All I would do is set a regular patch update every 1-2 weeks (based on how long it takes to actually update the system). No matter how big or small the patch, I feel it is important to keep the community aware that we are engaged in continually updating.
For me, I don’t care if this week’s update had just some “doodads fixed on CoD”, “portrait for x unit fixed”, “Bla bla bla”, “Chrono on structure no longer possible”. Even if that was all there is to the update, I would do it. In practice, this would add some repetitive work but the gain is that the players know where we are at. I could care less that a revamp of say Tychus is split into 3 patches (over 3-6 weeks) because as some “changes” occur, unaccounted bugs arise. This would give us a chance to change priorities.
And that is what I would do. The actual details are trivial because there will always be 1 million and 1 things to do. However, having a consistent basis to do them is more important than 2months without a whisper, then “BAM! Look a new commander, hurray!”.
First I would improve communication between the team and the community by having biweekly updates on progress. Monthly streams about coop, playing, showing new strategies, teaching how to play, inviting proeminent coop streamers would be nice as well.
Then I would make some changes to commanders:
Protoss Commanders
Artanis
Pylon Power now also teleports units that stand on it to the new location it is moved.
Orbital Strike changed into Artanis Descent , which summons Artanis into the battlefield for 30 seconds. During teleport animation the fall deals 250 damage to enemy units in a small area. Costs 25 energy and has a 30s cooldown.
Tempest’sDisintegration ability is now a passive ability that is applied every single shot, still doesn’t stack.
Tempest’s range is increased to 15 and sight to 12.
Nexus changed into DaelaamNexus , that has a massive powerfield around it. Is obtained at lvl 15 with Glory of the Daelaam .
Karax
Unit Tax is removed.
Unity Barrier cooldown reduced to 120s.
Unit Cost Reduction Mastery is now Unity Barrier Cooldown Reduction , reducing the cooldown of Unity Barrier by (-2s ~ -60s).
Repair Beam healing is now 10 for both units and buildings, from 5 for units and 10 for buildings, and prioritizes Karax’s units.
Repair Beam Healing Rate mastery buffed to (+2% - +60%).
Chrono Wave Energy Generation buffed to (+3-+90).
Mirage ’s PhasingArmor upgrade now also reduces the gas cost of all Mirages built by 50.
Mirage’s Graviton Beam now works on massive and heroic units, lasting only 1.5s on these targets.
Carrier’s Repair Drones now restore both shields and hp at the same time by 10/s each.
Forge can no longer be built.
Solar Forge now replaces the Forge for all static defense tech requirements and takes their upgrades as well.
Solar Forge Solar Efficiency upgrade tiers now also upgrades GroundWeapons , GroundArmor , and PlasmaShields in their respective tiers.
Alarak
Pylons can no longer be built from probes.
Nexus can now produce 2 units at the same time.
Warprism is now built from the Nexus.
Warprism no longer has an attack.
Warprism now gives 16 supply.
Warprism can carry 32 supply each.
Warprism’s powerfield is now the same size of that of a Pylon.
Warprism’s cost 100 minerals and are produced at the time of a pylon.
Deployed Warprisms unload all units instantaneously.
Death Fleet is now permanent when summoned. The Mothership can build extra Destroyers by half the price of a Void Ray. If the Mothership dies, it takes 5 minutes to come back.
Fenix
Disruptor’s Purification Echo Purification Nova blast that deals 75 damage now also hits enemy air units.
Conservator’sProtective Field now also affects buildings.
Vorazun
Dark Archon damage increased to the same of a normal Archon.
Void Ray upgrade range increase goes up to +9 range.
Zeratul
Projected Cannons and Monoliths now have only 1 HP and no shields.
Zerg Commanders
Zagara
Queens’ Spawn Larva is now a passive ability that turns Queens into mobile Hatcheries. The larva follow the queens that spawned them.
Queens now have a new upgrade that increases their energy and health regeneration by 100%.
Queen’s Transfusion is now called TransfusionSpray , and is an AoE ability.
Corruptors are now upgraded from Overlords, can no longer attack, and provide 8 supply.
Corruptor’s Corruption now is an AoE that targets a huge area and produces creep and makes all enemy units in said area take 35% more damage.
Corruptors benefit from the VentralSacs upgrade, and can drop units from a distance by shooting them through a drop pod.
Kerrigan
A weaker version (25% effect) of Assimilation Aura is applied to units that walk over Kerrigan’s creep, passively. The effect applies to allies’ creep as well.
Dehaka
Primal Mutalisks can no longer hit ground units and are now anti-air melee units.
Igniters attack now have a cone AoE similar to that of a hellbat.
Dehaka’s psionic blast attack, released when eating psionic units, is removed from the game.
Dehaka’s Fire Breath now also hits air units.
Glevig’s fire spell’s cooldown is doubled.
Abathur
Brutalisks and Leviathans now require 10 supply each.
Stukov
Infested Troopers are removed from the game.
Infested Bunkers no longer produce infested troopers over time.
Infested Bunkers now cost 4 supply and 350 minerals.
Infested Bunkers start with 6 infested marines instead of infested troopers.
Infested Marines now cost 0.5 supply and 25 minerals.
Infested Marines’ timer stops ticking when inside infested bunkers.
Diamondback’s Caustic Mucus now also heals ground allied units by 5 hp/s, does not stack.
Stetmann
Units Egonergy Bars only show when units are selected and bar is not full.
Stetzone effects only show dotted colored lines to mark the edge of the zones.
Stetmann talks less often.
Terran Commanders
Raynor
MULEs repair for free and 4 times faster than a normal SCV.
Orbital Commands can use abilities even when lifted.
Swann
Vespene Drone is now a passive and is immediately applied to allies’ gas structures.
Vespene Drone Cost Mastery changed into Unit Mineral Cost Mastery, reducing mineral cost from 1% to 30%.
Nova
Unit Cooldowns removed.
Griffin Airstrike now costs 1500 minerals.
Griffin Airstrike cost reduction mastery increased from 300 to 450.
Han & Horner
Horner Units’ cooldowns removed.
Widow Mines now cost only 75 minerals and 1 supply.
Tychus
Nikara’s Healing Beam also applies a Stim Pack effect.
I would focus on buffing underused units across all commanders.
Every commander has units that are too weak or too expensive or just flat out not useful.
Fixing those into a useful (yet balanced) form would greatly expand the fun possibilities.
I would also improve Raynor’s macro a bit, perhaps giving him Tech Reactors or optionally allowing MULES to be set to auto-cast on minerals near your command center.
If you can’t make them proportional to Kerrigan’s Current attack level (ex. Kerrigan attack 60 = 15) at least give them an ability to fuel Kerrigan’s Carapace.
Karax’s Solarite charge via Chrono Surge Mastery
30 points in this mastery gives you mighty Solarites during Chrino Surge… 30 Solarite energy in 20 seconds…
Make them gain Solarites (by proportion of Solarite regeneration) and decrease Solar Lance and Purifier Beam cooldown by 60%…
Return Stukov’s Bunker stats.
Instead of making the slots 6, give the Infested Trooper and Marines a Carapace shield (+50hp) and 20% overall speed increase when they are about to die.
If you can’t make them numerous, make them efficient as compensation.
Han and Horner - Black Market (?)
-A building that gives Valuable Junk cubes everytime you killed certain amount of enemies.
Maximum of 2 can be made
Every Kills Han and Horner make is transfered to a Black Buidling. Kills are used to make Junk Cube that yields resources. These Cubes take time to make.
I wonder what the logic behind some of your changes is, I know this is just a wishlist of changes rather than carefully thought balance but I find some very odd.
For example I get that for Alarak you want to replace pylons with prisms but that sounds like a terrible time to me. Forward pylons are always better than prism unless you are already going for robo for some reason. Also prism already has the same area as pylons.
For Nova you want to increase the cost of airstrike substantially even though she already has a hard time not running out of minerals.
I did suggest Warprisms being made from the Nexus so I don’t understand your problem with it?
I find that calldown to be way too powerful, probably the most broken thing in the game, that’s why I think it should be nerfed. Although I do have to say, I’m not sure if increasing mineral cost is better than increasing cooldown. Maybe cooldown is better, I’m not entirely sure. But the concept of the calldown is that it is a short cooldown limited by your resources, so I just kept that idea and nerfed from there.
The reason why I say they are better for robo is because robo require less micro since the only unit you are microing is Alarak. With ascendants just being able to overcharge the pylon and not think too much about it is much better so that you can properly micro Alarak and your ascendants. I do think I didn’t word it properly though so I apologize for that.
They being build from the nexus is a problem by itself to me considering how easy it’s to deploy a pylon and overcharge it while it’s constructing. I don’t know… maybe I’m just too set in my ways that I can’t possible see prisms working like you want them to.
As for airstrike yeah it’s strong but 350 more minerals per use is too much if you ask me. Constant airstrike is one of the things that differentiate good Nova players and if you are also doing mines then as things are right now you already run out of minerals very easily.
That makes total sense. So the microing, and things you have to worry about when playing gate would increase considerably?
Hhmmm… I didn’t think too much about that because I already use Warprisms with Ascendants anyway. But with these changes the amount of Warprisms to manage could increase. That could be very draining.
I think it would be fine, but nothing can be certain until changes are tested. Personally since I use 3~5 Warprisms with any comp anyway, I just thought of making the use of those more straightforward, while improving economy at the same time.
But I didn’t consider the fact people might prefer to just use Pylons. I thought the problem was with Warprisms being so expensive, time consuming to build, costing supply and being gated behind the Robotics Facility, but didn’t think about the extra micro aspect.
As for Nova, without testing I can’t say much else. This is a “I think” x “I think” situation here. Whenever I play her I have no issue with minerals, and I play a mineral heavy comp (Marine/Hellbat/Marauder/Ghost/Raven). Maybe I play wrong, I don’t know.
I started typing up some ideas and never quite finished. Here’s most of my Protoss rework ideas. Some are very conservative, some probably pretty awesome, and some very out there (Karax and Artanis particularly). I lost it at Zeratul as I don’t really have answers right now to what to do with e.g. Stasis Beam.
Mostly want to post this so I can start responding to some other ideas and stop having this as a perpetual draft!
Protoss
Chrono Boost
Chrono Boost can now be used on structures under construction. A Nexus's own Chrono Boost still doesn't become operational until the Nexus has completed. Karax's Chrono Field and Chrono Wave also apply to structure construction speed.
Zeratul’s Chrono Boost is removed and replaced by an alternative ability, Chrono Surge. This functions more like the Versus version of Chrono Boost.
Artanis
Artanis can now build Carriers (as Karax's), but can no longer build Tempests.
Orbital Strike removed by a toggled top bar ability, Shade Warp/Standard Warp. When toggled to Shade Warp, Artanis's combat unit warp-ins no longer cost resources, supply or warp charges, but instead cost Spear of Adun energy and disappear after 45 sec.
Artanis's Orbital Strike isn't a very unique ability, and Artanis doesn't have as clear a fantasy as most commanders. This ability is about focusing on Artanis as a master of warp technology, and as a commander who relies on the flexibility of his army. Shade Warp is extremely versatile, letting Artanis players experiment with options like early game Zealot/Dragoon power spikes, constantly mixing in Immortal shades to aid attrition, or banking energy to create temporary armies to bolster map presence.
Karax
All of Karax's combat units gain +25% weapon damage, rounded up to the nearest integer. Weapon upgrades stay in line based on adding +10% damage per upgrade, rounded up to the nearest integer.
Colossi are no longer considered to be a ground unit for the purposes of Blinding Cloud. Also applies to Fenix's Colossi.
Karax's Colossus upgrade Extended Thermal Lance renamed to Advanced Thermal Lance, and in addition to its existing effect it now additionally allows Colossi to attack air units. Each sweep of their attack can attack either ground or air, not both.
Colossi aren't necessarily a bad unit, but they're unique in being hard-countered by the compositions they should be useful against. It makes sense, if Colossi are tall enough to be hit by Scourge, that they're tall enough to be 'above' the battlefield that Vipers are obscuring. These changes should make them much more effective against Zerg, and give Karax a ground unit that can deal with non-mechanical air.
Karax can now build Artanis's Tempests, but can no longer build Carriers.
The Tempest's Disintegrate ability now additionally reduces the attack speed, movement speed and cooldown rate of the target by 30% for the duration.
Tempests gain a new upgrade, Gravity Sling, which increases their anti-air range by 6.
Karax's masteries overhauled to:
1 (a) Unit and Structure Health and Shields 1.5–45%
1 (b) Spear of Adun Energy Regeneration and Cooldown Reduction 1–30%
2 (a) Structure Cost Refund 2.5–75%
2 (b) Research Cost Reduction 2–60%
3 (a) Ability Cooldown Reduction 1.5–45%
3 (b) Spear of Adun Initial and Maximum Energy +3–90
These masteries are much stronger, and allow Karax to choose a combination of army play, static defence and Spear of Adun usage. Structure Cost Refund triggers when a structure is destroyed. Spear of Adun Regen/Cooldown applies to Chrono Wave and Purifier Beam. Karax's units will always have +30% cost, but as well as their intrinsic +25% damage they can now gain additional Health and Shields, and faster ability cooldown, to make them truly powerful.
Vorazun
Structures now benefit from Strike from the Shadows.
Dark Archons now have the same attack damage as Archons.
For every kill, Dark Archons permanently gain +1 attack damage and +0.2/sec energy regeneration, to a maximum of 20 stacks.
Bugs with the Confuse spell fixed.
Summon Shadow Guard now reduced to 25 energy cost.
I don't think Dark Archons will work unless they're a serviceable combat unit, at which point DA/Centurion would emerge as a really viable composition. These changes also would improve their performance vs. Zerg and create synergy with Black Hole. Reduced Shadow Guard cost means one extra Dark Pylon or Black Hole in the early game, and then some viability to using Shadow Guard in the mid/late game.
Alarak
Wrath of the Highlord restored to infinite range.
War Prism capacity increased from 8 to 24, and they now unload instantly.
Force Fields cast by Alarak's Havocs now take 3 sec to dissolve when they would be destroyed.
Ascendants, Wrathwalkers and Vanguards are no longer sacrificed to Alarak.
I know there's an argument for more significant changes, but I don't play Alarak a great deal and am not sure his Robo play is really that far off being viable. These changes would improve his mobility options and make Force Field viable without making them invincible.
Fenix
Legionnaire's Charge ability replaced with Vindicator's Charge, which in addition to normal Charge deals 20 (+20 vs. structure) damage to the target.
Colossi are no longer considered to be a ground unit for the purposes of Blinding Cloud. Also applies to Karax's Colossi.
Fenix's Colossi can research a new upgrade, Overshield, which allows Colossi to auto-cast a 50 hit point barrier onto any unit beneath it.
Disruptor speed increased from 2.25 to 3.15 (as in Versus), and Purification Nova cooldown reduced from 30 sec to 20 sec.
Fenix is almost perfect, so it's just about tweaking lesser-used units. Disruptors are pretty good, just a bit more hit-and-run and wave-to-wave capability would be good. Legionnaires need a bit more reinforcing of their anti-structure role to be more than spare shells. The Colossi change is more significant and I think could be a cool idea, though it overlaps with Immortals' Barrier. The purpose is to give spare Colossi an Aberration-like support role and maybe encourage using a few in the rear with Conservators, or mixing them in with mass Adept compositions to toughen it up.
Zeratul
Zeratul removed completely.
Okay, no... I'm just not sure yet. There's a... lot, and it's not all straightforward. Still thinking.
Amon's Protoss Units
Amon's Protoss bases in many missions are now more strongly defended. Amon will use Shield Batteries in many bases, and makes more use of Immortal and Reaver defenders.
Amon's Arbiters will now use Stasis Field against commanders on Brutal difficulty.
The Shadow Disruption composition now uses campaign Annihilators in place of Phoenixes.
Amon's Towering Walkers composition now includes Dragoons, and Disruptive Artillery now includes Void Rays.
On Brutal difficulty, Amon can harass player bases with either (decided randomly per mission) Dark Templar, Phoenixes or Oracles.
Amon seems to be half a difficulty step down most times he rolls Protoss. The bases are the easiest to push into, and many of the compositions are easy. Even the tough ones tend to have really defined weaknesses. I think these changes would spruce up some of his compositions, add some Viper-level nastiness and keep us on our toes a bit more.
I think Nova’s almost perfect, but Griffin Airstrike is the one thing I might eye up nerfing. But I’d consider an alternative route here:
Griffin Airstrike Cost mastery replaced with Unit Cooldown Reduction -2 to -60 sec.
700 is a bit too cheap for Airstrike, but this mastery is always going to be the clear winner over Nuke and Holo Decoy Cooldown, so why not just remove it? Instead, replace it with a ‘nice to have’ mastery many people call for, but which doesn’t necessarily make Nova stronger. That makes the Power Set 1 choice more uncertain.
(I won’t die on the hill of “this mastery isn’t strong”, but my Nova play usually mixes enough unit types to not be cooldown-limited.)
Why increase the cost when you can just remove the mastery?
Of course! I’m thinking things in such a convoluted manner… Although I’d prefer the unit cooldown itself to be removed, there is a nice design philosophy behind it that I don’t know how important it is, which is:
By having cooldowns you are forced to diversify your army composition.
Maybe that is such a core point of Nova that, by removing, could destroy the commander completely. I mean, being able to just mass marines could be very lame after all.
But decreasing the cooldown could be this middle ground in which you can get a little more of a certain unit type, without allowing you to just mass a single thing. That might be better indeed.
There’s not been a single revamp where I haven’t either thought that some decision was wrong or didn’t go far enough to actually fix the underlying problem; There’s stuff with all the commanders that could use fiddling.
I don’t know about six months, but if I were in charge for a few weeks this is what I would do, this and have someone actually fix all those those things Maguro has pointed out in his Bug Hunts Zagara:
Give Abominations +1 armor and have them regen faster on creep, or alternatively just have all her units regen faster on creep. (It would make spreading creep feel more worthwhile for her.)
Change Queen transfuse to only cost 25 energy to make them worthwhile support casters, and remove the armored tag. (Again it would make spreading creep more worthwhile.)
Add a Hive tech upgrade to increase supply to 125
Give Bile Launchers their old Smart cast, while keeping a separate button to bombard ground.
Slightly increase base Corrupter damage, and have Corruption ability stack, and most importantly let them pee on buildings (because it’s fun)
Stukov
Lower Bunker supply cost back to 4
To make them less efficient unit spawners remove the 20% spawning rate boost from the lvl14 talent, and instead give 20% cooldown reduction on barracks and factory.
Have Missile Turrets benefit from bunker upgrades
Increase Banshee base damage and upgrade bonus so they are less meh, or give them aoe like Raynor’s Banshees
Make Tank’s long range attack targetable, it’s a bit of a pain that you can only target within spine range
increase Queen cast range by 1
Kerrigan:
Change Nydus cost to 150/150
like with Zagara; Change Queen transfuse to 25 energy and remove armored tag
Give mutas 50% extra damage against armored with the severing glaives research (They were pretty crazy when we had 100%damage to armored and bounces that did More damage than base, but removing it entirely in the nerf felt like too much since they are basically glass cannons, but with fairly limp cannons post-nerf considering how fragile they are.)
Raynor:
Bring back double mule, (wouldn’t be OP at this point, and I don’t think the majority of players are ever gonna get that they should build extra CCs, which isn’t particularly beginner friendly anyway)
Vorazun:
Either bring back the option of chronoing buildings, or have her Dark Shrine not require Twilight council.
(Her start has always felt like a bit of a pain, and building chrono was a god-send, making the start much more enjoyable)
Lower Shadowguard cost to 25 energy
(using them later on feels like such a waste of energy compared to dark pylons or black hole)
Dehaka
increase base muta damage a tad to 16 while keeping the current air damage
Buff Guardians to still make them the more attractive choice against ground by decreasing explosive spore delay, or removing it entirely
Karax:
No unit tax, change mastery to either +30% unit hp and shields, or a unit cooldown reduction
(The latter would be more interesting and fun, I think, would help with shadow cannons, energizer reclamation, and make energizer buff slightly faster, would also help Mirage I guess, but no one builds that unit anyway)
Increase base Mirage damage to something like 12 (+8 vs Light)
(there’s really no reason to build them currently except for fun, so I think they need a significant damage buff to be a worthwhile and more mobile alternative to mass immortals or carriers)
cut all unit researches by 50 gas (getting units out is very slow with all those expensive upgrades Karax has)
Han & Horner
Have the Galleons benefit from out of combat regen like Horner’s units
cut gas cost from Widow Mines
(you lose them easily, so it feels like any gas spent on them is just thrown away, and would be better spent on more Horner units instead)
I would add random attack wave spawns so that it’s harder to spawn camp as well as make attack wave timings random (+/- 45 sec so 90 sec window) and then tie attack wave strength to the game timer. You could have a small attack wave be sent towards you early on like on Rifts to Korhal map except on any map now. You could have no attacks for a while an then a giant **** attack wave is spawned to kill you. Should add a lot of replayability.
Primary objective timings could be made random too. Two bots could spawn in the first wave on mist opportunities for example or the buttom train could be launched first on oblivion express with attack wave patterns also randomized.
Enemy Base reinforcing their own base and spawing army.
Aside from Enemy Waves, can we have enemies reinforce their defences by making more units and defence towers?
They already do that but its slow and much less than we could expect.
Except for the enemies at Train of Oblivion, they reinforce like crazy! The development team should implement like that on other maps!
