What we don't want to see in an eventual SC3? Or things that we want to see in SC3!

General Discussion
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So please let us know what we do not want to see in SC3?
Or things that you want to see instead, I am open to any crazy ideas.

For me a couple of things would be:

  1. No more Swarm host, or any type with this kind of unit. It Is not fun to play, and it is very boring to watch this unit in tournaments.
  2. A lot less cheese if possible.
  3. Mirror matches like zvz, and pvp, are very boring to watch. Same thing was in BW.
    In War 3, it is kind of a little bit more fun to watch mirror matches, and it is actually pretty fun to play mirror matches, at least for me. So they need to change some things in mirror matches.
  4. Air to Air, are boring, and late game armies tend to be more Air favored, brood lords, carriers. BW was a bit more ground focused.
    I would like to see just a little bit less Air late game armies.
  5. FIX ZERG, zerg in BW is just another race. In SC2 it has best economy, best cost efficient (swarmhost, brood lords etc) units, best late game army composition, and best flexibility.
    The race should be more similar to BW, or just different.
    When you watch tournaments, tvz, or pvz, it is like the other 2 races are on a timer before zerg will become unstoppable.
  6. Maybe I am crazy, but I want to see tier 4 units, I am just bored of the same freaking brood, carriers, bc for 3 decades. And Maybe they cost similar but take a bit more time to build.
  7. I want to see Terran more flexible, Terran has 2 options bio or mech. The other 2 races are more flexible. It is just boring for me.
  8. I want to see more skills for Z and T. Protoss seems to be the only race that has a lot of skills (force fields, guardian shields etc), and feels sometimes you play war3 not SC2.
  9. I would like to see zerg and especially terran a bit easier to macro. Like Protoss is insanely easy to macro. I think SC2 is more about army positioning, fighting, microing units, attacking from 2 different directions at the same time.
  10. A better balance from the begging, SC2 seemed to struggle a lot more than BW on this point.
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I will bend your title and say what i want to see in Sc3 rather than what i don’t want.

  1. Race customization, imagine being able to customize your race to better fit your playing style, this will make even mirror matches more interesting.

  2. Give back the races identity, terran was supposed to be the slow pushing, positional/tactical race but plays a lot like zerg(massing tier 1 units), zerg from a skirmish race became the if i survive until late i have the advantage and protoss became a timing attack based race.

  3. More micro potential for all races.

PS:oh and if you keep banes make them cost 1 supply.

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in general, no more free units, no more units that mess up with AI, and no more units which are useless and you don’t know what to do with them, until after years balance team decides to completely change them in order to have some utility. If I have to speak about each race, i’d say:
zerg: wanna them to be more swarmy and less spell-addicted to compensate their lack in the army
protoss: I’d like them to be stronger on the ground, like they have to be scary and kills tons of units, and they have to be tanky. in exchange, I’d like them to be less air-addicted, and their air units to be less a-move and more micro oriented.
terran: my god terran… I want to see less bio! ok, it’s funny to see and play, all right, but they’re humans… from the future! they have to fight billions of aliens, and aliens who are very smart and technological advanced, and you’re telling me a bunch of marines, with rifles, can win? BW was perfect, bio was just a part, a transition to something better, mech! and mech units just got along each other, each one compensated the lack of the others. there was vulture for fast attack and mines, tanks for destroing every ground unit, and goliath for air…it was perfect. Now you make marine even in very late game… come on! let me see some future!

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Mostly agree. Swarm hosts in their latest incarnation are… bearable. At least they aren’t just a turtle2win unit anymore and you have to actually be aggressive with them. But still, they don’t exactly lead to great gameplay. So failed experiment overall.

Disagree here. Cheese is an important part of boXs and keep viewers on their toes during the early game. Without cheese you may as well start every player at 50 supply with an established nat.

Partly agree. TvT has never been boring to me. Possibly because of the variance in compositions - bio and mech have both always been viable in TvT dating all the way back to wings. Roach heavy ZvZ is cancer though. PvP is somewhere in between. It has different unit compositions but they all play the same - warp prism harass while defending/expanding, eventually try to kill the other guy at 200/200.

SUPER agree. Terrain and pathing are one of the things that make RTS games interesting. When it’s air vs air it takes that out of the equation entirely. T3 air comps are generally slow, one dimensional deathballs that are boring to watch.

I would much rather see goliaths or hydralurk+spellcasters decimating air than what we have now. Ground should always have an advantage vs air in a direct fight, in exchange for having less mobility. That’s a fair tradeoff.

I wouldn’t have agreed with this 6 months ago, but I think you may be on to something here. I remember in BW zerg was generally at less supply the entire game… when they reached late game though, they became a force to be reckoned with. In Sc2 zerg is ahead in supply the entire time AND has the late game advantage. Something doesn’t add up. I’m not sure how exactly to fix it, as there are many approaches you could take, but yeah, something is broken.

This was somewhat tried out with the mothership, and it doesn’t really work.

I think the main problem here is that slow pushing pretty much doesn’t exist any more. It used to be one of, if not THE primary, terran strategy. The most you ever see in sc2 is a fast push and seige just outside the enemy 3rd/4th.

It depends - they need to be actually GOOD skills. Stuff like blink, phoenix lift, ravager bile and cloud spells are great for gameplay. You might throw adept warp and burrow move in there too I guess.

Meanwhile stuff like forcefield and charge are actively bad for gameplay… and harden shields, hellbat morph, viking transform and prismatic alignment just take up space that ought to be used for better abilities.

I much prefer a race to have 3 meaningful abilities than a big grab bag full of mediocre ones.

I don’t really have an opinion here, I think all 3 races are much easier to macro than anything in BW ever was, and that game was fine.

I agree here, but more to the point, I think there needs to be a stronger overall game design - things like high ground mechanics, defenders advantage, more gradual economic curve, units with better micro capacity (rather than dumb units like thors). All these things contribute to a meta where you can outplay your opponent or have a comeback, even when they win the rock paper scissors of build orders.

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I bended the title as well now )).
Definetelly agree with more Micro for sure!

Customization is a crazy idea, will be hard to balance. But we can try it.

For example playing online competitive, each race has 3 style of customization.

For Terran:

  1. The expander (strong for big maps)
    Unlocks special upgrades for air (you choose medivacs are a bit faster/ or have more hp)
    You choose steam/bio upgrades are a bit faster/or a bit cheaper.
  2. The Thor Master, special upgrades for thors and mech.
  3. The economist. Orbital built fasters, and mules cost a bit less energy.
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Exactly, too much Air to Air. Don’t want to see that any more in SC3. It cost so much to build, and so much time as well.
And we have 35 - 40 min game in tournaments, with people mined out, just moving the air fleet back and forth.

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I agree with you absolutely, I love comebacks, and used to be much more back and forth the fighting, even in hots. Bane muta ling vs Terran was so fun to play and to watch at the same time.
And tvz and pvz in BW is so fun to watch, even after 2 decades.

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Id like to see slower style of combat like age of empires 2 or warcraft 3.
I hate how fast stuff dies in sc2

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I don’t want see adepts in SC 3, they are so silly in SC 2, barely anyone uses them, besides early harass.
In general units that early game are amazing, and mid and late are useless.
I love to play Terran, and I know that reaper is really strong early, but are so useless mid and late. So what’s the point you can cheese and win easy with a proxy, that’s just boring for me at least.

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A bit slower I agree, but now as slow as War3

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So a question, to you all, does any one want to see any elements from your other favourite rts (red alert series, Ground Control, Halo Wars etc.) implemented in our eventual SC3?; that we didn’t have in SC1 and SC2.

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Indeed. I’m glad almost everyone here agrees with it.

I don’t think this not possible. Every RTS that I played so far has its fair amount of cheeses one form or the other.

None of the mirror matches was interesting to begin with. Although, there are some people enjoy watching it.

Aerial battles can be made better if air units are only effective against each other or performs poorly against ground units. SC1 air units such as Scouts, Wraiths, Devourers, Valkyries, SC2 Corruptors and SC2 Phoenixes, are good examples of these.

Though SC2’s Advanced macro mechanics had grown to me to the point that I consider it balanced. It’s probably by far the biggest offender to why Zerg’s economy is in such a tier above. While others can speed up production (Protoss) or increase collection of resources (Terran), The ability to produce units in a improved multi-threaded fashion (Zerg) is something else.

These are just my opinions by the way.

It is worth exploring. Personally speaking, it’ll just complicate things further without adding depth to game.

Indeed, why not?

More Utilies, Abilities, or Spells is fine but should be defined based on race/faction. Terran being more defensive and variety (EMP, Martix, heals, repairs), Protoss being more on terrain control and damage (Psionic Storms, Force fields) and Zerg being more of crowd control or debuffs (slow, abducts). Every one has varied opinions here, just mix and match as you fit.

If races/factions are defined asymmetrically, others will macro slightly better than others. There could be a sweet spot here.

I’d like to see a balanced game. However, the more you get closer to balance, the more boring it is to play or watch. If everyone is unique on their own right, it’ll struggle with balance. But then again there could be a sweet spot here.

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Things that failed in SC2 and should not be carried in SC3:

Teleporting stuff: get rid of nydus, BC jump and mass recall

Warp gate: …just NO!

Maphacks aka creep spread and mass scan: we shouldn’t have free vision of the enemy army movement

Macro-mechanics (chrono, mules and injects): we don’t need this to speed up the game, SC is already fast paced

Zerg production should be redesigned to not be so exponential, just split the worker and army production into separate structures like P and T

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Great topic.

Concepts:
Zerg:

  • I want to see a more disgusting Zerg race, in SC2 Zerg seems to have lost some of it’s disgustines and got more carapace, more rigid. Take away some of Zerg rigidness and introduce more disgustiness to it. The creep spread is a great addition to the race though.

Terran:

  • I want more flamethrowers. I love the Terran in SC2, the race got great additions with great Mech options but I wish I could see more Zerg fry.

Protoss:

  • It lost it’s darkness, Protoss is the superadvanced Egyptian architecture alien race and should be sorrounded with enigmas and darkness that SC1 had. But the thing that I love the most is the Colossus concept they introduced. Also love the Warp In tecnology.

Now, for the engine:

  • Would be great if they got the positioning move, if clicked to move the unit group would walk with the same positioning they have, they should clump up only if intended, put it in a command card, idk. This would allow the game to introduce more AOE abilities without being so overpowered, you can even make wider maps with that.
  • And please, don’t make air units clump.

Now for the good stuff:
Zerg:

  • Give Charge to the Ultralisk, pushing back light units, pushing less violently mechanical units but dealing more damage and stomping on massive units dealing even more damage, make Roaches cost less and weaken it, then give Zerg more Lavae production per Hatch and make Zerg more swarmy just like the campaign is. Zerg should receive lategame fighting options, not spellcasters a Massive colossal flying unit just like the other races, I think the concept of the Sathanas ship of the Free Space 2 game would fit realy well, less mechanical and more insect ofc:

Terran:

  • Give the Hellion a ‘beam’ AOE flamethrower wider than it is and the ability to walk attack with lower AOE damage ofc. With no clumping units you don’t have to be afraid to give AOE to units. Remove the Viper Blinding Clouds or at least make it a channeling ability, that skill simply deletes Tanks plays in ZvT, new game you are free to balance it in other ways. Give the SCV the ability to build trenches with a low price to increase the Terran siege power vs sorrounds, idk how that would work, maybe a destructible wall of debris.

Protoss:

  • Remove the Tempest from the game and introduce another unit. Since AOE will not be as effective, buff the Protoss units. Give futuristic arrows and bow for the Adept, you got the sword Zealots already. Make Storm move just like a hurricane, make it last longer with lower damage. Idk why the MS don’t have the Planet Cracker ability, the Black Hole ability shouldn’t be so OP, just make it a BH that pull units, they can still walk away, but with a small force pulling units as a resistence of movement, would work with Storm. I wish I could see more Scarab or Catacombs, make a Scarab static defense and make the High Templar restore energy by sleeping in a Catacomb that you can build in your base.

And for all the races, it does sound silly that people have to make a wall of buildings, own it and give the options to connected buildings to form a wall, for the Zerg a skull wall with some webs and creep, for the Terran an cyberpunky fortress wall, for the Protoss an golden majestic architecture wall.

To finish, make the transition to the lategame last longer, there are games that the midgame ends is too fast in SC2 if people rush it. Increase the cost and power and building time of t3 units, specialy the t3 flying units.

I realy hope they read it. But I’m being innocent. :disappointed:

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Finally we could get rid of that boring unit. Only if Rick and Morty, go back in time to oblitarate that larva that spawn the first Swarm host.

Or the Time Cops I don’t care, “you don’t mess with Time”

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I would like to see Tier 2 Defense static defense units, that cost gas, and are viable late game.

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Yeah, completely agree with the vision of Zerg being too much.
Terran scan, late game is problem

Was fun while it lasted, SC3 doesn’t need that stuff. I lot of new fans don’t play because of this reason.

You could be right on this one.
For one thing when you are watching live tournaments, and you see Pro Terran making 20 orbital late game, even if it makes complete sense, it looks silly.

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we don’t need this to speed up the game, SC is already fast paced

^this. Please Blizzard listen to your community for once. PLEASE.

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I want to see a late game bio unit for terran.

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I don’t want to see any more god awfully designed units that overlap like disruptors. I do want to see more nuanced units like Phoenix.

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