i think the way forward would be to leave current co-op as is, and introduce a co-op +. it’d be for 15 euros because the first thing activision will look at is monetization and then evaluate the amount of effort required. but i digress, a new co-op where maps get remade into larger maps with more objectives, where side objectives are punishing if failed, but helpful if fulfilled, where commanders can respec after reaching max lvl and in doing so, are rewarded with unlocked researchables becoming innates (active without having to research) and are given new unlocks to unlock instead, and the difficulty is remade without any mutators whatsoever.
if i look at dota, that game took some of the mechanics and made them innates, like couriers and everybody having a courier which autoupgrades for free instead of having to buy and upgrade it, and they gave it a new ability. in other words, they took a concept and evolved it, so that players can focus more on combat, strategy during a match and having fun. i think starcraft could attempt the same, but its all up to activision.
Eh… “part of the game”. For many COs, you won’t (and shouldn’t) be able to “do it all” anyways. Unless you can find willing players, they don’t want to prolong the game another 5 to 10 minutes just so that you can get every, single, ability and level upgrade.
As for Karax, if you’re playing a mission where you need to push aggressively like P&P or Cradle of Death, then make Sentinels and get the lv1 Solar Forge update ASAP. SoA lasers coupled with his Zlots should be more than enough to push. You can still make towers, but can forgo their upgrades (they’re still powerful since Karax has other benefits with his towers).
The only CO you can do everything is Zagara since she has such a trim tech tree, coupled with fast expanding. She also doesn’t really have much to anyways other than making suicide units, or Aberations/towers every now and then.
Zeratul’s also easy, but he doesn’t research in the traditional sense. I’ve had shorter games (under 16 minutes) where I forgo the 3rd AF. This was before his buff, so I did miss a power spike with Zeratul himself, and some upgrades that get unlocked from the his lv3 AF, but he was still powerful enough to do the mission at hand.
AFAIK, Raynor used to have to research Stim. Now, it’s included as part of his lv1 talent. Nova’s stim is half price (also b/c of a talent level). Her main roadblocks are her units are pricey, and on limited charges and cd’s.
I wouldn’t mind free upgrades for other units and heroes, but am fine with things as is. Coop is already very streamlined.
This dude just doesn’t have enough experience playing coop, and it’s too blatant. His general understanding of the game is “let’s just steamroll everything”.
Giving these free research as baseline drastically changes the power dynamic of many commanders. The very reasonably balance of current commanders would be entirely disrupted. Just as an example here:
Raynor is already very very good. Now to give his Marines both combat shield and stim would push their baseline power higher and earlier still. There would be (in many instances) almost no need to even build tech lab first. Most experienced player in this dumb case, would opt to always reactor up first then add in Medics and tech lab later. This one simple baseline difference would entirely change how Raynor is played, especially in terms of optimizing strategy.
It just baffles my mind how someone would complain about spending 50/50 x 2 for research as a nuisance. What a difficult thing to do, imagine building a 150min barrack, or a 150/100 factory. Like my golly it must be painful to have to do that too for him.
They only thing that could decrease some issues about “i planned an upgrade but forgot to click it” would be making each tech autocastable. Deleting tech from game would make it less fun.
Based on these replies, I don’t think any of you understand what I’m saying.
I’m not asking for the removal of research or techs.
I’m asking if the techs and research are good the way they are, because I’m not sure they are.
I feel like there’s a few too many that feel like they should be baseline that aren’t, like abilities that are signature to those unit variants (like Sentinels being able to reconstruct, Torrasques reincarnation, etc.) and in some cases not universally across all commanders techs are a bit on the pricy side.
Like examples of commanders I don’t find this problem with are Stukov, who has his tech directly tied to his power curve across the mission since most of his army production is passive/extremely inexpensive, Fenix who can hyper-focus his tech not needing to build in any kind of order, Zeratul who just gets tech for free, it literally doesn’t apply to him, it’s entirely based on how easy you find it to figure out where his artifact clue is pointing him, Nova doesn’t have any tech issues cause all her tech is 50% off, and various commanders have masteries that reduce their tech costs.
Commanders I feel like could do with a little tweak on their research costs/requirements are the likes of Karax who has heaps of techs to research which have a bias towards building nothing but turrets, Mengsk who’s elite units are very expensive and compete in gas cost with the techs they need to get their full kit, Swann not so much cause the techs are costly but because they feel anemic and unimpactful but I think that’s a larger problem he has with his over-all kit, just mass goliaths 4head.
Stuff like that…
I cannot wrap my head around why this topic can’t be broached?
It’s not that it can’t be broached but the way you originally put it was quite the “blanket statement”.
The only commander with a notable issue of this kind is Karax, which many replies to this topic have mentioned.
This is also why Maguro’s Karax 2.0 (on his custom maps) is highly regarded. As many of Karax’s numerous research has base forms (that comes free, as you’d hoped) and several additional ones have their cost reduced (further complimenting his poor cost-effectiveness issue).
That is the main reason why this topic came to this end. As most commanders don’t suffer this issue at all. There is a fine line between “knowing how to macro up” versus “I must get all tech before moving out”. And moreover, then (as you have implied) use that as a measure that said commander “feels gimped”.
And I would dare say, even Mengsk isn’t among this category. His issues are more on cost and not on “too many research”. Just to clarify, too many research is when Karax Colossus functionally works terribly without range or fire damage while still costing a ton. This differs vastly from getting an Aegis Guard without Concussive, it still functions quite well with its levels.
I see where you’re coming from. Tedium can be a problem, especially if your partner leaves or you lose before getting a chance to make use of everything you macroed to and have to start over. Usually RTS matches last longer than 15-20 minutes (which is why I like when co-op missions go beyond the 20 minute mark, so I can actually enjoy the progression) unless it’s a cheesy rush, so this is pretty apparent in co-op’s design.
Still, what can you do? That’s RTS, baby. Upgrade timing matters even if you’re getting the same ones every game. Or conversely, make enough of the right units and upgrades don’t matter at all in co-op, so skip them after a certain point if you want to be casual.
If anything, I get more tired of the worker training at the start of the game. It’s so mind-numbing on commanders like Tychus where you have literally nothing to do but make SCVs for the first 3 minutes, pretty much. There’s almost never a reason to make turrets before outlaws/upgrades, so you stare at the timer, drop a refinery, an engineering bay, press S a bunch, then your first outlaw structure. Yawn.
Yeah, I feel you there. Some commanders have an absurd amount of upgrades that amount to just clicking buttons and waiting for things to finish before you can fully utilize them. Like Fenix and all his heroes. I like using ALL of them. Why wouldn’t you when they’re so unique? That’s, what, 6 upgrades, not counting the hero research itself and building the unit to spawn them, and 2 for Fenix himself? Never mind all the normal unit upgrades on a PROTOSS commander with 5 armor/shield/damage upgrades AND the advanced building ones. It’s a bit tedious. It’s a bit mitigated by the fact you can build them in any order, but there’s still so many if you want a balanced army instead of massing.