Co-Op Commander Concept - Judicator Aldaris

Co-op Missions Discussion
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Good morning, at least it’s morning here in Brazil.

Watching the latest BlizzCon, it became very clear that co-op is the focus, for the most part, in StarCraft II, at least until we get a SC III in a near future. Hence, while I’ve been geniunely surprised that Blizzard had the courage to go the ‘what-if’ ways with Tychus, Zeratul and now Mengsk, I feel there’s still a lot to be explored, and thus I’ve been minding up some co-op commander ideas as well.

Now I have three of them, all fresh and ready to go. Well, not exactly fresh, I kept them in storage to see if their gameplay ideas could withstand the passage of time. It’s easy designing at the heat of the moment, but the best creators wait for a while to cool down and review it, and see if it really was a good idea that’d stick and stand. And these three ones made it through fine, hence why I’m posting them today.

And here, covering the Protoss one, a very classic and memorable StarCraft character, whose first words launched the Protoss point of view for everyone in the world in 1998, Judicator Aldaris.

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Design Philosophy:

The idea for the next Co-op Protoss commander was, much like for our two other ones, to take a hike back on Protoss history and the strucutre of the Conclave and the tribes that made it, as well as their unique identities, like the Furinax and their machinery mastery, the Velari and their ability to observe and predict danger, or the Akilae and their fierce bravery on the battlefield. While logical choices could indeed be taken with other related, more recent Protoss characters like High Executor Selendis or Admiral Urun, the one deciding factor for choosing Aldaris was his past: As a Judicator, he was at the same time a leader, tactician and politician, and so we knew we had to explore his political acumen to a degree, in which lied an amount of potential none had realized until now.

Much alike Biomass for Abathur, Essence for Dehaka or Xel’Naga Artifacts for Zeratul, Aldaris gains a special resource of his own which is Renown, which he’ll use to bring as much Protoss tribes and their abilities and warriors as he can to the field. But we also wanted to make this resource unique from all else, which brought the change that battle is what brings this resource the least and there are more options to generating Renown, namely researching technologies and upgrades, building structures and even paying tributes with Minerals and Gas that would, in normal circumstances, be spent on production or research.

When designing Aldaris’ hero unit and the abilities he’d use, an immediate idea was the psionic phantoms he projected in his last stand in the penultimate Protoss mission in Brood War, ‘The Insurgent’, followed by two separate abilities specifically oriented against friendly and enemy targets, respectively. The final ability became trickier, but it was solved with the summoning auxiliaries ability, that even solved also some of the main concerns in designing Aldaris, hero and faction:

  • Providing an additional power boost, though passive, to the hero itself and the allies he’s with.

  • Covering game utility with unique units, apart from late-game unit massing.

  • Ensuring full representation of all Protoss tribes, including the two most left out on the main level - the Venatir and even Aldaris’ own tribe, the Ara.

Finally, the intent with designing the Protoss tribes was to ensure they’d bring as much of their potential as they could to bear, so we knew only bringing in units and a passive or active calldown ability wouldn’t cut it. It’d have to be all three and all in, to make the Renown investment worth it, and the design would fit much of the tribes’ identity. It became fitting that the Auriga could provide a bonus to fleets and aircraft and deploy a mighty destructive Mothership, or the Sargas would benefit assassins and provide mass cloaking, or the Shelak would benefit spellcaster oriented commanders and deliver powerful spells.

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Playstyle:

Aldaris’ gameplay is a compromise between micro and macromanagement, revolving around the collection of normal resources and acquiring Renown through multiple means to align Protoss tribes through the Judicator Conclave. Though it can be acquired through direct conflict, Renown acquired is not as rewarding in combat as it is with other commanders. However, it’s a resource that can be acquired through other means, including building structures, researching technology and tributing Minerals and Gas to the Judicator Conclave.

Aldaris also takes himself to the field as a supporting hero unit rather than a directly offensive one, but his abilities are unparalleled and can alter the course of any battle, including and especially his non-controllable auxiliaries with varied abilties, depending on their role and the player’s intended purpose.

Protoss Tribe units are naturally more powerful than Aldaris’ standard army composition, but the tribes also provide a passive ability that benefits both the Judicator and his allies, as well as a powerful calldown that can impact gameplay directly. These abilities are very dependant on the tribes that are aligned, and there are a maximum of four out of six and the choices are permanent, so considerations must be given according to the player’s style and the mission needs, as well.

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there is no starcraft 3, blizzard have already denied it.

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Co-Op Commander: Judicator Aldaris

  • Acquire Renown to bring tribes to your side.
  • Deploy auxiliares to support your warriors.
  • Unleash the warriors and powers of the Conclave Tribes.

Unique Buildings:

  • Judicator Conclave

Unique Units (Acquired from Judicator Conclave, original units are standard ones):

  • Akilae Zealot (Zealot)

  • Akilae Dragoon (Dragoon)

  • Sargas Avenger (Dark Templar)

  • Sargas Obsidian Archon (Dark Archon - Merged from DTs)

  • Sargas Raider (Corsair)

  • Furinax Invictor (Immortal)

  • Furinax Warp Reaver (Reaver)

  • Auriga Scout (Scout)

  • Auriga Carrier (Carrier)

  • Shelak Great Templar (High Templar)

  • Shelak Arcane Archon (Archon, merged from two HTs)

  • Shelak Tribune (Arbiter)

  • Velari Gate Prism (Warp Prism)

  • Velari Recorder (Observer)

Aldaris’ Abilities:

  • Call Venatir Hunter/Velari Preserver/Ara Scholar: Warps in a non-controllable auxiliary unit close to Aldaris’ position to give him support.
  • Psionic Phantom: Summons a hallucination of Aldaris, with the same health and shield statistics, that absorbs half the damage but also deals half damage as well.
  • Decree: Friendly units targeted gain +3 armor and +1 attack range (for non-Melee units) for 30 seconds.
  • Damnation: Enemy units targeted take +50% more damage and have reduced movement speed for 30 seconds.

Aldaris’ Auxiliaries (Non-Controllable):

  • Venatir Hunter: Ranged unit based on the famed ‘Soul Hunter’. Can attack air and ground units with a base attack.
  • Velari Preserver: Protoss Medic. Will restore shields and health of friendly units. Heal bounces up to three different units.
  • Ara Scholar: Minor High Templar. Will unleash smaller Psi-Storms or hallucinate friendly units.

Strengths:

  • Deceptively strong support hero.
  • Decent early game.
  • Total adaptation.

Weaknesses:

  • Dependant on economy.
  • Relies on Protoss Tribes for calldowns and passive buffs.
  • Constant pro-active requirement.
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aldaris would never side with the dark templar, unless he is in danger. you should remove everything dark templar related.

1 Like
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Tribes:

NOTE - Each tribe will have a top-bar ability, a passive effect on both co-op players, and two enhanced unit types.

Akilae - Valiant Warrior Templar

  • Honor Guides All: All military ground units gain +2 armor and deal +10% extra damage.

  • Akhundelar Warp-In: Deploys a permanent reinforcement team of Akilae Zealots and Dragoons.

  • Akilae Zealot:
    - Second Wind: Crippled Akilae Zealots immediately restore to full health and shields and deal +50% more damage for 5 seconds. Long cooldown.
    - Piercing Might: Akilae Zealots unleash a psionic slash that can afflict units behind the target.

  • Akilae Dragoon:
    - Overcharge: Akilae Dragoon attacks leave a temporary effect on a unit that, when it dies, it explodes, dealing damage to enemy units near it.
    - Overload: Akilae Dragoons double their attack and movement speeds for 5 seconds, but then shut down for 10 seconds.

Sargas - Enforcement and Assassination

  • From the Shadows: Cloaked allied units gain +10% movement and attack speed.

  • Veil of Night: Temporarily cloaks a group of units and structures for 60 seconds.

  • Sargas Avenger:
    - Emergency Recall: Crippled Sargas Avengers are recalled to the nearest Dark Shrine, restoring their full health and shields. Long cooldown.
    - Void Prison: Sargas Avengers trap a single non-Massive unit, leaving it unable to attack, move or use abilities and vulnerable to attack. Lasts 20 seconds.

  • Sargas Obsidian Archon:
    - Feeding Consensus: Sargas Obsidian Archon’s feedback deals half of Feedback’s damage to enemy units around the afflicted target.
    - Collective Interaction: Sargas Obsidian Archon’s Mind Control abilities costs only 50 energy. Set to Autocast.
    - Argus Adornment: Increases Sargas Obsidian Archon’s maximum and initial energy by +50, and energy regeneration by +0.2.

  • Sargas Raider:
    - Disruption Array: Sargas Raider’s Disruption Arrays not only prevent enemy units from attacking, but allows friendly units to attack within them as well.
    - Descending Neutron: Sargas Raider’s attacks, while only targeting air units, also rain down to the ground, dealing half the damage to enemy units below the air target.

Furinax - Phasesmiths and Technologists

  • Technomancy: Allied Mechanical ground units gain +10% movement and attack speed.

  • Mass Phasing: Makes a group of units and structures temporarily immune to damage for 30 seconds.

  • Furinax Invictor:
    - Hardened Shielding: Furinax Invictor’s shields absorb all attacks above 10 damage points.
    - Annihilator Cannon: Furinax Invictors can focus down enemy units, dealing 100 damage.

  • Furinax Warp Reaver:
    - Warp Relocation: Furinax Warp Reavers can warp to any location with vision on the map, after 5 seconds.
    - Scarab Gravitic Drives: Furinax Warp Reaver Scarabs can target enemy air units.

Shelak - Librarianship and Keepers of Secrets

  • Shelak Scholarship: Allied spellcasters gain +50 maximum energy and +0.1 energy regeneration.

  • Warp-In Arcane Relic: Deploys an Arcane Relic on the field, which picks friendly units and boosts them for 30 seconds each, increasing their armor, attack speeds and provides a +0.1 health and shield regeneration.

  • Shelak Great Templar:
    - Psionic Vortex: Shelak Great Templar can summon psionic vortexes which travel through a straight line, dealing area damage and throwing enemy non-Massive ground units caught at the center, stunning them.
    - Psionic Shade: Shelak Great Templar can hallucinate friendly or enemy units, absorbing and dealing half the respective enemy and allied damage.
    - Khaydarin Bracers: Shelak Great Templar gain +50 maximum and initial energy, and +0.1 energy regeneration.

  • Shelak Arcane Archon:
    - Chain Lightning: Shelak Arcane Archon’s attacks bounce to three units, dealing a fraction of the attack each.
    - Reconstitution: Shelak Arcane Archons, when crippled, explode, dealing damage to enemy units around them, and ressurect after 10 seconds, but with only half health and shielding. Arcane Archons are vulnerable during Reconstitution.

  • Shelak Tribune:
    - Dimensional Shift: Shelak Tribunes can teleport allied units around them to any visible location on the map, after 5 seconds.
    - Inquisitorial Stasis: Shelak Tribune’s Stasis Fields, while still being invulnerable to attacks, harm trapped enemy units within them amongst their duration.

Auriga - Navigators and Spacefarers

  • Aurigan Valor: Allied air military units gain +2 armor and deal +10% extra damage.

  • Decimator Mothership: Summons a Decimator Mothership which devastates the ground below it and attack up to six enemy units at once for 60 seconds.

  • Auriga Scout:
    - Anti-Matter Volley: Auriga Scouts fire four Anti-Matter Missiles instead of two.
    - Photon Exhausts: Auriga Scout ground attacks are +50% faster.
    - Fidelity Core: Auriga Scouts gain a +1 attack damage and a +0.05 movement speed bonus per every allied combat aerial unit close to them, except other Auriga Scouts. Stacks up to five times.

  • Auriga Carrier:
    - Interceptor Follow-up: Auriga Carrier Interceptors fire twice when attacking.
    - Phase Lance: Auriga Carriers unleash a powerful energy lance that deals up to 500 damage over 5 seconds. Effect is interrupted when the Carrier or the target dies.

Velari - Observers and Assistants

  • Unity Through Purpose: Allied worker units and transports gain +0.1 movement speed. Allied structures are built 10% faster.

  • Farsight: Though not revealing the map area, this ability reveals the ‘shades’ of enemy units and structures in the area, even cloaked or burrowed ones. Can also be cast on explored/visible areas.

  • Velari Gate Prism:
    - Shield Regenerator: Velari Gate Prisms can regenerate the shields of friendly units.
    - Gateway Deployment Mode: Velari Gate Prisms can deploy into a stationary mode, not only generating a power fields, but also gaining the ability to warp in a single Gateway unit (Zealot/Dragoon/High Templar/Dark Templar) at a time.

  • Velari Recorder:
    - Optical Optimizers: Increases sight and firing range of friendly units around the Velari Recorder by +1.
    - Field Observation: Allows the Velari Recorder to deploy and indeterminitely keep watch in a single area, even piercing through the fog of war. Does not detect cloaked units.

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Level Progression:

1 - Judicator’s Reach: Aldaris has a 300 Mineral starting account and a 100 initial energy when arriving. Aldaris can use the following abilities:

  • Psionic Phantoms, which project Aldaris’ hallucinations that can absorb half the enemy damage, but will also deal half Aldaris’ damage.
  • Decree, which provides a temporary fighting boost to friendly units.

2 - The Conclave Dictates: Unlocks the Judicator Conclave for use. Structure which, with enough Renown, aligns a Protoss tribe, grating a support ability, a global passive ability, and replacing two normal units with enhanced variants. Renown can be acquired by slaying enemy units, tributing resources and researching technologies. Unlocks Akilae and Sargas Tribes for alignment.

3 - To Serve and Counsel: Unlocks Aldaris’ ability to call non-controllable auxiliaries to assist him:

  • Call Venatir Hunters, auxiliary ranged units that can attack ground and air enemy units.
  • Call Ara Scholars, auxiliary spellcasters which unleash small Psi-Storms or hallucinate friendly units.

4 - New Tribe - Furinax: Unlocks the Furinax Tribe for alignment in the Judicator Conclave. Provides significant boost to mechanical units, shields groups of units from all damage for a time, and unlocks the following enhanced units and their upgrades:

  • Furinax Invictors, enhanced Immortals that can absorb great damage with their shields and attack enemy ground and air units with their special ability.
  • Furinax Warp Reavers, which can teleport anywhere on the field and it’s Scarabs can attack enemy air units, when upgraded.

5 - Voice of Judgement: Unlocks the Damnation ability for Aldaris. All enemy units afflicted lose armor and movement speeds temporarily.

6 - Looking Beyond Such Matters: Unlocks Velari Preservers for Aldaris to call down on the field. Supporting units which can heal and restore shielding of friendly units.

7 - New Tribe - Shelak: Unlocks the Shelak Tribe for alignment in the Judicator Conclave. Provides significant boost to spellcaster units, deploys an ancient relic to boost allied units, and unlocks the following enhanced units and their upgrades:

  • Shelak Great Templar, which can unleash powerful vortexes that stun and damage enemy units, and creates psionic shades of enemy units that can deal damage.
  • Shelak Arcane Archons, which can strike multiple units at once and reconstitute themselves when dying.
  • Shelak Tribunes, which can teleport groups of units from the Tribune’s position to anywhere and lay down stasis fields which damage units along with imprisoning them.

8 - Ground Protoss Upgrade Cache: Unlocks the following upgrades for Protoss enhanced units:

  • Akilae Dragoons can double their combat speed for a time, but will shut down for a while as well.
  • Sargas Avengers can trap enemy units in void prisons.
  • Furinax Warp Reaver Scarabs can target enemy air units.
  • Shelak Arcane Archons can resurrect 10 seconds after death.

9 - Aggressive Diplomacy: The Judicator Conclave now generates 1 point of Renown every 5 seconds.

10 - New Tribe - Auriga: Unlocks the Auriga Tribe for alignment in the Judicator Conclave. Provides significant boost to air units, calls down a Decimator Mothership to rain down devastating firepower, and unlocks the following enhanced units and their upgrades:

  • Auriga Scouts, which fire more anti-air missiles, fire faster when attacking ground units and can attack faster when close to other friendly units, except other Auriga Scouts.
  • Auriga Carriers, whose Interceptors fire twice when attacking, and can fire a powerful energy lance at a single target, dealing devastating damage.

11 - Air Protoss Upgrade Cache: Unlocks the following upgrades for Protoss enhanced units:

  • Sargas Raider attacks, while still aerial only, can rain down and deal damage to ground units.
  • Shelak Tribunes can imprison enemy units within stasis traps that, while don’t allow attacking, will still deal damage to trapped enemy units.
  • Auriga Scouts can attack ground targets much faster.
  • Auriga Carriers can unleash a powerful energy lance, dealing great damage to enemy units.

12 - Brave Sons of Aiur: Increases the available charges Aldaris can bring Auxiliaries to 3.

13 - New Tribe - Velari: Unlocks the Velari Tribe for alignment in the Judicator Conclave. Provides significant boost to allied workers, transports and structures, provides revelation of enemy units within the fog of war, and unlocks the following enhanced units and their upgrades:

  • Velari Gate Prism, which can transport friendly units, regenerate friendly shields and deploy to warp-in units as if it were a Warp Gate.
  • Velari Recorders, which boosts sight and firing range of friendly units, and can deploy to keep watch in a large area, though not detecting cloaked or burrowed units.

14 - Preceding Reputation: Aldaris has a 100 starting Renown.

15 - Might and Fury: For each aligned tribe, allied units gain +0.02 movement and attack speed.

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Co-Op Commander Conclusion:

  • Aldaris is a hero (High Templar or Arbiter) more of a support combat role with abilities and NPC combat units he can calldown
  • Players must acquire renown through combat, construction, research or tributing resources.
  • Renown is used to get Protoss tribes and their upgraded units to your side. Tribes also have a passive buff and calldown.
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Here, it’s assumed he survived Kerrigan’s assassination in ‘The Insurgent’ and it was ultimately revealed he was right about what Kerrigan did to Raszagal. However, that uprising of his also ended up burning his reputation and so he must pick back the pieces together, and that’d also mean having to side with the lesser of evils, the Dark Templar, which in the end he learned to respect and recognize their utilities in some situations.

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Never say never. Blizzard denied a Diablo 4 years ago, but lo and behold a ’ having cell phones’ incident to change things up.

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You should have at least let him complete his chain of posts before uttering this nonsense.

5 Likes
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1: it is not nonsense and 2: i did not know that he would write more stuff.

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Thank you much, my good sir.

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First impression is that it’s a decent concept. The permanent choice idea may be worth exploring.

Personal preference thing here: not a fan of long reads. When trying to sell ideas or concepts, sometimes less is more.

They never said there is no SC3.

The closest thing they have gotten to this is wanting to see how much interest there is:

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they have already stated that starcraft 2 is the last starcraft, live with it.

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E V I D E N C E? Got any?

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They never said that either. You have clearly confused this with something else.

And that’s the last I am going to say anything about it here because there is nothing more to say on the matter and it’s veering on derailing the thread.

1 Like
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I’d say the thing so far with this concept as your DuGalle concept. You really need to:

  1. Simplify the unit roster (too many that all does a better job, overly powered research when compared with any other commanders… which all have a portion of what you propose and with less power). This will also intentionally simply your research tabs, saving the player a lot of resources. Choices are good but too many choices are worse than bad.
  2. What purpose is there to “add 300min upon Aldaris’s spawn”? Most would spawn at 3-4min. If this is part of the compensation to his supports then the player should be saving up for it. If you wanted to have him start at 0 game second, then 300min would only be used to speed up tech. Either way, this is an oversight.
  3. The whole concept of “renown” is unclear. You can gain it with your level 9 & 14 progression, researching and killing, but what does it do exactly? How does a player use this new resource (what did I miss in reading your wall :stuck_out_tongue:). It sounds like this ties in to the over-roster, over-powered, and over-crowdedness of choices.
  4. Level 15 is conversely underwhelming. I am assuming my count is correct, which may be the problem but you have presented 6 tribes (that cannot unlock all at once). So at late game, your allied units would gain 0.12 move/attack speeds. This would rival even the worst level 15 to date (being Karax’s old +10shield barrier one time).

Great concepts again, simplify your choices for players so they can make distinct and useful choices. Many of these units and their variants cover a well-rounded meta that would basically render going into others pointless - especially in the face of such a powerful yet supposedly support hero.

1 Like
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Okay, let’s go part by part.

  1. Originally the idea was to make these evolutions the core army, with Aldaris’ army initially having almost nothing but Probes, Zealots and his Auxiliaries, but then this made up two big problems - How to survive early-game and how players would develop this army without having to depend on certain tribes as a crutch, like Akilae (Basic Gateway) and Furinax. So came up this decision to leave the originals, only without much of the vanilla upgrades or abilities, consequently leaving them 50% less effective than their upgraded counterparts.

  2. The initial 300 minerals account is to provide an early game boost and nothing more, especially when most of the resources will inevitably get converted to construction, research or tributing to acquire one or two tribes. At best, this lets Aldaris get a Pylon and Gateway much early on and have some headstart to begin collecting renown. And the 300 minerals is right at game start, Aldaris only gets 100 starting energy when spawning.

  3. Renown, from the dictionary, is recognition and earned respect, and this ends up fitting Aldaris’ persona and his goal to bring the Protoss tribes whom lost all respect with him because of his attempted riot in ‘The Insurgent’ (What-if scenario, remember that). It’s exclusively used to get these Protoss tribes together, but it’s hardly easy to ‘collect’. To not mention starting costs for a single tribe are about 100-150 Renown, increasing 100-150 per every tribe, just like Forge upgrades.

  4. Since the available, immutable max is four tribes from six, that would sum up to 0.08, which comes closer to 0.1, and affects all friendly units, player’s and allies. I’ve considered that a higher number count would make it more OP than UP. Maybe we could get to 0.05, which would sum up to +0.2 as a final result, but still…

/edit Aldaris may look powerful, but he’s not actually powerful, and unlike Kerrigan or Nova, wouldn’t handle an army by his own. His strength comes from those around him.