Will unit upkeep still be a thing?

As far as I remember, if you had high upkeep, and a peasant takes 10 gold out of a goldmine, you only get 4. Will this be changed to reflect the upkeep, so the peasant will only take 4 out of the goldmine and put 4 in, so resources aren’t wasted by you having a large army?

I get the upkeep system is to help prevent snowballing, so players who lose lots of units will have more money to replenish their forces.

But an option to toggle upkeep off/on, or have it accurately reflect the resources you extract would be a nice update

1 Like

If the demo is something to go by, then yes I believe it will still be a thing. I also hope for a toggle option cause I love using big armies in these kinds of games =)

1 Like

The concept of upkeep is that the resources are being harvested and paid on military upkeep so it makes sense the way it is.

Reading this forum though it does sound like a lot of people would like an option to play without it. Blizzard could have an option in lobbies to turn upkeep off though. This makes it easy for people to play on Blizzard maps without needing to make a custom format of it with no upkeep.

3 Likes

Upkeep have big importance in macro management in Warcraft III.

It makes you have less big army than in Starcraft for example.

Warcraft III was always of focusing on micro instead of macro, so I don’t expect changes on upkeep, it would mean change the whole game core gameplay.

10 Likes

Part of upkeep was to discourage people from building massive armies. This was the early 3D era of RTS mind you. Whilst yes, it was part of the original and effected gameplay, what is ultimately lost by removing it?

Danicela says it would change the core gameplay from micro to macro, which I disagree with. Players could always have large armies, the game just discouraged it with upkeep. But even the biggest armies in Warcraft 3 aren’t that big, and they still require micro to be as effective. This isn’t increasing the pop cap, this is getting rid of an annoying set back the original imposed on the player. It’s really kinda pointless.

Upkeep is a negative feedback system. RTSes by default are high positive-feedback - exponential growth (if you can expand) plus square-law-army-size battles.

Too much positive feedback makes comebacks impossible and games boring. Upkeep makes it more interesting, adding strategy such as stockpiling while zero upkeep when your enemy goes high. If you can survive, you have a big cash advantage.

Personally, I’d like the option for more of a continuous upkeep - say 0% at 30% army scaling to 70% at 100% army. But having options for custom games is best.

1 Like

Upkeep is an absolutely fundamental part of Warcraft III.

Literally the entire game is balanced around the upkeep mechanic.

Upkeep was designed to intentionally take out 10 gold, and only retrieve 4 gold.

The whole idea is that while you take out the same amount from the mine you have to pay “taxes” on that 10 gold to upkeep your army so you are supposed to only get 4 gold back.

This is fundamental to the macromanagement and strategy of the game.

In custom games it already doesn’t matter, but in competitive melee games it is absolutely vital.

You cannot remove the upkeep mechanic without destroying the Warcraft III core gameplay.

4 Likes

Indeed. It’s also one of the mechanics that are iconic and defining for Warcraft 3. This is one of the few features that would (and should) be carried over to Warcraft 4.

1 Like

OMG, we know upkeep is a core mechanic. Who are you arguing against? lol

It was a little hard to understand what OP was saying, but I think he’s asking if the goldmine will still lose the upkeep gold. To that, I’d say yes, that’s how it’ll be. The gold is going towards fielding your army, that’s what upkeep means. The punishment for having upkeep isn’t just that you lose income, but that you deplete your mine faster, which is a nice comeback mechanic when games go longer.

Having an option in custom game lobbies would be nice. It’d be nice if mapmakers could give lots of options like that one. Or have a default set of options to choose. It’s an interesting idea.

Edit: I just wanted to add that it might not be a bad idea to change the ROC campaign upkeep to match TFT upkeep. It’s pretty confusing when you learn the game at 40 for upkeep, then find out later it’s 50 food. When I wasn’t playing WC3 I kept forgetting what the upkeep was. It wasn’t until I replayed both campaigns that I realized I wasn’t just going crazy.

1 Like

The mechanic Needs to stay, on YouTube there was a interview with Pete Stillwell and he said they also added upkeep because they were very limited with what they can do at this time, most PC´s weren´t that powerful and it also was a way to Prevent many Units on the Battlefield. but that has Nothing to do with the core mechanic upkeep has just saying. :smiley: