giving more income is inherently less interesting than a combat powerup, regardless of opportunity cost. But it sounds like that's more the exception than the rule. It's true that the obelisk has another use of its mana, which you might want to forgo a proton charge to use at some point. Proton charge, as far as I can tell, is something that you do want always on. There's a drawback to using it and you don't want to have it always on - it's not worth the repeated health cost. It doesn't just make your units attack faster it also lowers their HP. Stim packs is a comparable military ability which is more interesting. I don't object to the idea that this ability is solely economy-based. I'd add that it's also built around strategic unit counters and maneuvering on a map. So, any idea why blizzard wouldn't do something like that rather than restricting the ability to be used in a really specific way? Also, it would probably need to be time-themed rather than called "Proton Charge". ![]() I'm not sure what would be more interesting. This ability could either apply to an area and affect units residing in it at any given time, or it could apply to units in an area at casting time. (Everything except attacking, because speeding up attacks would probably be too strong and overpower other uses.) They move, mine, charge shields and charge energy a bit more quickly. Time passes more quickly for units in that area. More complex, and perhaps also replacing the recharge ability of the obelisk: (Maybe workers also mine more quickly, if that's important for it to be useful on normally-saturated bases.) Any units in that area temporarily move a bit more quickly. It would be so easy to have the ability be tactically useful in a variety of ways. I'm honestly confused why Blizzard did it like that. Proton charge is particularly blatant because it does nothing except give you more income. I bet a lot of more casual players are going to be equally confounded about the presence of a mechanic that seems to exist solely to make you a worse player and doesn't add any decisions to gameplay. I'm in the camp that thinks having a mechanic solely for the purpose of making APM more important is pretty dumb. I'm also a hobbyist game designer/developer, and that's driving my perspective on the "macro" mechanics that Blizzard is adding to SC2. #1 Hey guys, as an intro/disclaimer, I'm new here and just a fairly casual starcraft player. ![]()
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