Void Rifts
A cool mutator in theory, but has horrible implementation.
What improvements I’d look forward to:
- spawn position adjustment, to prevent spawning in virtually inaccessible areas in early game — what RayoftheSun suggested;
- unit roster adjustment, to prevent Tier 3 units for spawning in early game;
- realtime vision on every Void Rift until it is destroyed.
Killbots
I’d suggest a conceptual rework that retains the core idea of “hostile threatening entity spawning from time to time”.
Enter the Stinkybot. Unlke Killbot, Stinkybot is killable, has no kill counter and no direct attacks. BUT it has an aura around self which constantly damages all your units in proximity — something similar to Rip-Field Generator from the WoL “Maw of the Void” mission. That will force any commander to take measures to kill any of them ASAP, while still making each commander viable in their own way.
Boombots
The concept of “disarming it before it goes boom” is fine by me. What’s not fine is the fact it keeps on blowing nukes over and over and over so long as it lives. Like, I understand that ignoring the code mechanics punishes you with unavoidable nuclear strike, but one bot bombing everything into Stone Age? Bruh, not cool.
At the same time, I can understand that bot which makes a single explosion and dies could be easily cheesable with placing random structures on the way, so just removing these repeatable explosions won’t work. Another conceptual rework is needed.
Enter the “Somebody set us up the bomb” mutator. Here is how it works:
- With each 90 seconds passed one of your (or your ally’s) structures is rigged to blow.
- As before, one of you sees the code, the other one is able to enter it to disarm the bomb. You have 15 seconds to do that.
- Active bombs are marked on the minimap and play a beeping sound until disarmed.
- Bombs prioritize production, research/upgrade and main structures instead of defensive ones.
With that you won’t have to worry about a walking bot somewhere on the map and can get directly to business as soon as the bomb is planted. If you miss a bomb, you will suffer in any case, but your punishment will be much more bearable.
Polarity
Yet again, I suggest a conceptual rework that retains the core requirement.
- When your forces are far enough from the ally’s (and vice versa), they suffer severe movement and attack speed penalty.
- When your forces are close together, they get a significant speed boost.
Plain, simple, no more invulnerable enemies and no more punishment for those who were unfortunate to match with inert allies.
Going Nuclear
Possible improvements:
- visual indicators on the minimap — what RayoftheSun suggested;
- adjusted drop locations for not interfering with your bases — what ackmondual suggested;
- an alarm sound, similar to what we hear on nuclear missile spawn from the “Missile Command” mutator.
Propagators
Though ackmondual’s idea about capping their spread limit makes some sense, I think it would trivialize the mutator and strip it of its core charm.
What I’d suggest instead is HP reduction for each Propagator that’s spawned by the other Propagator. For instance, the initial Propagator has 512 HP, the Propagators synthesized by it would have 256 HP, and the Propagators synthesized by those would have 128 HP, and so forth. That way they still would pose the iconic “gray goo” threat, but at the same time their huge numbers would be much easily killable with AOE attacks.
Slim Pickings
Constant map scouting for random resource spawns is a huge headache. Even if you have all the vision, the process of riding through all the numerous mineral shards and gas clouds doesn’t become any much cooler.
Two things I would change.
- Make enemy attack waves, main objectives and (if possible) bonus objectives drop resources.
- Instead of filling the map with numerous tiny resource drops, generate chonky resource caches that are visible on the minimap, BUT have a time limit. Some of these could be even spawned right at the start of the game, to kickstart your initial production.
Laser Drill
The damage itself is not the end of the world, but our inability to knock out Mr. Laser for good is frustrating. So here’s what I would change.
- Spawn two Laser Drills instead of one. A third one also might be brought into action in the middle of the mission.
- Make one of these Laser Drills spawn not behind all enemy lines, but somewhere neat the first main objective.
- Make each Laser Drill upgrade and increase its attack over time.
- If the Laser Drill is knocked out, make its self-restoration process pause for as long as there is at least one your (or your ally’s) combat unit nearby.
Lastly, there are two mutators that I deem unfixable.
- Afraid of the Dark. I can’t come with any good mechanics improvement that would not demand jumping with camera all over the map, while still retaining this mutator’s uniqueness and not turning it into “Shortsighted”'s twin brother. Just remove it, please.
- Microtransactions. This mutator is just a whole load of bullcrap, both in its implementation and in its core idea. I feel like there was one specific Blizz developer who got sick of players that click all over the map and wanted to punish them personally, without thinking twice about how it ruins the whole game experience. There is nothing good in it, no matter how you think of it. Just remove it, please.