Should you have to spend so much on tech?

Co-op Missions Discussion
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AS things are at the moment in Co-op missions you need to sink a decent amount of early-game resources into teching up to fully utilize your commander’s kit.

I kinda feel like that for the first half of every mission I"m playing only half of a commander because a lot of upgrades are in-match researches you have to spend hundreds of minerals & gas to unlock those upgrades to your units, it’s kinda frustrating to me, like I can’t play with the full suite of units & capabilities of every commander, a decent number of them I feel like I have to pick one ‘playstyle’ with a fraction of the commander’s kit and stick to that per mission and the more different units you have in your army the more you have to spend on all that tech.

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That’s the point (choose your playstyle, ramp up)

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I agree it’s a little tedious sometimes. But macro is part of the game. Building an econ and getting upgrades quickly is part of being a good player and part of this being an RTS.

And honestly I think you’re overstating this a bit. The upgrades that modify what units can do should generally be gotten in the first 5-6m, at least for your primary units that you plan to use. Weapon and armor upgrades take longer, but those aren’t as noticable as getting stim for Marines or something.

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Actually armor upgrades rarely matter (matters in cases vs marines and other low-hit units) and in some narrow cases even attack upgrades aren’t mandatory.

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What would you suggest? Removing research would remove part of the game and the fun from it. I like having options. You would want to remove that, and just give everybody everything?

Even if I had all the research done, I would still make only around 3 unit types (for example mineral heavy anti-ground “tank”, gas heavy ranged DPS and some support unit for spells or detection or healing).
I can’t imagine I would be capable to effectively use all the units a commander has or see the point of doing it.

If you want to try everything, just do different styles each mission.
Even in campaign, where the only research in-game was +attack and armor, you had to chose your tech before the mission (and in case of WoL, remain stuck with that for the rest of the campaign … I am glad they changed it in HotS)

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I feel like the complaint isn’t with the upgrades, but with the design. Coop is panders towards less strategic players in terms of army composition.

In coop, you are basically never pushed to switch unit compositions. You have things like mass mutalisk which in a versus game, you’d be hard countered eventually but the AI doesn’t seem to understand that and thus gets rolled over.

You can mass dragoons as artanis. Why would you ever switch off of them? It’s not like the AI actively tries to add immortals and tanks when they see you’re investing that hard.

The amount of resources you have to pool into research and upgrades to have a wide variety of units would be justified if the maps (and some commanders) were designed more around versus than campaign. Why not mass voids or marine/medic every mission? Enemies are given a wide variety of units but never the ability to really hard counter and punish players who are obviously sitting on 1 unit the whole game.

The problem is most coop players COME from campaign, and coop as a mode is advertised as “campaign experience with a friend.” It may be too drastic of a jump to suddenly have to think about army transition, coming from a campaign where mass voids are the answer to every mission and achievement.

I suppose people enjoy the monotony to some extent, especially more casual players who might not know what transitions best against what they’re facing. A cloud of mutalisks can be fun to roll over the mission with. Would it not be bad to take that away from people?

The reason there are so many researches is that coop is kinda made around the assumption the player likes to stick with a couple unit types. Yet, there still needs to be some sort of strength curve and ramp up.

I was very tired when I wrote this. Maybe it doesn’t make sense. Sleep now

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In Co-op the AI on every map has a preset army composition. It even gets displayed to you in the corner of the screen when you ‘encounter’ whoever you’re fighting. You just look at that and build to counter it.

I also wouldn’t say co-op is geared to “less strategic” players, I like strategy, I love playing SC1 & BW campaigns cause the pace of the game is slower and I can actually micro tanks and lurkers and units in general while in SC2 the game’s pace is way too fast for my level of hand dexterity for hotkeys & reaction times so it’s kinda just a game of wrecking balls, smashing one deathball into another for me. But that’s more of a complaint I have for SC2 as a whole rather than Co-op, I play the campaigns on slower speeds and struggle with even just Hard in co-op because of the gamespeed…

I just think that having to pump out all these upgrades every single game gets a bit tedious.

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I’m not referring to the Atk/Armr upgrades, just the sheer number of unit power upgrades. Like every unit has 2-3 upgrades you gotta get for them to really function.

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OP is literally complaining about the game’s design…

This is how a Real Time Strategy game works. You learn to macro and choose your army composition by spending limited resources on the appropriate choices. Then if you can, learn to micro so you don’t lose what you invested in.

If you wanted to play let’s make all units all powerful, then simply use cheat codes in Campaign or play custom maps with built-in cheat codes, to give you infinite resources, fast build, invulnerability, etc.

Otherwise, this is basically a “I don’t like how this game works”, so then I guess “play another game”? Complaining about having to research 2-3 unit researches is just… LOL not sure what else I can say but LOL.

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I don’t get what part of RTS, the real, the time or the strategy means that you have to fiddle around with all these tech things.

And this is co-op, not VS. I don’t think the AI’s going to be particularly upset that the players don’t have to tech up every single match, especially when they only last 20 or so minutes. The units in CO-OP are generally already imba compared to multiplayer, not having to spend a few hundred minerals and gas and five minutes every single match teching up from scratch isn’t the end of the world.
And it’s a lot more than 2-3. Alarak for instance, you have 3 techs for Alarak himself, the Armr/Dmg/Shields upgrades from the forge, and two-three techs per unit you’re using in your army. You’re going to need supplicants for Alarak, so that’s two techs you need to research to make the supplicants die slower so they can be consumed by Alarak instead of being minced by AoE, and you need Havocs for detection and they have 3 techs and then depending on whether you go Robo or Gateway heavy you have 3 techs for the Ascendants, two techs for the Slayers so that’s 13 techs in 3 different structures, or you go Robo for Wrath Walkers & Vanguards and they have 2 techs each which brings that to 12 techs in three different structures on that path, not counting the forge upgrades. That’s around 1200-1400 minerals & gas you have to sink into tech instead of units and micro your chrono boosts to speed them up.

Like idk maybe that’s a little bit much to have to do every 20 minutes, I get why it’s like that in player vs player cause it’s all about timings and power curves and spikes, trying to get a leg up on your opponent over the course of the match but I don’t think the AI gives much of a damn about any of that. The computer opponent starts off with all the techs they can have for the difficulty setting already complete anyway so the only power curve is you going from underpowered compared to the AI to overpowered.
It’s not like the Co-op AI’s going to scout your base and counter your build based on your tech, their armies are fixed, all strategy from that teching element of the game is absent in co-op already, it’s just a time sink.

If only needing the tech structures is fine for campaign why not for the PvE co-op?

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Since you don’t get it.

It’s the strategy part. You are welcome.

Has 2 research, not 3. And they are not needed at all for Alarak’s gameplay (with the exception if you’re going Alarak-hero-solo).

Going Ascendent, you literally have to research just 3: Mind Blast, Chaotic Attunement, and Power Overwhelming. Everything else is just additional proverbial whip cream and cherries on top.

Going Robo is no different, you literally have to research 2: Aerial Tracking and Rapid Power Cycling. Again, everything else is just additional.

Both of these main stay strategies of Alarak can use cloaked Havoc, which most players get. That seem to add up to a total of 3-4 researchs all game. What a time to be alive, to see people complain about this kind of “designed game mechanic” as “nuissance that bogs down OP’s enjoyment”. Find a different game. Or, learn to use the limited resource and invest in the appropriate unit/research. And when you hit midgame where your economy is booming, then get those “cherries and whip cream” :thinking:.

Literally nobody is upset about this, except you. Well, and me at you for even posting this stuff. Even ladder games that clearly require upgrades/researches as part of the gameplay only lasts less than 20min (20min would be a long game).

And by your logic, we might as well do the following because why stop at "start every unit with 3/3 and all researches? Let’s do:

  • 0 coolup and cooldown calldown/abilities - Infinite Hyperions, Bombardments, and Immobilization Waves… wooo what fun!
  • 0 build time - Why wait for 30-60s to build a unit, when that unit can 1 vs entire wave? Because 30-60s clearly is balance right?
  • 0 need to build at all - Hey, let’s go even further, start off with 200/200 supply. Facerolling with 0 effort is clearly rewarding and fun.
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I can see both sides…

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I can agree with the “this is how RTS games roll” remarks. If you’d like to do away with the buildup, there should be arcade games to that effect (definitely other games). And note that Sc2 and Coop already streamlines many things. This is just what I’ve noticed… --you start off with 12, not 6 SCVs
–Town halls provide far more than the 8 supply they used to in Sc1
–CDs are available (either via Top Panel or heroes) to provide boosts of power and economy
–Many COs have shortcuts around the usual “standards”, such as
abilities that incapacitate the enemy (e.g. Immobilization Wave, Time Stop), shorten building (Improved SCVs, Khalai Ingenuity), bypass prereqs (Fenix), provide discounts (Nova’s upgrades, Fenix buildings)

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I get the premise of the question since we still clamor for buffs, nerfs, and QoL improvements, in addition to welcoming (or not) previous changes.
–People would like it if Nova’s Ghosts were higher in priority as to not have to tab so much to get to them? Done!
–Some abilities on autocast? Done!
–Karax could use a buff? Done! (and people complain about him even though there are those who can play him just fine).
–Mensk expands too quickly and is ridonkulous! Tweaked!
–Cradle of Death is too tedious! Artifact trucks now move faster!
–Tychus’ Medivacs are too OP! Nerfed, but still usable!
–Enemy Nukes are too frequent! They’ve been scaled back!
–etc.

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You’re straw manning what I’m saying and putting words in my mouth, I don’t think at all that all research should be removed, I’ve even explicitly said that I’m not talking about Forge/Evo/EngiBay upgrades, all I asked is “Do we really need this many techs to research to get the full power of our commanders kit?”
If you’re not getting the techs for your units in co-op you’re honestly just gimping your army.

You are inventing something to be upset at that I have not even said.

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I honestly feel like some builds are disincentivized because you need to research 2-3 techs to fully utilize the unit’s abilities. Like with Karax you have to choose between using cannons or units because getting upgrades for both is too expensive so you pretty much always go for cannons because Khalai ingenuity lets you instant-summon them.

And the higher the difficulty you go the more pressure there is to streamline your builds because both time & resources are under higher stress and you need your forces to be stronger, faster.

Maybe just making a few of the currently requiring-research techs could be baseline while the more powerful techs stay as researches, like charge could probably be baseline for all zealots with no real issue, blink could be baseline for stalkers, stim or combat shields could be baseline for marines, maybe some of the hero upgrades could be baseline.

Little things to get the ball rolling earlier and faster to get to the army marching, unit building part of things instead of needing to click menus and wait for timers.

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Just play as Zeratul. You don’t need to research anything, just find some artifact fragments and then you can make army combined of any of his units plus cannons and they will all have all the upgrades.

But you are right, that Karax is too expensive (although I think it’s more the cost of the units, than the upgrades …)

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i won’t name any names but I advise you not to get suckered into a heated, personal, back-and-forth over nothing with certain individuals who seem to only come here for that sort of thing

on topic: one thing I had to learn was which upgrades are the real priority and which can wait until you can actually afford them. sort of a long-term build order if you will. for instance you should get your attack upgrades eventually but your units do kill just fine without them

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Yes, that’s exactly how Starcraft 2 works.

In ladder, nobody runs out with Marines all game long and be like “ho ho, look at me and my all powerful no Stim Pack marines, hahaha…” It is because that research is good because it is by design - that all units get a power boost when the player chooses to get that research upgrade. Otherwise, it’ll feel like it is just a useless thing, why would anyone get a research for any unit if that research does not power boost?

This is true for Coop as well. Each research is meant to give a power boost to that unit, so that if/when the player chooses to invest, that unit gains a power jump and becomes more powerful. This can be seen with Marine + Stim Pack, Zealot + Whirlwind, Zergling + Adrenline, Tank + Maelstrom Rounds, Dark Templar + Fury Strike, Baneling + Centrifugal Hook, Ascendant + Mind Blast, NEED I GO ON ???

While it is true some commanders suffer from “too many research options” as well as “too expensive in cost”, namely Karax. This is why many of the revamp/balance topics specifically refer to this issue. This is an adjustment issue in usually the cost but not of their function.

Giving players more options to choose different tech paths, research upgrades, and compositions is a great thing. It provide longevity to coop as a whole by opening up variety of viable options.

Yet, here you are literally complaining that

I didn’t “put words in your mouth”, it is simply what you are implying. You simply don’t want to research anything. You just want:

  • Marines to come out with Combat Shield and Stim Pack.
  • Banelings to automatically have Centrifugal Hook (+15% speed), Corrosive Acid (+100% damage), and Rupture (+50% splash).
  • Ascendants to warp in and instantly Mind Blast for 200 dmg.
  • Ultralisks that spawn with Chitonous, Leech, and Burrow Charge.

Because yeah, those are absolutely not overpowered. What purpose is there to playing the game at all? Just make any unit at that point and win.

This is why I said, if you don’t like how the game is LITERALLY designed, then play a different game man lol.

After all of this, I know I’m just waste my breath. Good thing I can take solace in knowing the dev team isn’t nearly as simple in their thinking as what you are suggesting. I’d say enjoy, but I know you won’t lol.

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Man, I had to come back and just say. You’ve done it. You’ve really raised the bar of the type of things people will complain about on this forum.

Congratz, really out done all those who came before you. :+1:

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The one commander that can skip most tedious buildings at the start is Fenix (good), and that also means n00bs with foggy dreams of Brood War can make nothing but carriers (bad).

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But Zeratul is the only one that has no research and upgrade. You don’t even need to build gas. LOL

You are basically juggling around the map like in a MOBA game.

The “playing only half a commander issue” is more about mission problems and the laziness of the people than the game itself.
Giving them a long enough mission and everyone can play any unit they want.

Heck the easiest way is just giving them more mineral clusters and gas deposits. The moment you open the resources limitations, everyone can play however they like.

Since everyone want more useless exp, they demand shorter map, stronger unit, less base building, less research, less upgrade, less tech restrictions, less strategy but more “smashing that group of units” simulator. :slight_smile:

I can even foresee a coop future where player can have a preset base and units and just have to move out to “destroy x”, “defend y”, “collect z”. :))

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