What Does Unlimited Unit Selection Do To Balance?

General Discussion
1

I’m thinking about the idea of selecting more than 12 units at a time and I’m wondering about the all the different effects this could potentially have for game balance whether positive or negative.

Could it improve strategies involving mass small units or summons perhaps?
Does hero focus become more effective?
Maybe various large 80+ food armies are more viable?

I’m honestly not sure at all about how big of an effect this kind of a change could have on game balance, or maybe it could even make the game better.

What do you think?

4 Likes
2

The way most pros look at it is that it would make players lazy, because the intention behind limiting the control groups was to encourage players to break up there unit types

However, I think if they increased it to about 16 or so it would be a nice QoL improvement without a major change to gameplay

I also think they should allow players to pre-set their control groups in the options menu, I explain in more details here:

2 Likes
3

I don’t think it would matter that much. Wacraft III armies are pretty tiny, particularly compared to SC1.

2 Likes
4

This have to be an option in the world editor. Please let us edit the selection limit!

I can imagine custom games that only wants you to be able to have 1 unit max or 100 units selected. Let editors have this option, very important when playing large scale battles.

5 Likes
5

Lazy players is the worst reason I’ve ever heard for something like this.

If I’m a noob and I want to improve I will adapt how I play the game. We have almost 2 decades of guides to teach about control groups, we don’t need to make new player’s lifes harder because they might become lazy.

3 Likes
6

in editor you can put your own food limit,i think you can even make something like that in editor but not sure,im not the best with editor…

7

This would be huge. Especially in regards to RISK maps, Footmen Frenzy and others(Helms Deep, Trojan War etc.) I would love that capability.

2 Likes
8

I don’t think that having a higher or unlimited unit selection cap would have a significant impact on game balance. However, I do believe that it would obviously have an impact on the ease of unit control.

Even the Undead, who can bolster their numbers without impacting their supply via summoning Skeletons, wouldn’t really be affected in terms of balance by increasing the unit selection cap. Skeletons can already be quickly macro-managed by double clicking on one (for example) and issuing an attack-move order. If you have more than 12 Skeletons of one type active in an area, all it takes is one or two more quick double-click-attack-move orders. If I remember correctly, you can’t have more than 32 Skeletons active, so it caps out there. Adept and veteran players wouldn’t really be affected in this scenario, but newer players will have an easier time macro-managing their Skeletons.

TL;DR – Such a change would help newer players macro-manage their units, but having a larger unit selection cap wouldn’t really affect adept and veteran players nor would it help much with the micro-management segments of the game. To add, having a larger unit selection cap would be a MASSIVE benefit for custom games.

4 Likes
9

i see that if they increased the food limit and unit selection will be better, not have to be as same as SC2 , just more than WC3 original

10

Increasing food limit is a bad idea mate, the game is all focused on small scale stuff and high micro. Too many bodies and Heroes start losing focus.

3 Likes
11

you are right, but i wished only to be at least 20 selection not 12 :smiley: i think it will not be so bad … the most important to me really that they increase the towers and buildings size a little… it will bring more reality !

12

Honestly this is a must for custom games, and I would be okay with it if it moved into the other modes.

1 Like
13

They are not going to change the limit over 12 because that would affect multiplayer, they did say that Reforged players wil be able to play against players that own the old version.

if they were to make this change to would have to patch the older version as wel. (It’s not that they are never going to patch this game anymore after reforged releases)

I do would like to see the option in world editor to change the amount of selected units.

14

They will be making lots of changes to the Original WC3, all connection stuff and all balance changes, probably all QoL stuff like better hotkeys as well. Remember that, aside from the graphics, the two versions will have to be perfectly insync for the cross play.

And I honestly think that the QoL improvement removing the cap brings dwarfs the rebalance.

1 Like
15

I think it would be a very good idea to allow players to add more units to one group like they could in Starcraft 2. I used to have situations when I have two major groups (like mages and melee), and there are more than 12 warriors of the second type and I need to create the third group with just 1 or 2 units. That was so irritating, god. Also it’s a real pain in the back when you want to heal/cast a spell on a unit that is in different group. If there are a lot of units in a fight it’s really hard to track everyone’s HP, and switching to other groups makes it harder. Event when you see a damaged unit, if the healer/buffer not in the same group the only option to use a spell on him is to do it through clicking on the in battle, which sometimes can be difficult (especially for people for people that wear glasses and for novice that are not that skilled in clicking and don’t play professionally). As for new players, they might definitely become lazy to control small groups, and I doubt it will be pleasant for them to switch from “unlimited units” in Starcraft 2 to “12 units max” in WC3. I play Warcraft 3 for 12 years and still have difficulties in this field, which is much easier and pleasant to do in Starcraft 2.

Also I think it would be a good idea to add “Select all units” like there is in Starcraft 2 (F2). At least for campaign.

1 Like
16

It would not affect high level play much, just make it easier to control large armies - like human players would have a better time controlling 12+ gyro-copters and undead controlling mass skeletons - stuff like that.

But that is a minor thing compared to the QoL benefits:

  • If I have 5 footmen and 8 rifleman I will OFC have 2 control groups but
  • If I have 13 riflemen, why the F should I do 2 control groups unless I want to split them evenly ?
2 Likes
17

Please Blizzard, just unlock the 12 units limits. This is a very annoying limitation for new/casual players, and I think that it doesn’t matter for pro gamers, they can still use groups and stuff.

3 Likes
18

They could have an option called ‘smart selection’ so if you select a huge group it subgroups them automatically.