enviroment ideas in SCII

[VigilanteV]

I have been think about how the envirments in SCI don't allow that much strategy. I was think in way to improve it like:

1.Diferent weather-depending on the planet, it will rain, snow, and be sunny on occations through out the battle. Also on more hostle planets there would be acid rain, lave flows, ect.

2. Destroying the enviroment-now using nukes and borrowing units and massive explosion will hurt the enviroment, causing craters.

3. Civilian buildings- just to add that realizem of war. The buildings would range any where from small farms to massive skyscrapers. The bigger building could be droped on top of on coming armies, destroying them.

4. Every thing bigger-make the mountians into massive towers of rock, that would be the fighting point of the entire game. Rivers that are a mile wide with many islands for the perfect hoping points to your enemies base.

5. Have threats with in the map that are not just the player- earthquakes, floods, eruptions, and landslides. Maybe even massive creatures that would terrorise your army until you kill them and harvested the mineral and gas from them.

6. Able to use the enviroment for your defence- make your scv,probe, or drone build up an mountain of dirt and rock around your base, or make a trench around it.

thats all i can think of right now, if any of you have ideas post em here.

[Borgorb]

they need sloping hills not just ramps into elevated terrain and there should be native creatures to the planet your on eg braxis has those ursadons they should attack when provoked and mabe they should hav some sort of yetti

when u start a game on multiplayer u can choose the weather features that come into effect and the craters of siege tank fire can create trenches

[Hyperion]

Seige Master....most of your Ideas are a lot like CnC Games...

[VigilanteV]

never played them(only the orginal...demo)...and so what if they are? if it would make the game have more strategy to it.

[BlackDefiler]

As a matter of fact, it might give it less strategy. All these things you mentioned would give a big role to luck in the game. Victory could depend on whose base gets flooded first, or whos army is destroyed by an earthquake etc. The explosions leavig craters would look good, but only at a graphical level, like they wouldn't be considered obsticles or such. By the way, at first in SCI they wanted the geysers to appear randomly on a map, then disappear after some time, but then they didn't do it, cause that would have made the game too much luck dependent.

[Shortyland05]

The explosions leavig craters would look good, but only at a graphical level, like they wouldn't be considered obsticles or such.

hmm, but what if they could be used as cover eh? like your troops inside the crater gets a defensive bonus...

have a look at Company of Heroes for a 'Cover' example...

[BlackDefiler]

It might work, but just think of a siege batallion of like 10 tanks, firing at a bunch of marines taking cover in craters. The occasional missings would lead to the battlefield becoming a huge crater like thing, which wouldn't look to good, and since the whole area would be a single cover, later battles there would become very lenghtly since only half of the shots would hit anybody. Thats a bit offground, but it could happen.

[Shortyland05]

well of course the world would become a barren wasteland if Siege Tanks keep on pummeling the heck out of it! Also, do you think Marines would be completely free of Siege Tank Shells on the ground? no of course not... the craters would only give them little cover... unless it was created by a nuke (in which it would create one huge mofo crater!)

[BlackDefiler]

Well, one solution would be if these craters wouldn't persist for long, and would slowly disappear (a bit like corpses do, but slower).

Furthermore, building would still have to be enabled on destroyed terrain full of crates. If they would be considered as doodads that provide cover than what if your base got sieged? You couldn't rebuild your lost structures. Now that would be a serious setback.

[VigilanteV]

the natural disasters would never appear in the bases. But expasions would be threaten is some cases, like having a massive expo under a volcano. You want that spot but there is a chance it will get destroyed.

Foods on the other hand would happen just to change the enviroment up a bit. like have one route to the oppents base but then a flood blocks it off, causing you to change your strategy.

the earth quakes would have to go i guess...

[kozmokilla]

Awesome. But what about the disasters happen in your base...BUT they dont kill u but damage u and u can make a building that stops disasters a bit, when u have 5 no more disasters, oh and I thought of something what about a lava pool where u release lava? And maybe a bridge builder. And a health pool where u get health. And maybe they could have a raddiation storm. And id they had ur ideas and mine, it would be AWESOME!!

[Ktan]

Disasters happening in your base is a bad idea for any game that is not 'Sim-City', for reasons that have already been explained. Also, why fire lava at the enemy, which would be an inefficient process, when you can just use those minerals to build tanks?

[DarkMirror]

Also, wtf is with the health pool? thjis isnt a fantasy, its a SF.

[VigilanteV]

health pool is a great idea!!!now instead of guns give them swords and bows! Make the races human, undead, and elves!!! oh...wait...

[Borgorb]

they should make it that trees catch fire and die from attacks ,they wont catch fire from certain atacks eg lings, zealots
+ if they do that they could hurt units hiding behind them and get rid of their defensive cover at the same time

[kozmokilla]

A health pool heals ur men.
Hmmm...What about Acidic Trees that you shoot to release acid on ur enemy!

[DarkMirror]

Both of those ideas do not fit in a SF enviroment. Adding those in, you may as well make it WC4.

[Ktan]

What about Acidic Trees that you shoot to release acid on ur enemy!

Actually, DM, if it was more like Tiberium, out of Command and Conquer, it could work.

Of course, it's been done.

In Command and Conquer.

Instead of a 'Health Pool,' what about a simple, good old fashioned Field Hospital? Of course, it would be somewhat redundant for Terrans, due to Medics and Zerg, due to autoheal, but it could be used to heal Zealots. It always bugged me that you could only restore shields, not health.

[BlackDefiler]

Not being able to restore protoss health is a vital part of the balance in SC. No games would last too long if you could simply and freely replenish all the hp of your zealots and dragoons.

[Borgorb]

u already hav a shie;d battery and at least 4 times the hp of any other basic unit WAT MORE DO U WANT??

terran already hav the medic STOP COMPLAINING!!

zerg heal over time anyways and they are cheap to build JUST DONT USE THEM 4 A WHILE!!

changing theese make imbalances in the game and cause one race to be stronger than the others (PROTOSS!!) that health pool is a stupid idea and for a future space battle game and would kill the game

[VigilanteV]

kozmakilla...you need to THINK before you post stuff like that...

[Ktan]

Not being able to restore protoss health is a vital part of the balance in SC. No games would last too long if you could simply and freely replenish all the hp of your zealots and dragoons.

u already hav a shie;d battery and at least 4 times the hp of any other basic unit WAT MORE DO U WANT??

changing theese make imbalances in the game and cause one race to be stronger than the others (PROTOSS!!) that health pool is a stupid idea and for a future space battle game and would kill the game

You both assume that balance will not change at all between SC I and II, in which case, no offence, but get out of your hole.

New units almost certainly will be added. I was merely commenting that, from a story point of view, it makes no sense that Protoss, who have the most advanced tech of all the races cannot even heal their units. It could easily cost resources. Almost all units in almost all recent RTS are repairable or autoheal too. Having a unit wander around on half health doesn't happen very much in RTSes any more. Protoss balance could be adjusted. It's easily within Blizzard's grasps. The only reason it wouldn't work now is because it's an integral part of the balance as it is now. In SC II, they have a chance to start from scratch.

While implemented as a health 'pool,' then yes, it is a stupid idea, but if you tweak it it could work.

Also, bear in mind, the Protoss have been almost completely decimated. They can't afford to throw away units anymore, so would want to conserve life. That screams healing more than anything else, IMO, especially more than the Terran Marines, who are expendable in the eyes of most Terran Commanders.

It could be accompanied with a slight lowering of toss health, to signify their races loosing their strength. However, the Protoss always looked quite easy to break, and it's entriely possible their physical strength came mainly from the Protoss psionic gestalt. Obviously, with the deaths of so many Protoss, a large number of them quite prevalent, Protoss society could have been weekend a lot. I think the Protoss dynamic could change quite a lot between SC I and SC II. Remember, it's going to be a different game. Infantry weren't broken in Tiberium Sun by the addition of a Medic for GDI and tanks weren't broken by a Mobile Repair unit for Nod. (Artillery were always broken until Firestorm) Force dynamics change. Thus, units change.

[VigilanteV]

enviroment needs to have weather like snow storms for snow map most of the weather would be fairly coming through out the map. wearther also can limit sight, range, speed, cover, accuracy.
land degrading say you build a base on snow that right next to a lot of ice well the ice might expand and make the building in danger.
make the enviroment moveable such as a volcano explodes underwater well in 5 to 10 min theres a new island.
make vespene geysers destroyable, you shoot a place full of flamible gas you going get a massive explosion
say in space on some platforms theres bound to be debre around and it moves and units can be on them and die when it hits another debre.
make things like fast growing plants more hostile critters say someone mines an area and its nearly depelted when then that area can be prone to earthquakes
other harvestable minerals such green minerals and red minerals and yellow minerals that each give different amounts like green is 12 red is 5 yellow is 4
and mix the patches

have underground enviroment and space enviroment
in each game have a separate enviroment for each
underground would have few flyers but alot of resoures ability to slowly create your own attacks ability to mine oppents base from underground to make a tunnel directly into base and even cause the ground to collapse.
space would have few ground units but can give site bonus bombing ability to attack bases below with getting attacked

These aren't my ideas, they are another persons, but i like them so i posted them.

[BlackDefiler]

You both assume that balance will not change at all between SC I and II, in which case, no offence, but get out of your hole.

You have your point there, but although I'm sure it WILL change a bit to adress minor balance flaws, I still "assume" - or lets say I hope - that radical changes in gameplay will not take place, for the sole reason that I think the game is very close to the best it can get the way it is now. Screw it over and you'll probably get something that doesn't give that... feeling of Starcraft.

[VigilanteV]

How about when you nuke an area, that area become radioactive and decresses all the organic units health be a certan persent.

[Shortyland05]

make things like fast growing plants more hostile critters say someone mines an area and its nearly depelted when then that area can be prone to earthquakes

somehow I think the critter thing could work since they have done that in WC3

make vespene geysers destroyable, you shoot a place full of flamible gas you going get a massive explosion

I would say no to that, what if the unrefined Vesvene Gas is not as flammable as the refined stuff? so you can't blow vesvene geysers with a huge explosion at the end, just like in SC1.

have underground enviroment and space enviroment

uh, think! The space environment is the SPACE PLATFORMS! duh...

[Hyperion]

Honestly guys....some of your ideas are a lot like Command and Conquer...which I preety much hate...and one more thing....anything RANDOM like the earth quake...then the game WILL slightly turn to luck....just thinking...what if 3 earth quakes in a row go out at the other persons base....and at the start of the game...that would be devastating....and the marines or other units who can take cover in craters....it is already possible in SC1 you can take cover in trees...you have more advantage in cliffs and etc...honestly...i think it should remain the same....

[Ktan]

To be honest, I don't feel this is going anywhere past some ideas that are not worth the hassle to implement.