As Blizzard recently released warcraft 3 (war3) reforged, I’m thinking they might be in the process of revealing warcraft 4 (war4) at their next Blizzcon event, or the next year’s. As I’ve been a big fan of the previous games in the series, especially warcraft 2, I have a few suggestions for the probable release. I understand that if blizzard is allready in the process of developing the game, our debating about major content in the game will have limited effect on their progress, but anyways it’s a bit of fun. Please feel welcome to comment on my ideas and/or share your own.
First, although the idea of having a hero that you’re leveling did turn out pretty well in warcraft 3, I would still want Blizzard to nerf the importance of the heroes in an upcoming warcraft strategy game. I still think that heros could enrich a warcraft 4 game, but the heroes were just too powerful in the latest release. The micro-management of the hero became way too important at the expense of other features that was so great in warcraft 2 (war2), for example the strategic timing of when and where to attack with which parts of your army. In war2, there were fights happening simultaneously and constantly throughout the map, that always had the possible interesting outcome of turning the tables on a given game. This contributed to keeping the tension on a constant high level throughout the game . It also added strategic elements as you allways had to balance your awareness to make decisions about where and how to split your armies and where send them to different parts of the map while at the same time having to manage the fights once they arrive to the desired destination. I would like to make an analogy with the scoring system in tennis which can make every point become crucial to the outcome. In warcraft 3, almost the only really important fights were the ones in which your hero participated. Another bad consequence of making heroes as important as in war3 is that players tended to choose the same heroes everytime (ie. DK for UD or AM for humans) as they didn’t want to be without the fundamental importance of theirs specific abilites. This made for more streamlined and less innovative gameplay.
If heroes are kept in war4, and I think they should, I think it’s a good idea if they didn´t have an experience bar and didn’t level. Instead, have them becoming stronger (although not at all as strong as in war3) with upgrades and/or new buildings. Also, keep the items system, so that the hero can carry items that are bought at the players own base or at shops throughout the maps as this makes for interesting gameplay. My main point tho is, as heroes become way less central to the gameplay in war4 compared with war3, this opens up for other interesting aspects of the game.
Although the upkeep feature was an innovative idea and worked in war3, it should be removed completely in the next game. One of the great features in war2 was the big fights and obviously, the upkeep feature keeps the armies rather small in comparison.
Make war on seas important and fun again. I think that ships has really great potential of creating interesting gameplay. It already did on some maps in war2, and I think the only reason it didn’t become more popular back then was that it took to long for the sea-part of the game to get going. You basically had to build a regular base and then shipyard, oilplatform etc. before the cannon-firing could begin. This should be improved somehow so that ships could be used right from the start of the game.
Ofcourse, remove creeps. As heroes become less important, creeping has no place in the game, and frankly it wasn’t an interesting part of war3 anyway. It also removes focus from the actual clinch between the players. Having players creeping with their heroes is like have boxers start sparring against their coaches mittens in the middle of a fight.
No default base-defenses. I understand that the developers probably had good reasons to implement base-defenses in war3 (i.e. orc burrows, humans militia etc.). However, interesting fights early-on or later inside the bases made such an important contribution to war2.
And lastly, grid-like map and unit layout. The strategic use of building placement was such a great element of war2 that it would be great to see it make a reappearance in war4. Perhaps this was a consequence of the grid- or block like structure of the war2 maps/units. On some maps, especially the old Garden of war (not the BNE version), the battle started right after you had contructed your first farm, as you sent your peon to explore the neighbouring starting position, finding your opponent there, and placing a barrack/lumbermill and or tower between his or her peonline. This made for such interesting fights, as both players basically went head-on collision right from the first minute where you never knew if the game would be over within a minute or two or if it would go on for an hour. This was true even for the top players, as an ingeniously played tower or other building could turn out fatal for the opponent, as could a misplaced building or other unit that you didn’t paid sufficient attention to early on. These early building fights, mostly involving peons and a few buildings (sometimes a grunt or two) was perhaps the single most entertaining part of the game, like a real time chess containing both moveable and stationary units. The block-feature of the units and maps also made interesting strategic wall-ins possible when you could place buildings to block opponent units from entering your base as well as making unit set-ups (using the trees and/or a farm to make a strong 4v3 or 4v2 grunt setup). It would be so great if this could make a comeback in war4.
Thanks for listening,
zug zug
