Possible Improvements to Melee

Now, I've been thinking quite a bit about melee in WC3, and how to make it better. At present, macro has virtually nothing to do with anything, and everything is decided in one fight - generally by the heroes. I personally don't think that that is very strategical.

Here's some ideas on how to improve it (not all of them are mine, there is quite a bit of inspiration from Cassiel and Kaz on the ToB board):

- Heroes; now, why should heroes be so very important, considering that your first hero is free, and creeping is free? This inevitably means that you MUST use a hero, and there is no downside to using one. Perhaps making them cost might be far better? I don't see why you should get a free hero.

- Creeping. This is, in my opinion, fundamentally flawed. The idea being that in order for your hero to be any good, you must run around the map killing random creeps, isn't that good to me. Additionally, the randomised drops mean that one player can often get a sizeable advantage merely from luck. I'd say remove it, or rework it a lot.

- Income. Income does not stop you building a large army. It merely stops you from having the capability to recover from losing a large army, and building a small one will mean that you lose it, level your enemy up, and can't win. This means that players cannot lose their forces, which cuts down a lot of available strategies, as armies must be kept together at all time, as losing one battle means you're almost certain to lose the game.

- XP gain, and general hero leveling. Global experience gain means heroes can gain XP even from across the map. Additionally, the XP gain idea reinforces the need to never lose a unit, as not only is it hard to replace, but also powers up your opponent. This makes sacrificing units for a greater gain a losing strategy, almost whatever the circumstances. Combine this with the first point and second points, and you might come to the conclusion that heroes, as such an integeral part of the game, should be upgraded via upgrades, using gold. Why not? Then players would have the choice to use a hero, not use a hero, use two heroes, and it would be more balanced. Sacrificing units would become a possibility, and there would be more diverse strategies.

- Expansions. Expansions should allow for increased resources, allowing increased unit production, but they don't, as the food cap and income system stop it. In fact, expansions cut your food cap by the number of workers who man them. Making expansions more useful would also make them more of an asset, which could be attacked.

- Town portal items. Why do you need these? If your opponent can catch you off guard, why do you need something to completely negate that? Take away the creeping system or rework it, and you won't. Strategies such as attacking bases while the enemy are away will then work.

- Ranged units and casters have roughly the same survivability or more as tier 1 melee. Why? Ranged have more damage, more range - so why more hp? Buffing tier 1 melee would also make them actually useful for a change.

- Lack of large differences between the four races. The differences between them are very small, and largely surface deep. Having radically different play styles for each race would add another layer of strategy.

Anyone else got any ideas on how melee could be improved?

You're lack of understanding of Wc3 gameplay dynamics is concerning for someone hoping to improve them:


Because hero's are considered a core gameplay dynamic essential to thebalance and gameplay evolution of a Wc3 game. Because Heroes are crucial to play, everyone is going to get one ASAP (the quicker they are leveled the more likly you are to win). This would result in a far slower early game as people rushed to get the resources to build a hero, stunting teching and early game dynamics. Natural defence would also have to be rebalanced otherwise rushes would NEVER work as you wouldn't have the offesnive capabilities of a hero.


Now instead of creeping people will mass goldmines and towers - you will be able to expand ASAP (think malitia creeping but 10 times worse). There will also be no reward for leaving your base, except to expand resulting in mad teching and massing of towers. You could encourage rushing by toning down base defence i supose but you will need to balance nearly the whole early game to achieve this.



Normal Wc3 games last ~15-20 minutes because of this - if you screw up, you lose the game. We don't need second, third, fourth chances. If you make an error that results in you losing your army, you deserve to lose the game. Thus allowing people to play more exciting games and generally have more fun. And don't forget, the Wc3 engine was designed around having small armies - this ain't StarCraft! The only problem that exists with upkeep is the fact that towers don't cost food. Change that and upkeep works perfectly.




Suicide stratergies aren't always actually good stratergies in real life either. An example of it working? Queen suicides in chess CAN on occasion be powerful stratergies if they give checkmate, however suiciding a (reaosnable) force against a tier 3 Town hall in WC3 gives huge bonuses as well. However these are limited *decapitation* strikes, very seldom anything else because a "suicide attack" implies a loss of material. A "suicide" attack that gains you material is called a succesful battle. I believe that Wc3 fully supports decapitation strikes, i myself have used batriders and invisible mortars many times.


If you don't expand in Wc3, you will lose. Badly. In wc3 expansion is an option (usually a necessary one) but not a be-all and end-all. Blizzard deliberatly emphasised micro in this game, ensuring that troop control was ultimatly the most important part of this game. Again i must point out that this is NOT STARCRAFT


Town portals and creeps encourage more dynamic gameplay by encouraging people to actually leave thier base instead of sitting in it for 35 minutes massing units, builing the "perfect" army and attacking. You must remember this is NOT STARCRAFT due to engine limitations players cannot make the 150 odd units you can in Starcraft, single armies have to do and since you are limited (by the engine) to one force most players will camp - in your systems it's the best thing to do.




You forget that ranged units and casters are also more expensive then tier one melee and take time and effort to aquire. If you make t1 melee >> casters + ranged, why would anyone ever tech. No one is going to reach t3 air before a push wipes them out.


So now you want to totally remake the game? Have you actually looked at how the races are played? There are tonnes of variations! Take the "cheeses" of each race as an example.

Hu - Towers
Ne - Dryads/bears
UD - Destroyers
Orc - Raiders (Ensnare), a bit wishy washy Atm.

These elements are all entirly different with different associated play styles.

To summarise, this game is not StarCraft and i certainly don't think you can "better" it to the point that is. But go ahead, make another patch map, just can't gaurantee anyone will play it.

I liked war3 melee for the graphics and system improvements, but I really didn't enjoy the overpowering weight of heroes. I think I prefered the style of War2 where you could take a large attack and fight on to win. It really felt more epic and less pressured into power leveling a hero. I do enjoy the obvious RPG elements that war3 has, but heroes are just too powerful IMO.

Generally in Wc3 i've found that heroes simply catalyse skill, better players win more battles and thus get better heroes and go on to win. The only times heroes let less able players win is when balance is poor, something which has luckily been tempered as time has gone on. StarCraft (the "perfect") RTS also has its share of imbalances, late game ZvP for instance on many maps is weighted towards Zerg (thanks mostly to overpwering Air and the shittyness of the scout). Imbalance is factor in all games where otions are not universal and is i believe a fact of life and something not intrinsically based upon Wc3's use of hero units.

Narrow mindedness isn't something you should have. I'm not talking about a few small changes, I'm talking about a very radical changing of the core gameplay.


Mass gold mines? I highly doubt it. It would be cost prohibitive, leaving you without the gold to field a decent sized army, and then your expansions would be taken down. Rebalancing would of course be needed for any radical changing of gameplay.


Encouraging strategy. Now, you may believe strategy has no place in WC3, but I don't care - strategy should be in a strategy game, and being unable to replace your army means strategies are very limited.


You still haven't said why losing troops should make your opponent stronger. A suicide attack that gains you material in WC3 makes your enemy's hero stronger, and that almost always outways what is gained.


Did you just say:


You really missed the point, didn't you?


Resources could also be reworked (I've got some ideas on that), encouraging people to leave their bases, and remember that I said the creep system should be scrapped OR reworked, with the latter being prefereble.


Why should melee < range < casters? Why not have tiers for each? Would give more choice.


What variable is there between the races? Very little. Melee => Range => Heavy melee => Air.

And the 'cheeses' aren't a good thing.


Warcraft 3 has very little strategy in it, as you yourself said. Now, I feel that strategy is a very important thing to have in a STRATEGY game. If you cannot get your head around that, then I don't see the point in your coming into this thread, since War3 melee is obviously the right level of mindlessly doing the same thing each game and focus firing.

AND i am saying that this will open up a huge swath of problems. You will need to rebalance EVERY unit in the game, for a result that will undoubtedly be a simulacrum of StarCraft, with orcs.


The idea behind expanding is that you GET gold from it. You sound like you want a system that limits mass expanding....how about....an upkeep system....


If you lose your army, your stratergy was poor and you deserve to lose. There is no need to artifically enlongate the game. In compeditive chess if you lose 5 points of material due to crappy stratergy you will probably resign, no one wants to waste more time than needed.


Suicide stratergies instrinsically do this. You lose material for less material than it cost your opponent, hense the "suicide". Your opponent is always going to be stronger for it. The idea of a strategic suicide is to gain another strategic advatantage by destorying something crucial to the enemy - something worth more than simply troops. The "enemy heroes gaining XP" thing is just another component of his overall material victory. The key is however, if he has lost his t3 hall or his only remaining gold mine, he is in far more trouble than 1 hero hero level will ever fix.



yes because i'm pointing out that the Wc3 engine was designed for it - soemthing you cannot easily change.




You said you were "improving melee", sounds more like you want an entirly new game.


No idea what you are talking about, are you saying that all players build towards light air? Air at all? No one who's good masses air, except maybe gargoyles versus dryads.


Of course not, but they are not intentional core game designs which is what WE are talking about.


Warcraft 3 is a stratergy game alright, if you make poor build decisions you will lose. Light Air versus Ranged? Never going to win that. Warcraft 3 is also a Real Time game, it ain't civilisation. Games are quick and based solidly on each players ability to effectivly control his forces. Stop trying to impose your beliefs on a game that isn't what you think it is and stop making out that being "strategic" (in your own limited deffinition) is the most important factor in decided whether an RTS is good or not. And do try to remember that RTS is a horrible phrase that covers a genre that is incredibly wide. IF it makes you more comfortable think of Wc3 as a squad based action game scaled up, rather than civilsation scaled down, with orcs.

You have no concept of thinking outside the box.

You have no concept of thinking that maybe, just possibly, not everyone agree's with your vision.

You asked for ideas and discussion, you got them, sorry that they weren't what you were looking for.

By asking for ideas about "improvments" you must expect someone to argue for the status quo. I have no problem with you mking an entirly new game with Blizzards concepts, just don't expect me to agree with everything you have to say about the existing system.

I believe he is saying that there is very little variation between the structure of the tech trees and units of the races. Comparing to starcraft again, the different races have very varying build styles and tech trees. In WC3, you get 'basic barracks', 'caster barracks', 'air barracks' etc. There is some variation, but the outline stays fairly narrow.

Although it has to be asked whether these simplifications are necessarily a bad thing, especially when you consider that Terran and Protoss have a similar set up.

Terran

Basic - Barracks
Caster - Science Facility w/ Addons
Air - Starport w/ addons
Specialty/Heavy- Factory w/ addon
Upgrades - Armoury

Protoss

Basic - Gateway
Caster - Technically Gateway but the Citadel of Adun tech pathway is a prereq. for all "casters"
Air - Stargate
Speciality/Heavy - Robotics
Upgrades - Cybernetics Core

Then again (particularly with Zerg) SC tends to force you to build a new building to access every unit, even though they emerge from a select few structures.

And:


Isn't exactly decent comments for thinking outside the box. In fact, they are throughly counter productive. Why are you telling me not to change War3 into something else on a modding and mapping forum...? That's the point, isn't it?

Except that you are not asking about creating something new. You want comments on your ideas to "IMPROVE" wc3 melee. I am simply arguing against your voiced opinions on how the game should be "improved". If i argued that your face would be "improved" by removing your nose, you would probably voice an opinion that differs to my own on the matter (presumably you want to keep your nose). I could mention things i think could "improve" wc3, but generally they are minor gameplay tweaks - not the full scale revision you are proposing.

If you expect everyone to agree with everything you have to say, all the time, you shouldn't be posting on an internet forum.

I have to aggree with BBDino on this. What it seems like to me is that you aren't trying to work with the existing engine and improve it - you want a totally different system that requires different strategies and entirely different gameplay. There is really no place for this in Warcraft 3. Though if you are really advocative, you might see it in Warcraft 4 (one could hope).

It can be quite easily achieved in WC3. If you don't have the capability to do so, fine, but don't critise an idea purely based on the fact you are not good enough to do it, or not correctly minded to see how to do it.


Improved it by reworking some stuff. In fact, pretty much all of my points come down to reworking heroes and changes to the income system. No point making a map to replicate WC3 melee - no one would play it, and it would be completely pointless.

Warcraft 3 melee is really fun. Heroes are necessary but not sufficient, flexible and capable but not overpowering.

Creeping is a viable option but far from the only one. Virtually every moment of gameplay is consumed by questions of strategy and skill, from deciding effective counters -- based on everything from attack and defense types to antimagic to neutralizing supply and tech -- to simple questions of build order and when to press and when to fold from attacks.

The game is fast-paced with dozens of popular strategies at any one time and hundreds of viable ones, with strategies changing mid-game based on one's ability to examine and predict one's opponent(s).

Any one or two parts of any tech tree can be focused on for an effective strategy and early rushes with teching compare equally to balanced slower strats. Deciding on and implementing a viable strategy depend on the player's ability to assess and execute plans based on their strengths and weaknesses.

Base defense structures are useful but insufficient and combat can take place over the course of an entire map at virtually the same time. Harassment, creep luring, backstabbing, misdirection, hero nuking, AoE, blitzkrieg, sabotage, air and ground interaction, fast teching, rushes of every flavor... the system is so ridiculously fluid and dynamic that the games are nearly always fun and rarely decided until they're truly over.

This is easily the most fun RTS I've ever played, and I'm no stranger to the genre.

There's nothing wrong with designing your own melee. I've done that before, and it's cool. Suggesting that the current competitive melee is lacking, though, you've thoroughly failed to do.