Tamer's list of suggestions

I was reading the beta 7 changes and that prompted me to submit a few ideas of my own. Of course, I don't expect many of them (if any) to ever be implemented and certainly not in the beta 7 release. Since there are a lot of suggestions, I decided to sort them by category.

Also, I realize a lot of you guys have much more experience than I do and I don't consider all these ideas to be great, but they are ideas and I think most are worth thinking about them, or at least a read.

=== General gameplay ===

1- I think it would be great to be able to skip cinematics. I know s3rious worked hard for them, but honestly: I got tired after a dozen times, it somehow kills the pace of the game imo. I recon that we should all see them multiple times before being able to turn them off, so maybe requiring some rank to be allowed to?

2- Selecting abilities to be shown in the main interface. This suggestion was left unanswered, but I think it would really had to the game. The idea is simple enough (I don't know about the implementation though): the passive abilities' icon are removed from the abilities interface (the main one) and we could fill the empty icon space(s) with whatever ability we prefer: sprint for e.g. Support classes (Medic, Engi) would definitely make a good use of this.

=== Weapons and items ===

1- Being able to carry items we can not use. I'm pretty sure most players would enjoy this, being able to pick up some class-specific item even if you can't use it. Although I realize it would somehow kill a part of the game where players move around to grab their gear. Maybe this could be toned down to items almost everyone can use, such as bullets (in that case, you'd get the effects of only one, but still be able to carry it to teammates) or M16s. Actually, I think that would help teamplay a bit, as most lonewolves still won't bring back those items, either because they can't or they just don't want to play a mule.

2- Many items definitely need more stacking. Medkits for example, you can't have more than 5 in a single stack, but you can have what...8 first aid kits? What about 20 explosive charges (well, ok I don't know if we can get 20, but I did 16) ? Or a rocket launcher with a 3 ammo o_O Same thing with antidote, nutritious food, they could use more stacking.

3- Again with stacking, and I feel this is only a technical limitation, so I'm more asking a question than making a suggestion: is it possible to have stackable items stack automatically upon pickup, instead of requiring 1 free slot in inventory? Again, I bet the answer is no, but I still have to ask!

=== Rank/unlocks ===

1- Rank unlock of classes could be spread out. I think with the demo unit moved up to SSG, it sort of leaves a gap between that and assman. Here's a proposition:

CPL - AM (as it is in beta 7)
SG - nothing
SSG - FB
SFC - nothing
1SG - Demo

That still leaves another 9.5k required to get assman.

2- Placing a rank requirement for medic. Now, I'm pretty you all will think this is a terrible idea, but let me explain. For one, in terms of realism: the medic is a trained and skilled unit, not everyone in the army can be a medic, but everyone can be a grunt (ie. roflman). In terms of gameplay, that would affect the pub games as the newbies won't be able to play medic. It would also require some people to have some experience of the game as a dead medic really is something bad.

Of course, if the medic is to be restricted, it would need to be buffed a little bit: we could start by making "heal" skill useful... (I mean, don't get me wrong, I try to max out that skill every game, but apparently the "veterans" consider a character in green health status - even something like 75-80% - not worth the mana of the skill, even with RP) Anyway, again, it's just an idea.

SC2PL.Tamer wrote:1- I think it would be great to be able to skip cinematics. I know s3rious worked hard for them, but honestly: I got tired after a dozen times, it somehow kills the pace of the game imo. I recon that we should all see them multiple times before being able to turn them off, so maybe requiring some rank to be allowed to?

It's mainly technical reasons why I do that. There's a lot of things going on during cinematics. Stuff dying, stuff moving from A to B, sometimes even loading triggers and objects required for the next mission. I'll try to shorten them a little, or to spice them up, but I think you can deal with one and a half minutes of cinematics per game.

SC2PL.Tamer wrote:2- Selecting abilities to be shown in the main interface. This suggestion was left unanswered, but I think it would really had to the game. The idea is simple enough (I don't know about the implementation though): the passive abilities' icon are removed from the abilities interface (the main one) and we could fill the empty icon space(s) with whatever ability we prefer: sprint for e.g. Support classes (Medic, Engi) would definitely make a good use of this.

Technically that would be like building the Eiffel tower with your bare hands. Wc3 is lacking ways to change abilities on-the-fly. I would have to make dozens of copies of the existing abilities and completely change many skills (because they malfunction in combination with other skills). A good idea, but it can barely be realized.

SC2PL.Tamer wrote:1- Being able to carry items we can not use. I'm pretty sure most players would enjoy this, being able to pick up some class-specific item even if you can't use it. Although I realize it would somehow kill a part of the game where players move around to grab their gear. Maybe this could be toned down to items almost everyone can use, such as bullets (in that case, you'd get the effects of only one, but still be able to carry it to teammates) or M16s. Actually, I think that would help teamplay a bit, as most lonewolves still won't bring back those items, either because they can't or they just don't want to play a mule.

I've had it like this a while ago. But it lead to bugs where players would sometimes not get the items' bonuses or would keep them even after dropping. When I was unable to fix these problems I decided to remove that feature. The scout now has a bagpack that is not bound to any item restrictions.

SC2PL.Tamer wrote:2- Many items definitely need more stacking. Medkits for example, you can't have more than 5 in a single stack, but you can have what...8 first aid kits? What about 20 explosive charges (well, ok I don't know if we can get 20, but I did 16) ? Or a rocket launcher with a 3 ammo o_O Same thing with antidote, nutritious food, they could use more stacking.

Medkits can be stacked to 6. First Aid Kits to a maximum of 5.
Rocket launchers always start with 3 charges. Explosive charges can be stacked up to 24.
Antidote to 6, nutritious food to 8.
I tried finding a medium between the items 'size' (a Medkit is obviously larger than a 40mm Grenade) and 'need' (you only need Antidote a few times, but explosive charges would be useless in small numbers). I also don't want it to become too spammy (e.g. in NotD II you could stack infinitely. Shotguns with 60+ charges were often seen).

SC2PL.Tamer wrote:3- Again with stacking, and I feel this is only a technical limitation, so I'm more asking a question than making a suggestion: is it possible to have stackable items stack automatically upon pickup, instead of requiring 1 free slot in inventory? Again, I bet the answer is no, but I still have to ask!

Possible? Yes. Practical? Sadly no. I would have to make a copy of every item and completely stack via triggering. It'd be possible, but a huuge mess.

SC2PL.Tamer wrote:2- Placing a rank requirement for medic. Now, I'm pretty you all will think this is a terrible idea, but let me explain. For one, in terms of realism: the medic is a trained and skilled unit, not everyone in the army can be a medic, but everyone can be a grunt (ie. roflman). In terms of gameplay, that would affect the pub games as the newbies won't be able to play medic. It would also require some people to have some experience of the game as a dead medic really is something bad.

Games full of privates are not uncommon. That would basically cut off their major source of healing. The basic classes (damage /healing / scouting) should be available to everyone. That is wrong in terms of realism, but right in terms of gameplay.
A dead medic is not a worse thing than a dead rifleman. If he was a useless medic, then it's not much of a difference. If he was a useful medic, then it's good to let privates have access to medics.
If the higher-ranked players fear that the privates 'steal' their medics, then they should pick their class faster (e.g. pick first, load later) or tell the others beforehand not to choose medic.
I have seen quite a few good private medics, by the way. Some just don't save their codes, some have experience from other game like NotD, some are just swift learners.
DotD is lacking in terms of Army structure, anyway. You wouldn't see a Captain leading such a small platoon. Nor would you see one or more Generals actually entering the field to fight like grunts. I guess becoming a Scout would also require you to be higher than private. There wouldn't be any privates in a special force anyway.
Long story short: Sometimes gameplay reasons are just more important than realism.

SC2PL.Tamer wrote:Of course, if the medic is to be restricted, it would need to be buffed a little bit: we could start by making "heal" skill useful... (I mean, don't get me wrong, I try to max out that skill every game, but apparently the "veterans" consider a character in green health status - even something like 75-80% - not worth the mana of the skill, even with RP) Anyway, again, it's just an idea.

I think some have bad memories of that skill from old NotD and DotD games. Heal usually was considered somewhat useless.
If someone doesn't consider it worth the mana to heal a comrade from 80% to 100%, then it's not a problem with the skill, but with the medic. These 20% can often make the difference between life and death (and CPRs respectively).

Well, all I can pretty much say is: thanks a lot for the complete reply!

I didn't expect so many suggestions to be technical challenges...I always thought the WC3 world editor was overpowered :/

I would still enjoy more stacking of the healing items though

(I didn't find medkits to be that awesome, it pretty much saves medic's mana as it does the healing over time and is hardly suited for intense fighting healing...and I have yet to see a medic not on autoheal lack mana!)

Dude WC3 editor is probably the powerfulest editor around, but it still has it's limitations. Some of the things you suggested aren't practical since the creation of WC3 never intended those things to happen, e.g. skipping cinematics, stacking with no space and carrying items your hero can't use. A non-hero can take anything since it's not tied to the hero system thus it won't bug up when it's in your inventory.

Death_X_Magi wrote:Dude WC3 editor is probably the powerfulest editor around

it's kind of a shame it still is 7 years after release :/

I mean, it says a lot about other developpers...

(for the rest of your post, well, s3rious pretty much explained it all already)

s3rius wrote:

SC2PL.Tamer wrote:Of course, if the medic is to be restricted, it would need to be buffed a little bit: we could start by making "heal" skill useful... (I mean, don't get me wrong, I try to max out that skill every game, but apparently the "veterans" consider a character in green health status - even something like 75-80% - not worth the mana of the skill, even with RP) Anyway, again, it's just an idea.

I think some have bad memories of that skill from old NotD and DotD games. Heal usually was considered somewhat useless.
If someone doesn't consider it worth the mana to heal a comrade from 80% to 100%, then it's not a problem with the skill, but with the medic. These 20% can often make the difference between life and death (and CPRs respectively).

i always take at least one level in that healing... just for when you're waiting for the cooldowns or to heal that little bit missing...

Yea I max healing + medic skills first (:. The WC3 editor is powerful in what you can do but it's still got huge limitations.