CtG has released a video regarding Co-op content and how he wants more content, and I agree with him. Personally I’d like more maps and maybe the maps from the previous map contest that lost, could be added? I’m also wondering about the unreleased difficulties in the editor, Unlikely and Extreme, I think it’s called(?) they could make the AI smarter somehow, like retargeting to low HP units? I’m not actually sure if they do that nowadays…
Make Voruzun a hero unit? Maybe add achievements in?
anyways, what new content would you like to see?
below is CtG’s video on his thoughts of new content:
Did blizz restart SC2 and coop development? Otherwise that would be a pipe dream. Still I’d like more commanders and maps if ever they do. I’m kinda let down that they couldn’t even add Tosh, Urun/Selendis, or Naktul/Kilysa before dropping coop.
No. Blizz did NOT restart development. Rather, the community will be doing the heavy lifting, and will present updates in the form that Blizzard can just incorporate, as they haven’t wanted to devote any more time, manpower, and other resources to Coop for a long while now.
.
This is the proposed roadmap…
phase 1 - Bug fixes
phase 2 - new Weekly Mutations
phase 3 - balance patches
phase 4 - Prestige/CO rework
phase 5 - new Prestiges
phase 6 - New CO
phase 7 - New map
… TL;DR of that video, it’d be considered a success if we could even get to phase 4. Phase 6 and 7, new CO and new Mission, is already past the point of “there’s a small hope” (albeit, not impossible I suppose), as it’s the most difficult to implement.
Me… “I’d like it all”. To be realistic and temper expectations, I agree with CtG when he says he thinks getting to phase 4 would already be a smashing success. I wouldn’t mind replaying some of the Prestiges that are weak (e.g. P3: HH, Abathur, Stetmann; and P2: Stukov, Zeratul)
Correction made.
I meant to say Stukov P2.
I thought the community wasn’t thrilled about Zeratul’s P2, but I guess it’s still got a decent amount of love [shrug]
I personally do not prefer it but you can’t deny its late game power if you’re on top of your artifact gathering game. +15 shield sentinels that laugh at siege tank shots are a sight to behold.
Also, I think P1 and P3 Aba need more love than P2.
I’m kinda iffy on new commanders, because there’s gonna be a decision if blizzard should monetize them or not, and if they do, how much goes to the maker?
According to the roadmap, it’s phase 6. If you’re looking for a timeline, that’s roughly years and years, to never, that’s how ambitious of a tasking that’ll be
Note I typo-ed when I wrote that. I meant to say Abathur P3 (three), not P2 (two)
The CtG video said Blizzard gets to monetize that, so it seems to imply they get the full monetization. It’s only $5, so I don’t know how that would get split up anyways.
If people want to say “Blizzard should’ve been doing this”, then I’ll counter by saying that ship has LOONG sailed. Not a few years back, not when they announced in Oct. 2020 of no more new content, but even before that when we went 1.5 years without a new Mission.
The best thing to do would be to have the community build new Co-op maps and submit them for a little quality check, then add them to the official map pool.
Balance etc is generally not a great idea for community to do, and besides most commanders are actually in a pretty good spot.
In terms of difficulty:
Prestige 90 made Brutal too easy, Brutal+ mutators can be too annoying.
2 fixes:
remove some annoying mutators
make Brutal+ the same as Brutal, but with bigger numbers for enemy HP etc
We’ve seen games that CO has been on 54 AF (and beyond, to its max!). However, in practice, I believe proficient AF hunters really can muster 6 on short missions, and 10 to 12 on longer ones.
This isn’t meant to “go after you”, but as a general thing… I believe the community severely underestimates just how much time it takes to get a map to be released (let alone be a great one). The amount of playtesting required would be no trivial feat (which is why even though coders are essential, the testers will definitely play an important role).
I also agree with CtG’s assessment that new Missions/maps are a phase 7 level of effort. Unfortunately, I believe that even if we can get new missions, this is the sort of thing that will be measured in a year, minimum, if at all
Not to say there aren’t people skilled and passionate enough to do so, but I do recall a Blizzard dev mentioning that making a new map was on scale with making a full CO in terms of the time and effort needed.
Huh… my guess was it’d be more than that, but it looks like at this point, the main complexity in maps is the oodles of interaction between all of the COs and their prestiges we have at this point! (not to mention Mutators).
Still, no mean feat. Like with COs, they need voice lines, multiple languages, localizations. Then you gotta balance and playtest the building space area, area for expansions, the locations of objectives, spawn points, the # of them, their distances to all the previous.
About the map making effort… One advantage the community has would be they can release it as a funmap and players test from all over, and there’s no timeline.
Also, simplify Casual/Normal/Hard/Brutal by having the same amount of units and wave timing (except fast wave 1) for all and simply only have a damage and HP multiplier on the entire enemy, same for difficulty pairings (instead of one hard and one normal AI, just have a hard AI and multiply all its numbers by something between hard and normal.
Enemy compositions already exist, Weekly mutations are hand crafted on top of existing maps and Brutal+… Idk how much work needs to be done there
Where do you think the bulk of effort lies and did I miss something?
I mean, it is not impossible as we can see as example with Nexus Co-op in the arcade modus. (There was another extremely big one which I dont find)
And would Blizzard consider to add new commanders and maps, no matter with or without the help of the community (even when I prefer with community), I would also let money spring for it.
I feel like this simply won’t work. I haven’t played Casual nor Normal enough to nail the balance, but I do believe having those difficulty levels with lesser waves, at less frequency, lesser # of units, later first wave, and later higher tiered units, is what makes it work. Casual and Normal have an addition layer that they don’t send units that would require Detection to deal with, nor do they nuke you. This would harken back to the Heroes of the Storm mutator where even on easier difficulty levels, the heroes were jacked up at Brutal level to be, well, brutal.
I know with Hard vs. Brutal, other changes are there like having more resources for the former (e.g. DoN, 30 min patches vs. 27), the objectives of each mission are tailored for difficulty levels. Off the top of my head for P&P, you start off with more time at the start of each leg. Each part gives you not just 3 seconds, but 5.
