I’ve always had an idea for StarCraft 2 which would really shake up how the game is played. Now I don’t think it would be doable at this point…but imagine this…
Ranged units need a clear line of sight to fire at an enemy with very few exceptions (like the Siege Tank and Lurker)
This means that a ball or Stalkers couldn’t fire all at once without a very good spread. It means no more clumps of Marines stimming everything down. No more mass Roaches, etc UNLESS those units are firing at air units as a Marine or Stalker has lower elevation than air units, giving them clear line of sight.
Additionally this means pretty much all deathball play doesn’t work outside of VERY specific compositions. Colossus, Stalker, Zealot would still work due to elevation giving clear line of sight, Tank Marauder Marine + flavor tech units would also work to a certain extent as Marauders have elevation over Marines and Tanks fire over other units no matter what. Zerg would have Roach Hydra Lurker as their deathball strategy also as Hydras fire over Roaches and Lurkers; like siege tanks would ignore needing line of sight to attack.
Air units have collision. This prevents stacking large amounts of air units in one location, such as overlapped Vikings, Corrupters, Void Rays, Phoenix, etc. This mostly just changes how AoE interacts with air but also stops stacking air units to one shot higher tier units like Carriers, Broodlords, BCs, etc with other air units.
All AoE attacks have friendly fire enabled with more upgrades to reduce or completely eliminate friendly fire, where applicable. So for example, Lurkers and Banelings would be hurt very badly by this change, however, with the addition of upgrades which remove their friendly fire damage, this issue is mitigated (it could be a 30 second upgrade that costs 25 minerals at hatch tech, doesn’t matter. You just need FF enabled by default for parity across all races)
I believe these changes would radically change how StarCraft II is played as it would more or less put emphasis on small scale engagements across the map and pretty much kill Deathball play outside of very specific compositions. The game would take a lot more skill than it currently does to play optimally and we’d see pros start doing some truly cool stuff.
I also believe that it’s way too late for a change as radical as this and for something so massive, you’d essentially have to make these types of changes at the launch of an expansion.
Actually bringing back the defenders advantage for firing up ramps and cliffs would help Terran mech players more than anyone. Which is probably the reason it was removed in the first place. Granted that it wouldn’t help bio Terrans as much, if at all.
I don’t know about that but the defender’s advantage for high-ground will help all 3 races. I would add even a 10% DPS bonus to all ranged units that are on high ground.
It’s been the case in all history of warfare and is still true in 2021.
Why they regressed from BW to SC2 is beyond me.
I am not terran but if you think it will help Mech, so be it.
From the tactical point of view it will enrich the SC2 experience and positional play because each player will try to dominate those strategic places just like the skirmishes that we see around XelNaga Towers.
Game will gain an extra-dimension and will not only be determined by supply etc but position also.
Remember what King Leonidas did with only 300 Spartans.
Yes . Though small changes are best in my opinion. Why small? Because this game is going to get balanced like once a year if that.
Balance isn’t great now. But the game isn’t broken at least at pro level (a lot of posters would say otherwise). You don’t want to break the game, (or break it worse if you think it is in fact already broken) and then be stuck for a year.
I guess you have a bit of a point, it indeed is more intuitive for every splash damage unit to have friendly fire by default.
I’m not sure if the bloat added by extra upgrades that’d be negligibly cheap and fast to research compensates for that though.
