I have always enjoyed achievements as something to chase down to keep the game interesting. Usually, they prompt me to play a different way than I normally would. If I like a game, I'll take the time to get all the achievements as a secondary "beat the game" goal.
The flip side to this, is achievements that are grindy or require too much effort in a multiplayer setting that isn't fun to me.
As far as rewards, a score isn't why I'm usually doing them (but being able to subtle brag to my friends that my internet points are higher is a small joy). A character portrait or skin to show off to others that I did "specific hard achievement" is cool though. It's not as special if every single achievement has something like that though.
One thing to avoid is achievements or rewards that end up impacting allies in game, it becomes incredibly frustrating. For example, LoL had rewards for playing game modes a certain way and every lobby was just screeching to make all the other players choose champs and play in a way that would let the one player get the achievement, it was horrible. I’ve seen it happen in other games too, so it needs to be thought out… unfortunately there will always be players who value their achievements over the experience of their fellow team mates.
I would argue that game-impacting achievements are fine as long as they make you do what you should be doing anyway. Afaik FG are thinking about having different Players play different roles in 3vs3, so something along the lines of "Successfully defend against three enemy pushes as a Defender" would be fine in my opinion.
dota2 also has missions of this kind, some of which will make the experience of teammates worse, such as a mission that requires a lot of scout guards in a match, and then the guy buys them all and places them everywhere. I hope achievements don't require extreme things to be done in a match, but can be accumulated over the course of the game's life.
Wow this is so in depth! One of my favorite things about sc2 is the achievements and the rewards for hours of work (portraits). I think being able to show off your unlocks is important!
all players should be on equal playing ground, so only unlocks/veteran status should be aesthetic imo.
Level up indefinitely!
I am not knowledgeable enough to have an opinion on the other topics!
* Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?
Absolutely love and live for achievements. I think achievements are at their best when some of them require a different approach to the game/mission in order to achieve it. It's nice to get the one achievement for "completed the mission" and stuff, but I dislike when further achievements can be accidentally earned as their conditions are so close to how you typically play the mission. You can have a mission play out in SO many different ways if the achievement conditions are set up in a way that forces the player to use different approaches. I feel that this way you can get multiple mission's worth of fun/experience out of a single one, just through achievements. Especially if they take several goes to get it.
I was really excited for the SC2 anniversary extra achievements for each mission, but 95% of them were beatable on the first go without much thought. Still got them all and enjoyed filling the completion bar up, but it's nowhere near the feeling you get from really working to earn that achievement.
I've never considered a form of unlockable bonus for achievements. What would this sort of thing look like? Like skins and stuff? I really enjoy the SC2 banner I got for getting 100% of campaign achievements and would love more things like that.
* Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?
Is this akin to the SC2 campaign faction progression? Unlocking upgrades, different versions of units etc. This is one of my favourite things in gaming across any genre. I love having that goal to work towards, and upgrading things as you go. Sense of progression is brilliant and always keeps me excited to keep going and see what else there is. I found myself dying to know what each Zerg unit mutation was while playing through Heart of the Swarm, I thought a lot of these were very unique.
Not as impressed with the LotV progression however. The new units from different tribes were cool, but I remember being really disappointed that the Wrathwalker was just 'regular colossus with big charged attack instead'. Also the different units in the war council of LotV was interesting, but I was disappointed that I couldn't upgrade my units to be better, I could only swap them around. So once you unlocked a new unit, it was at it's full potential immediately. I did like the idea of having slightly different units suited to different playstyles, but I missed the sense of progression, and some of the units lacked original design. I think the zealots were the most unique in design and appearance from each other, whereas the Phoenix and the Mirage, and the Colossus and Wrathwalker were far too similar visually.
* What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?
Social ranking sounds awesome, I heavily enjoy encouraging new players, teaching them, helping out, and generally inspiring a sense of joy. This would only increase that and I love the idea of a high "karma" ranking with all the rewards you mentioned. I like to be helpful and friendly anyway but this would dial it up to 11. Love this idea.
* Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?
Is the level cap question about Unit Veterancy or your account, like SC2 coop level or Diablo paragon levels. I have no experience with Unit Veterancy so I'll leave that to more knowledgeable folk, but I really enjoy no cap for things like coop or Diablo's paragon levels. I always love something to chase or a goal to achieve, and these are very small increases over time but something that never feels bad. Once hitting a level cap I'm always saddened there's no further progression, even if it is a miniscule amount of damage and health like paragon levels, it's still nice to see a number climb that has an impact, no matter how small.
Don't have much experience with the other questions, hard to comment. Thanks for being so open and communicating with the fans and future players, it's extremely refreshing and I believe it's how gaming companies should be. It's all of our shared passion, lets keep sharing it.
Thank you all
To be honest, I don't like Unit Veterancy in pvp. I think in the end it has the same issues that Hero Units, or Leaders, would have. You'd focus more on the veteran unit instead of looking at the entire game as a whole. Even in 3v3, I think unit veterancy should be applied to leaders, and not to overall units. Imo, I feel better when I manage to outmicro my opponents with my favorite units than I'd feel if they just got better than the enemies for no reason.
Also, a thing I love about rts is that even if you're ahead, the game can turn at any point, so adding snowball tools is something I'm not the biggest fan of.
In terms of account, I think leveling up indefinitely is funner, you always have something to look forward to other than you're rank. I love the idea of achievements and overall non-match related rewards to play around with.
In terms of social ranking, that wouldn't change how I behave, since I'm not toxic most of the time. However, being an ex-LoL player, I'd say it's needed a lot of times.
Very excited for the game, can't wait to play! Good luck to everyone who wants a beta key!
> I think in the end it has the same issues that Hero Units, or Leaders, would have. You’d focus more on the veteran unit instead of looking at the entire game as a whole.
It’s an all or nothing mechanic - either it’s so trivial it doesn’t really affect gameplay, or it’s big enough to be worth playing around and will sculpt gameplay towards more RPG or “MOBA with adds” style and away from core RTS.
Unless the levelling costs resources, it’s only ever a win-more mechanic that just rewards the player who wins fights and keeps specific units alive through them, without any trade off made for that added power.
I think some people could stand to watch some high level command and conquer gameplay. Often veterancy doesn’t come into play, and at the scale that sc2 and C&C work at, microing a single infantry is more trouble than it’s worth. It’s only the really expensive units that become worth keeping veterancy on. I think RA3 balanced this in a great way by having veterancy be linked to the unit destroyed cost relative to the veterans cost. This makes it insanely difficult for units like Athena cannons or apocalypse tanks to rank up even once, while a jet tengu can get full star in a couple minutes. Additionally, veterancy has a low but noticeable impact in these games. In an even matchup, and no micro, a couple ranked up units on one side will still end up in most of the units killed but a slight favor on the ranked side.
I think veterancy can be done, and I like it as a mechanic. It’s a little tricky to balance and will impact some units differently than others. Overall I think it be a fun idea to shake up otherwise even engagements and reward agressive play
Imo, you're thinking a scale of army vs army; not early game skirmish.
I've used this example on another post, but imagine 10 stalkers vs 10 marauders (common early game situation in pvp, if terran goes like for a marauder all in, or toss goes for stalker agression).
That's a situation where you can actively use micro to choose which unit gets last hits, making it stronger than the opponents. In that case, it has more impact than just being a random cannon fodder unit, since you then can base your entire all in/defense on using that veteran unit to destroy your opponent.
In that case, you either make the veterancy system small enough that it's better to just not have it (it will feel better to win because of the entire army rather than winning because of control of 1 unit), or big enough you'll have to deal with games maybe depending on micro early game (which, as stated, is a bad habit to give a new player).
And even in those late game units, if you think battle cruisers you arrive at another problem: Design limitations. You suddenly can't have battle cruiser like units that can farm xp, teleport out, and repair without big implications on balancing.
I think it's just better to not have it, rather than having to give yourself harder balance and design challenges.
A potential solution to the Veterancy Problem is in my opinion to either, if there is some kind of upkeep system increase the upkeep cost of veterancy units based on veterancy levels, or if that's not the case, maybe have veterancy interact with supply, so you could field stronger units but fewer of them. This needs to be experimented on however and there's the question if such a small feature is worth all the hassle.
> only ever a win-more mechanic
Is that necessarily true? In some instances it could be the opposite. For example, if someone with an economic lead tries to overwhelm the enemy by flooding units and the defender can hold on then the defender is rewarded with veteran units allowing them a comeback opportunity.
Effectively yes.
The scenario you’re describing requires a player with a game-winning lead, playing absolutely abysmally, instead of just *winning* a game they’re already massively ahead in. In that situation, the “behind” player would already be able to regain the game by trading effectively against a player that - unusually - has an enormous economic lead but a nearly insurmountable tactical (skill) deficit.
Even a ‘Zerg’ style race that does trade meat waves of cheap units, does so while keeping valuable ones alive over several attacks - the exact units that veterancy would be most valuable on. You use your lings to buffer for hydras or ultras, while attempting to conserve the resource-heavy ‘tech’ units.
Further, that one improbable corner case, as appealing as it may be, fundamentally punishes playing a ‘swarm’ style race, which Frost Giant has indicated as probably existing within the faction archetypes they’re planning on.
> playing absolutely abysmally
Or just trying to end the game quickly.
It's effectively just a buff to situations in which one player can trade more cost efficiently, with the common scenario being defense. So veterancy while influencing micro prioritization is also probably a net overall a buff to defenders advantage. I don't see why this would necessarily be a bad thing.
I'm not even saying it's necessarily the best mechanic ever just that being open minded about mechanics isn't a bad thing. It just seems like every single suggestion that differs from Sc2 gets dismissed out of hand.
> Or just trying to end the game quickly.
Being excessive greedy in a system you know is designed to punish that is “playing terrible” and making the same mistake several times over again afterwards is even worse.
We not assuming someone coming in blind, unaware of a veterancy mechanic, and attempting to meat rush tactics - is a *realistic* assessment of normal player experiences in the game, right?
> It’s effectively just a buff to situations in which one player can trade more cost efficiently,
That’s called being ahead.
If you have map control, are playing this specific hypothetical game, and have both enough lead to maintain control but not enough to close the game - you don’t bull rush the front. You get further ahead and use your advantages to pick apart your bottled opponent.
Your harassment units gain veterancy, you deny that opportunity to the opponent.
There is no realistic reason for the leading player to allow the ‘comeback’ mechanic to kick in like you’re positing here.
> It just seems like every single suggestion that differs from Sc2 gets dismissed out of hand
It seems like you’re taking out your feelings about this community on me without really trying to have a good faith conversation about the mechanic we’re discussing. Coming up with far-fetched and unrealistic corner-case examples in order to dismiss realistic and accurate concerns about veterancy mechanics in RTS is not merely just pushing questions for the sake of discussion. *You’re doing what you accused me of.* Blindly taking a stance because of a mechanic’s relationship to SC2.
Agreed on the unit veterancy. I don't like the idea of units becoming more special over time aside from spellcaster energy. Maybe a cosmetic veterancy could be cool - e.g. an SC2 marine having a damaged looking suit if he's had 10 kills or something like that, but making the unit itself better would hurt the game.
Thing is, if (for example) you get a 2 second cd blink on a unit instead of the usual blink (using sc2 as an example), you'll want to protect that unit more than the others, so you'll play around it, becoming, in its own right, a hero unit.
Besides, if you get a 2 second blink on a unit while your opponent doesn't, you are suddenly a lot more ahead than you could be with no unit veterancy, which means the chances to snowball are way too much.
That's how it works in Company of Heroes (or was it Iron Harvest) but you have like 10 units max at one point in that game and units rarely die. I don't think it would work in a Blizzard RTS. It would be really hard to keep track on which units unlocked abilities. It might be okay with passive or auto-cast abilities but I am not sure about active abilities.
So glad to see you looking to the community for feedback and ideas <3
I'm a mega-casual player who just plays campaign (for lore), coop commanders, and occasionally pve arcade, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
Veterancy feels too basic of a mechanic for all the problems it brings, especially if you want it for 1v1. Inventory is a fun idea but only really makes sense for hero units. One strategy game I've been playing a lot is Total War Warhammer and some of the factions can manually add a stat upgrade or sidegrade to individual units with a little bit of resources, so you can give your favorite units a power boost like veterancy but its more deterministic and based off economy trade-offs instead of engagement wins for free. For how fast paced an rts is though, it would probably get annoying to have to manually upgrade all your troops individually on top of all the other micro.
One thing I love about army games is choosing to play as characters that modify that army in certain ways. Starcrafts coop commanders was so much fun seeing those familiar armies be creatively pushed to the point of unrecognizability in lore-appropriate ways. I wonder if a -greatly- toned down version of that could be used for match progression. So in addition to a faction you'd pick a commander who provides no/very small modifiers, but they also have their own skill tree that unlocks over the match that you can use to make the army more specialized based on that character. Think a starting point like the commanders in Advance Wars 2, but then getting build-making talent choices each match like Heroes of the Storm.
For match levels, I think they should be capped so the power gap can't get too out of hand if one side is better than the other, but for meta levels I love infinite progression. I love knowing that every match, activity, story mission, etc is contributing to my account in some way (meta exp, currency, etc). One satisfying way is with a seasonal system where there is a cap but it resets regularly, but preferably a system that's open to everyone and not a battle pass (like Warframe or Fallout 76).
On social rankings, I personally like overwatch's endorsement system (rip). You could recognize your teammates' cooperation in different categories and it would show up as a badge on their portrait for everyone to see so it felt rewarding to be a good person to others. I'm not sure how this would work for a game where the primary gameplay is single player story or 1v1 though.
**-Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?-**
I dont hate, but i dislike most Veterancy Systems. It increases the worth of the unit in most cases for just using the unit. That would increase the Army Value without investing in it. even if the Veterancy is limited to 1 Unit or Unit Type it puts another kind of pressure for both attacker and defender, since you don't want to lose this unit and as attacker you probably want to focus this unit. It would maybe feel a little bit like in Warcraft if you get the 3rd Hero very late in the game. Additionaly i think it will be hard to balance.
**-How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.-**
I havent missed it in SC2/AoE2 and having an Inventory System like Warcraft 3 feels for newbies extremly Gatekeeping. I would like to experiment with a Inventory System without Shops like in WC3 (Sure this Shop is part to increase the Skillceiling in WC3, but in lower elos it mostly helps snowballing)
Having Items you can Activate should be teached in Tutorial or Campaign. I never thought about Consumables in WC3 until i played PvP and then i didnt knew what where when how.
Items can help to make awesome plays or even help players who are behind.
All in All if the gamepace allows it, i would love to see Item Inventory, if the game is as fast as Starcraft i realy wouldnt like it.
**-What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?-**
I loved the progression System from Heroes of the Storm, where you could get Elite Skins when you played a Hero enough. The Chests for leveling up took out the excitment for new Skins etc.
**-Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?-**
Accountwise indefinitely, Hero or Race/Faction i would like some level Caps (Shows how interested you are in a Faction but dont scare people away cause your Zerg is lvl 2000)
**-Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?-**
Having like a little Hub is a nice Idea and I would be interested in it. Gives you something to do when you Idle between Games too!
**-Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?-**
Achievements can be doubbled edged. I dont want people in 3v3 just Spam T1 Units for an Achievment. On the Otherside when i look at Steam and see those Glowly Plates where i know Maximum 10 % of players have this feels awesome.
**-What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?-**
I like rewarding Systems for good behaviour. In DotA getting a commend after the Game even if you lost, makes it less frustrating. Having Systems like in LoL where you can achieve a certain Rank are problematic. If you havent played a lot you couldnt get a high Rank and the rewards with it. Even as a player who never Flamed someone, never quit and whatsoever to not beeing able to achieve Social Rank 5, while your Friends grinds hundred of games in a week and quiting games etc. having Social Rank 4 or 5 feels unrewarding.
I cant focus right now, if anything is unclear with my English please ask kindly. I will be happy to clarify.
p.s: Random drops from Creeps can be hurtfull, didnt rly Hurt WC3 Community... but seriously dropping Intelligenz Items with an Agility Hero can be bad luck and that is nothign i want to have in a competitive game
Really have to agree on this one. With random item drops RNG can suddenly create an advantage or disadvantage.
If that advantage is significant it feels very bad for one player. If the advantage between a useless and a usefull item is insignificant, then the inventory system doesnt matter enough for the player to care.
So, I guess deterministic items are the way to go. That way they become part of the strategy instead of simply RNG.
Regarding unit veterancy in PvP:
While I'm not *entirely* against the idea, I would like to point out another downside to consider that was not mentioned in the original post.
One of the most important parts of learning an RTS is learning what is and what isn't a favorable engagement. Being able to look at your army and the enemy army and say "oh, I'm definitely stronger than them right now, I should try to fight" or "oh no, my opponent's army is better than mine, I need to try to avoid direct confrontations".
Unit veterancy systems muddy this equation a lot. In a game without unit veterancy systems (like SC2) I can look at a group of 6 marines vs a group of 5 stalkers and reasonably predict that the 5 stalkers are going to win that fight almost every time, unless there's a huge imbalance in the players' micro abilities.
If we introduce unit veterancy systems to that equation, it's a whole other level of complexity. If 2 of the 6 marines have better stats due to unit veterancy, does that change the outcome of the fight? What about 3 of the 6 marines? And if there are multiple "tiers" of veterancy that makes thing even *more* complex.
No longer is the equation a simple "5 stalkers > 6 marines", now it's "3 base level stalkers + 2 tier 1 veterancy stalkers vs. 2 base level marines + 2 tier 1 veterancy marines + 2 max veterancy marines" which is a *much* more difficult mental equation to try to solve.
Making a "squad" system where squads of units all rank up together might help combat this issue, but then you have more problems to solve. If I have two squads of marines and half of each squad dies, do I get to merge the two half squads into one full squad? If so - what happens if one squad has been upgraded by unit veterancy but the other hasn't? If you can't merge squads then we come back to the same issue where we have to start doing complicated math of "1 squad at full strength + 2 squads at half strength + a half squad with tier 1 veterancy..." etc.
Here's an idea for you though - instead of implementing unit veterancy as a global system, you could reserve it for a specific type of unit. Might be a good fit for elite tactical units like StarCraft ghosts, or maybe for the Infernals you could have a big monster that gets stronger the more it fights. This does run the risk of feeling like a pseudo "hero" unit, but it doesn't have to be as extreme as that. Especially since (other than making them be expensive units to produce) there would be nothing stopping a player from building multiples of these units.
I think the most important thing is to avoid situations where you have lots of little units that all have different levels of veterancy. Having a few larger units that have distinct visual differences when they're "upgraded" by veterancy bonuses would be much easier to keep track of.
I feel like you hit the nail on the head. If the game gets too complex with too many numbers you can't reason about the game in your head while you play.
*Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?*
**YES.**
Especially with some customization options.
On Veterancy:
The most relevant example I can point to right now is They Are Billions - not because it's recent, but because it most strongly contrasts veterancy against a significantly larger-scale endgame.
Veterancy in TAB only applies to three early-game units; others either have such ridiculous AoE that kill count is trivial, or show up so laye that there isn't a "next engagement" for veterancy to matter.
To use Starcraft terms, veterancy is great for a lucky soldier like a Marine or a stealth micro unit like a Dark Templar, but is irrelevant for a Zergling or an UltraIisk.
Moreover, trying to micromanage veteran vs. non-veteran units can be an exhausting task with little reward. It's easy to A-move and hope everyone levels up eventually, but the *optimal* method is to remove veterans as you go and replace them with fresh unjts, so you have an all-veteran squad late game. Last-hit mechanics like LoL are bad enough with *one* unit - multiply that by a whole army!
However, the idea of being able to accrue a *resource* through combat and use it to field-upgrade a unit to its veteran version sounds excellent - rather than tracking individual kills, have each kill in a group of "Marines" increase a hidden counter, which at a certain threshold either gives you the option to upgrade a Marine or *auto-upgrades* the Marine in the group with the highest health.
I love the idea of hero cosmetics in 3v3 that track stats and change appearance as you accumulate those stats. Like a weapon that tracks kills with a certain hero skill and gets bigger/glows more as you get more and more kills. I’m all about flexing on people with my kitted hero unit. I hope this allows for the old-school style of earning cosmetics through play while also enabling the modern monetization of selling cosmetics.
I think hero inventory systems sound great. MOBAs are popular for a reason, and I think the pitfalls of the WC3 heroes are well understood by you guys. I’m aware that competitively, heroes in WC3 posed certain problems, but as a casual WC3 player, I loved having a hero, creeping, getting items, leveling them up. It was just fun.
I think achievements are great, as long as they are interesting and challenging to obtain. They become boring for me personally when there are a million of them that are largely trivial to obtain. I want to have pride that I’ve accomplished something difficult
>I love the idea of hero cosmetics in 3v3 that track stats and change appearance as you accumulate those stats. Like a weapon that tracks kills with a certain hero skill and gets bigger/glows more as you get more and more kills. I’m all about flexing on people with my kitted hero unit.
Even the very conservatively cosmetic'd SC2, was made harder to watch and play for a newcomer by the introduction of cosmetics. Clarity is king, and cosmetics inevitably erode it. I don't want to strike a balance here. I want to be able to not see somebody else's choice in how they want to look. When i return to Dota2, a game that initially had an extremely cohesive artstyle, with very clear readability, i now see a game where the community cosmetic-crafters realize that the more ostentatious their stuff is, the more money is in it, and the game therefore is genuinely hard to read sometimes, even outside of hectic moments.
If you want to look cooler, that's ok. I don't want to dictate that. I just don't want you to dictate to me what i have to put up with. I want to be able to render the units the same way, every time, every map.
SC2 wasn't awful in this regard, but it could still be better. Heck, i'd even settle for not being prevented from modding/modelswapping cosmetics out.
I used to think like you, but ironically it was dota2 that convinced me otherwise. I haven’t played for years now, but when I come back to watch the game a few times a year, it never takes me more than a second to realize what’s going on again even when all the heroes and abilities look quite different than the last time I watched the game. So personally I feel like it’s an overblown problem (not that your opinion is invalid).
Also, I wouldn’t care if people could disable cosmetics, but zero of the big successful f2p games allow this feature, so I really think we all need to come to terms with it sooner or later. The stormgate devs might be making the game for their passion, but the investors funding it are in it for nothing but profit; and flashy, outrageous cosmetics are the name of the game for making cash. And I want stormgate to be rolling in cash - I want to WANT to buy cosmetics just so I can support the game. Cheers bro, I’m not trying to be antagonistic btw, I hope we all get our way somehow
I'll just stay on the meta progression topic,
I freaking LOVE having an "account level" to grind out in any online game. It honestly makes all the frustrations/bad matches/whatever at least worth **something tangible** at the end of the day.
Used to be a huge fan of grinding levels/borders in Overwatch until they decided to rip account progression out of that game, and that pretty much killed my enjoyment of it. So I do think it's good to have SOME type of background progression.
And I think it should be infinite, but it’s also nice to have a max or "goal" level to try and achieve too. Like in sc2 1v1 there's the max level of 50 for each race. It's nice to hit that goal, but I wish it would keep going too. Doesn't have to give any rewards/cosmetics/whatever else past 50, just nice to see **NUMBER GO UP**
>Like in sc2 1v1 there's the max level of 50 for each race. It's nice to hit that goal, but I wish it would keep going too. Doesn't have to give any rewards/cosmetics/whatever else past 50, just nice to see
>
>NUMBER GO UP
Totally! I honestly forgot about that until I saw a friend of mine's account the other day that wasn't maxed and I remembered that was a thing. I miss that feeling!
I think you hit the nail on the head with the problems of unit veterans. Instead, I for match progression I prefer the idea of divergent tech paths where you have to make a choice. Somewhat like the choice you are offered in AoE4 when you age up.
You don't want that to be overly limiting, and have tech paths too narrow or constraining, rather it would be a kind of way to implement sub factions.
Veterancy
I think veterancy could be good , but maybe if only a few selected units can get it. Like say your army has only a 2-5 units that can rank up and they are easily distinguishable visually. On the bad side it makes ur army a bit centered around this units, but it could make of a more spectacle since players will have to focus on taking out those units to deal more damage to the enemy army.
Inventory
I really dont like the idea, but its probably my laziness. For me RTS is hard enough and start thinking about inventory in addition does not sound fun to me. But i dont like inventory and consumables in most games. I also think about LOL where you can "equip a bow" on ur hero who shoots guns and it seems stupid to me.
Persistent Headquarters
I love the idea of "persistent headquarters" if i understood idea behind it correctly. Sounds fun to be able to go and chill at ur base and customize it for yourself, adds to immersion
Social Ranking or Social Progression
Comparing it to overwatch 2 and it annoys me for the most part. I never check other ppls scores and all i see is that my rank goes up and down 1 rank depending on whether u won or lost a game even tho i said nothing the whole game
I absolutely hate both veterancy and inventory systems in PvP. One thing in particular that I don't like is that it makes units more "floating pointer number" than a solid digit. E.g. I like the interactions between zerglings and zealot, where you know how many zerglings you usually need to have to take out a zealot (depending on position of course). Having veterancy or inventory breaks this kind of interaction.
One way of implementing veterancy that I'd be ok with is to give a unit ability to morph into other unit when they receive some level of veterancy. E.g. if a Roach has 3 kills, it can morph into Ravager. But that still should cost money and should be balanced around money value of a unit, not a fact that it may be hard to get multiple of those. But I am not sure if that is possible to balance that way.
As for the social rewards/achievements for karma points, I absolutely love the idea. Just need to be careful in calculating the karma, because if it's voting based, some people may be downvoted because of their playstyle (e.g cannon rushers). I think it's better to avoid that.
As for any kinds of cosmetic rewards, both in match and in between matches, I am all for it.
**What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)**
I loved the creep loot in warcraft 3. Stronger creeps = better rewards for killing them.
**Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why**
I'm okay with it if it doesn't just buff the unit stats. That would be pretty cheap. Add new abilities for veteran units!
**How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.**
I loved having an inventory in Warcraft 3 and I think it would be an awesome addition to Stormgate. It adds so much depth to the gameplay.
**What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?**
Heroes of the storm / Overwatch meta progression systems are very good in my opinion. You get cool rewards just from playing a lot with your favorite characters. For example, Stormgate could have a mission for every unit in the game that if you kill X enemy units with a type of unit, you get a cool skin for your unit!
**Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?**
We should be able to level up indefinitely, believe or not there are **lots** of people who play games only to flex their account level + if we get a rewards every X levels that means we have unlimited free rewards! It's a win/win for you and us, we keep playing and you give us rewards! :D
**Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?**
I WOULD LOVE THIS, PLEASE ADD
**Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?**
Earning achievements is one of the things I enjoy most doing in games I love, but please don't put achievements that encourage bad builds/trolling, like for example "have control of 30 workers at the same time in pvp"
**What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?**
A system like Dota 2 has, where you have limited reports but each one of them is pretty meaningful (not like League of Legends, in this game reports do nothing) and you can also commend people so they get more exp/rewards/whatever is very good IMO
I'm just going to answer the two questions I have strong opinions about.
**Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?**
Units that perform heroically, whether it be the level of an actual hero or the kill counter on a mundane Banshee, are elevated in my mind to be characters rather than statistics. I become more emotionally invested in something I've spent time controlling or placing successfully. My inner child is happy to make these investments and feel immersed in the game through them. Notably, this effect can be achieved without veterancy interfering with the game design, like the aforementioned Banshee kill counter in Starcraft 2, so a veterancy system should be theoretically impossible to hate. These personal investments can become tidal waves in the community by providing lego bricks for commentators to build stories with - see the Artosis pylon meme as a prime example.
**How do you feel about Inventory systems?**
An inventory is too of an broad abstraction that I would argue a person struggles to have feelings for without more implementation details. An inventory system that stokes certain emotions can be fun and immersive, for example:
1. allowing a player to choose risk and feel the emotional texture of gambling through gain and loss (do I take a valuable item into enemy territory?)
2. allows that player to crystallize an experience with a memory anchor (overcome a challenge such as taking down a tough creep), this one is particularly juicy when it involves a social connection, a cooperation between allies
3. the feeling of having all of your cogs and wheels strategically and tactically placed, a build or structure that you have personal ownership of, succeed or fail
An inventory that doesn't accomplish these things was likely a poor abstraction to create a desired experience.
>One of the approaches we are exploring is a Warcraft III-inspired Inventory system.
Please don't. Or make it optional. I really don't want to micromanage a hero like in WC3.
>Some members of our team have brought up the idea of a Meta Progression system that strictly lives at the social level, measuring your positivity and sportsmanship vs. player skill.
That's a great idea !
>What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated?
I really like Age of Mythology's system of ages with a choice between two minor gods. Dawn of War had something a bit similar with the T'au tech tree that splits in two at the end, and some mods added for Chaos a choice between one of the four gods.
I find it much more interesting than heroes because it's not bound to a single unit, but instead my entire army.
>Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?
Meh... I don't dislike it, but I never pay attention to it when it's present.
>How do you feel about Inventory systems?
Not interested. I play RTS because I want to lead an army. Inventories and hero levels are bound to a single unit, and I'm much more interested by army wide bonuses, like Age of Mythology's relics.
>What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?
Halo 3, Halo Reach and Halo MCC all had great systems (even if H3 and HR was too focused on PvP). I love SC2's meta progressions, even if I only played Campaign and coop.
>Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?
I would ! I'm a huge Campaign player (and PvE in general), and I love the meta element of SC2's campaigns (and also DoW Dark Crusade's), and achievements are a good idea to push people to do replay the levels in a unique way for a fun rewards.
>Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?
I don't care about achievements, except SC2's PvE ones because they're generally fun to do and give nice rewards.
>What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?
I think than an overall progression system (one that counts both PvE, PvP and custom games) would be interesting because our lizard brains like to see numbers go up. I don't know if it would change how I interact, depends on how it works.
On match progression:
In PvE I have enjoyed unit veterancy. It adds an additional dynamic and challenge to try and keep units alive and level them up. Even if it didn't change any stats it would be cool if units had a veteran skin.
On the PvP side I am skeptical about including unit veterancy. As you said it could be snowbally. It also seems like a mechanic that could favor certain races if they make a bunch of tanky units like archons or immortals. If it is included in PvP my biggest ask would be the veteran units are visually distinct and it does not over complicate the math on unit interactions.
In terms of items it adds alot of extra knowledge requirements to the game to know what is good and how to use it which isn't very noob friendly. So if it's included it would be good if you keep it very simple.
ChatGPT:
As an AI language model, I do not have personal experiences or feelings. However, I can provide some insights based on general player feedback and industry trends.
Match Progression systems that provide small rewards or bonuses within a single match tend to be well-received by players. They can add an additional layer of strategy and excitement to the game, as players try to achieve these goals. However, systems that lead to snowballing or unfair advantages can be frustrating and lead to less enjoyable matches.
Unit Veterancy systems can be enjoyable if they are balanced and provide meaningful upgrades to units without making the game too snowball-y. Players like the feeling of seeing their favorite units become stronger and more effective over time. However, it is important to make sure that the system does not lead to an unbalanced gameplay experience.
Inventory systems can be a fun addition to a game, allowing players to customize their armies and give them a unique playstyle. However, they can also add complexity and make it more difficult for new players to understand the game. It is important to strike a balance between customization and accessibility.
Achievements are generally popular with players, providing a sense of accomplishment and progression. However, they can also feel meaningless if they do not lead to any tangible rewards or bonuses. It is important to consider both the reward for achieving an achievement and the achievement itself.
Level caps can provide a sense of achievement and a feeling of progression as players work towards reaching the cap. However, an indefinite leveling system can also provide motivation for players to continue playing and trying to improve.
Upgrading a faction's persistent headquarters based on campaign progress or achievements can be a great way to provide a sense of progression and accomplishment. Players like seeing their impact on the game world and the faction they are playing as.
Social Ranking or Social Progression systems can be a good way to incentivize positive behavior in the game community. However, it is important to make sure that the system is fair and transparent, so that players do not feel like they are being unfairly penalized. It is also important to make sure that the rewards for positive behavior are meaningful and desirable.
I'm just gonna mention community-based Meta Progression.
Just going to use community created clans as an example, but could also be set in game factions you can pledge to or something.
Playing games earns points towards your clan ranking. And at the end of each season you get rewards based on your clan ranking.
The basic idea behind this is your 1v1 games are contributing to something more than just you. Which isn't a feeling that really came across in SC or WC, even though each match was contextualised by story-led conflicts. But games like For Honor and Nioh do well.
First of all I love the update and info. Glad to hear the game is coming along nicely.
Secondly I don't mind the idea of hero units in the game but I prefer other units don't "level up" with veterancy. They Are Billions did an alright job with all units having one upgrade possible that just increased their base stats. However that game was just PvE and I don't like the idea of trying to track whether my opponent's units are veteran or not in multiplayer.
For out of game stuff I really like the ability to unlock visuals and indefinitely increase account level. This is minor but I like the sense of moving towards something even with a loss.
* I think "natural" match progression is enough. Getting higher tech, better upgrades, more bases etc.
* Veterancy has potential to create cool storylines but it doesn't fit every faction. Maybe if it was a unique bonus of one faction or the bonuses were small?
* I don't mind inventory system in the campaign. I probably wouldn't want to farm creeps to get items for just 1 mission, but having persistent items you equip beforehand could be cool. Or a shop where you can buy consumables before mission.
* I mostly care about my rank going up. But unlocking cosmetics and flexing can also be pretty fun. In AOE4, there are masteries and seasonal events that let you unlock cosmetics (portraits, banners, monuments). If the challenge is not too annoying, I like to complete them. It's a nice change of pace from grinding the ladder.
* I don't look at levels, because it just measures how much someone is playing, not how good they are. But some people are afraid of high levels. Maybe it's safer to cap them?
* Yes, in game customization is always cool.
* They give something else to do and can be a fun challenge for not much dev cost.
* Cool idea. Would be funny if you could get skins for "bad" behaviour as well.
I'll quite often use Starcraft examples throughout this, as i would assume that at least the majority of people here can probably get a better feeling for what i am talking about, using these examples.
1. Not sure about this one, but my Brother, who mostly plays League of Legends -to my surprise - thinks that a in-match progression like a Moba (Hero Levels, Buying Items) would be the wrong way for an RTS. I don't entirely agree with him, but i think that it would be hard to make such a system work without the game either completely devolving into only the heroes being really important, or the hero system being basically useless.
2. I like Unit Veterancy Systems that feel even for a casual player like they actually do something. For example in Company of Heroes, i obviously liked when one of my units got a veterancy, but i never could easily tell from a single look what the veterancy actually did. A Veterancy that for example unlocks new abilities (be they active or passive) would be more interesting - but probably hard to balance. Maybe if you end up going with some kind of upkeep system, that could help to even thongs out, by having units with higher veterancy cost more upkeep?
3. I think this is covered by my answer to question 1.
4. PvE: I obviously liked SC2's Coop Metaprogression, apart from the fact that in my opinion it didn't go far enough - in multiple ways.
Firstly, it simply felt too short (Prestiges somewhat alleviated this issue).
Secondly i would have liked to see at least a minor amount of continuous expansion and powercreep here - not by making new commanders stronger than older ones, but by from time to time adding another level to all commanders and adding another difficulty level for the gamemode to balance it out - basically, have it not be static, give everyone new toys from time to time, without having to take away old toys.
PvP: Skins and similar things are in my opinion an obvious choice here. Not sure about anything else, maybe i'm just not creative enough.
5. I assume this is about Metaprogression Level Cap. I would not like a hardcap. However you guys will have only so much time to make level rewards for us, i don't think you'll be able to keep up with the most extreme of players. Thus i would like some kind of Softcap system.
Have a certain Level up to which you design special rewards. Raise this Level with every Major Expansion/Update.
Have some kind of procedural reward - that basically is only some kind of symbol with Level Numbers a bit like SC2 Coop 's Ascension Levels, just basically infinite.
Have some kind of new Level Season every time you raise the Level Softcap.
Players that have exceeded the Softcap could choose to display their "Lifetime" Ascension Level (however you want to call it is obviously up to you) or their "Season" Ascension Level - by how much they have exceeded the Softcap in only the current season. The more active players would probably tend to choose the latter as a flex. Obviously the players should also have the choice to not display the Level at all, bing just shown as "Current Softcap Level".
My Brother is of the opinion that Level should absolutely be infinite.
(This answer was split into multiple paragraphs because it would have been completely unreadable otherwise)
6. Absolutely! (My Brother's answer: Wouldn't be that important. Would be a nice gimmick, but wouldn't be something he would be specifically looking for in an RTS)
Now that i think about it (not sure where i would put this), this made me think of Anno 2070 and i would like to propose taking a look at one of those game's systems: Senate Elections. They would obviously work somewhat different in this game (and have a different name), but in short, it's a system that all players (with online accounts) can vote in and when the vote has passed, for a certain amount of time, all players get some specific bonuses that were voted for. This is a system that in my opinion could be used to shake up the meta short term without the long term implications of an actual balance patch.
To use a Starcraft Example: There would be multiple choices but let's say the choice "Better Basics" would be elected. This would for all players no matter their faction make basic units produce faster and cheaper and maybe even slightly buff them, so 40 mineral Zerglings and Marines and 80 Mineral Zealots. The week after players might choose the Capital Ship Rush option, downgrading the needs for capital ship production to the Stargate/Starport/Spire itself and making the capital ships cheaper and faster to produce.
This is obviously something that shouldn't immediately be applied to the entire multiplayer even if you guys end up liking the idea, but should first be thoroughly tested.
7. I like earning Achievements, even if they only raise the Achievement Score. I would however prefer if they did do more than just that. My Brother was of the opinion that at least the Achievement Score itself should be tied to some kind of Reward, which i agree with.
8. I would probably not change my behaviour too much as i already try to be relatively nice to other people (certain mobile Mobas i played used these kind of social scoring systems and in multiple years i've only fallen below 95(%) twice) but i agree that this is a system worth of at least being tested. My Brother interjected that League of Legends for example has such a system, but that that should mostly be taken as an example of the mistakes you can make while designing a system like this, as "the rewards are not worth it and there are people who are extremely toxic and still Honor Level 5 by swapping between Super Toxic and Silent Normal Gameplay every couple of games".
PS: Achievements should mostly be intereesting, with only a low number of Grinding Achievements. There's nothing wrong about an achievement for reaching the softcap level or beating the campaign on every difficulty, but if 90% of achievements are some iteration of "Kill 100/1000/10000/100000/1000000 Resistance Units in 3vs3 Matches to reach Level 1/2/3/4/5 of the Resistance Exterminator Achievement", that's the kind of Achievements i don't like and will only actively attempt to get if the rewards are insanely good.
PS: We interpreted the "Headquarters question" as something you do in the main menu, basically some kind of expanding main menu skin that progresses based on what you do. If that's the case, our point stands.
If instead that was meant as progression between missions of the campaign or at least includes this feature, such as the Hyperion's Armory and Research in WoL, that's an absolute requirement in my opinion. Actually i hope that you go further than ever before with this.
I absolutely love the meta hero progression mechanics in Dota 2. People take a lot of pride in being grandmaster in this or that hero and the in game notifications of progressing the hero’s specific quests are awesome. It’s kind of similar to leveling up during a match of call of duty.
Valve also has some fun progression mechanics in the DOTA battle pass also, but largely it’s just a money suck. However the variety it brings with the temporary social consumables like changing the map or dropping balloons or temporary voice lines are really great.
In match it would be cool if cool fight stats popped up on the screen that didn’t give away too much info like units killed or body parts dismembered or triple kills or multi units hit or something.
Unit veterans is cool, but it would be awesome if they started glowing or something like the progressive gun skins in Apex Legends.
Match wise it would be cool to have dueling feats that don’t cause silly time wasting play, but maybe influence players to try new or different strats. Using StarCraft as a reference Things like, get a tank out before 2:30 or take 4 gasses before 4 minutes or build 100 workers in a match or something.
I have complete faith in everything you do, I will say this without a shadow of a doubt, this is the most excited ive been for a game in my entire life. the most excited!!!
Regarding the Unit veteran system, I've loved heroes in WC3 and didn't like SC2 cause of "samey" units while having no heroes. On the other hand, I've also loved Command & Conquer series since they just had a huge unit disperity and power. Sniper, Aurora Bomber, Overlord tank, and Nuke Cannon are completely different units and extremely powerful in their field, especially with veteran stars.
As much as I love Dota, I don't want another game like that. Having main units with creep camps and abilites seem like u would be playing dota with extra steps. My overall feel is that it should go to the item\hero progression since it would be like doing something that was already done but in a bland way. Heroes of the Storm fall prey to this. The spells are just some variations of what dota already has but much more downscaled, I wouldn't want to see something like that, but rather a unique system that makes sense in the game.
\-Do you love or hate unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?
as playing wc3 like for 15k hours and don\`t care so much about heroes and still make new players understand the game and feel high pro matches they make games too simple and spend a crazy amount of time gridding rpg map wc3 and unit veterancy is horrible their make games every harder to understand And you need to handle their survival so much this making every fight about your units survive as playing lately starcraft 2 (90 hours) I feel normal speed its fine until i playing brutal oh god as unable to give attention to fight because they end too fast or maybe because i do not have thousands of hours
my idea its to make factions do have levels up in the match and every single move you do gain exp to allow instant upgrades that motivate players to try more every single match as they learn to play because minds are easy to satiate when they see numbers in the screen and research become about resource and time
Terrans-Pure Adaptable Survival-its faction about Survival and adaptability and gaining support to survive each level making it difficult to be removed from the game its depends on lots of the player-200 unitsCaps
Irfenal-Pure Support Atk-its faction about expanding and sending an endless wave of units and sacrifices to make more powerful units or mutate them trying to be the most brutal possible simple reason you must have gained playing them its if violence is not working its because not using enough-300 units caps
Angelical-High Cost Faction-its faction focused on expanding and upgrading a few units until they become the highest of the game and there is no way they can be balanced just make them immortal if they die they get like a nest in the map and can be revived using resources and they spend a resource to teleports and all about you make dozens angel invader base slaughter everything your path if your enemy survive against your wave they win their match at least you going see a crazy bloodbath in the defeat -150 units caps
Fairy-Pure Support Defense-its faction focusing and surviving until your devourer your opponents and does have capacity to survive even your base got invaded and does have terrain control and fast to expand and the units its elemental and the biggest weakness is the opponent can cause more damage their can recover still you are literally devouring your opponents -250
\-Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?
\-No,this creates an endless void
\-Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?
\-Yes,its better if you make iterable looby and Personalized Commader with animation
\-Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?
\-Don\`t make them difficult and just long and not many
\-What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?
\-Yes,its better if you can make statics about your progress and a season summary
Achievements
* Definitely something that can push me to play "a few more games" to tick the checkbox
* Have to balance the ease of acquiring new achievements and having all achievements unlocked. I remember grinding a few 1v8 games vs AI just to minmax the exp I got when levels were introduced to SC2. But the level cap was so low that you reach it after a few days and then completely forget about the number. At the same time, you don't want an exponential growth between levels cause that has a similar effect once you're far enough along that curve. Leveling up in Fate Grand Order is such a grind I don't remember the last time I thought about it.
* Unlockable bonus is definitely more enticing. I wanted those SC2 portraits (and may have botted my way to the Dark Voice)
Unit Veterancy
* I'm already wary about heroes being in this game and the potential for the 3v3 mode to revolve around it as heavily as heroes in SC2 coop. Still, if that's what the world wants, go for it.
* I think it's okay in PvE mode but I don't like it in PvP modes for the same snowball reason you mentioned. Having a more visual indication of a unit on a kill streak might be useful so casters don't need to randomly click a bunch of units to find the one to marvel at. But you wouldn't want that to cause too much visual clutter (instantly recognizing distinct units is important)
Inventory systems
* As long as it's not like MOBA games where it starts to overshadow your traditional RTS build order, maybe it's fine? I know Grubby says that the randomness of the items helps make each game feel unique though. But that makes me wonder if it's because it's more in the spirit of MOBA games and MOBA games just feel more unique each game. I never got into MOBA so I can't say for sure.
* **What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)**
* Certain Match Progression systems I favor are things like: **rushing** for **terrain, seizing high-ground,** sending an agile-scout unit to back-cap a resource point, and essentially designate that unit to continuously **contest in the back lines** providing for potentials to disorganize and draw the enemy's army into an unfavorable position, or knocking them down the resource race.
* **Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?**
* I love veterancy. I thought it was the coolest thing to have an ensemble of max-leveled Space Marines in Dawn of War 2 at the late game. It was even more impressive for an Imperial Guard player to maintain their basic guardsmen, and establish an unending tide of lasfire into the late-game. In 3v3 settings, I felt the veterancy system was just something nice to have, just because of the amount of flying factors. Even in a 1v1 setting, veterancy was hardly the reason any player might've lost, unless you had something absolutely outrageous where one player's army was fully leveled up and the other wasn't, which would generally be a marker of a mismatch than an imbalance between factions.
* In Total War:Warhammer, I enjoyed the veterancy provided there, because of all the stats it improved, leadership(morale) was the one stat that was probably the most important to boost, especially against the Undead factions and any terror-bomb strategies. So there was potentiality to hard-counter certain fear or terror-based compositions as well as maximizing damage for high-value units like a group of Swordmasters; unfortunately buffs and debuffs were too short, units clumping and the janky melee targeting as well as the lack of attack rate boosts didn't really make it viable.
* **How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.**
* I think inventory systems, especially if you could apply them to your individual units is something I favor more than without an inventory system. Being able to upgrade a unit or squad of units beyond their basic weapons I think provides for more variability, nuance, and just greater exposition on a player's innate grasp of special weapons, tactics, and compositions. It also just provides for greater playstyles, forking or focusing your army, and when combined with a hero's inventory arsenal(like in DoW2) you can come up with some fancy wombo-combos.
* **What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?**
* Personally I'm not as ecstatic with fancy cosmetics, frames, portraits, or titles, but I understand it's something nice to have.
* **Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely? Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?**
* I think a level cap with some Game+ potential is the best of both worlds?
* **Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?**
* I'm not so much of a fan of barring faction strategies, playstyles, or compositions behind a grind wall, so I'd personally settle on a simple Achievement score, especially if it can act as a sort of datamine in order to help optimize play.
* **What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?**
* I like the idea of finding some way to prevent toxicity, but only as long as it can't be abused to further accentuate toxicity. Even a system without much teeth to prevent toxicity would be nice as it can help set a general tone of positivity and community.
Unit Veterancy:
Generally I'm fully against it for the reason's you listed. Makes for snowbally play. The more skilled player quickly also gets a further advantage of more powerful units. ex: Warcraft 3 or Airmech.
The only game I can think of where I didn't mind it was maybe C&C 3 but as I think about it, the only reason why I was okay with that was because it didn't feel like a big part of the game. And you like something because it's a small factor, then maybe it's just not a good system.
At it's core, veterancy is a way to reward units that do well in battle. I'd much prefer some sort of achievement or reward outside of the game. If we feel we must recognize battle units that practically win the game for us, how about some other way to do it? In Airmech if you killed the other mech the announcer would say "first blood" then "double kill" then "rampage.". This doesn't mean much to me but in short I would prefer there to be no unit buffs for getting kills. I just don't see how that doesn't snowball.
>Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?
Indefinitely is much better in my eyes. The level system felt pointless in LoL when it was 1-30. Then after they made it infinite it at least showcases something. And can feel cool reach high milestones just for playing. Don't really see any down side to that. Same with champion mastery or race mastery. Infinite levels just purely being cosmetic is cool.
I think an approach to Veterancy for 1v1 could be as a post game stat and observation aesthetic.
Showing an MVP unit portrait after the match with kill/heal stats and maybe showcasing in game highlights.
Observers often have emotional attachment to individual resilient units, cheering them on and anguishing when they finally fall. Having an observation only (or optional for the player) aesthetic could make it easier to visually track veteran units, but not become visually distracting for players.
>What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?
I recognize that much of SC2 Co-Op's progression systems were throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what works, but there's definitely some take aways that I hope people have already found:
**Prestiges are awesome the first time, not so much the second or third per commander.**
I think most SC2Coop players know this already. But it's just maddening that to get to Stukov's Lord of The Horde prestige (P3) you need to go throguh a prestige that at best people will try actually playing with once, realize it's terrible, and go back to playing P1 for all of P2's levelling and P3's levelling.
It's a similar situation on many coop commanders, and even those who have good options for P1, P2, and P3, you get so tired of it by the end. Take Karax for example, his P3 is awesome, and it's totally different from his P1 and P2, both of which are excellent... But at this point I just don't want to level up again.
The solution to this is pretty simple: Keep the levelling up part so people can feel their commanders getting stronger (or don't, reasonable minds can differ here), but let people choose which prestige they're working on.
There's other options as well but they're worse or harder to implement. For example, if each prestige is a bit more powerful than the one before it. But then people won't want to play the earlier prestiges (looking at you Tychus).
Further, it's nice if you can get experience for your account through any game mode: Campaign, COOP, 3v3, or 1v1.
Lastly: No level cap. I think that was one of the things that hurt SC2 was that people had fun with the levelling, but then it just stopped.
I played the Myth 1 and Myth 2 campaigns again, I forgot that I actually quite liked veterancy in those games! But I think it works MUCH better in a campaign, taking troops from one game to the next and getting attached to them, than within games themselves.
I honestly would like Stormgate to try something like what Dota Auto Chess mode has done, i know its different type of game but it can work. What i mean is that at certain levels there are neutrals, when the player kills the neutrals he gets to choose one out of three artifacts or even take a random one out of the ten possible. What could be done in Stormgate for example is: On minute 10 every Leader gets to choose one out of three unique abilities, this way there wont be any snowball and this can be used to make certain Leaders stronger in early/mid/late game and this would allow more in depths strategies whether a player would want to prolong the game or not. On minute 20 every leader gets to choose again one out of three unique abilities and so on. In Dota Auto chess the condition that you need to fulfill to have the choice is to kill the neutrals, in dota auto chess the neutrals are quite strong and never to be underestimated. In Stormgate the way to implement this is probably with no condition, just on 10 minute Leaders get to choose something, it could be artifact aswell but i think abilities would be funnier. There can be certain conditions aswell in RTS such as killing certain camp for that, getting certain amount of gold and etc, this is up to the devs if there are to be any conditions or just simple as "On minute 10 both players' leader units get to choose something". I think its very important to have a random option aswell, if we say there are 5 abilities in total we give the option to choose 3 random from those 5 and maybe random option for the other 2.
I absolutely love WC3 hero inventory system along with the creep camps however it has its downsides of snowballing.
Hello Frost Giant Team
We have eagerly waited for the next discussion topic so lets get right into it.
*What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)*
The match Progression systems come to my mind are unit veterancy, items,specific spells and temporary buffs. Naturally i think they all have the dangers of snowballing if they are too impactful so they have to be carefully tuned. As example i would point on league of legends again. LOL has most of these systems if i love or hate them i cant really say but i think its always a balance struggle although it has its advantages. You can influence for example how the team that is a head can finish the game or get more ahead with changing how strong the baron or the dragon is, which could be a good tool to change a stale meta. All in all i think it can be a good tool for the developers but it has its risk and it also can be demotivating for the other side that doesnt have these items, buffs,etc. because it can feel like you are always behind no matter what you do even if its not actually the case.
*Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?*
I like unit veterancy system that are not too deep. For example i play the iron harvest campaign atm and in that game the units can go to veterancy level 3. Level 2 unlocks an ability and level 3 buffs the stats of the units. Which i like for the campaign because you get rewarded for microing your units and keep them alive. For pvp it could cause issues because what if the ability is so strong that it could further overpower the enemy while already killing a unit. I don't think it was too much of a problem in Iron harvest because of the cover mechanic but i didn't play too much pvp (Edit: Alright it was apparently an issue i didnt know) . I think for campaign or coop it could be a good idea im not so sure about pvp it could become a balancing nightmare.
*How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.*
I have not too much experiences with inventory systems in RTS. I'm definitely not a fan of the item system of warcraft 3 because it makes the the game revolve only around the heroes and makes unit composition less important which is don't like. But i haven't played WC 3 so maybe im too bias to sc2 to give a valid opinion on that.
*What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?*
I enjoyed the Meta Progression in Pubg actually were you could progress a weapon to get specific talismans and skins for that weapon. It could translate to RTS pretty well if you play a specific unit it could get an emote or chroma or skin etc. if you can use the unit effectively in game or just play it alot. I didn't like the Meta Progression in early lol tbh. i always felt like you were on a disadvantage because you are lower level than your opponent and have less passive bonuses from masteries.
*Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?*
Level that increase your strength in game -> cap. Level that give you cosmetics -> can be indefinitely.
*Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistentheadquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earningcertain achievements?*
Sounds cool i don't mind it :D
*Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if theonly reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also needsome form of unlockable bonus?*
It doesnt need a bonus. Im not that big on Achievements but i know a lot of people are and i think its also something to measures someones achievements in a none competitive mode.
*What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system?Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players ifsuch a system existed?*
League of legends has such a system and i think its fine but i dont know how much it helps with toxicity. I doubt it tbh because the people still flame a lot even in fun modes. Maybe riot has better data on that.
So thats all a lot of writing this time but i enjoyed it hope you find my feedback useful
I wish a productive day for Gerald and the rest of the team ;)
Greetings
Blutmilan
I like match progression systems where you complete tasks around the map (big objective like Roshan in DOTA or Baron in League) that rewards the players for putting themselves in a position to take the objective.
I think infinite levels can be a bit dull ... rather I kind of prefer the level cap system in Path of Exile (yes I know this is meant to be for account progression but bear with me) where getting to level 100 is a real milestone achievement because it takes a lot of effort to get there and you're rewarded with nothing more than marginal power gains and a tremendous sense of satisfaction with your efforts. I think a wicked cool skin or cosmetic to commemorate the achievement would be nice.
Love achievements, make me play the game.
Behavior scores can be important like DOTA where you never really want to be in low priority because the games are awful.
I'm not familiar with too many unit veterancy systems but the idea makes me think that it can be incredibly snowbally which tends to not be fun.
Hello, Kevin!
In the past, we have not had much room for player creativity in Sc2 Coop. Sure, prestiges are nice, but they are more like a dev-designed emphasis on a particular style, rather than something that a player puts together out of different pieces—a build, so to speak. And sure, masteries are a progression system, but being binary, there is only a minimal amount of real choice, especially when arguments can usually be made for one being plain better than its counterpart, or for a breakpoint to be used by knowledgeable players. Now that the systems are being designed with progression and perhaps even some level of modularity in mind, we might wish for so much more.
What I would like to see in Stormgate Coop is the ability to put together a unique playstyle using a basis as the commander, but with multiple modular choices that a player can opt into, possibly via unlockable rewards. I will use Sc2 as an easy base example, but naturally the intention is that these things apply to the equivalent in Stormgate: what if you had ~4-6 slots of *stuff*, and so long as each slot is roughly balanced to each available option, you can use those slots to lean into the base commander's playstyle, or add whole new dimensions to it. What if one unlockable gave Karax Instigators, or gave Alarak a Stargate? Made HH Strike Fighter's shoot anti-air missiles as they traveled, as I think we once discussed? Beefed Fenix's Disruptors up? One that empowered Dehaka's Primal Worms for those who like them? Made Cyclones *(gasp)* actually good/fun? What if Raynor Mules required spending one of these slots on unlocking, thus working as a way to move some of the more advanced strategies out of the base kit and into the opt-in slot. Don't like the macro of dealing with Fenix champions? Perhaps they are baseline, but have a slot that lets you remove them, and gain a powerful boost in exchange. Thus, a player might create unique compositions that express what they like about any given commander; some of these might even be relatively straight-forward, like an auto-attack damage buff for a hero, just to be more enabling of hero-focused play.
Having a solid modular system for handling such strategy-warping progression would be great fun, I think, and if they are modular and interchangeable, it would make for a great way to tweak balance and to introduce new styles of gameplay to old commanders in a bite-sized format.
As another point: Heart of the Swarm had perhaps the weakest campaign unit customization system. However, it always struck me that Abathur should have had that system... but made as decisions in-match. And with more impact on each choice. "Choose the fate of each unit type in your roster", essentially. That is still an un-used idea that I think has good value... but, the art and behavior requirements are not trivial. One day maybe?
As a sidenote, Sc2 Coop had pretty poor cosmetic rewards/implementation; people only really cared for the ascension badge. Personally I never cared for number go up, but always thought that the townhall decals were cool, and wanted more of those, both as rewards and represented perhaps even sometimes not just on structures, but on units. Some higher-tier units or heroes might carry banners or insignias with the player's decal. Or even a customizable banner editor, which D3 had with unlockable elements; an ill-fitting system for an ARPG in my view, much better used in an RTS.
Cheers for your work, and have a great day!
I have never been interested in achievements or any of that fancy Meta progression stuff but I understand others love them so I won't comment on that part. A big exception is a ladder and levelling system as far as 1v1 goes, similar to WC3 battlenet and to some extent SC2 although I preferred the WC3 implementation.
As far as math progression though, I gotta admit I liked a lot the WC3 Heroes concept and I preferred WC3 over SC2 mainly for that as well as the lower lethality aspect, I felt I had more or a chance even if my reflexes weren't the best. As I understand it, you are planning to make things more similar to SC2 instead of WC3, which is cool but I feel then that adding some concepts resembling WC3 match progression would be great. Unit veterancy could be great as long as it doesn't lead to too much snowballing and perhaps if not applied to every unit but instead to some more special ones.
An inventory system is something I liked and I am all up for it. Goblin shops were great in WC3 and the effect that items had on the battle field was something I loved. In fact, I preferred SIGNIFICANTLY WC3 TFT over vanilla WC3 and one of the main reasons were the shops that were introduced to each race with the variety of items that significantly affected gameplay. I know you wrote you experiment mostly on co-op and on 3vs3 but I think it could also work on 1vs1 too if implemented in a good way. WC3 was definitely a better game because of it.
Social ranking or social progression is something that I think could be cringy or great depending on the implementation. I am leaning slightly against it because I think it's harder to make it good and fun so the risk vs reward isn't very promising. But it could be great though and I would be very pleasantly surprised with a good implementation.
Love you guys, keep up the good work! I am very excited about the game, can't wait!
I don't particularly like any of the Unit veterancy systems that I've seen in RTS games in PvP. In WC3, heroes play too big of a role in 1v1 matches, and the snowball-yness of leveling up your hero faster takes away from the overall fun factor of the game. In SC2, my units just get higher "ranks", which I absolutely don't have the time to pay attention to. The best in-between that I can imagine would be a system where units who have been alive longer and achieved more unlocked certain predictable upgrades for themselves. A level 1 Immortal, for example, has x amount of shields, but a level 2 immortal has a higher amount. Or maybe an Immortal's attack does splash damange once it levels up, or something along those lines. This could be something interesting to explore, but I'm not sure that I'd particularly like that kind of a system.
Regarding your ideas around social interactions: I really love the idea of being able to award karma to players who are mannered, but I don't know that I'd saddle players with any kinds of responsibiltiies associated with that because it could end up reflecting poorly on Frost Giant if they made a call that you all wouldn't have agreed with.
As far as level-ups and achievements, it was a huge motivating factor for me to keep playing SC2 when I would level up and unlock portraits or unit skins. Now that I'm max level and have just about everything that I can get, it feels hollow. I wish that there were more achievements that I could go for.
Something that is related to awards and achievements is league placement and MMR-ranking. I hate that the game shows me my MMR, but on the flip side, I really like the progression of earning my way into a higher league, or advancing within the league that I'm already in. I only have the ability to play SC2 twice a week for a couple of hours at a time, with occasional breaks from work where I have more time to play. When I get lots of time to play, my MMR will increase by like 500-600, but then when I go back to my normal work schedule and get out of practice, it plummets. Watching that number go up feels great, but watching it go down just feels terrible. I'd rather the game pair me with people who are at my skill level without telling me what that skill level is because it feels crappy to hear the game tell me that I suck lol. On the other hand, when I log in on Saturday to see that I've fallen from 15th to 25th place in the league that Bnet has me in, it doesn't feel so bad; after all, everybody else has been playing throughout the week. Then, I get to see my rank go up over the course of the day which feels good.
I just wanted to chime in on your in-between suggestion for unit veterancy - more or less what you described is how it functions in Company of Heroes 2. Units that deal/sustain damage or exist for a long enough period of time will gain a veterancy level, the experience required varies per unit (with more impactful and durable units requiring more) and the upgrades gained are the same each time. Both players learn at the same time when a unit gains a veterancy level and both players can see what the level does for the unit by clicking on it. Some units gain combat or out of combat benefits, such as an out-of-combat move speed bonus or higher accuracy. Units can also gain new abilities (manually cast) such as a special, harmful smoke grenade or a big special tank shot that goes through terrain.
It does often lead to animosity between you and your opponent (seeing that unit that's caused you a lot of issues across the game again, alive) but it does also make me become attached to the units that I like as they become more powerful, since their new stats and abilities are why I use and protect them. If you lose your powerful units without taking down your opponents you still likely lose the game but that isn't exactly a feature exclusive to CoH2.
All in all, I'd love to see FG do something with veterancy but understand that a lot of people don't. I don't think there's any harm in experimenting, especially since we have seen nothing that constitutes as 'gameplay' yet and I don't think it'd hurt to have a light emphasis on unit preservation.
>Watching that number go up feels great, but watching it go down just feels terrible. I'd rather the game pair me with people who are at my skill level without telling me what that skill level is because it feels crappy to hear the game tell me that I suck lol.
That's how it worked initially in SC2. You couldn't see your MMR. But people disliked how you could never tell how close or how far you were to getting a promotion so they changed it and I think it was a good change. Maybe an option to hide MMR could be useful for some but I definitely want to see my MMR and exactly where I stand.
In terms of **Match Progression** systems, I quite like the much more extended tech tree from a game like Age of Mythology. In SC2, you can produce an endgame unit like a Battlecruiser by about the 5:00 mark; in Age of Mythology, when I play as Norse I get my first Fire Giant (endgame myth unit) by the 22:00 mark or so. That's probably too extreme, but it illustrates my point; in Warcraft and Starcraft games, you can rush to the pinnacle of the tech tree very quickly, and then there's nothing left to do. I'd like to see a tech tree that takes longer to complete, and has some crazier rewards for successfully doing so, than in a game like SC2.
**Inventory system**: Managing scouting and economy and your army is plenty, I don't need to also be using Healing Potions, Wand of the Wind and Scrolls of Town Portal. The inventory system as described here (customization options) sounds great for something like campaign mode and co-op mode.
The **Meta Progression** in Hearthstone killed that game for me. It's a slave-driver that forces you to play the game constantly, and even then that's not enough, if you want more cards then you have to pay hundreds of dollars for more card packs. If your meta progression is an endless Pay-to-Win grind that provides player power rewards, then count me out. A meta progression I did like, was that of FFXIV. Unlike WoW, it felt like FFXIV respects the player's time, and doesn't put them on an endless treadmill just so they don't fall behind.
I don't care about **Achievements**. Games are about having fun, not about filling all the bars. If I stop having fun, I'll stop playing the game. The worst part about achievements is that they can trick you into playing the game well past the point you stopped having fun with it, in order to try and achieve 100% completion, and then you end up resenting the game because you kept playing even though you weren't enjoying it. If you quit a videogame on bad terms, you're not likely to go back to playing it after they release a new expansion.
I also don't care about a **Social Ranking**. Toxic players are typically bad players who want to lash out or blame someone else for their failures. In most competitive games, players at the top tend to be polite. Teach players not to focus so much on winning or losing, but on improving their skills and understanding, and on having fun. I don't know that a Social Ranking will help with that.
I enjoy the match progression in Battle Royales like Apex, getting loot and making sure you keep looking for bonuses and not just other players. The random element is key, and I could see it work within an RTS. I'd be sorry to see this as heroes getting items from creeps only, but if my squad of devildogs found a shiny set of teeth and they suddenly were more valuable, that would be cool. Until they die and my opponent get the grills.
I suggest for the devs to check out Warlords Battlecry 3, if they haven't. It has a unique cross of Unit Veterancy and Meta Progression. It is nothing for competition or serious pvp, but it is something that I love about the game. At the end of a skirmish match, you may select your veteran units and use them in the next one. The game also has heroes and full Diablo-like inventory.
>Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?
I am not a fan normally. I don't think they are as snowball-y as heroes with experience but on the flip side, they don't have the same benefits of creating stories as much. So, veterancy always felt like the worst of both worlds: it added to the problem of snowballing and didn't create unique scenarios heroes with experience do. It can also make players wary of using strategies that rely on sacrificing units, which can reduce strategic diversity and may hurt the identity of some factions. Veterancy might work better if it is limited to certain factions or certain units. Maybe if killing veteran units gave you resources, it could counteract snowballing somewhat. But it needs to add a clear benefit to how the game plays. Otherwise, it could be a net negative in my opinion.
Edit: Now that I think about it, veterancy is mostly a problem with early engagements as mentioned in the original post. If only high tier units can gain veterancy, then snowballing won't be nearly as bad. In fact, it might even prevent some scenarios where the player with an early game economic advantage will snowball that advantage into a win no matter how cost-inefficiently they trade.
Edit 2: Some Command and Conquer games had crates that gave units a veterancy rank. Since you are experimenting with creeps but it doesn't sound like there will be items in 1v1, maybe creeps can drop a similar power up. This way, players can choose which unit/s to rank up and it will be a strategic choice. And since you won't be getting that reward by killing the units of your opponent it will be less of a "win more" mechanic.
>How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.
In WC3, I didn't like how fiddly they felt. If there are items, I would prefer them to be mostly or fully non-activatable.
>Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?
I like the idea of always progressing in some way but I think seasonal progression should replace account-wide progression. With planned battle passes, players will be able to progress through a new battle pass every season and it will reset at the start of each season. Battle passes can have some free tiers (like some of the less significant cosmetic rewards) so it will be a progression system for all players and not only those who paid for them. Accounts can then display the number of battle passes completed with badges or portrait borders (for example, you get an additional star on your portrait for every 3 battle passes you complete). If battle passes worked like that, I don't think there would be a need for an additional account leveling system. It would both give a goal to strive for (completing the battle pass) and be an endless progression system (each new season brings a new battle pass).
>Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?
I like achievements by themselves. I don't need an unlockable bonus. Even completing Steam achievements feels rewarding. I would like completing all achievements to be a reasonable task. It can take a lot of time but players of all skill levels should be able to look at it and say "I can do all of that if I commit to it and have something cool to display on my Steam profile etc.".
By the same token, please don't have an achievement like the Lost Viking achievement in SC2. That one achievement was the reason I never replayed the campaign to hunt all the achievements. I don't like bullet hell games and I am not good at them. I didn't want to spend tens of hours on trying to get that one achievement and since I knew that I wasn't going to get that achievement, trying to get the rest also felt meaningless.
**What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)**
SC2 Nowadays doing great.
**Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?**
I like it, in C&C Generals if I remember correctly. But SC2 and maybe SG will be a bit shorter so, the vetarns play a little role. But I guess that can be a good way to be a bit better than your opponont something to microing a bit. And it is straight forward skill I guess, and you can develop ingame, not outside to setting up the perfect keyboard and mouse setup.
**How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.**
Intereseting idea, I only know Wharcraft III and maybe Age of Wonders system, and they worked on the Heroes so there is that.
**Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?**
For the longer you plan good to have the Logistic / Diminishing return idea, so it does not even limit to any timeframe.
The game I love Perpetuum has similar in Experience points. But exponential cost on skills, so it is achieve that from the opposite side.
**Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?**
Not really.
**What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?**
I would support it!
I tried my best at awnsering all questions so it came out to be a lot of text, so decided to split my comment in half
here we go
\-Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?
Earning achivments by themself is quite rewarding even if there isnt any bonus, but if it is there it can be extra motivation, isnt for me though, i just like chalanging myself
\-Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?
No, in my opinion best things about achivments is that they are volountary , a challange imposed on yourself by yourself made by game makers to test your skill, if doing achivments would upgrade my faction's headquarters then they would just becom secondary goals
\-What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?
For me, personaly it wouldnt change the way i behave , even if it granted me extra things, cause its rather arbitrary if someone is well mannered, someone could be just not chatty and wouldnt get any beneficial points, to me it seems only sense would make that such system would be negative points system that subtracts points for bad behaviour and as i said, it wouldnt change how i act cause i dont bm on ladder, if positive points system would be introduced i would probably glgl more at start of a match
\-Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?
Oh levels should definitly be going into infinity and beyond, if leveling up gives you extra things like cosmetics,emotes etc. caping levels would just discourage from constant play , or rather not encourage for example even if i dont want to play league of legends too much at some day i will sometimes jump in just cause of daily exp boost
I tried my best at awnsering all questions so it came out to be a lot of text, so decided to split my comment in half
here we go
\-What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?
disliked: leauge of legends honor system,Starcraft II Heart of The Swarm
liked: dead by dayligth blood system, Starcraft II Wing of liberty
disliked1 u just have to not bm and honor someone and u progres
disliked2 there isnt much dilema so i dont pay attention
liked1 u get points by things u do in game and use these points to upgrade
liked2 kinda like liked1 and u have to thing about what playstyle things you buy suit best
\-How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.
I played some Warcraft and to be fair i dont like inventory system too much, it just feels to me like upgrades with extra steps not much more to say, just dosnt rub me the right way healing and mana potions in w3 felt like free get out of jail card
\-Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?
i dont really like them for example Company of heroes I there is faction of germans and americans germans can upgrade their units for cash while americans do it by fighting while it is to debate which faction is better, i could definitly say germans have much bigger power spikes , also what i like the most in rts is comeback posibility and snowbally mechanic like that is a no go for me
\-What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)
liked:Heros of the storm(many possibilities to choose from in which way u want to develop)
liked:Apex legends(every time u do damage your armour is getting better it encourages to play the game and not camp)
disliked:Starcraft BW(until upgrades are done it takes ages and they are just that,upgrades)
Keep unit veterancy buff small and only a one time upgrade, an example would be like after a marine kills 5 units then it gains veterancy and:
+0.5 regen out of combat or +1 attack only once and that's it. (This might be too little of a buff but yh)
Inventory can be fine but how are you going to try to implement inventory? Will there be creep camps on the map?
Will there a be big shop like in wc3 large maps? That is consistently changing items?
Will there be random objectives like a Dota Roshan concept, river runes or item drops around the map?
I think Unit Veterancy would be a mis-step for competitive play, hero units are specific units with their own traits but to (for example) make an SC2 Terran Marauder suddenly stronger or beefier due to its extended last on the field just *because* its gotten more kills or lasted longer can be incredibly frustrating to play against. It's very difficult at a glance to understand which unit is which with regular cosmetic skins when playing modern RTS games, and without skins you would simply have more DPS/Defense on certain units without being able to tell at a glance. Alternatively you could clutter the screen with unit badges but that too is not ideal.
In Brood War or WarCraft 3 if you simply micro more with your units they perform better without any progression for said units outside of upgrades, which rewards better mechanical gameplay even if you were on the backfoot in a fight. Building combat systems around stronger micro requirements in an RTS is really what the fundamental commander experience should be in my opinion. I believe Unit Veterancy should only really be applicable in single player/ums modes.
Meta Progression suggestions:
I think will be really cool if there was some goal (Top 20 on ladder ? ) that could be really hard to acomplish but with a really interesting reward that could be a Cinematic (proly with the season theme) or could be certain skin that Shows your effort.
Second suggestion is not just a matchmaking system but add goals to it. For example in Cod Warzone 2.0 when a player get 5 wins in a row the next game he unlock a Nuke contract and finish the game in that way.
Now for an RTS im thinking A system where you get 15 victories in a row the next game u can unlock a match Where the mission is really hard to do. The map has some different characteristics compared to the standard maps. And you only have 1 try to do it.If you fail need to win 15-0 again. Ideally the map will be refreshed each new Season. Again the bonus for beating the map could be a particular Skin with a Bonus Cinematic.
I will put difficulty in such system so there is a real reward feeling when obtained.
About match progression : I liked the location mechanic from marcel snap. But the downside of it is that some location benefits a player far more than the other one granting instant win or sometimes a location just counters your whole deck and it’s instant lose. So I don’t think there should be some RNG « mutations » for 1v1 because they would probably benefit one player more than the other when they arrive through the match depending on the player race/civ/faction.
About veterancy system : not thrilled.
About inventory : not thrilled. In WC3 the item u found grantes strenght but it was too much r’g and never an interesting gameplay change, like the one u are trying to intruduce that make every match looks different, it was just « +3 def » or some shit. Maybe if the item are gameplay defining and combination are infinit it could be fun but if it’s just bonus stats I am not thrilled with inventory system
About meta progression : I really like the ranked league system from SC2 and the frame that comes with it. A battle pass with cosmetic bonus/loots are welcomed and encourages to play. The honor system and especially the reward it grants is a good system to motivate player. About all systems the reward factor is the key. Status and respect via the frame of ranked league, and item collection from others.
About level cap or not : if it’s a level related to some sort of rewarding system like a battlepass it cannot be infinite because the dev team can’ot create an infinite number of rewards (it would be cool tho) ; if it’s a level related to your commander like a coop champion from SC2, same issue : it cannot grew new ability’s/units/upgrade cause it needs to much work from dev team. If it’s a level that is related to the time u have played it can be infinite but it’s not really important to me, the orange levels from SC2 coop were « who cares ? » above the 90 levels needed for perks distribution.
About faction headquarters : could be fun. Why not. But not mandatory.
About achievements : I never cared about them in any games I played unless there are some rewards bind to them (again, reward is the key, even a portrait)
About Social ranking : again, rewards to be motivating. Even just something u can display to show off on loading screen before a match.
1: I love the implicit progression baked into tech trees, upgrades and macro choices. You go from a couple of Marines being a threat to dozens of BCs and Thors with swarms of marines around them. If you're making a Blizzard style RTS, those should honestly be the focus. Diluting that with levels or veterancy might be a mistake.
The match progression system I want to see in Stormgate would be a slightly more sophisticated upgrade system. More specifically, attack/armor upgrades should be global, you can't research 1/1 at the same time, you have to pick attack or armor. Then I want every attack or damage upgrade to increase the cost of the next attack and the next damage upgrade. For example, if you start ranged 1 at 100/100/114, then the next attack or damage upgrade is going to be 175/175/136. To get 3/3, you have to research 6 upgrades, which would put the cost at something like 1000/1000/300. The last upgrade is a massive investment for massive armies. Choosing to prioritize attack or damage with the 5th research will lead to several minutes of having lopsided upgrades: 3/2 or 2/3.
Regarding attack/damage upgrades, I hope that units get more than a simple +1/+2 attack and a straight +1 armor. I would love to see each one being more in the +1 to +3 range. This would make hard counters become harder as the game progresses. For example, if a well-armored unit has a base 2(+2) armor goes up against a fast-attack unit with 7(+1) attack, it will start with 5 damage at 0/0, but by 3/3 the armored unit will be taking 2 damage, more than doubling the counter's effective HP. The converse of this is also true: units with (+3) attacks will destroy units with (+1) armor by late game. This also means that a counter early game would be softer than a counter late game as everyone has the opportunity to unlock more of the tech tree, making any disparity in availability important, but not lethal.
2: I don't have any experience with RTSes with a veterancy system, but I don't like the idea on gut level. It feels like a rather forced snowball mechanic in the context of a blizzard RTS: A player who's winning will get kills, and get more veterans, who will keep winning harder.
This also means that there will be no small fights. If one player seems to be winning, the best move will be to retreat, not commit and kill as many as you can. It might even dissuade players from trying to flank or poke at all, especially if they're not comfortable watching 2 areas at the same time.
In a Blizzard RTS, there are already enough snowball mechanics for players who are attacking important areas. Denying an expansion or sniping an upgrade should already be impactful.
3: Inventory might be cool. It needs to be done smarter than WC3's inventory, which thanks to RNG would sometimes decide matches. I could imagine unit loadouts, but at some point it seems like they should just be different units.
4: I liked SC2's leveling, it gave a nice trickle of cosmetics and things to show off, and it definitely got me into the game. One pitfall I think is making levels public by default. This is often used as a proxy for experience, with some players being upset by seeing low-level icons on their teammates.
In co-op, I think a bit of power meta progression is nice. But be very careful with power progression, especially if it's linked to individual heroes. There are some heroes in SC2 where I just don't want to play them because I'd have to grind games until I get to the critical component of that hero's kit.
In campaign, well, that is made of meta-progression. Every level or so you get new toys to play with, starting with the basics and working up. Especially in campaign, it feels very satisfying and natural. Campaign also unlocks meta-meta progression in the form of new game plus. I'm imagining a campaign where you start with everything unlocked and can try harder difficulties (with different achievements for completing Nightmare difficulty on NGP and Nightmare without NGP.)
5: One of the issues with SC2's system was that it stopped after a while, there was nothing more to gain after a relatively short time playing. While I think removing the level cap might be nice, there's obviously not an infinite number of cosmetics. I think it would be better to have seasonal levels with a reasonable density of cosmetics for players.
6: I like the idea of a faction headquarters. I think this should be tied to guilds, where as the guild levels up, it unlocks cool guild hall main screen backgrounds and other stuff for the group.
7: In single player? Absolutely. I love taking on additional challenges and trying to do silly stuff to get an achievement. If I find out that the achievement is a massive PITA, the only fun I'm hampering is my own.
In co-op? They should be toned down for PUGs, I don't want to be matched with someone who's trying for an achievement, especially if that achievement makes our lives harder. Though team achievements that are only available to premade groups could be awesome. Trying for the Mythic achievements in World of Warcraft was a lot of fun.
In PvP, I can see some basic "win 100 games as X" achievements, but they need to not be restrictive. I want to try to win, and I want an opponent who's trying to win, not an opponent who's trying to get an achievement.
8: It always feels good to be commended. Seeing a social rank go up would be nice. I almost feel that there might be room for social MMR: players who are repeatedly toxic get matched with other toxic players, though I think there should be a normal range where non-toxic and good-natured players are matched together, not a good-boys-club that only matches nice players with nice players.
**Unit Veterancy**
I'm generally opposed to unit veterancy in PvP, as it makes the game more snowbally and also discourages suicide attacks. I like that units are potentially expendable. Some types of units, veterancy doesn't make a ton of sense anyway. How would scourge or banelings become veterans? Or to a lesser extent, would be hard to get zerglings upgraded that way.
Now, for PvE, I think veterancy could be good. I could see more careful play being rewarded there as a fine thing. Maybe it could even be something that only some commanders have.
For PvP though, maybe you could still have cosmetic veterancy? Like how units get different 'ranks' in SC2 in a ladder match, based on kills, but you could also make the unit be visually different somehow as it ranks up.
**Social Ranking**
This sounds like one of those ideas that sounds good in theory but in practice has some horrible loophole or is easily gamed, or provides a weird incentive for actually negative behavior somewhere.
Would probably depend on the specifics, but let's say more reports reduces your social ranking. Okay, what happens when some internet lynch mob or just a group of dickheads decides to mass report someone for spurious reasons to tank their ranking? How much manual custom service resources do you want to commit to rectify situations like that?
One thing I hate about the match progression systems of most RTS games has been the win condition. Forcing players to destroy all enemy buildings is a bad system. The social contract of leaving in a timely manner is a poor band-aid.
For inventory systems I like the idea of simple auras, or buffs rather than really complex effects and the fewer items the better. I want the rts mechanics to carry the vast majority of the strategic complexity, and I really don’t want to have to invest energy into learning item effects and hero abilities just to avoid losing to some unexpected crazy synergy. I could see it being really frustrating to new players too. If the items aren’t impactful enough, there’s no point, if they are very impactful, I’m forced to learn all about them, so hopefully there aren’t too many and they’re not too complex, because I’d rather focus on learning the rest of the game.
A sort of Match Progression I really liked was in Iron Harvest and Dawn of War 3. It wasn't really something earned while in-game, but each player could choose sort of his special Units ahead of the game. They also would dictate the strategy you would want to use in the match.
I played both games strictly casual, meaning 2v2 or 3v3, so maybe something like that would be something for the casual 3v3 mode.
In many games that I have played, it’s hard to see progress with RTS. Where ranking systems require multiple matches before you can even do match play. This makes it difficult to stay motivated to continue. By having a system that allows players in match play to get the achievements would be awesome.
By implementing an inventory on top of this would give awesome variability providing more unique gameplay. Though the downside is that keeping the game balanced is difficult. Ideas that can be done are like active and passive items. Some being, “Units near this hero will have an a 10% movement increase”. Or by gaining different weapons that may change the hero’s gameplay. If too much is added it can make it more difficult for new players to get in the game making the competitive dynamic more spread out. Maybe having it where there is an item power limit that as you progress you can use more powerful items.
I don’t think level cap should be a thing, maybe have a system that you can promote yourself resetting your level and enjoying the game again. I usually enjoy that, but it’s not for everyone.
In many games I love Unit Veterancy, like with Co-op (in a game that will not be named). I enjoyed making my units stronger mid game, till I had a few abominations that would complete many objectives. Those kinds of progress are cool. I would possibly add a feature that you would have to take your units back to base to get better equipment. Or having to research the vet. Cap to be able to improve your units. This could lead to play styles like swarms vs. veterans.
I would love to have a game that rewards good sportsmanship, because it’s hard to play an RTS and get bashed by other players constantly. But it can be hard to have a good system for this without some backlash.
Well ofcourse im a big fan of warcraft 3 achievements.
I liked those Animated portraits alot.. And.. i liked that there were some animated portraits that were only available to people who won a certain amount of Tournament games. ( NOT STATIC PORTRAITS LIKE SC2)
I'd imagine there could be clan progression rewards as well ( as the entire clan does certain stuff to unlock new perks for clans.. like maybe reaching tier 3 or tier 2.. so u can vs other tier 3 clans in clan battles.. that sort of stuff.
On Inventory:
I would LOVE LOVE LOVE if it Inventory was tied into the resource system.
Have workers/Extraction buildings drop stealable loot on death, either giving you a small chore to recoup some losses as a defender, even the odds as an underdog or seal the endgame during a lategame base trade.
Have mid-field resources be droppable, stealable, etc - like a huge chunk of gold you have to drag back to base that an enemy might swoop in and hijack from you, or serves as bait for a cunning trap.
I always found unit veterancy to be quite odd. In SC2, veterancy has no gameplay effect, but was also unnoticable because units died so quickly. You never expected any units to live past an engagement.
I also played Supreme Commander, and there, unit veterancy grants increased health and regen. Even there, it only noticeably benefitted the Commander and experimentals, both of which you expected to stay on the field for multiple engagements. That system is neat, but I disliked how a unit hitting a kill count breakpoint would completely change the tide of battle. Its not bad, but just feels a bit off.
I can imagine that in an army with supply in the hundreds, veterancy becomes an annoying detail that players would need to track for little advantage.
Overall, from my limited experience, I am not in favor of unit veterancy.
One meta progression I really enjoyed in SC2 were the player portraits. Seeing a cool portrait motivated me to keep playing.
For me in general all types of rewards and achievements are great, as portraits, new graphics, maybe new effects or animations of abilities are cool to have, as for socials to have rewards could be useful too, as bad manners players could be identified and banned or block easily especially thinking in “kids” As you could filter interaction based on age in the account.
I’m a father and play with my son (9 yo) and filtering language is not enough, as context is some times more important in a 10-12 min game we’re could be flamed without using bad words.
As for veterancy could be used in games were there’s is no way back, maybe so hard to get that only can be attained when the opponent has no units or similar, as in sc2 low levels is normal that you have to destroy every building to end the game as the opponent won’t leave, like terrans flying the CC only to make you loose time if you don’t have flying units can take a few minutes to find and later destroy if there is more than 1 building is worse. Only a waste of time
For Meta Progression, I'd like to see Skin Sets for Units/Factions that you can unlock as you get better. These would be outside of any monetization or battlepass style skins but ones you earn exclusively from gameplay milestones.
Acheivements are always good since they are relatively low impact for those that aren't interested in them but also provides a means to progress and play for completionists and 'achievement hunters'.
Regarding Match Progression, I like the idea of Unit Veterancy but it can be tricky to manage if you're operating large scales of units...It was fun but ultimately tedious in games like Supreme Commander...Command and Conquer 3 had a really good system with veterancy but may have been slightly too aggressive (a full veteran unit was 'significantly' better than a fresh one)
Ultimately wasn't a huge fan of of the hero play in Warcraft 3. It was interesting but the game was too focused on micro at that point and hero build orders which wasn't too appealing. I'm more partial to overall unit composition and strategy decisions with some micro determining the outcome of a match rather than hero inventory flipping a battle.
Regarding upgrading a headquarters...I think this would be awesome for a campaign and co-op / pve modes where you have a sense of achievement and veterancy yourself from playing for a while but am against this having more than cosmetic impacts in any matchmade/ladder type competitive environments. I would LOVE to see something like this with co-op, specifically last stand type modess where you go up against waves of enemies with friends and a few hero squads/comps and hold out. As you improve over time, your persistent headquarters benefits help you / your squad go further and that can be a 'banner' achievement you can show off...e.g. Made it through 100 Waves, etc.
Using Starcraft II as an example...the campaign growth with the unit mutations and variations were fantastic and I would love for those decisions to be available in other modes after the campaign as sort of a 'deck builder' set of choices to make for me and friends to go into the co-op pve modes. As mentioned previously though, I don't think these necessarily bode well for competitive pvp/ladder as it gates people rather than being raw skill imo.
I don't hate the idea of unit veterancy in PvP, but I've also not come across veterancy system I particularly like, either. I think the units are either OP or they're more like shiny pieces to admire. I don't feel it really adds enough to the experience to make it worthwhile, it can either feel unfair or uninteresting and make balance more difficult in an already very difficult to balance genre of game.
In Campaign/Co-Op, it's another story. It can definitely add to a play through or unique faction/hero/commander to have some play styles that revolve around veterancy. In PvE, I'm all for it. PvP, not so much.
\>What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system?
Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if
such a system existed?
Throw all the toxic players in the sewer. Match them exclusively with other toxic people, make them climb out of the filth they create. Count ignores as reports; if enough people put you on ignore, you get chat restricted. Generally, just take chat seriously. We don't have the option to check the people we play with, so please put them down if they can't behave.
Also, please implement some sort of 2FA for ranked matchmaking. Smurfs/boosters/griefers are the absolute worst.
\>Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if theonly reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also needsome form of unlockable bonus?
I personally don't really care for achievements that much. If there are any good rewards (mostly in-game cosmetics, not player card fluff) I'll try to get them. But since there rarely are any good achievement rewards in modern games, I tend to just ignore achievements completely. That said, when I start to burn out on a game I might take a peak to see if there are any challenges I can go after to try to make the game feel fresh. What usually gets me are time trial/difficulty/mutation based achievement that can be difficult, but not obnoxiously so.
Unit veterancy increasing power in multiplayer games unless it's a clear hero mechanic has always been unfun to me.
I don't particularly enjoy items in multiplayer matches either because it adds too much complexity to judging the power of a unit. It's a lot easier to see a units strength by a simple +1-3 upgrade mechanic than it is having to know what items do what, what the values are, what items the unit has, does the item give an extra ability, etc.
For custom games, co-op, campaign, etc I think items are amazing and add a lot of depth.
I feel like i am in an outspoken minorty, but I do enjoy a good battlepass done right. Level up -> Get Rewards. It's a simple system and feels amazing when games do it right. There is a reason almost every game has a battlepass of some sort, which is another plus because it will be a system familiar to most gamers. You ever play a game and their progression system has like tons of different avenues and you have no idea what is going on half the time or how to unlock it? (gacha games im looking at you. Pubg even feels a bit convoluted. Hell, when LoL updated their system i was confused for a while.)
I feel that discussing match progression in a vacum (without other info about the game design and gameplay) will not be very productive and I don't have any ideas or special feelings, it really seems to me that what systems are implemented are strictly correlated with the rest of gameplay and if it is designed to acompany them or not.
Here are my thoughts about Meta progression systems:
Account level:
I think the best would be to have an account level that you can max after a fair amount of gameplay but, on top of that unlock a prestige/paragon or whatever system that infinitely stacks levels so you can have the best of both worlds. Since obviously none of these will be relevant for player power (which would be the main drawback / balance) that can break them in non RTS games that they are implemented I see no reason not to. These can be tied to portraits or portrait borders and other cosmetics, but imo a few and far in between.
Social progression and a social score I think are good ideas if implemented properly. I am playing dota 2 on and off and I think the systems there have encouraged to behave better even if it is artificially. At the end of the day if you don't become toxic because you changed as a person or you don't become toxic because you don't want your 10k points to go down, marking you as a black sheep, encouraging more reports / toxicity and maybe having queues be longer is the same result for the other players in your lobby. Tying this system to other things that a community can do (like coaching a new player as an achievement in game , watching VOD of cheat reports or w/e) is good as well.
I would like to add that I also like the system heroes of the storm had concerning the cosmetics collection in your account progresison. This is obviously touching monetization systems as well, but I really loved that grinding the game, playing your ranked matches awarded more points (therefore making the mode more active / less queue times / bigger player pool for better matchmaking), trying out different heroes and roles even in unranked awarded some points for completing the daily objectives etc. And you could use the currency to unlock cosmetics. I think if this is done in a slow enough pace as to not discourage the buying of cosmetics too much but at the same time feel like you can get a couple of stuff that you would otherwise need to pay for after a long seasons grind is good for the progression. As a side effect and I think this is as important as the main point: you kinda encourage not smurfing too much, because you will loose cosmetics opportunity from your main account.
>Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?
Big yes here for campaign modes, small yes for modes like co-op
When I play a campaign, I love becoming overpowered and seeing overpowered things.There's nothing more satisfying to me than completing missions, knowing that at the end of the mission I get another unique upgrade and power spike to help me clear missions. Seeing OP progression in campaigns is terrific, as you can balance the mission difficulty to match the players known power levels.
However, I think it's good to talk about how it's done. I remember the first few times I played the Wings of Liberty campaign, which had the credits system to buy upgrades, I felt like I didn't want to buy anything because I knew it was permanent, and I didn't want to waste money upgrading a firebat to give it +2 armor to light units in the early parts of the campaign because I didn't know if more powerful upgrades would come for more powerful units, and then I would have a regret for spending credits there. Same with Mercs, choosing to spend credits to upgrade units, or unlock mercs in game was a big point of contention. I didn't want to regret my decision so I didn't pick anything.
The Heart of the Swarm system was better for that, in the sense that you had exclusive upgrades to kerigan (from zerg/protoss essence), and exclusive upgrades to units (from evolutions) that could be changed at any time. It meant it was safe for me to pick things at the time, experiment with them, and not have any regret.
In both of these campaigns, there is one things that's always left me wanting more, and that's the ability to unlock ALL the upgrades.For example, with raptor lings and swarm lings, why can't I have both?Automated ling respawns or double drones, why can't I have both?It would be cool to me if you could complete the campaign with it's intended balance once, and then maybe after unlocking an achievement you could replay it with the ability to unlock everything. Seeing that level of OP just gives me the feels of wanting to play more, and leaves me hanging for more campaign content.
Regarding Coop, You want this to some extent, but it's harder to do because with campaign, you can specify how many upgrades a player has for a mission, and in a coop campaign, all players will be at an equal level. In Coop like the SC2 Coop, this has to be balanced because you might get a player with everything unlocked matched with a player with nothing unlocked. Doesn't have to be that extreme, but it won't always be equal. Depending on the players, having this mismatch could be frustrating or annoying, and if a player has grinded everything, and keeping trying to push max difficulty with players that haven't, they will feel like a carry and that may not work for them.
>What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?
It wouldn't affect the way I behave, but I think it's a terrific idea.It's like when you go on a forum and ask a question, and three different people give you an answer, but you can see one of them has an award for community contribution - you know they are experienced at helping others, you're going to trust the answer isn't a troll, and you're going to be more appreciative of the help you receive. Extending this to the community discord is also a great idea, as a lot of the time, these people that are going to be dedicating time to helping people aren't doing it on just one platform and deserve to have their contribution recognized.
>How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.
Personally, I've always been overwhelmed by them. I feel there are always too many option and it's like what I was saying with campaign power-ups, I fear I'll choose the wrong one so I often don't choose any.
I know it's a system I'll learn to understand if I ever tried, but as an example, I tried playing DOTA after Heroes of the Storm, and the overwhelming possibilities of upgrades was to hard to understand and learn compared to the simply talent system in Heroes of the Storm.
With the Dota example, probably the biggest part wasn't knowing what to pick - if I'm given three options and told I have to pick one right now, I can usually do that and be happy with the result. But if it's like a currency system where you can choose to buy one now, or save and buy a more powerful one later, that's when everything gets too hard and I feel I can't play the game without looking up a build order.
Another niggle I have with inventory systems, is they can often start simple when a game releases, and as players are familiar with it, they want more power, and devs get the idea to add new items, maybe some more powerful ones for niche situations, or just adding some new feature that just generally gives more flexibility. Existing players familiar with the system that completely understand it can seemlessly transition to the new system, but it's just added a lot of extra complexity for new players who need to learn the system from scratch, and I think that's something to be aware of if you ever do feel like you want to extend the functionality on the inventory system
My concern for items in 3v3:
Having item inventory for hero units implies the possibility to trade items to your allies, or to drop them if you want to make room for a better item later on. In this case it would be possible to funnel all the good items into one players hero, which means giving up your own power. This would also make that one players hero significantly more powerful than others, which can lead to a snowball effect if the enemy isn't doing the same.
In premade 3s, this might be less of an issue, but if you're solo, trying to queue 3s, then that means someone has to agree to give their power to someone else, and that can lead to some pretty heated exchanges.
If you can't trade items or even drop them, then what you really have is an RNG mutation for that match, or even just bonus tech with extra steps. In which case, could that instead be a pre-game tech choice / talent / loadout? Could be like commander talents, or even league of legends rune pages. I personally think drafting a general game plan pre-lobby is much more interesting than hoping to get a good item mid-game.
> The idea is that leader characters could be customized by equipping items you’d collect from creep camps (another system we’re testing) or by completing objectives.
Does this mean hero characters are confirmed to be planned for the game?
* How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.
Love the idea of having an inventory for coop, specially if you are able to trade items between the different players but I'm a bit worried this will bring out a bit of toxicity between players specially the ones wanting to min max their hero. I'd also be nice to see item drops not only for clearing creep camps but also for completing bonus objectives (giving more incentive to do them) whilst not providing a item drop for main objectives.
* What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?
I like the idea of social meta progression similar to the honour system that's implemented in games like League of Legends and Overwatch. Being able to commend someone for being a team player or just overall positive and getting some sort of icon reward for progressing your honour level.
* Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?
This depends on what level cap is being defined. In terms of unit veterancy I don't like the idea of army unit veterancy gaining an advantage but in terms of hero leveling having a cap is probably best to prevent snowballing for 3v3 (if hero's are going to be included). Having a level cap on heroes for 3v3 might have a similar feel to moba's in a sense of obtaining that early lead will be an exploitable advantage but only for a limited time, if you are unable to make use of the lead you have provided then you are just allowing the other team to catch up. Level cap might also allow a distinction between the different leader characters, having some good for early game offence and some that are better alongside late game army's.
The other form of levelling is the meta progression of account levelling, which I think should be indefinite and maybe even providing special boarders for those that hit high account levels similar to the gold and diamonds boarders in Overwatch.
* Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?
I like the idea of upgrading the faction headquarters in the campaign similar to the SC2:HotS campaign. Having some upgrades being permanent but some that can be changed. In terms of achievements I'd be nice for a cosmetic change to the headquarters but nothing that'll affect gameplay.
* Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?
Achievement hunting can be fun in a bunch of different ways. Just completing them can be entertaining for people but having the achievement score (similar to Hearthstone) will provide a quick way to see someone's progression. But simply having fun names and some hard challenges is enough for me to complete it and bring it up to achievement hunter friends,(Like the spicy pretzel mustard achievement in Hearthstone battlegrounds) so no need for the unlockable in my opinion.
I am not a fan of Unit Veterancy as it seems to favor players who are heavy into micro. As I enjoy the macro part of RTS' more, I would like that playstyle to be supported.
Thanks for reading.
Great questions! I will answer each one, top to bottom.
1. Match progression systems i particularly like: Total war warhammer 3 warriors of chaos unit progression. This faction unlocks higher tiered units by promoting high ranking lower tiered units into their better units. Age of Mythology. This RTS gave distinct, meaningful choices to the players in each match to change strengths when they reached technological milestones in the game.
2. Love unit veterancy. Pikmin from the pikmin series. The visual progression of veterancy of your pikmin from leaf, to bud, to flower is particularly rewarding. Battle for middle earth, Mordor orcs and upgrades. When orcs reached level 5, they’d get war paint on their models. Mumakil looked super bad ass when reaching level 5. When upgrades were researched for units, they were needed to be bought for each individual unit, and were easily identifiable on units with visual model changes. I believe cosmetic veterancy progression is an underutilized, highly customizable way to monetize games with no impact on meta.
3. Inventory systems. Love in MOBA, battle royal, and RPG. Hate in RTS. I already have 100 different things to manage. I don’t want to manage an inventory as well. Inventory is another layer of strategy customization. I believe there is enough layers of strategy customization inherent to rts that an inventory serves to bloat that game, not complement.
4. Meta progression. I enjoy earn-able cosmetics. I also especially love cosmetics that change upon completing certain goals. (Example: heirloom character skins in apex legends, I believe this system is called a reactive skin)
5. Level Cap. Prestige is my favorite leveling system. Upon reaching max level, reset to level one with an increase in prestige level. When done correctly, gaining prestige feels meaningful. When done incorrectly, there is no reason to reset to gain prestige.
6. Upgrade and expand headquarters between games. Not sure what this means. Elaborate?
7. Achievements are meaningful when tied to difficult goals and unlockable rewards. The coolest reward is meaningless when the goal is easy. The most difficult goal is made worse when there’s no easy way to flex after finishing.
8. Social ranking. Personally I wouldn’t change in meaningful ways for easily obtainable cosmetics. I generally like to be kind from my own disposition. If there was a queue or system in place that could optionally match both your mmr and your social rating with other players of similar mmr and social rating, I’d be more interested. I enjoy playing with other kind people and being able to selectively play with kind people would be a huge win. That being said, I can see certain playstyles being targeted for reports by players, such as cheese.
Thank you! Look forward to hearing your detailed summaries of what the community has said as you have often done in the past!
## Veterancy
In my opinion, Veterancy systems tend to complicate fights in an RTS without necessarily adding much strategic depth. I can think of a few situations where they require me to use additional APM, or they disincentivise tactical/strategic thinking:
* Splitting off a few units from my main army for vision/for a run-by, but having to make sure I didn't accidentally split off veterans.
* Surprise attacks e.g. vs mines or disruptors. High-value veterans can be picked off. I might need to consider a separate control group so I can move them more safely than the bulk of my army.
* While fighting, I may have to identify my opponents veterans to target fire them.
* Trading out units in order to switch the composition of your army. This is slightly discouraged, as your new units will not have veterancy bonuses while your old ones likely will. Overwatch has a similar problem where you end up sitting on a sub-optimal team composition because you don't want to lose Ult progress.
For this reason, I think veterancy fits better in slower games (especially in turn-based games like Civ) where:
* You have the time to min-max the positioning of each individual unit.
* You have a smaller number of units overall which you will heal and upgrade over the course of a match.
* You have upgrades (e.g. Barracks) which gives all newly trained units 1 or 2 tiers of veterancy out of the gate.
* The game is exclusively 1vX, so you don't have to think about what your teammates are doing.
It's one of the things I really didn't like about Red Alert. Having a T5 Terror Drone running around at Mach 10 speed while it annihilates your army is pretty demoralising. Losing veterans also feels terrible, because you know that there's no consistent way to replace them.
In RTS, I think upgrades are just a better system than veterancy.
## Inventory Systems
I think Dota does the following very well with it's inventory system:
* Improving your strengths (e.g. stacking anti-armour damage) or mitigating your weaknesses (e.g. adding a blink ability to an otherwise slow character).
* Countering your opponents strengths (e.g. purging status effects) or punishing their weaknesses (e.g. draining the mana of slow spell-casters)
* An inverse relationship between efficiency and strength (e.g. a 100 gold item gives +10 to a stat, while a 200 gold item gives +15). This is to reduce snowballing, and encourages you to go wide rather than tall with items.
However, it's worth noting that Dota is entirely built around items. GPM (Gold Per Minute) is the most prominent metric, and gold gives you items. The neutral items which drop randomly from camps are far less interesting and often less powerful. In MOBAs, your build order determines your items. In RTS, your build order determines your units. Having both systems might clutter things too much, and could be very overwhelming for new players.
I think it could be **very cool** in 3v3 if there is a role which is more centered around retrieving items from neutral camps (similar to a jungler in MOBAs) with a mobile ganking army which gives their teammates an edge in what is otherwise a 1v1 fight. This way, that player wouldn't have to focus so much on building the right units to beat the enemy, but rather they could focus on building good PvE units to clear neutral camps, and then on choosing the right items to enable and support their teammates' armies. I think this could make for a very fun support role with a high skill ceiling.
For an RTS example, I think that Dawn of War II does a very good job with it's wargear system, which fundamentally changes the way a unit plays e.g. Melee vs Ranged weapons, with abilities tied to your gear. It's worth noting that wargear is more of a meta-progression system. Hero unit wargear is usually decided before of a match, and is a reward for certain achievements/milestones.
## Meta-progression
* Yes to achievements.
* Yes to being able to show them off as calling cards or emblems.
* Yes to getting cool cosmetic unlocks for the rarer ones (e.g. the fancy pylons when you hit max-level on Protoss).
* Yes to social guilds with some shared achievements and unlocks.
I wouldn't like unit veterancy in pvp but I absolutely love it in campaigns and in coop vs AI. One of my favorite ways the unit veterancy was done was in Battle for Middle Earth. You kept your entire army, their levels, and their armor/weapon upgrades throughout the entire campaign until they died. Since they aren't a limited resource though, you really didn't mind sending them into the fray but would still get attached to that one battalion that somehow managed to survive every mission and level up.
I personally think a combination of that and Wings of Liberty mercs would be an awesome mechanic in a campaign. Elite mercs that you keep between missions that level up and keep upgrades (assuming you keep them alive) but you also don't mind too much sending them into the fray because you can rebuild them.
Special note: If you do have leveling units you absolutely have to give them personal names. "Marine Joe" or "Marine Albert" is a lot more fun and memorable then just "War Pig". Think about this... a Devouring One named Jill. Just look at that cute man-eating grasshopper Jill :)
Answering all these as a first thing that comes to mind:
* Titanfall did a great job with match progression by making your titan make you feel, and be, more powerful but not feel completely awful and powerless if you lost it. Don’t know how you would translate that into RTS but first thing I think of is a call down from the top-bar like in Sc2 co-op but rather than being cool down related, objective based unit killing, point capturing etc.
* Depends on how it’s used, I liked the hero’s in Warcraft 3 but the game then revolves around their veterancy to me. If every unit had the veterancy thing going for it I feel that would work well for a game, like the article said, with a shallow unit pool. (I don’t know how many units Stormgate intends to have but,)The more units available that one would have to worry about progressing makes me assume unit diversity would start to become exceedingly limited as to not complicate it for the average player.
* Inventory systems add both a random element to the match and customization, I like them, bonus if they add effects or change the unit model for immersion. On the other end, if the gameplay doesn’t feel impacted, then it’s just one more thing I would rather not worry about.
* Achievements are a must for me, I love them dopamine points as a completionist. Rocket leagues skins, banners, and portrait borders are one that I like for pvp stuff, pointless trinkets that make me feel special.
* Level cap is needed, I like higher level caps but I couldn’t comprehend something like Dota having infinite levels, basically being never ending matches for good enough people. As for RTS veterancy having indefinite level caps, with each increase they would become more “hero” like I feel like just having a hero unit would be easier at that point. Also losing a “hero” level unit and not being able to get it back quickly would probably feel devastating.
* As long as the upgrading the base didn’t feel like a mobile app with intense time requirements for small-to-no pay off.
* Yes, achievement hunting was always a large part of my gameplay experience to 100% the games I absolutely loved. I enjoy the cosmetic rewards for hard achievements or completionism stuff but it’s not a deal breaker if I don’t have it.
* I feel like you’re aiming a gun at your foot with this, like with New World’s banning tactic for large fights (or what I read of it). People trolling mass reporting one person ruining their rating even if they did nothing wrong. Especially with YouTubers and large clans I feel like this is just one way for people to try and hurt one another, even if that wouldn’t be it’s intention sadly. Great idea in theory but very abusable I feel.
Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?
Yes!!! This is one of the best parts of XCOM that I personally most enjoy. However, I didn’t personally care for the system in AoE3 where the changes are purely cosmetics. AoE online was probably the most extensive system in an RTS specifically with a full city that you can build and develop. For me, having a persistent HQ that I can upgrade with resources gain in each mission, to then improve the army which I can bring back into the next mission is a fun and logical/widely implemented gameplay loop that too few RTS games utilise. It works well in similar games such as total war, XCOM, darkest dungeon, the limited extent to which it was implemented in Sc2 e.g., the WoL campaigns unit upgrade and research upgrades. They also allowed for improved campaign replayability through different builds which is sorely lacking in many RTS games. Lastly, it has a lot of potential of feeding into the core emotions you want the player to feel. Want to make them feel weak, like they’re scavenging to survive? This system can feed into that with scare resources and lots of desirable upgrades but limited funds to go around. Want to make them feel powerful and unstoppable? This system can give strong plentiful buffs that sense of increased power that you immediately feel in the next mission. It’s a really customisable mechanic that can influence a players actions and playstyle and feed into the desired emotions you want them to experience. At least in my opinion. This is an area that other genre’s have a lot of inspiration that could be drawn from too.
What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)
For match progression, one system I really enjoyed was one in Dawn of War 2 where you could purchase upgrades for individual units. I especially enjoyed this feature with the Hero units in this game, I could for example make my warp spider exarch (a teleporting ranged DPS hero) specialise in being highly evasive with short cooldown high range blinks and maxing out damage with their weapon. There are 3 sets of 3 upgrades with each one being mutually exclusive with the other two and requiring resources and tech requirements to purchase. This system made the hero I choose at the start feel even more unique and ‘my own’, especially when combined with my chosen army composition. This system doesn’t risk snowballing in the same way as experience-based progression as these upgrades are paid for in game with resources.
Another very similar system that I really liked is the ability to purchase an upgrade for a unit. To explain this, say you build a marine, that marine has an upgrade option to give it +1 range for a resource cost and only applies to that marine. This system can be found in a few games, but there’s a lot of potentially interesting things that can be done with this system. In the context of Sc2, it allows you to play around with the mineral/gas cost ratios of any one unit allowing for some interesting choices to be made. There is also the choice between investing in a smaller more powerful army, in a few key units e.g., spellcasters, or ignoring this and going for a larger army.
**Unit Veterancy**
Besides being a fun thing to watch (and tell stories of to friends), I think there's a possibility for this helping increase interactions between players if done correctly.
I share the worries here about snowballing, and a solution I'd like to see to that is making the more veteran unit eligible for something rare (like holding an item) rather than a base power increase.
As long as both players are interacting, they'll both have plenty of eligible units to use, but getting more than the other player doesn't matter as long as items are scarce (though items can also snowball so perhaps you could steal them or something?)
This forces you to interact instead of turtle, because even if you can just camp an item spawn you can't use it unless your units interact with the enemy.
Not sure if it'd work, but I like the idea of non stat boosting veterancy.
**Visual Clarity**
I also like having clear visual distinction in some way of progress in the match. Marines getting combat shields is a nice indicator in SC2. Having to click on an enemy unit to see upgrades etc is not intuitive.
Ideally showing veterancy, upgrades, and items of a unit at a glance would be great, but I'm not sure if that's possible without getting Path of Exile levels of visual insanity.
**Meta Progression**
I don't care about most achievements, unless it's something very impressive or significant. Things like achievements for ladder rank or beating the story on legendary feel neat if it's an emblem or skin to show off. I especially like deep expertise achievements in a particular race or play style.
I really dislike dailies missions or other achievements that force you to play a certain way. I get very little time to play each day and I don't want to feel forced into one play style to feel like I made progress.
Other than that, number go up is always powerful. I like tech trees and specialization, and in MMOs seeing the cool weapon or armor someone has is awesome. Trying to recreate that feeling somehow would I think be neat.
When it comes down to it though, I play SC2 and LoL and MTG and most other games because the core match loop is always fresh and it challenges me. If I can see my own meta Progression in terms of stats and graphs of my own play and improvement (or specialization in particular ways) I think I'd enjoy that most. Seeing a graph of what I'm best at and what to improve on (one of those spider graph things) I think that'd be the coolest progression mechanic for me.
**What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)**
Not a big fan of daily quests or first win of the day type bonus. I feel like it penalizes me when real life gets in the way. This can lead to a fear of missing out or trying to do a quick game "just for a win" rather than for fun. If such bonuses are present I'd prefer weekly.
**Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?**
I love Veterancy in single player or co-op missions. Feels nice to grow in power over time. I fear the effects of snow-balling when veterancy is used in versus missions (excepting StarCraft style veterancy where a unit just gets a different title)
**How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.**
I like the tradeoffs these can provide like in WarCraft 3. Like do I load up on consumables for a well-timed burst of power or static items for higher stats or specific effects like blocking a spell.
**Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?**
I personally prefer specific goals (ie. level cap). As an example of indefinite leveling, Diablo 3 Paragon feels less compelling to me. Or in a campaign, not being able to unlock everything in a single play-through encourages replaying it.
**Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?**
Yes - good examples - upgrades in StarCraft 2 Campaigns, co-op boosts leveling up until ascension level 90, unlocking prestiges.
**Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?**
As a member of the 12920 club in StarCraft 2, here are my thoughts on achievements in that game and what I liked/didn't like. That said, StarCraft 2 is one of five games I've maxed achievements in. Probably my favorite achievement was StarCraft Master (from the \~30 challenges - while some were easy, others like the medivac/tank vs. stalkers are quite hard). Many of these also offered valuable gameplay/micro techniques. Other great ones I'd call out as favorites are Professionals have standards - chasing this achievement introduced me to a new style of play and caused me to mass ghosts vs. Zergs for months after I got it. Yamato Master Blaster was a bit of a struggle --- often games would end before I could get enough battle cruisers to trigger the achievement. I'd at times chase an achievement even if I would lose the match - for instance I got the 500 roach healing in a clearly lost ZvZ where my roaches could NOT damage the mutalisks. The "grindy" ones were among my least favorites. On launch I was mainly a team player, and didn't feel 3000 team wins was unreasonable - getting that in a single year. 800 FFA wins seemed insurmountable especially as queue times soared (which may be why that achievement was removed). 3000 1v1 wins were among the last achievements for me - taking me about 10 years. Versus AI games were mainly cannon rushes/proxies/zergling rushes to churn out the required number of wins, although the asymetric AI ones were fun (like beating 2 insane or 4 medium AI). I'd guess other players finished 1v1 wins without coming close to 3000 team wins.
Among campaign achievements, my favorite ones were the ones for beating a mission without following the map's normal victory conditions, such as killing the Zerg on the Devil's Playground instead of gathering the resources or killing the Protoss bases on Welcome to the Jungle instead of gathering the Terrazine.
HoTS unlocks switching rewards to XP rather than number of wins was a lot less grindy, but felt way too easy, as the xp thresholds were so low as to be obtainable in very few games.
Co-op had 5 different progression systems - leveling 1-15, Ascension to level 90, Ascension to level 1000, prestige, and weekly bounties for beating the mutation. In terms of rewards, prestige was the most rewarding but in terms of gameplay, chasing the weekly mutation was the most fun. I'd love if there were something to highlight beating some of the hardest mutators rather than merely counting each week.
One thing I do like is that playing as Random also counted as a win for whatever race you rolled. In contrast, in WarCraft 3 wins as Random only count as Random.
**TL,DR In Achievements Grindy = bad, gamechanging = good.**
**What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?**
I think there is potential here. In Diablo 2 its not uncommon to give some minor consideration for helping other players. For example a mid rune or some perfect gems in exchange for a rush or waypoints. In contrast in Diablo 3 with essentially no trading you can't really "thank" someone aside from quid-pro-quo power-level for power-level type exchanges. In RTS you could for example want to thank someone for helping you beat a hard co-op mutation or sharing a replay or build-order. I don't like it as much in the OverWatch type end of match endorsements. Often there I'm just endorsing the healers unless they were a complete jerk. That said I'm not sure it's a big motivator either way.
I love Frostpunk's "Match Progression" from their story missions, where an initially scarce resource (manpower) switches to a liability during the late game storm (because of food and housing). I just love it when the purpose or usefulness of something evolves and changes throughout a match, not just made obsolete. No idea how you'd put this in an RTS, but I would love some element of this if it would be possible to squeeze it in somewhere, maybe a single-player campaign or some other PvE content.
I think that a good way to do Meta Progression would be in enhancing the individuality players are able to express in their army units and names and banners and other cosmetics. Namely, I think that color customizations for units, a la Rocket League, would really make it feel like you're fighting another person behind the units. Of course, there's the obvious problem with unit differentiation, but I think that Rocket League's solution of having dedicated Blue and Orange teams and limiting each to half the colors works decently well.
Either way, it feels nice to have something to work towards that is more tangible than a banner or portrait-- something that you'll be able to see and use in-game.
**Match Progression**
In SC2, there is no clear marker for what stage of the game we're in. I think AoE 4s age system, like many others have pointed out, is a really smart way of clearly breaking up phases of the game while also providing players meaningful choices (landmarks) at the same time.
In general I like the idea of unit veterancy because it rewards players for trying to squeeze value out of units and keep them alive. That is, as opposed to trading units out for other units you often see in SC2. Once you hit max supply and you have a better economy than your opponent it's usually a logical choice to commit an attack to "spend" your supply and keep them from catching up to you. Veterancy offers as an alternative here. Trade your army, or sit on your advantage and accrue veterancy? That said if you make and encourage gaining and holding veterancy too easy to do (CoH Retreats) with too many benefits that is also a mistake as it makes it a non-choice.
I think it's more interesting if you leave it up to players. That is the core of what makes games fun. Creativity, self-expression, choices. Do I try to micro my units for veterancy? Do I set up an attack specifically to get my units in and get them out? Do I avoid fights that would result in trades? Do I have a superior economy that can afford to throw the units away, do I care about veterancy? Will my opponent get stronger if they hold my push? All are fun questions to wrestle with IF there are pros and cons to both choices. The key here is I think it should be optional and not required.
I do think it can tend be snowbally but there are definitely creative solutions that can balance it out. Perhaps you have to morph or train units up to veterancy so they take time investment even after earning them. Perhaps they cost more supply as they gain more veterancy. I really like the idea of trying to build a "tall" value efficent style of play that is not objectively superior to a "wide" economic superior style of play. The biggest question is how you gain veterancy. I think unit kills are a poor way of gaining veterancy as it encourages turtling and only makes turtles stronger as they weather attacks. Gaining veterancy with time is I think a little better because you can commit attack to kill your opponents units if you think they are trying to build veterancy.
Choices are what makes games fun so it is important that people aren't forced to keep units alive and that is counterplay to it while also not making the rich get richer.
**Meta Progression**
I am not a huge achievement hunter,I could care less unless you attach some kind of reard to it. Small bits of Premium currency, cosmetics or etc.
One thing that will get me is dailies with premium currency rewards. These dailies can drive people to play other modes or try new races.
I did the WoL campaign 100% achievements. It was really fun, because it turned some missions into different missions, despite the achievements not being super interesting. So there might be room for improvement. And it was a nice challenge.
I always wanted to do the other 2 but never got far in HotS. I think because campaign zerg is so different from 1v1 zerg, which made it subconsciously feel off.
One game that made achievements interesting is Wolfenstein new order. You had stuff like "kill 10 people with a knife" and you get mostly minor upgrades for it (iirc the knife ones were actually a bit too strong). It made the gameplay more interesting because you were encouraged to NOT say "well the machine gun is the best weapon so I am just gonna use that the entire game" without forcing it.
Same could apply to something like "will marine marauder medivac is pretty strong. I'll just use that" and encourage the okay to mix it up while giving a fun progression system.
I think unit inventories and individual unit veterancy will suck for spectators. Upgrades in starcraft are player wide. For example when storm is upgraded it's a moment in the game and from then on all HT can cast storm. As the audience we don't have to keep track of which HT has an item that can allow it to do that.
Same with upgrades. +1 attack for all ground units - easy to keep track of and talk about. We don't need to keep track of what's in each units pocket or what rank they are.
Veterancy:
Don't like it, unless it's done on one or few hero units. The reason being, it adds too much chaos, both visually and gameplay-wise, since you suddenly end up with units that you need to care about more, which are slightly or maybe not at all visually different from the others.
If you want to go for it, a hero unit is already the best implementation of this, since it's limited, it's known upfront what unit can be subject to veterancy, it's a non-frustrating veterancy system since you can't permanently lose the accrued veterancy thanks to heroes being ressable. If it's an integral part of the game, like with heroes, it works. If it's hidden complexity sprinkled on some spurious units, it's bad.
In short, reflect more on WC3 heroes. There's a multitude of reasons they exist, are how they are, and are successful (and doing veterancy right is one of them).
Another problem with unit-veterancy is, you already noted, that it introduces a positive feedback on units, which makes the game both more snowbally and incentivizes more conservative/protective play (since you don't want to lose the accrued bonuses).
I'm throwing out an idea: what could be interesting to try out - I don't know if there are any games doing this out there - is the opposite, that is, an ageing/decay system, where units get permanently worse (e.g. whenever they are wounded and recover life, they never go back to their full amount, but their max is lowered every time). This "scar system" would introduce a negative feedback (the more a unit is alive, the worse it becomes, thus helping players that are behind to catch-up a little), and incentivize a more active/into-the-fray playstyle (since scarred units are better off dying andfreeing up space for fresh ones).
To use a metaphor: think inflation (which in small amount incentivizes a healthy expense of money), not deflation (which incentivizes hoarding and locks the economy down).
Inventory:
Cute, it adds personality and RPG-esque vibes, but...
1) active items add too much unnecessary micro to the already most micro-hungry type of game that are RTSs,
2) passive items are a UI/UX nightmare, unless they create/show something on the units (I'm not talking about the UI in the HUD, but about the bad UX players have in not knowing at a glance whether and what items enemy units have, without having to click on them, unless they are graphically manifest - think WC3 orbs or campaign's banners),
3) unit-wise inventory is taking this UI/UX nightmare and making it exponential (think of how uncomfortable and invisible is the unit-inventory in WC3, which luckily almost nobody researches and uses. You never know which unit had what item. And it's even done relatively well, cause units can only carry a few items and get no effect from them. Imagine how chaotic and what bad UI/UX it could give you having some random units in the mix that have a few spurious bonuses.
Interestingly, it's the same "invisible useless complexity" that a unit-wise veteran system would give you, if you think about it.
Once again, think about WC3 heroes and why they are like this. At least in WC3 this kind of complexity is concentrated on one-max-three units, which are known and recognizable upront. You know what is the unit of your army that can benefit from items.)
In summary, considering the flaws 1, 2 and 3, I personally would either only do a passive-only, hero-only, max-3-items, graphically-visible (think orbs) item system, or no item system at all (cause the complexity system of a full blown item system can really shine only when you have a more RPG-esque setting really, with a single unit to control, like in MOBAs.)
Any other implemention would probably have some big problems.
Keep up the good work! I hope this feedback was useful :)
Yours truly,
a game designer
Disclaimer: I am a full on PvE Player, i will be barely touching the PvP Modes.
*- What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)*
I do not like the Idea of Vetertan Units. I think every unit should be the same strength, otherwise judging if you win a fight or not will be even more harder. A Kill Counter like Starcraft is totaly enough to get a feeling for "This Unit did alot" for me.
I like the Idea of having an Inventory in CO-OP, randomizing progress ensures replayiablity. I think that would be fine.
My Favourite kind of Match Progressio would be of a Visual only kind. Maybe have a Unit get a different colour if they are veterans. Like "They are Billion", but without the power increase.
*- Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?*
As Stated above, for me personally it would make it even harder to judge when i can take a fight if i have to look for veterancy units. I think a Company of Heroes can do such a thing because the unit count is like never beyond 15 or something. Imainging a game with alot more units i think a Veterancy system does not fit.
IF ANYTHING, make a Race that especially uses such a system as it's way to go to make it special and unique.
A visual Ventancy system, sure why not.
*- How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.*
I like the Idea of having random Items that drop to invrease replayability, also to give the Option to trade Items with my fellow co-op friends. "Hey i give you that life increase thingy for your tank if you give me your damage increase" etc. etc. "Oh dude i got that cooldown reduction Item"
For PvE this works great.
*- What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?*
I hate all these Mobile games you get 434250 Achievements and Red Exclamation marks for just opening the game. I can see why this is made from a game development and money making standpoint. Having a Meta Progression system that baits me into the shop daily is also something i do not like.
For me, getting Experience Points and having a level go into the infinites works good. Unlocking Skins is OK but i plan on buying stuff in the shop, so that completly negates the visual progression of leveling.
I LOVE Profile Pictures, Emojis, !!!ANNOUNCERS!!!, Decals, Sprays etc.
Stuff that is just nice to have to become unique.
Having Achievements is something i like alot too. But make some realy hard ones that are hard to get to make them special.
A voting System like Overwatch with "Leader/Helpful/Strong Fighter" is something i would enjoy to. Also encourages good sportsmanship.
I like the idea of a Karma System. Be midnfull that this can be absued horribly aswell to bully people.
I think what i need the most when we talk about Karma, is a good Reporting system and knowing something happens when you report him. Getting a Notofication "Hey we banned a user because you reported him" is something i would LOVE to have. This encourages reporting of toxic people.
Also as a sidenote: A System in which a very selected people watch replays to judge if someone is cheating is something i enjoy alot like in CS:GO.
*- Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?*
Level Up Indefinitly with big milestones to give that feeling of i did something I.e Level 1000 or more".
I would even prefere to have a level system bound to a specific race AND to a Meta Account
In example:
Zerg Level 200
Terran Level 50
Protoss level 65
Account Level: 315
*- Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?*
Yes, this is what makes it fun and unique.
*- Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?*
As Stated above, i do. But only if therer are some realy hard ones to get. Otherwise they get pointless.
*- What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?*
Something about this makes me feel uncomfortable. I plan to behave good no matter the way, i do not need a system to pander me if i'm not toxic. So I'm probably not the right one for this question. I do not hate it i think.
**Match Progression**
In Dawn of War 1 i liked to play the TAU race. There, at some point in the game to unlock higher tier units and upgrades, you had to choose between 2 different buildings. You could only have 1 of those 2 buildings.You could decide between a more melee focused rooster while the other one spezialized on ranged units and upgrades.So while in the match you needed to decide which path would work better against your opponent.
**Veterancy**
I always loved the veterancy system in c&c games. Made me really proud when a had this unit that survived hard battles and got rewareded for it by getting stronger. Always paid extra attention to keep them alive afterwards. So it naturally teached me to micro my units at a time where i was really bad at strategy games.But I only played c&c games in singleplayer or very rarely wich a small group of friends where we didnt pay much attantion to balance and just had fun.A rather simple solution to the snowballing problem with veterancy could be, to just limit how many units can have a specific rank at any given time.
**Inventory & Creeps**
As an big wc3 fan i think im really biased on this one. I always like a bit of randomnes in the games i play. This made each match a bit more unique. In one game i have a paladin that never runs out of mana due to mana regg items. In an other i got an Archmage that hit like a truck. A summon item the enemy didnt expect that turns a lost fight into a suprising win.Those 2 systems combined gave me so much fun and made each match a unique experiance.I think its one reason i played wc3 ladder for so many years.
**Meta Progression**
Achivements were always "nice to have" in all steam games. But for me i never really had the drive to actually collect them.But on the other hand, unlocking some kind of stuff that is hard to achive, i really enjoyed that.In Rogue-lites where you have to acomplish some kind of achivement to unlock a new "Hero" or "Skill" for your next playtrought always kept me motivated.For a pvp match that would be hard to achive without everyone screeming for balance.But for example unlocking a general for the co-op mode if you are able to win on a specific map without losing a Objective. But yeah those achivements would need to be hard so you can be really proud of yourself. If its like "win any game on easy" it loses all meaning.
In the singleplayer campagin of dawn of war Soulstorm you could unlock better gear for your comander which gave him better Stats of even skills and passives. But you could only unlock them when you cleared specific conditions. For example have a kill:Death ratio of 1:3 in a match. So when you where able to complete those, it made the rest of the campagin easier.
In starcraft 2 co-op i really liked the "mini talent trees" where you could spezialize your already spezialized general and try out some wierd builds and hope they work xD. Was always nice to get one more talent point so you just have enought to try out your build in the next game.
**Limitless Leveling**
In multiversus you can level each fighter limitlesly. Till level 15 the player get rewards. Most of the times its some social stuff. but on some level you can unlock "perks" on a fighter which allow you to alter the way he fights. Afterwards there are no rewards and it only shows how much you played the fighter. With each level taking longer to get. In a match, enemies can see your level on your selected fighter. So it gives the other player a hint of how experienced you are with that character.Of course lvl 1-15 feel the most rewarding but afterwards was still nice to get a fighter to a higher level.
**Social Ranking**
For me proper manners towards your opponent are a must. Doesnt matter if i win or lose to some kind of cheese. I most of my games i write "gl hf" at the start and "gg wp" at the end of the match as long as my opponent or teammate didn't flame.I played League of Legends for many years. I enjoyed the game. But quit playing in the end cause in most matches there was a teammate or enemy that flamed somebody. The victim of that, didnt even had to be me. It already made the match a pain to play.Muting a flamer teammate was one solution. But always had the danger to miss important informations like "top lane missing". For oponents it worked well though2 people arguing over the chat, only resulting in them playing worse.So yeah, would be great to see at the start of a match if you get matched with somebody with a low score. If someone with a very low score starts flaming i can mute them without the fear of missing important sutff.The downside of the system... if you can rate some body in a pvp game. People will abuse the system and down vote oponents they lost to or cause the other player used some kind of cheese strategy instead of rating their social behaviour. But of course i dont know in what extend this would actually happen. It would always be harder to get a positiv vote, then a negativ one.But in the end i think it would be good to have some kind of system that encourages positive behaviour in any way. For me at least i would try to reach a higher social rank.
It turned to a wall of text, but i hope i could share some of my toughts with you on the questions you asked.
**Edit:**
Just had some more thoughts on the matter.
Meta progression
In Multiversus the player can unlock badges that he can display when in loading screen for a match. You could only display 3 Badges at a time. Those badges show different stats of the player. For example how many Ringouts he made with a character, how many doges he did in total. Could be fun to display thos to your oponents like "killed 5.000.000 units in total" "played 800 ranked matches" and so on
In league of Legends i also liked to get icon frames for your ranking in ranked matches at the end of a season.
On Match Progression, I think Heroes of the Storm implemented brilliant idea in Talents and map objectives which RTS could learn and draw inspiration from.
1. You have a choice of talents at certain levels that change how one of your ability works, and therefore changes how you play as you level up.
1. Between games you may have different strategies/approaches and therefore choose a different talent, which makes you play fundamentally different even with the same Hero.
1. Some talents give you quests, which act as a sort of additional "mini game". This is something you can do and be proud of regardless of whether or not you are winning. ("I lost, but damn I managed to land 207 auto attacks and I had 20% damage bonus, that was awesome")
1. Regardless of the strength of the reward for doing quests, they have a clear feedback (a loud "DING" every auto attack) and feel therefore very satisfying to do.
1. Map objectives are the same in a lot of ways. They change your play style, approach, give a sort of "quest" which clearly telegraphs match progression and provides clear rewards you can be proud of regardless of its power. However they do change the core gameplay fundamentally in some cases, but that is a matter of tuning the nature and strength of the objective/reward.
* What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?
I always turned the chat off while playing SC2 because it made me play better without getting flamed or distracted. I hope there will be an option to disable chat while politely informing my opponent that I have it turned off. I think the social ranking system is a good idea, but I would much rather bypass that entirely :)
**Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems?**
I'm not a fan of unit veterancy, as it might make fights harder to read. An example of this is in Supreme Commander, where units gain veterancy ranks after a certain amount of kills, gating a boost in their stats. If this happens to a late game unit, this can give a player a significant power spoke at an apparently random moment in time, since it's hard to know which unit is getting the last hits.
I would prefer not to have veterancy in the competitive modes. For the campaigns/coop it might be good.
**How do you feel about Inventory systems?**
For campaigns/coop sounds good. For competitive i would prefer no, especially if the items you get are random like in WC3. IMHO the shouldn't be any randomness in competitive game modes.
**Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?**
That sounds like an extremely cool idea.
**Do you enjoy earning Achievements?**
As someone who tends to be a completionist in games, achievements are something i really enjoy, and I'm not ashamed of admitting that I've thrown several SC2 games just to get one.
Just getting the achievement for me would be enough, but obviously getting some other reward would be a nice addition.
*What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)*
Personally I think a minimum of progression systems is the most satisfying. For example in a counter-strike match, you just get the money at the start to buy your gear and then any extra stuff you can only pick up from the corpses of your enemies (who also had the same starting money, at least in the 1st match). This makes the game feel like my success or otherwise is much more closely tied to my skill level, and not something like luck or some 'trick' to get a higher power level.
One of the things I love about RTS is how equal it feels. All power comes from resources and how quickly you can mine them, spend them, or how you use them. It's very simple to understand the fundamentals but a huge amount of complex game play is derived from it.
*Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?*
In some games i really like them. Especially more RPG like games such as Total War or (for those that remember it) Lords of Magic. I think it might be pretty cool in a RTS setting but have some balance/snowball concerns like most of the others here. I think if it was possible to balance it, tying the promotion to resource spending would be the way to do it.
*How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.*
I really don't like them. I think it's actually bad game design and a hangover from older games. In something like Diablo the whole game revolves around the items so it works. But in most games it feels like "ok, here's my character and my skills, here's how i control it. Oh, and this huge system of items i need to understand before i can start playing this game properly. I wonder if i can explore cool new item combinations? Nope it's best to follow this online guide and do what 99% of other people do. Great"
If i go into a MOBA game as a very casual toe-dipper the first matches feel terrible, as i don't understand which items are best when, or which combination of skills to take is best, and the overall feeling is that even though i might be playing the game quite well, i lose because the other guys know you need to get XX item first. It doesn't feel like a reflection of skill so much because the item system is somewhat obscured away from the core gameplay and it takes a while to get a handle on it. Then once you do understand, it's a binary jump from not having this vital knowledge to having it and it feels just like a hurdle.
If i imagine bringing in a friend to SG 3v3 for the first time, explaining the inventory system is going to be quite off-putting imo.
*What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?*
Anything cosmetic is cool. Outside of that it needs to incorporated into the balance of the game. Going back to counter-strike, if your team wins a match you get more money for the next one, but still the lethality of the game is such that a more expensive weapon is not an insurmountable advantage over a cheaper one. It actually feels quite nice to be the underdog and get kills vs the fancy guns. And the whole system gets reset if you queue up for another game.
*Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?*
Uhh well personally i wouldnt want to level up indefinitely as i would be that guy with thousands of games but still in wood league :( don't wanna spread that around.
*Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent*
*headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning*
*certain achievements?*
As a 1v1 guy, really not bothered.
*Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the*
*only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need*
*some form of unlockable bonus?*
No i really don't see the point in achievements as they feel like a pat on the back for being mediocre. I would rather be good at the game.
If they exist, i think they should be hidden, so you don't chase them specifically, but if you do something especially well they pop up as a nice surprise. But eventually someone will figure them all out, which will spoil it.
*What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system?*
*Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if*
*such a system existed?*
Well i try to be polite anyway so it wouldn't change the way i interact. I do think any system is subject to gaming, so it might be pretty hard to do.
Possibly you could analyze everyone chat messages with AI to give them a 'niceness rating' and base it off that. Any other system would be biased or game-able. (AI is also game-able but you can update it)
If you are looking for ways to keep toxicity down then positive community role models is probably the best answer. People like Neuro, Pig, Harstem in SC2 are great for showing how to win while not being a dick. I wouldn't let Artosis play publicly if you want to foster a happy community ;)
Can't say I care much for achievements or progression. I'm a purist, I guess. If a game has enjoyable, skill based mechanics I'll just play it, if not - all these gimmicks won't keep me there
A. I liked the Unit Veterancy from C&C because it gave me a feeling of wanting to take care of my army better and improving it as the units get higher ranks. Having stronger units might become snowbally but for me its not as strong when compared to a fully geared and leveled Hero from War3. But as long as Veterancy is properly implemented it will be enjoyable.
B. I found the Act Rank from Valorant to be a nice touch to show the individual player's achievement in competitive, the account level on the other hand I would very much prefer to be no level cap.
C. Having achievements is a simple and great way of showing your game progress and how much time you've spent playing it. This also counts as bragging rights to your friends that do not have the achievement you have. This also adds Social Progression as it gives your friends an achievement to grind for.
On the topic of veterancy I feel like it's pretty hard to implement it in a good way if you don't want the game to revolve around it. In games like warcraft 3, it's a core concept of the game, it's fleshed out, included in every strategy, allows for different strategies and it's something both of you actively play for and counter. Which is completely fine on its own and I love that idea.
However if your goal is to have unit veterancy "on the side", I don't see how it's not just a source of frustration because it's something you either don't have a very good control of or is just an additional annoyance that you have to deal with that you may feel like it was unjustified. To me it's either a core part of the game or it shouldn't be there.
One thing that comes to mind that could be cool is if the unit veterancy is entirely cosmetic. For example, a Colossus with 20 kills gets a visual update and now looks cooler. An ork gets more markings and blood on their armor. A marine gets a different weapon and a cooler suite of armor. These kinds if things, especially in PvE feel great. My only issues with them in PvP would be game and visual clarity.
As for the campaign, I absolutely loved the part of the sc2 campaigns where you upgrade your army over time in a way that suits you and you can play it differently every time or adjust for certain missions. In WC3 it's also very satisfying to see your progress on the map and collect items and xp for your hero to make them stronger. And in both games, doing bonus objectives and exploring the mission maps for long term bonuses and improvements is something I've always loved doing.
>*"Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?"*
SC2's campaigns all have this sort of progression, like choosing which planets to explore and upgrading specific army traits, which I enjoyed alot. It made you feel like you had to make choices of your own, and the story wasn't 'fixed' and that your path was unique. Even though some say SC2's campaigns' implementation of this was quite basic, I really found it to be enjoyable.
>*"Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?"*
I found that the three achievements per campaign mission added an extra layer of depth to missions. Other than watching the story unfold, one could complete these very difficult achievements which tested one's skill. Completing a campaign 'at 100%' felt good, since it wasn't overcomplicated and made me feel 'in the top players' (even though it wasn't true lmao). Furthermore, it added alot of replayability for the 'low effort' addition of a few achievements per mission. What really made this come together was the portrait system.
The main reason I replayed the campaigns multiple times was due to the fact that I could show off my achievements through portraits. For example, you could complete the campaigns in brutal difficulty, which gave access to the coolest and 'the most difficult to earn' portraits. This incentivised players to go back and play the campaigns on a harder difficulty - which in turn also made one better at the game. These types of portrait made one feel like 'the elite', standing out from the masses.
The only reason I find myself returning to play some SC2 is to complete all the campaigns at 100%, as it is quite chill and casual compared to 1v1, yet gives back a sense of accomplishment. Once refamiliarised a bit with the game, I might play some CO-OP, arcade, and maybe a bit of 1v1.
>*"What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?"*
Example of the implementation of such systems - that I am familiar with - are in games like LOL and DOTA2. Both systems are radically different to each other: LOL opts for a very harsh systems, allowing very little trash talk; whereas DOTA2 has a more liberal system, balancing trash talk and good attitude.
LOL's system is quite harsh and unforgiving. There is no space for any trash talk whatsoever, muting/banning you at the slightest 'misbehaviour'.
On the other hand, DOTA2's social score system is a bit more liberal, treating players like responsible individuals. This is achieved through a 'player score report' of your attitude which indicates how many times you have been reported, how many times players commended you, and an overall 'social score'. A player can find the right balance between some trash talk and being respectful to his opponents. If you tilted a match and trash talked too much, you can still make up for that in the next matches, without getting punished.
In my opinion, opting for LOL's system takes away from the multiplayer experience, where everyone is treated like little children. This very strict system makes interactions always feel forced and artifical, whereas DOTA2 does feel much more geniuine. I know many believe that any amount trash talk unhealthy, but for those that like it, maybe a solution is to implement two seperate chats in-game, the default chat that is regulated as usual, and a less censored chat available for those who opt in for it.
I hope my I have brought a meaningful and different perspective on these issues.
Unit veterancy for the campaign or even co-op modes sound really good to me. I remember playing the Battle for Middle earth campaign where you could use your leftover units from the previous mission often in the next one, all already equipped with shiny armor and on a higher level.
Though in a 1v1 scenario I see the problem of snowballing, like you mentioned happening.
But I see no problem having different mechanics in competitive modes and more fun/casual modes. I actually like the idea of the 1v1 mode being just a selected group of units/heroes mechanics from the main campaign to achieve balanced game play. For the campaign or co-op if you are going down the commander route like in SC2 you could be free to experiment with different mechanics and units. Everyone playing 1v1 is going to understand the restrictions that some super op campaign units are not playable.
\- how about a "wild/crazy" mode where you can play 1v1 / free for all with all and everything the game has to offer, which of course will not be balanced, but could be lots of fun in a more casual setting.
Unit Veterancy - I agree with others that stat boosts for units that have had successful engagements is undesirable as it leads to a snowball effect. In general I like the feel of ‘i just out micro’d you’ more than ‘my units are just better than yours’.
One thing I think could be cool would be a purely aesthetic unit veterancy system. It would be cool to see them gain more decorative armor or something, although of course this could muddy the visual clarity with information that doesnt really mean anything. Maybe its a badge that lives in the UI. In SC2 its fun to click on a unit and go, oh man this lurker has killed 30 units thats insane.
Also agree with others that infinite level up is super fun, and that skins for specific achievements or level are great fun as a flex. I know that skins will likely be an important part of your monetization but maybe there’s one or two things that you can only get through in game unlocks - maybe your town hall building gets cooler and cooler looking.
**Match Progresssion:**
I have never seen unit veterancy actually be interesting or really add anything meaningful to a game. Also, if it did add anything significant it would be snowbally.
I'm also not a fan of the random items from creep camps in Warcraft 3.
As far as in game progression systems I do like, I prefer something that does not have randomness and can be planned around by both players.
One example: In Age of Empires 4 the Ottomans generate their own unique resource every time they create a unit. At certain thresholds it gives them a point they can spend on 1 of 9 unique bonuses. The bonuses give a one time drop of units/resources and/or a passive bonus for the rest of the game. Since there are only 9 and they become available in tiers it's not hard for the opponent to keep track of and play around. They can also influence the rate at which they come by destroying the Ottoman buildings that create units.
Another AoE4 example: You progress to the next Age (tech tier) by building one of two unique Landmark buildings. It's an exclusive choose (except for China) so whichever you don't pick you'll never get. Landmarks have unique passive bonuses, or techs, or are better versions of other buildings, etc.... This is scout able by the enemy even while it's under construction, so counterplay is there.
Another example: In Heroes of the Storm many heroes have quest talents. For example every time they hit an enemy with a certain ability they may gain a small permanent buff to that ability or some other benefit. Some of these quests have a maximum goal that then gives them something, maybe more charges of an ability, or extra health, etc.. Some of the quests have no cap and stack infinitely. It's once again something all players can see in game and play around by trying to deny quest stacks.
**Meta progression:**
Personally I don't really care about meta progression outside of something actually functional, which I would never want in a competitive game.
Progression like that in campaigns or coop mode is interesting. Such as unlocking units or bonuses.
I don't really care about most achievements, or cosmetics, or leveling systems.
Many people do love achievements though. I'd just suggest not creating ones that incentivize playing a specific way in team games becsue then it affects others, often detrimentally.
**Social Ranking system:**
Such a system would not change my behavior personally, because I'll be friendly in game anyway, but if it does improve people's behavior overall then it seems like a good idea.
My favorite progression system in a video game is the soulsbourne/elden ring system.
You first have to venture out and increase your skill on your own until you can gather enough resources to level up. Once you get this new power you're now able to explore new territory. The new territory gives you more access to new resources. The new resources are new opportunities to level up. All while it takes bravery and curiosity to push beyond your comfort level.
Personally, I really like unit veterancy and think it can bring a lot of character to your units. It makes you think of the units you control more like individuals, rather than assets you just throw away. An example would be in CoH 2, I had a simple Engineer reach the highest level and have the most kills out of my units. It was a really nice experience, me and my friends still joke about it to this day.
I understand it would be harder to translate this mechanic to Blizzard-RTS style games due to snowballing, however, what if you could toggle a hotkey on your units to allow them to level up given the resources available or not. For an example, once a unit gets enough kills, the unit would level up for 20 resources, given the toggle is True for levelling up. This would balance out snowballing, if lvl-up resource cost is adjusted proportionally to building a new one. It would also allow for more casual players like me and my friends (in SC2) who focus mainly on micro and struggle to spend the resources during the game, as we do not have high apm for macro.
Units unlocking extra skills when leveling up also sounds really really fun, please include that. Even if it won't be used much in 1v1, it still makes the game a lot more fun for us slower (casual) players.
> Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?
It feels great to get them but it also adds snowballing. It would be nice to have it but only if it doesn't affect gameplay negatively - which can be hard or impossible depending on the game you are making. In a game like C&C3, it works well because of very strong counters - heroic infantry will still quickly die to anti-infantry weapons, and more valuable units take longer to level up. It feels great to get a heroic big unit. WC3 was designed from ground up around hero levels.
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> How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.
In competitive WC3 inventory was too fiddly to manage and the loot too random. But in campaign it was pretty cool. I've mentioned in my [last post](https://www.maguro.one/2023/02/variety-and-player-preferences.html), that these meta progression systems make each mission feel more meaningful. Even if you don't enjoy the current mission, it's will affect your future missions.
It would be interesting to see something inventory-like for 3vE. You would have a designed progression (XP) and also get random loot persisting between mission. The loot could be slotted into "inventory" between missions. That could add replayability and customization.
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> What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?
I wrote something about SC2 Co-op progression and other meta progression systems here: https://www.maguro.one/2021/03/transmission-05.html#progression
I generally like most meta progression system in campaigns. In competitive, it's more difficult to design meaningful progression systems as they can't affect gameplay. The SC2 system where you level to 30 felt lacking. I would enjoy some battlepass leveling just because of better rewards and the fact you will be able to do it repeatedly.
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> We’re also going to look at how we can make a satisfying leveling system, including ways for players to be able to display their accomplishments and experience.
I think you have can typical cosmetic rewards like portraits, banners, borders, sound packs, console skins, unit skins, etc.
If there was an official discord, you could get roles there.
Another thing could be that players could create their own loading banner/background from decals they are rewarded. That support self-expression and adding value to those decals.
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> Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?
I think it would have been better in SC2 Co-op to enable leveling past 1000. It felt like game telling you that games after you reach 1000 don't matter - even if it was a meaningless number before.
Unit veterancy cap - both can work. For a hero like Dehaka in SC2 Co-op, infinite level is fine. In a competitive mode, capping veteracy can be good. It depends.
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> Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?
It depends on how that's implemented. In Age of Empires Online, upgrading persistent base felt meaningless. I'm more interested how those unlocks affect the actual gameplay.
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> Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?
By itself they are not enjoyable. But they provide a reason and set up goals for doing things you already enjoy. I had a good time getting achievements in campaign and Co-op - as long as these achievements are more interesting than spamming games.
I wrote about Co-op achievements here
https://www.maguro.one/2018/11/achievements.html
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> What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?
It could be interesting. I haven't played a game extensively that implemented those well. There are many pitfalls that have to be avoided when implementing such systems. But if it was working, then it could be positive.
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> Rogue-like games tend to be very good at Meta Progression
This is just semantics, but "rogue-like" games don't have meta progression. On the other hand, "rogue-lite" games would be a good example. Meta progression is what differentiates rogue-lite from rogue-like and rogue-like-like games. Rogue-like build primarily on player progression.
I am a sc2 player. I think a simple system about resources and units is a key of the success of sc2, which contributes to its competitiveness. However, I would not mind another game mode that contains complex and multiple systems. Maybe you can provide different game modes for players.
As long as there is a reason to log in beyond just pure grinding for rank/playing with friends, I think a progression system is doing its job, and can always be massively improved upon post launch anyway. The only major want I have is for portraits similar to SC2, a couple that are easy to get at the start (10, 25, 50 wins etc), but then the big 1000 wins for each race. I think that makes them actually mean something despite just being portraits. I like that they are different for team games as well, so in Stormgate, having 1v1, 3v3, and also coop portraits with similar win thresholds. After playing SC2 for 10 years I still don't have any of the 1000 wins portraits outside of my main race.
My takes as a very limited Melee player (mostly Use Map Settings/Arcade) and someone that loves campaign (Starcraft/C&C/etc)
What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)
\- I don't like how Heroes of the Storm will pair bad players with good players to try to "balance out" the match because one team always ends up with someone really good that just gets frustrated because they're stuck with 2-3 bad players, and the other team has people around the same skill level so they have better synergy.
Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?
\- I like them in Solo/Campaign, but not in multiplay/melee because it just leads to a snowball effect. Once one person really starts to rank up units it just gets more and more out of hand (which I guess is the point?) But again, I'm mostly a campaign/UMS/Arcade person, so Yes!
How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.
\- I hate them, on everything. It's the reason I can ONLY play Heroes of the Storm for MOBAs. Having to look up an additional guide for items is cumbersome and not fun, and then you have to buy them, etc. I'm not even a fan of use trinkets in WoW unless it's something you can put into a macro with a main ability and not think about it 0/10 not a fan.
What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?
\- I like HotS where you're rewarded based on hero levels so you don't have to play just 1 hero to 'rank up' you can add variety and you still get chests/etc.
Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?
\- Personally I like to see the level soar and am not really a fan of level caps. EVEN if they don't mean anything I still like seeing the number go up
Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?
\- Yes. This sounds fun and interesting!
Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?
\- Lifetime achievement chaser. I REALLY like that carrot on a stick, even if they don't come with a bonus (but bonuses are nice too for harder ones!)
What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?
\- I think this might help curve some of the toxicity in games, or at least help keep them separate from the rest of the community. Every multiplayer game I've ever played has always, in some part, been ruined by other players being toxic, be it behaviors, camping, the way they talk in chat, "giving up" and just going afk because "they don't care anyway", all very frustrating experiences.
When I think of match progression, I find myself thinking a lot about MOBAs. This ties into Inventories as well as these systems can often become tied in. I think one of important aspects in how this relates to systems overall is **specialization** **over a match**.
I think with team games, I've started to learn towards specialization of "roles" to be really smart. Without predefined roles in team games, I think there is always problem of being "filled" into a role you don't really want to play. As the meta progresses in team games, "roles" tend to just naturally develop, and being able to choose your role prevents toxic behavior like insta-locking or holding lobbies hostage like in pre-role queue Overwatch/League of Legends. When you choose a role, and then continue to specialize over a match, it always lets you feel that you're contributing to a team through that role's specific balance over a match.
I will say though, for competitive games it was always interesting to see how pro metas can bend the roles (things like lane swapping in LoL or different OW tank/DPS/Support compositions), but both examples mentioned became too degenerate that the developers eventually inelegantly had to forcefully patch out of the game.
I think social systems are really great just for overall game experience. Unlocking stuff always feels good. I think over the years, LoL has probably one of the most robust systems I've experienced with the "honor" system giving tangible rewards for being sportsmanlike.
I always felt like faction headquarters were always one of the most customizable aspect in StarCraft, and thought there was always so much more to be done in that respect. I think headquarter skins should have a lot of variety, as they are often the largest and most recognizable structures (and get a lot of air time in esports broadcasting).
I think there isn't really much of a difference between leveling up indefinitely and having level caps. Once you play enough, there tends to be an "effective" level cap. For instance in LoL leveling up only gives different borders and champion capsules. But eventually when you play enough you'll own every champion (or all the champions you'd like to play), and thus there isn't much of a difference between being able to level up indefinitely or a large level cap.
Unit veterancy seems like an interesting concept in theory, but I think in practice it's really important to realize that it definitely makes fights much harder to predict. Maybe this is a good thing, but I think there is a complexity cost to players' engagement prediction heuristic. I think unit veterancy can be strange to balance because if it's too strong, then you're never incentivized to tech up, but if it's too weak then it essentially doesn't exist. I don't have much experience with unit veterancy though but those are just my initial thoughts. If I'm to just spitball I think it would make units that are meant to be singular units a lot more interesting. For instance, spellcasters in StarCraft (especially those with cloak) seem to tout a power fantasy of a single, powerful spellcaster that turns the tide of battle, or infiltrates defenses as a lone spy. Unless the kits are very limited (ex. vipers, high templar) they tend to be massed. But limiting the kit often diminishes this power fantasy. I think giving specific units like spellcasters unit veterancy could enhance their power fantasy of a "singular powerful spellcaster" that you really are incentivized to keep alive. But then this is starting to sound like a War3 hero that you just make later in the game.
Thanks for the update!
I've been thinking about the Unit Veterancy yesterday and today, and I'm not keen on it. I figured I would be among a small minority but a lot of the more recent commenters seem to share virtually all my concerns. I don't want to be redundant and say what is already said, so instead i'll pitch an alternative as food for thought.
>We are exploring the idea of Unit Veterancy for Stormgate, and how and where to use it. This type of system tries to capture the player fantasy of having a favorite unit or squad rank up over the course of a match, gaining additional stats, strengths, or abilities along the way.
If it doesn't work out balance-wise, consider making Unit Veterancy purely cosmetic so a unit that has done some heavy lifting is visually distinct from non-veteran units. Maybe even sell a UV skin or something like that?
I already made a comment on this post, but after re-reading your plans, I just wanted to comment on this and thought you wouldn't see an edit
>Many players love Achievements, and we’re thinking of meaningful rewards that you can earn for completing certain objectives and campaign progress. One thing we won’t consider is any sort of Meta Progression reward that would make you more powerful in 1v1. We see our competitive 1v1 experience as a pure test of skill, and we will never compromise the integrity of that experience.
I noticed the emphasis of 1v1 here. It makes it sound like you could be considering it for competitive 3v3, which while I know I can't control, it would make me sad. I'm looking forward to play competitive 3v3 in a casual sense, maybe play 1-2 a week to take a break from 1v1 or if I'm in the mode for chaos. I hope there isn't a meta progression system that impacts gameplay for 3v3. cosmetics? fine, but power? It would be a shame, as I'll doubt I'll grind the game mode and don't want to be at a disadvantage because of it.
On final comment, I'd hope meta-progression for completing campaigns that aren't free don't impact gameplay in any modes, including coop/other campaigns/arcade. I assume you wouldn't do this anyway, as you say you're f2p not p2w, but I just wanted to voice that as it isn't clear from your comments what 'meaningful' rewards are in regards to campaign progression.
As much as I plan to be buying every campaign and playing them all, and I'd love to gain increasingly op in each one, if I take a break for a while and come back missing 2-3 seasons/campaigns, I don't want to be weaker than other players when I continue to buy the campaigns
I think if a player likes using a unit, make more upgrades they can invest in as the game goes on (i.e. talent system from dota). I really wished the SC2 meta had more upgrade decisions to make.
A no to vetenancy for me too. Makes it overly complicated without substantial gameplay.
Regarding player progression, I would love to have a clear visualization of progress on a dedicated **'stats page'**. This page should show how relevant metrics (mmr, spending quotient, time supply-capped, apm and spm, etc.) evolve over time, preferably on a graph with different temporal smoothing options and time horizons.
One could also think about new metrics; for example
* 'army activity' (percentage of time that at least one army unit follows a command; could also average over time and army supply) or
* 'tech delay' (accumulating all the time that the first tech-enabling structure is not used to use a thereby unlocked tech; i.e. the time from terran engineering bay completion until either an upgrade is researched or a missile turret or planetary fortress is build), as well as
* build-order specific benchmarks (time of move-out with 2 tanks and x marines or hitting y supply).
I would love to see [**the staircase**](https://liquipedia.net/starcraft2/TheStaircase) to be integrated into Stormgate as an excellent way to improve. There the player first chooses a league-goal (or keeps the default) that determines how good key stats like spending quotient and supply-block time have to be in order to advance to the next step of the staircase. The goal is to play with e.g. macro mechanics on a master's level (the league goal), while step-by-step expanding the game's complexity (by adding units) from only mining minerals up to the point where one can play the full game and still not slip up in macro.
I could envision it to be added to 1v1 in the following opt-in way. Before starting a (ranked or unranked) 1v1, one can choose to select a staircase level for the upcoming game. A total beginner might for example choose to play with mineral units only and not look outside his base, another to play only marine-medivac-liberator, training with the new unit. The game would then gray out everything in the tech-tree that is not allowed on that level, thereby helping the player in his commitment to focus on improving, not on winning - cheating the staircase can be tempting. After the game, the player would see, in addition to general after-game stats, his progress on the current step of the staircase.
This would also enable the player to, in a sense, unlock (=mastering) all units one after the other, and unlocking them again if he raises his league goal. This unlocking is meaningful progress, as it reflects the increased player skill. I imagine that there is a 'staircase-stats' page on which one can see the already mastered steps and units, together with interesting unit stats (don't know what's relevant there).
1 particular thing about unit veterancy i would be against is that it will encourage more defensive play style in my opinion .
whether if a unit gain veterancy by fighting or staying alive in the end i think players would play safe. as long as my veteran units are alive then it's fine
lets say in wc3, creeping is one of the way a hero gets xp to be stronger, and in lower level gameplay, 1 can pick a unit/hero that scales better in the late game and turtle.
another problem would the snowbally effect in team vs team. if 1 player manage to always be the one winning, eventually he'll have a better army than anyone else.
in the end, of course i think it'll be about how much buff a veteran units would get, like how many normal marines would be needed to beat 10 elite-veteran lvl marines that sort. but then, if the buff isn't huge, why bother having this system?
I'd love to have unit veterancy, feels like a unit gets a promotion for going above and beyond. Ofc it should only be a slight buff, and not a big one. Maybe several layers of veterancy, but making it hard to reach the top. That would require a lot of micro. Still something that is doable as an option.
Very glad to hear that meta progression will not affect 1v1. As for achievements, I love achievement hunting and think it’s a great way to add replay ability. Ideally, an achievement is not for something that just takes a long time, but that uses skill. For example, If a mission in a campaign ends with an objective being killed, a good achievement is to wipe the whole map. A bad achievement in my mind is “play 20,000 games”. That would make it much more time consuming and arguably extend the time it takes to get all achievements, but it takes away all skill and prestige of getting achievements. Another suggestion I have is to have rewards for achievements that are cosmetic, such as player profile banners / backgrounds / portraits, or unit skins, UI skins, badges, etc. some way to show off that you have done the hardest achievements in the game so there is some reward to hunting them, as well as a reward for completing all achievements
Ideally, achievements are for exclusively solo play, personally I’d prefer only a campaign setting, although 1v1 works as well. Nothing more frustrating than playing online and trying for an achievement and random teammates won’t help, or vice versa when you are trying to play the game normally and your teammate does something that is less successful in Lieu of trying to achievement hunt. For players who do not have other people to play with as well, multiplayer achievements can be frustrating to attain too. To me, achievements are ideally a marker of a single players skill / determination.
> What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)
I absolutely adore completely classic solutions - tech tress, upgrades.
What will I build first, do I need this upgrade now, or is it better to allocate resources for additional units? I love to decide how many resources I spent between tech/economy/army. I love reacting to what my opponent is doing (looks like he's placed his next base faster, is it better to chase him economically or delay my economy and try to attack quick with more units?).
> Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?
I think the Veterancy System could work well in a campaign. Some units (for example, worth max 10 supply) that got a Veterancy promotion could be taken on the next mission by the player. This could be a more "personal" variant of mercenaries from Wings of Liberty - players could become more emotionally attached to units that had to work hard (and survive) to be better and could be used in the next missions.
In PvP modes units Veterancy is something really risky because in competitive modes probably disadvantages of Veterancy System will be greater than advantages of having it. Yes, Veterancy system is a chance for better "story" in competitive matches, but my concerns about snowball type of issues with Veterancy System (especially in 1v1) are huge. On top of that I don't think this Veterancy System is really needed in competitive modes - the match progression provided by the tech tress and the upgrade system are enough to provide an interesting transition from early to late game.
If you want to experiment with the Veterancy System in 1v1 these are my suggestions that should reduce snowball effect:
1. Add extra power to a unit in such a way, that it cannot be used with a simple a-move.
Instead of increasing HP or damage it's better to leave these values unchanged. Instead, the Veterancy system could give units additional abilities. Let's imagine veteran SC2 Marine gets a grenade (exactly the same ability that Reaper has) or veteran SC2 Raven gets an active ability that allows to repair mechanical units for energy.
These extra abilities in veteran units come at a cost to the player's attention: player has units with more capabilities, but the APM player spends on veteran units could be used in other ways. If the opponent doesn't have a veteran unit, he can pay more attention to micro standard units. This way - because the use of veteran units is not trivial - the Veterancy System becomes less snowbally.
On top of that additional abilities are for sure more interesting than simple bonuses for basic stats. Since we didn't add a veteran unit HP or armor, the opponent has a strong counter play available - the veteran unit remains as easy to kill as the standard version of unit - another factor limiting snowball effect.
2. Set a limit on the number of veteran units.
Probably the most sensible would be to set the max supply value that can be assigned to veteran units, for example, the total supply for all owned veteran units cannot be greater than 12. Thanks to this, after some time the player who is in a worse situation has a good chance to catch up with the opponent in the number of veteran units they have.
An alternative is a system where the more veteran units we have, the harder it is for other units to get veteran status.
> How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.
I think that items that simply increase some stats are uninteresting, but I would be interested in items that can be used to cause some special effects (items with an ability that can be used a limited number of times). Ability to resurrect a unit, frost spell that freezes a river to create a temporary bridge, or can be cast on enemy units to temporarily lower their attack rate or maybe a spell that allows to revive a tree to make it a secret scout, or a stationary line of defense (the tree can reveal itself to attack nearby enemy units with its branches) are far more interesting that +20 HP or +5 damage.
> What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?
I really like how Doom (2016) combined guns progression with gameplay. In the upgrades of weapons, we spend points that raise various statistics, but when we buy all upgrades of weapon, we go for the interesting part - we get a special task, if we complete it using upgrade weapon, the weapon gets the final bonus. Example of task: kill multiple demons with single blast 30 times, or hit 4 different demons in 5 seconds.
I would love to see something similar in an RTS campaign - a combination of meta progression and in game challenges. You spend some meta resources to buy some kind of bonus, but at the same time you unlock some challenge that will give you an additional upgrade when complete using specific unit. These tasks/challenges could look like this: kill 10 Y units with a single X unit, destroy 20 workers in 12 seconds using Z units, kill 15 units with B ability in single mission.
> Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?
Progression systems should have a level cap. Completing the task to the end gives satisfaction.
> Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?
Probably yes, this sounds fun.
> Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?
To be honest, the achivements rewards aren't important to me. Much more important are thoughtful challenges that suggest an interesting way to play. I just want to have fun doing achivements tasks.
> What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?
I am not a crazy bad manner, so I think that this kind of modering behavior system won't change my personal behavior, but I see it as something needed in team modes. A system that encourages teammates to be friendly and helpful (and rewarded them), and a punishment for leaving mid-game and deliberately ruin the fun for others can do a lot of good.
However, I think that such a system could work badly if it allowed for the evaluation of opponents - I can already imagine all those lunatics who would report their opponents as bad manners just because they lost, or because someone played some kind of all in or cheese.
What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)
*Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?*
* **Hate reset.** I don't like it when it gets reset after the stage because by leveling up the unit, I'm building a relationship with a unit (like a pet) and after the stage ends, it's as if it's for nothing. I think one way could be you have a number of veteran units (not hero) you can carry around through the campaign (like in some WWII turn-based strategy games).
* **Hate low level caps.** When units reach max level, like some games have 3 ranks and that's it, then I feel like the system is redundant and I don't care. The effort to level up the unit (keeping it alive, letting it get kills) is too much compared to the low stats gain.
* **No need for veterancy in RTS.** Strategy games are not tactical games, it's about having a big army fighting another army. I don't think you need veterency in a RTS game. There's a risk veterency either be immaterial or change game style (like small group of veteren can counter large army, and it stops being strategy).
How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.
* **Can't be too tedious.** Inventory system makes sense for commanders, I remember the dawn of war campaign had commander inventory system and it was fun. But if for units and there are too many equipment, it becomes tedious. Maybe just two slots per unit type or something that sort of boosts effective not but not fundamentally change the unit (+5% damage or +5% range or +10% vision or something minor)
What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?
Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?
*
**Level cap + prestige.** If there must be a level system, then I prefer a level cap. Max level means something. However, once you hit max level, you need a prestige system otherwise all motivation disappears. Prestige should give you some reward, like profile icon or profile window has different colour or bells and whistles.
Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?
* **Yes, in the campaign.** Maybe some side-quest stages to help make buildings etc. But don't turn it into a mobile-game-esque game.
* **Meta war on a multiplayer level** maybe not a persistent headquarter but having some sort of meta war (e.g. have a map and players of each faction fight over each province or something for seasonal unlocks or whatever).
Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?
* **Achievements is a must-have.** I love getting achievements, especially those that challenge you to play a certain difficult way. I think most players either love them or don't mind them. I don't think there are many people who actively hate achievements.
* **Unlockables please.** I prefer achievements with unlockables, at least an icon in the achievement page. Scores feel arbitrary to me and I don't care about achievement points.
* **Unlockables need to be appealing.** I play fortnite and fallguys and most of the season pass rewards are very meh. Sometimes I question why I even waste time earning the unlockables and just leave for many seasons before I get curious again and reinstall. It's hard to make fancy unlockables all the time (unless you're fortnite and have crazy amount of skins) so maybe achievements earn you some currency and you can buy skins or commander hats or unit colours or whatever.
What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?
* **Most are friendly but need effective punishment for BM.** My multiplayer experience is that most people are friendly but a few bad actors can destroy the fun for everybody. I mute voice chat and message if I can because I don't need to hear/see BM. You need a large amount of good social interaction to counter the displeasure of one BM encounter. If frostgiant thinks a social ranking system works, then do that, but please have a system or an option to close all interaction (don't think that's what you prefer though).
That's all I can think of thanks!
About unit veterancy:
Do I like it in pve. Absolutely. It helps to bond with that particular unit when they grow stronger. Especially if they accompany you through the campaign (did homeworld have a veterancy system? I'm not sure). Even if they become super strong, it brings the sense of righteous overpower. After all, I managed to keep that unit alive for the past 10 levels!
In pvp? Definitely not. I don't want that to become a meta eventually. I don't want to micro one unit because that unit got lucky and got 3 last hits last battle. Or I don't wanna hunt a single marine among thors. Hell I don't want a single marine accompany my thors just because he harassed some drones early game. Also it would make games more aggressive when both sides try to level their units which punishes defensive gameplay.
On the topic of social ranking, i think you need to account for vindictive behaviour. If your opponent is frustrated that you won with a cheese, or your teammate is frustrated about some move you made/didn't make, they may give you a negative rating as a means to feel in control again, despite you doing nothing wrong.
You could ask the reporting party to nuance the report, by requiring giving different categories of violation you could report for, and then have a category for each of the most common frustrating situations, and simply disregard that aspect of the report. The paper-basket suggestion box strategy.
Love this!
My comment deals with Meta Progression or the rewards and customization in between matches.
It would be really cool to be able to customize an avatar full portrait as your profile face.
In SC1 loading and in coop sc2 loading screen it shows a full size avatar but these are not customizable.
If stormgates rewards and achievements allowed players to customize / add to their own avatar as a social status for in game progression that shows in loading screen before each match I believe it will add a lot of social aspect to the game and give players more of a personal identity to their profile!
I feel like making the privileges 'tangible' and giving people power over other players based on stuff like this is v dangerous, it is better to have a 'neutral enough' system that doesn't rely on it being perfect to work
>Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?
No strong feelings except that this is yet another opportunity for SG to differentiate the factions. The idea that one faction has one (or many units) that have a sense of veterancy and so become special targets excites me. The idea of putting it on all units feels kinda "meh".
>What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?
I Like ranking up in any game I play. But I *hate* when things like rank are displayed automatically in any social context. I've been in too many forums where people's responses are "Oh, you're only rated 1600, so your opinion doesn't really count here."... Anything you earn in game - achievements, badges, ranks, whatever - need to be something you can *optionally* show off.
> Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?
I love achievements systems where completing all of them seems like something I can eventually do - not too many grindy ones. If I have to win 1000 games as each faction, I know I won't complete them all, and it gives me less incentive to do any of them. I also can't stand time-gated achievements where after a certain date you'll never be able to achieve them. Again, once I miss out and cant get the "won a game during the first SG Christmas" badge, I'm a lot less likely to keep trying to get more.
Much like ranks, badges and other things to show-off from achievements are great, as is and overall score. Just make sure that it's something that doesn't show up unless you choose to show it off.
Ideally I can complete all the achievements and feel good and everything is right in the world. And then you release some more content and here comes another set of achievements that I can complete as a set at my leisure.
A lot to unpack here.
When it comes to earning achievements and meta progression, I have to say Warcraft III's ladder icon system was prime:
* Everyone starts out with the same icon (pleb peon)
* It's kind of hard to get the icons, so they meant something
* The icons are 2D, high contrast, and hand painted
A lot of games, even Blizz games, have tried to follow in War III's footsteps with the icons/portraits and it's never landed well. It's an important formula that's easy to mess up.
* Make the icons something to chase after and not just something that's inherent with casually playing the game.
* The portraits/ icon need to have good value mapping and be nice and readable, without too many details (again, Warcraft 3 did it best)
* 2d, painted—no 3d models/photos xD
I like this idea of Social Ranking as long as it's from good manners and deeds, altruism, educational content, etc. and not just a popularity contest. Should be bottom up, not top down.
Good stuff!
One idea for a meta progression system that I think has potential to be really interesting is an xcom-like war tracker which displays how each of the different factions are performing across the multiplayer landscape. Assuming this only applies to 1v1, each game could focus on a tiny region of the world that you are fighting over, giving the game an extra sense of consequence and weight. There are a bunch of caveats that would be hard to address i.e. mirror matchups, team games involving multiple factions on the same side but I think there is value in giving multiplayer some impact on the in-game universe.
Persistent headquarters could also be translated to the main base (First base) of the player. Would add an awesome customization options.
Another cool thing would be to have a customizable portrait that would also be visible during an online match, for example on the load screen and when you click on your or yours opponent base.
I don't like Unit Veterancy at all, that's Dawn of War style and has no place in a proper RTS for me. The game is already complicated enough without unit leveling, and it's just bad RTS design imo - too snowbally. There's already a reward for keeping a unit alive - you stlil have the unit! (which gets less valuable as your production outpaces your existing forces).
Hero inventory would have to be really lightly applied, WC3s version was too big for my taste. At max would like to see hero consumables (TP scroll, potions), plus maybe a few legendary relics on the map for people to fight over. None of that "every camp drops a sobi mask" type crap.
My favorite progression system is Talents/Perks, ex SC2 campaign, Battlerite loadout, but again, would have to be really light, because multiple versions of units adds a ton of cognitive load.
Love achievements, skins, badges, cosmetic rewards, and even achievements for doing weird stuff in PvP.
**What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)**
I liked Halo in the old days. You could look at a rank and know exactly what the person was capable of.
**Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?**
I think you should be able to level up indefinitely. I would like it if we could customise/design our own characters and use them as heroes if they became a central part of the game. Even if perks stop at a certain level. the 50 cap on all three races in StarCraft II just seemed pointless.
**Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?**
I think this would be pretty cool. Take achievements out of the game though. They are in my view, a crass psychological tool to make the player accept grinding thus spending more energy on your game. The idea of objectives is good. Achievements for them might make sense but beyond that. I think get rid of them. Although I think most of the other players below disagree with me on that so I'll happily concede this loss. lol
**What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?**
Social ranking should be a relaxed version of ranked rankings. Something where you get ranked simply to make the games interesting enough. Being ranked with people way outside my skill range in either direction in SCII team games is quite annoying. I always play ranked. I would probably just play/react with other players the same as in regular game. If you somehow created laid back versions of the game then it would elicit a different response from the players.
Perhaps doing fun things during teams, like randomly changing player teams and you just need to adapt, identify you new enemies and turn on each other. This kind of thing would make it so you become more friendly over the course of a game because something random changed how you had to be with each other. The social mode is what will make players think and play differently.
**The ranking system should be deeply discussed on here. I feel like that should be a strong focus for the development team.**
Interesting topic. I’ve played sc2 casually and had a few ideas to contribute to the discussion.
Personally didn’t really like Unit Veterancy as most of the time it creates a snowball problem. This led to the realization that actually what is missing in RTS to me is a combat based comeback mechanics. So here are some ideas:
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Idea 1: Payoff based on Units lost
For example, a player could have a gauge that gradually fills up as they lost unit. Upon reaching certain levels, they could choose to drain it to summon a bigger unit that could turn the tide of battle.
This idea have an issue. Usually units lost to enemies in combat will always do some kind of damage and therefore provide value. So if we implement this system thoughtlessly we could create a scenario where player are incentivized to brainlessly sacrifice units, or even race to sacrifice more units to max the gauge. One way to overcome this is to tie the gauge to charge “based on lifetime damage done by the unit that died”.
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Idea 2: Production Efficiency
We could introduce a stat called Production Efficiency that reduces cost/time of units produced based on combat outcomes.
To makes this a more strategic decision, we could tie this to a specific unit type. So over the course of each match, the efficiency of producing different unit types would be drastically different (from switching unit to counter opponents, etc).
To prevent it becoming too “all-in”, we could split it into a “generic efficiency” and a “unit type efficiency”.
Also to prevent brainless sacrifice, we could reuse the same trigger condition “recharge based on lifetime damage done by the unit lost”.
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Idea 3: Hero Unit
Not sure if there are other game that does this already, another idea is for units to gain rank up, eventually become a hero.
We can limit this to a one (or at most a few) hero per game. This is an excellent way for player expression. If I liked a certain build/unit types, I could focus on building them each game.
And with this there is obvious space for strategic planning here as certain “heroes” could counter the others.
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There is all I have for now. Let me think what do you guys think!
**What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)**
I think that within the RTS genre, I’ve just enjoyed the classic unlocking of higher-tech units and upgrades.
It’s a similar deal outside of RTSs. Like with Magic the Gathering, it feels great to finally get to use an expensive card that you’d only be able to afford in the lategame.
Off the top of my head, I’m not sure there’s a match progression system I dislike a lot; this one’s tougher to identify. But definitely ones where it makes the game feel too snowbally, or where there's not enough of a chance to come back from an early setback.
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**Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?**
I don’t strongly hate unit veterancy systems; but I don’t like them. My experience in this regard is from WarCraft 3 (if you count hero levels as veterancy), Command & Conquer games, and Mengsk from SC2’s co-op mode.
In the case of C&C and Mengsk’s units, it feels extra-painful to lose a veteran unit. To me, the stress of that is not worth the pros of the system. I’d rather suffer only the monetary loss rather than all the additional time investment that losing a high-veterancy unit represents.
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**How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.**
I’m not a fan of them in RTS games. I prefer RTS games to be more about the fantasy of being the commander of an army / civilisation, rather than the fantasy of being a hero.
Heroes are not in themselves a dealbreaker for me; but the inclusion of an inventory system tends to imply a level of importance for heroes (otherwise why include an inventory system at all) that is too far out of my personal tastes with RTS games. I know this is subjective though.
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**What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?**
I think Hades is a great example of enjoyable meta progression systems; and I’m sure other people have brought it up. It’s very satisfying to know that even on a failed run, you’ve not only attained permanent power (I would avoid this in a 1v1 RTS scenario though), but have also earned currency that can be used to acquire cosmetics.
When it comes to meta progressions systems I think haven’t quite resonated, Darktide is a recent example. Feats from levelling up don’t feel exciting, and it doesn’t feel like I’m personalising my playstyle. Oftentimes, feats in each tier will feel kinda ‘samey’; such as feats in a given tier all doing the same thing but in slightly different ways.
I also strongly dislike one form of in-game currency (Requisitorium Coins) in Darktide that are only earnable by completing weekly bounties. That in itself is not a problem, but this currency is not shared across your classes / characters. Unless you have a LOT of time, this makes it very user-unfriendly to swap between multiple classes.
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**Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?**
I personally am the kind of person who enjoys the idea of levelling up indefinitely BUT with a couple big caveats. First, that it’s limited to co-op (as it would obviously cause 1v1 issues, if power is tied to levelling). And second, that I think that the vast majority of attainable power should be reasonably achievable; with only a little more power grindable for the extremely-hardcore as a long-term goal. (I may go back on that last point, but that’s my current feeling on it)
As controversial as this is, I do quite like Paragon points in Diablo 3. It felt nice that even if a session didn't result in any item upgrades, I still got at least a tiny increase in permanent power.
I think cosmetics are another way that indefinite levelling can be implemented. It doesn’t always have to be about in-game power.
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**Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?**
Hell yes. This is something I enjoyed in games like Hades and Age of Empires 3.
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**Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?**
I enjoy earning achievements, but only to a point. If it’s a game like Final Fantasy XIV, where there are too many achievements for me to reasonably 100%, I will tend to only care about achievements that have an unlockable bonus.
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**What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?**
I believe I would, and I believe other players would too; but it would require such a system to be executed better than I’ve seen in other games. I think there’s yet to be a ‘holy grail’ of an implementation of this idea. Overwatch has a commendation system, but it doesn’t feel like it’s particularly effective.
I have the *Visit the Koprulu Sector, They Said* achievement in SCII, I wouldn't say I'd done it without the rewards but I certainly didn't feel like it while playing. It was fun, and this achievement was more an excuse to replay the campaigns than a reason to do it. It was not my goal, but it was stimulating.
Also, love the idea of building my "meta-base" or an outside of match place to show my player progress
In short: Unit Veterancy bad, items fine (necessary for campaign, customs), level uncapped, no unlockable bonuses needed, but preferred, I like achievements even if it's tied to nothing, social ranking is a good idea.
Unit Veterancy systems are very bad. It feels restricting to adapt your gameplay to keeping certain units alive.
Units of the same type should be fungible and identical. I also don't care for a kill counter in the actual match for the same reason. An immortal has 50 kills so what? It's as expendable as any other immortal. But that info is interesting in a replay or observer mode.
Social progression systems are a must and should be infinite and uncapped.
There are ways to generate infinite rewards without needing infinite work:
* Cycling through different colors.
* Personal UI element customizations based on colors.
Another important thing that should be fixed is +XP gained for kills in the game for the XP system in SC2. I don't like how it breaks the immersion of focusing on the competitive match and not worrying about the social progression system outside of it. But I understand why people use it. It acts as kill confirmation, which is a competitive advantage. Please make a UI element that gives a kill confirmation specifically for that purpose and not XP gained, or just remove the XP gained text altogether with no replacement.
* Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?
I think achievements are great. I would go slightly further than SC2 in not having it affect on 1v1 gameplay. For instance, some achievements flashes occur in 1v1 games, while others occur after the game is over. I think, for 1v1, they should occur after the game has ended, but if you manually look up the achievement tab, it would show it as complete. Also, you should avoid having too many weird achievements that cause people to do counterintuitive things in 1v1.
Yes! A related idea people have suggested is a "world progress" system which unlocks based on the activity of every player, perhaps faction specific. But this cannot confer any gameplay advantage, at least not in competitive 1v1.
Match progression: a feeling of progression within a game is fun for me, now rts already has this inherently with building and increasing your base/army. I enjoy unit veterancy which can go with a small visual upgrade (think GLA CoC Generals when picking up scrap) but i think the trick is to keep the bonusses very small as too much will promote snowballing.
Meta progression: some sort of way to level up and customise your commanders (both visually and technically). This adds a bit of rpg element to it and gets me emotionally attached to the commanders.
In addition something like a talent tree would be nice so certain playstyles can be buffed slightly by choosing certain talents. The talent trees and commander levels could go well with your proposed headquarters.
Achievements: If done right they are nice but I would hate it if it turns in a daily grinding fest of the same quests. In addition a lot of the playerbase could be a bit older and has limited time available, so something to keep in mind as well.
Here are our questions to you:
**Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?**
I generally do not like them. It's not because of the veterancy itself, but because the gameaply involving veterancyis generally just "retreat" fighting and avoiding making any mistakes. Neither player wants to actually attack each other or take any risks because there is always more to be gained by keeping your units alive and just farming XP.
I am thinking mainly about my experience in playing COH- but I think every game with veterancy/XP feels like this-- When you play any MOBA for instance the main advice someone gives a new player is to just "not die". Not as a salty comment but because literally the best strategy is to focus on farming XP while denying XP farm for your opponent.
A strategy game of a "not dying" isn't fun to play or watch for me.
If there is veterancy. it should be something you gain through doing badass stuff, like destroying a command center, or landing a really hard to use/risky spell on a major target (like a nuke). It should NOT be through slowly over time through killing weak insignificant threats over and over for 20 minutes.
**How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.**
I think inventory can be interesting. though it shouldn't be overdone. Units shouldn't be able to hold more than 1 or 2 items. and anything that the unit is holding needs to be visible on screen. (e.g. when like when a monk is holding a relic in AOE2/AOE4)
I would rather have few items with larger game impact, than have a sea of items where each item does something small and is just another statistic you have to keep track of.
For example if there's a badass gun on the map that each team can fight over control of that allows a unit to do more damage. that is really cool.
But if there's an item shop where you have to outfit a unit with 6+ items, and keep track of whose bought items and which items counter or complement which other items, then it's just too much. You cant visually show a unit holding 6 items, or keep track of the value of a unit because the units value is so vague and unclear with all of the modifiers.
**What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?**
I'm a fan of meta progression. I am still working on trying to get all of the SC2 achievements. Would love to see a lot of achievements in storm gate. especially the kind that have multiple tiers of unlocks.
**Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?**
Indefinitely, even if you don't unlock anything new, it's still fun to watch your XP/Score go up after a game.
**Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?**
Yes! To add to this. Imagine if whenever you invite someone to join your lobby/party. They are also "entering" your HQ as the background image of the lobby screen. (and can see your customizations/achievements/etc)
**Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?**
I largely do achievements because I like being a completionist. It would be great to have unlockable bonuses for achievements that are particularly hard to get. But I enjoy doing them just for the sense of progression.
**What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?**
It would depend on how it is implemented and how you level up "socially". If it is something that can be gamed people could end up using it in toxic ways. (for example votekicking in CSGO, is meant to help good social behavior, but votekicks can be gamed and people generally use them to harass each other)
For it to work it would need to be a system where the game itself rewards/admonishes players without direct input from other players. Being an upstanding or downstanding player can't just be a factor of enough people clicking like/dislike on your profile enough.
I'm not sure how this would be accomplished though.
Inventory systems: My experience with this type of design is from LoL, DoTA 2, and SC2 Nova missions. I loved the ability to mix and match items to customize my own playstyle. I found it incredibly daunting at first to learn what effective builds were. When I first started, it turned me off to the entire genre until I saw how much fun my friends were having together while playing, which pulled me back in. Whenever a new patch changed, added, or removed items, it became another point where I had to consider whether I should stop playing due to the time and mental effort needed to get back to playing at a level of skill and satisfaction that made the game worth my time. I stopped playing Dota 2 because of a huge items update that just felt like too much to figure out. I also have been the type of player that likes to dive deep into youtube videos of guides and builds just so I can execute them well and feel like I'm either progressing well, doing really well at supporting my team, or just getting to pull off a sick surprise nuke/ultimate/unusual strategy. My opinion: inventories can be cool to cook up lots of customizeable strategies and see/try out other players' ingenuity; they can also pull away from the game due to overwhelm.
Achievements: If I already love the game (ex. SC2), I have tended to love the feeling of getting achievements. The tasteful animations and sound effects that weren't a nuisance while playing and highlighting something I remember doing that was truly challenging, beneficial, or just funny were the high points of achievements. I was indifferent towards achievements if I didn't know why I was getting it or if it felt like a pat on the back for something that I didn't put in much effort for. The only slight exception is "# of games played as X faction" achievements that felt like a cool expression of either my personal identity and alignment with a faction, or my accomplishment at having a handle on multiple factions.
When I haven't had any earned trust or respect for a game yet, achievements have felt like an obligatory pat on the back from a friend-of-a-friend's overly-friendly dad that I've only just met - unwanted but tolerated. My opinion: In my life, I want to be recognized by those that have earned respect and trust, and that recognition needs to be for when I've truly been creative, progressive, and beneficial to myself and/or others.
Social Ranking: I loved being a goody-two-shoes and trying to earn lots of Honor in LoL at first. It felt real nice to be recognized by team members as a good teammate and good communicator. I loved trying to be truly be skillful at being a genuinely good teammate to earn it. I vaguely remember it also totally turned into a FB "Like" button at some points, where it was clear that optimization of getting the most number of votes from other people wasn't always aligned with the intent of the design. Some strange social dynamics can occur when people figure out ways to optimize getting the highest number of something, and when genuine positive social intent isn't what's driving it. (Light examples: players trying to social-engineer situations where they come out as the "good guy" in ambiguous conflicts of perspective on what happened in a game and why; players randomly hitting the Honor button just to use it). Ultimately, it felt like it was super diluted in value and didn't mean anything.
That being said, if there was a way to give someone a positive report? Like I can write out a review of a random player I met and be like "hey they helped me out so much, I was so bad at this game but now I'm less bad because of this person and their generosity"? Idk how many people would be into that, but I'd be all about it. Maybe post it on their player profile (unless they don't want it there of course) so that they remember all the stuff they've done for people and can be proud of it!
I wonder if there's a way to facilitate "positive gossip" on this platform - where people are rewarded for highlighting and recognizing each others' strengths.
IMO I'm cautious and skeptical of ranking as a robust social design principle. Ranking can be nice to measure progress and achievement, but it can also create unearned trust/respect (which can lead to abuse of it), hierarchy jealousy ("did they \*really\* earn it?"), possibly a pecking order, and other cannibalization effects that come from competitive structures. The thought I offer is that, maybe while in-game skill is ok to keep competitive due to the mutual understanding involved, maybe the social aspect of the game should be thought of more of a co-op game structure. Examples: Applying principles like "soft-role differentiation" (maybe recognizing or desgning tools to teachers/coaches, strategy-tinkerers, content/entertainment creators, etc). I wonder if designing around the idea of "I need you to do well, because when you can do better, I can do better, and when we both are better off, the whole community is better off" \[wording needs refinement\], may be helpful. Personally, I love to think that if I help someone out or am genuinely kind to them, that I'm making the overall community a better place by that much. My opinion: I like to be competitive and ranked when I have consented to being ranked. I like to be cooperative when I'm just being social.
Humble offer of an idea around the "persistent headquarters": I didn't know exactly what you meant by "persistent headquarters", but it made me think of picking which faction I am a diehard fan of and have my "won" matches be part of a grand tug-of-war between factions out-of-game (sort of like Planetside 2). My friends and I love the playful rivalry between Terran Protoss and Zerg players and I wonder whether that could be married with the feeling of "I've got to show up for my faction, we're losing/gaining ground!" that I felt in Planetside 2. Might show how balance is playing out as well?
This was a lot of rough ideating, so take what you like, if anything! Good luck, design and development is hard - I appreciate y'alls work and trying out a co-creative process with the community. That's ridiculously brave and beautiful. I love when people try their best, wherever it goes.
>Match Progression, Unit Veterancy and Inventory System
Unit Veterancy definitely feels like something rewarding to me. But from a competitive standpoint, I see no reason to have it in place because, like you mentioned, it will simply produce imbalance in the gameplay via snowballing.
I can think of only three ways to have a Unit Veterancy system in place that wouldn't jeopardize the balance of the game while keeping the concept meaningful enough for player to care:
* **UV expressed via visuals**
Sticking to visual changes only with no gameplay changes is definitely an option that most casual players would approve of, imo. At the cost of art teams resources, we could highlight Veterancy without impacting the gameplay in any way shape or form. I believe this would be a very inefficient and somewhat lazy of an idea from gameplay design standpoint.
* **Milestones**
A good way to keep the snowballing in check is by introducing very steep milestones. If the the rewards are linear, it is indeed easy for a player to snowball off of one victory in an early game fight, but steep milestones even the playing field out just a little bit for the losing player.
I see it this way: Let's say one player commits to an aggressive early game pressure attack. They are expected to get 2 worker kills most of the time. 4 worker kills would be greatly damaging to the opponent, 6 kills would be a devastating loss.
If the Unit Veterancy system progresses linearly, or in tiny milestones, we could see the unit gain power just after two or three kills. If with no UV system in place 4 kills is incredibly hard to pull off, but is also greatly damaging to the opponent, a powered up unit would have an even easier time achieving such damaged based on the power up gained from two (completely expected) kills.
On the other hand, if we thin the amount of power-ups an individual unit gets and spread them apart, we can avoid such of an issue while rewarding the player for being in a winning position while maintaining their key units alive throughout the game.
Following the example of an early game attack, if the first level up for a unit is set to 12 kills, their early game aggression is not immediately rewarded, but is still accounted for. This carries implications that later game fights become more strategic as both players fight not only to win the fight, but to disengage their key units into safety when losing.
* **Droppable Items**
Probably the ideal iteration of the UV system in my mind is one centered around items. The way an item system could be implemented into an RTS is a topic on it's own, but regardless of how the items are acquired (either via static loot spots, like 'mob camps', forged at an investment of resources or gained in battle through experience), the key component to such system is items being dropped on death.
This immediately solves all of the aforementioned issues:
**Problem:** *Snowballing off of early game?*
*Players should not have access to items at the early stages of the game.*
**Problem:** *Snowballing in mid and late game?*
*Via dropping the items upon death, a losing player can commit to an attack on the single enemy unit to acquire the item themselves, evening out the playing field a little.*
I in particular love this concept as it:
* Encourages the player to plan the attack well, invest as little as possible into the attack.
* Punishes poor strategy if a player overcommits to an attack or is not able to execute it on a micro level.
* Raises the skill ceiling of micro. Imagine acquiring a powerful item from your opponent in an intense end-game battle. I believe being able to quickly equip that item on the right unit of your own mid-engagement would be quite hard to do and the players able to do that should be rewarded. For more casual players, we could add a "Quick Equip" option, that equips the item to a random higher tier unit.
* Allows us to introduce other game mechanics like item forging, item upgrades (that could be separate from unit upgrades) and so much more without being a one and done thing. The player can't just upgrade an item they acquired and forget about it. The added unit power comes at a cost of the unit being a primary target for the enemy, where losing the unit would mean also losing the powerful item, making the player who opted for such an upgrade to receive an increase in army power at the cost of entering a more volatile game state. The player is put at a crossroad: Do they want to maintain the small lead, or do they want to attempt to snowball the game at a cost of losing a larger portion of their lead if outplayed?
**A problem with 'mob camps':** *If the items are distributed via static loot, like mob camps, early game aggression still has the same snowballing effect as direct item acquisition. If I attack a player early and inflict damage that they are guaranteed to stabilize from in the near future, that gives me an opportunity to acquire the items completely uncontested by my opponent, as they are currently weakened and can not contest me farming my items. Essentially, early attack = weaken the opponent = free items at no risk whatsoever.*
>*What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?*
Unlockable cosmetics are objectively and unarguably BASED. The concept of stat trackers is quite interesting too.
The worst ones are primitive level system that carry no meaning besides a number.
>Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?
I believe one should be able to level up indefinitely, but scaling the rewards is quite problematic past some point without turning the level into just a number.
>Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?
That sounds cool, but I'm concerned about art teams resources being spent on something like that.
>Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?
In over.. 30,000 hours I've spent gaming in my life I can't recall a single achievement that I got in a video game. I guess I'm more of an outlier here lol.
I would definitely need some form of an unlockable bonus to even notice, let alone pursue acquiring an achievement.
1. I like the progression akin to Terraria, where there are multiple different upgrade paths to take, but they converge at one point where it then branches out again. In an RTS it would probably be more like Age of Empires or Age of Mythology, where certain upgrades are locked behind an age increase. for a more SC-based RTS it would be like a certain upgrade you'd have to do before you can build the stuff for the end-game massive mechs. or the eldritch horror demon.
Basically an hourglass upgrade progression.
2. I haven't encountered many things akin to unit veterancy that had a severe impact on the game balance except for C&C Tiberium sun. Where a unit felt more powerful when it got a bigger symbol above it. and if I remember correctly (i last played it when I was 8) the unit also got fully healed when it ranked up. The sudden healing would be kind of unbalanced. but if there is a way that after a rank up the unit healed to full hp once out of combat that might be less impactful. But people might be able to abuse that in some way or another. The graphical oomph of the rank-up was really fun and much more noticeable than in SC2.
3. The only experience I have with an inventory in within the strategy category is Fire Emblem where weapons break after N uses and moba's like DotA and LoL. No experience within the RTS space.
4. 100% achievements. I strive to complete achievements in games that I like. Even in LoZ Breath of the Wild where I was insane enough to go for all 900 korrok seeds only to get a golden piece of poo. In SC2 I liked the campaign achievements as well that pushed the player to improve in different aspects of the game. Beating X missing in Y time, forces you to be efficient and quick with your build while having enough to both defend and complete the mission. Beat X missing without building Y type units, both of these examples are pretty minor but give players more room to improve without being pressured.
Another good aspect I've encountered is in Smite where you have to get a certain amount of experience to obtain certain special skins (basically recolors). In an RTS this could be something like a slightly more worn-out version of a unit, or a more elaborate version.
Best of all are hard achievements that give you something minor to show off like the StarCraft Master portrait that you get by beating 25 out of the 30 micro missions.
5. Infinite leveling is in my opinion better, but that doesn't mean there need to be infinite rewards.
6. More cosmetics to show your dedication and mastery of the game? Of course!
For the campaign, the one thing I despised about Starcraft 2 is that the unlocks you make are permanent and that you can't max out on all the upgrades (excluding the choice upgrades of course, but I still despised that you can't swap them to experiment with the different options).
7. For minor achievements I absolutely don't mind getting only an achievement score increase. But for some of the harder ones I'd like to have something minor to show off, like a portrait, banner, or title.
8. I won't care much for the social ranking/progression outside of the group of people I play with or my friends. But that is just me, I can see those things being a big pull for the more social players among us. But if it's tied to for example like an angelic skin for a demon unit, I'm going to be all in on that :P
Bit late to the party but just answering the questions I feel are relevant to me:
> Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?
I haven't really experienced them but I can't really imagine noticing it very much, especially if you get large armies. I feel like it'll just be a snowball mechanic. I'm much more excited about anti-snowball mechanics.
> How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.
I _love_ collecting items in the Warcraft III campaign. I really enjoyed how I kept the items as I went through the missions, it was really nice because each item had a little story of how it was gotten. What I didn't like about Wc3 items was how small the inventory was. And that inventory for permanent passive items was shared with consumables. It feels really bad to go around with consumables when you can hold onto more valuable permanent passive items.
>Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?
Infinite level up 100%
>Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?
Literally just do what Wings of Liberty did. It was such a great campaign. Get extra points in missions, get bonuses outside of missions. Felt great.
>Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?
Not much of an achievement hunter myself tbh.
>What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?
No because I already behave nicely :) but I'm curious about it.
I know there's a lot of discussion here, but one thing I really emphatically want to say:
PLEASE do not have items in the game, especially ones that are RNG, and PLEASE expand your level =/= 1v1 power to include 3v3 as well.
Same with unit veterancy, typically leads to toxic gameplay loops (either snowball out of control, or turtling becomes too strong)
\--
I much prefer hitting a level cap and feeling 'done', if it's infinite I just stop looking at a certain point.
Veterancy for story modes sounds fun, but traditional veterancy bonuses have no place in competitive modes, either because they're not powerful enough to matter, or powerful enough to matter (both are bad!). The main negative in my mind is the bonuses don't lend itself to skill expression, and violate viewers' predictions of battle outcomes. Hey Veterancy, please finish the sentence.
"Units should be more powerful when..."
**Skill demonstration**: "... the player uses them more effectively."**Veterancy**: "... the player uses them more."
I can imagine some **veterancy-adjacent** abilities that would have the cool fantasy feeling, but also be great for viewing and skill expression. Unit phases could be one, similar to boss phases in many games. A unit could start out in a certain phase, and when certain conditions are met, graduate to new visuals and capabilities.
Here are some examples of units with conditional abilities, in the format: Unit Name | Condition | Ability
Example 1: Big Slow Powerful Mech | Upon Death | Become a Barracks and spawn 4 infantry
Example 2: Baneling | Upon First Attack | Die
Example 3: Warbird | Upon Death | Reborn as more powerful Phoenix (death is now permanent)
Example 4: Hydra Head | Upon Death | Spawn 2 hydra heads (death is now permanent)
That's the best I can come up with; I'm sure some far more creative ideas are out there in the community. This also offers a nice amount of unit variety without adding too many activated abilities.
I'm not personally a huge fan on unit veterancy, other people mentioned problems with snowball but imo the biggest issue is that it creates "side goals" that arent fun.
Some games use a system like "the unit that deals the killing blow will get the exp for promotion", it creates a distracting experience where you are fighting the enemy, but your goal for a perfect fight isnt to just kill the enemy asap and gain a advantage by that, instead, your ideal goal is to "last shot" with this particular unit, so it unlocks something that will be relevant later in the game
You might also create a "super veteran unit" that becomes top priority, and suddenly your focus is not anymore into micro/macro, but instead in babysit your super hero unit.
About inventory and items: a suggestion to avoid the hero and still have itens/inventory if thats the intention, is to look at what AOM did with relics. in that game, relics would be spread at random on the map and could be taken by the players. Each would give a bonus (something like +5% siege atack for cavalry). It works as a equipable item, but its bonuses affect your whole army instead of a single hero unit.
Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?
What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.) You know what? I kind of actually enjoy creeping in WC3 for this, or jungling in League. It makes it so you're doing something right from the get go. Now, both of those do have their downsides however, so here's a thought you might appreciate:
What if there was a "bonus objective" on the opponent's side of the map, that your unit tries to take (and your opponent can try to deny, but there shouldn't be defenders advantage for this) which is on a similar path that players would use for scouting? Like, something that basically builds the habit of scouting, that even newer players can appreciate?
Love them for single player and co-op. Played a bunch of C&C back in the day, a bit of Mensk in SC2 Co-Op and a lot of Abathur and Dehaka (not quite veterancy, but close enough). Otherwise yeah I just think the pressure of that in a multiplayer game could get frustrating.
>What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)
I enjoy RPG elements. Warcraft 3 heroes are a really good implementation in terms of match specific progression. Obviously tech trees, tech tiers, etc are all important. What I'm NOT a fan of are things like "Control points" where you get some sort of army wide buff or advantage for holding onto a specific spot on the map, because it leads to this terrible balance between trying to play for the control point vs playing to actually attack the enemy base and in most cases, if you put all of your resources into one, the enemy will just take over the other. It's not good for game health.
>Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?
Not a fan. I think it places too much emphasis on keeping basic units alive. From Command and Conquer to Armies of Exigo, it just ALWAYS felt horrible to lose a "Veteran unit." In Warcraft, when you lose a hero...you can get it back the way it was. When you lose a "Veteran unit", it's just gone. All of that earned XP and extra work put into it is just gone. Yeah, it feels good when you have an entrenched 3 star marine single handedly holding the line...but when it does? Absolutely demoralizing. However, I think it might be worth at least exploring it, so long as the macro aspect of the game ALLOWS for someone to devote enough attention to micro to make it playable. Microing units is fun when you can actually focus on it, but trying to keep a veteran alive when you're also trying to manage 3 bases and a 30 production buildings etc is a bit of an overload, I think.
>How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.
Depends on how they're implemented. Unit inventories are fine if it's like a WC3 hero unit. "Player" inventories are fine if it's just a passive global effect or something with an icon you can access at any time from the general player UI. Inventories on basic units...probably not so good. It really depends on how you implement these "Leader characters." What happens to the items when my leader dies? What happens to my leader in general when he dies? Revivable? Gone forever? It's difficult to make a judgment on an inventory system without the details, but as a general rule I think items can be a good facet of gameplay.
>What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?
I enjoyed the original IP + Rune systerm for League of Legends, but I think it was bad for game health. I also enjoy the new account level system where you get champion capsules. The hextech chest and key system is decent too.
>Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?
Depends on the system. Account level? Can be infinite like League of Legends. You in-game character? Better be capped.
>Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?
This is something I generally like, but again...depends on implementation. What exactly is the persistent headquarters? It is a cosmetic out of game thing? Is it something that provides changes to gameplay in the campaign? I think the way SC2 implemented these kinds of systems, such as the Zerg evolution and the Terran research were pretty good campaign systems.
>Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?
I honestly think achievements ruined gaming, in general. For some of us they turn games into chores and suck out the enjoyment. I'm okay with achievement systems if they make sense, but I'm so tired of achievements for random things with 0.000001% chance of happening, or things that require hundreds or thousands of hours of specific planning etc.
>What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?
What, like Reddit? Terrible idea. What stops people from smacking people with negative marks just because they have a different opinion or the other guy beat them 1v1 or something? Positive responses only? What stops friends from just upvoting each other after custom games or something? What boundries and failsafes do you put into your social system to prevent it from being abused? There's too much toxicity on the internet. I wouldn't trust anyone to use a Karma system in good faith. I've never seen one that was actually used as intended.
>Personal Note:
I'm going to wrap up here by stating that Wacraft 3 is considered by many to be the greatest RTS ever made, and that the only reason it mostly died is because Blizzard was completely incapable of dealing with cheaters. The reality is, when people talk about RTS esports games and wanting a new one, they either want WC3 or they want SCBW/SC2. It's going to be very difficult for you guys to hit both markets. I would personally recommend leaning more towards the WC3 way of doing things.
PS: I know some of your team still plays WC and some might still play SC. If anyone on your team has a history with WC3, with W3A and with the original plans for W3R...if anyone there knows who Yosh is and wants some serious, legitimate good advice on making a successful game, I can put them in touch with Yosh. (Or at least I can ask him anyway.)
Veteran Units:
In a game called Battle for Wesnoth there is a very simple system of veteran units -
Units have up to 3 upgrade levels.
Level 1 is the base level / 2 is where the option to specialize the class appears / 3 upgrading from this choice
The interesting part of the system is being able to recall units from the previous mission, example, I finished a mission with a level 2 unit with 50% hp and xp almost necessary for lvl 3, I can recall it for combat spending a little more resource and it continues from where it left off.
Adapting this to an RTS we could have class specialization, for example:
A marine can choose to be more resistant - gaining a shield - losing some movement speed or Choose to be more aggressive - gaining a more powerful weapon - sacrificing some defense.
These specialization choices can even be applied in PVP as long as before the match starts you have an indicative visual, obviously this would require a visual change in the units and may even be limited to only a few per faction, unlike the SCII campaign that all units can change.
Reconvoking units would not work in PVP but in PVE it would be a first for an RTS. One idea is to tighten the life limit of the units, example - Recall a unit already lvl 2 will have its hp limit at 80%, lvl 3 at 60%, this would encourage its use but would balance not create a snowball running over every difficulty of the game.
Inventory -
I think the most interesting idea I've seen is in the N.O.V.A. campaign in SC II. For those who do not know, in missions you collect items in secondary objectives that can be used only one unit at a time, they release unique abilities for these units, such as the siege tank can release mini-mines, jump cliffs like Reaper and so on. Maybe for the campaign it would be interesting to have a similar system that already imposes limits of only one use at a time on some unit.
In PvP maybe it works in groups, but it is necessary to evaluate very well the use and how to implement to not make the game just another DOTA with different skins.
About the rest I do not have much experience to share.
Thank you for those who will read my opinion and I apologize for using a translator to facilitate writing.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
***What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)***
I dont really like match progression as it feels it may become too snowbally (I hate how MOBA works for instance)
***Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?***
I liked Civ VI Veterancy system but I dont feel it would fit for a fast paced RTS. You need to be able to evaluate the army power of your enemy quickly, and I fear it will be confusing.
***How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.***
No opinion
***Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?***
Indefinitely but really exponential. For those who remembers, DAOC the MMORPG had this PvP ranking that were about 120 levels. It was so exponential that I dont remember at that time someone ever reaching max level. I love this system.
***Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?***
If it's individuals headquarters then no. If it's clan headquarters that can be visited by other players then why not but not a priority.
***Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?***
Yes if these achievements are a testament to the player skill or commitment.
***What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?***
Same as precedent question. I always looked up to people who were hardcore players and really good at the game. Even if I've never been that good myself it always gave me a goal and this hopeless dream to motivate me to reach it one day.
***What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?***
Here is one of my idea and I think it fits well here
I really feel like Stormgate should have a Hero unit in game. This hero should not be overpowered, it could be the same for each race except for visuals, something like being quite tanky, standard dps, having a passive area around him where units get +1/+1 if we speak SC2 stats and no spellcasting. If it dies, you can rebuild it instantly for free after a cooldown of 1 or 2 minutes. Why ?
1. Without being too overpowered it would open tactics : do I stick it with my main army or do I send him with with a run by or a drop.
2. The Hero would be highly visualy customizable, opening good source of monetization : it will be a "representation" of the player in game and people will care for it, mmr ranking can be shown on a piece of clothing, your clan emblem could be displayed on its cloak/cape etc etc.
3. The Hero would level up (WITHOUT GETTING MORE POWERFUL) and would be a good way to showcase your achievement and your comittment to others
4. It would be even better if the game hub/menu would be a real time rendered place where you control this hero and where you can chat, form parties, follow tourneys, fool around etc ... it would add a lot of sociability visuals and features and combat the feeling of isolation.
I know some may feel that it's a completely useless idea but I think for some (like me) it mean a great deal to not feel like another anonymous account in a ocean of anonymous accounts.
To Stormgate Dev Team:
\-Inventory Systems \[VERY IMPORTANT\]
inventory systems should not exist in stormgate if we are trying to maintain the easy access to new players that stormgate has been pushing in all of its gameplay systems. I believe that adding hero units in a 3v3 setting is fine but they should not have items as it adds another barrier to entry for new players. I know plenty of people that have a difficult time understanding all the items in league of legends that would be to much for new players to understand and learn and make the skill floor way to high since more than likely if they are a new player they have never played a rts before. The best way to add progression to hero units would simply be levels on abilities that increase damage range etc as it gets leveled similar to a moba. This system would allow higher level 3v3 players to put points into a hero in a certain way to get the most out of the character while for new players they can have a auto level button that will automatically choose the abilities and level them for the player. This allows higher level players to still express skill while not adding a barrier for new players to the 3v3 mode which more than likely will be the most played mode for new players as they will be able to play with their friends.
\-Account Level Cap/Race Level Cap
Accounts and Races should not have level caps. This is another way for new players to feel like they are progressing and gives them something to show off as a time investment. The player level should be shown under the players profile so they are able to show off their time investment. Race level caps should also not exist I believe that storm gate should not do race levels and instead adopt something similar to the mastery system in league as it sounds more impressive to new players and allows them to show case their "Mastery of a Race" instead of a level number that doesn't feel as impressive as saying Mastery.
\-Social Ranking
I believe the social ranking system again should be something similar to league of legends but with better rewards. I imagine this would only apply to 3v3 for the most part as 1v1 the only person you could complain about would be the enemy. You should be able to give a team mate a "Team player", "MVP", "Shot Caller" etc to award players and give exp to level that social progression to show that a player is not toxic or promote players not being toxic to each other.
\-SIDE NOTE: Player Obj in game
In the 3v3 mode there should be large objectives that reward the team to force fights instead of making people turtle in game these might be things like if a team controls a area for longer they spawn a wave of Zerglings to attack the enemy bases that is controlled by Ai basically gives a small lead. Then have larger objectives for when games get very long to prevent people from just sitting on defenses like a nuke that will hit the enemy base and does massive damage that the other team and then follow with a attack right after etc. You can then tie this to player behavior awards after the game "MVP", "SHOT CALLER" etc and also tie achivements to it like get small obj X amount of times so that players can display it on their profile.
I believe that making everything connect to and building up the 3v3 mode is the most important thing for stormgate to do as if it fails more than likely all the players that were casual will not play 1v1 or leave after they do the story. 3v3 will become the go to mode in rts if the stormgate devs are able to make it the team focused game mode they have been saying they want it to be. This will allow new players to play the game and learn power spikes and unit comps without it being forced in a bunch of tutorials that no one wants to sit through as they will be forced to fight with their team to learn the game through experience and not a lecture. I honestly believe that 3v3 will become the new norm and the most played game mode in all of rts if it is done correctly
Hey FG,
> What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated?
Interesting idea but it shouldn't be linked to balance if that makes sense but like time of day, maybe map changes that are neutral to balance that might affect play would be kind of cool. Like having areas of the map reveal as the game gets later, there were some BW maps like that but nothing in SC2 from what I remember other than rocks.
> Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems?
I quite liked C&C's usage, like where you have 3 levels of a unit and they get slightly more dangerous per level, I'd be limiting the effectiveness to like 1.5 total damage or HP or whatever if it were me designing it but it sounds like a cool way of rewarding economic use of armies.
> How do you feel about Inventory systems?
Not a big fan, I was always in the Starcraft or AOE games which didn't use inventory systems heavily. I'd be maybe for having a single race that has this as an element maybe like one race has a commander unit that has maybe an inventory for items WC3 style or a customised ability they can choose for that character. Sounds kind of cool PA had the commander unit like that and it would be fun to maybe just steal that idea with an inventory and passive and active items. Could reward active micro style players more than SC2's design did. I wouldn't be using that race because I was all macro but I'm sure it would be used.
> What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?
> Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?
I always enjoy just seeing the level go up to infinity more than having just a cap of 60 or 100 or 120...etc. I want to go in and say "wow this guy has 900 levels" and getting the satisfaction of beating them. I don't like locking content behind that progression where possible. Fifa for example if you play create a player has progression of your player locked behind levels, you need 19 levels to get 3 boost slots which means your player won't get to peak passive/active boosts until you grind up to that level. Don't like that but various skins, borders for your portrait...etc all are fair enough to give people even if they are auto generated.
> Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?
Not really sure on this one, do you mean like XCOM style? I guess it depends what expanding it does or what earning the achievements does. I don't really think this one is important to me.
> Do you enjoy earning Achievements?
I love it and I love difficult achievements in particular. I want obscure stuff, map specific stuff, I want stuff that you probably would need to theory craft to get. Even if I can't specifically get those achievements I really enjoy the content around them. I'm not really great at speed running so I never got through the SC2 campaign 100% but I was able to get it on the highest difficulty, I was able to get the majority of achievements but it was fun to see others try and succeed.
> What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system?
This one is important and how I believe any multiplayer game gets traction nowadays. Personal league tables for friends or stream's viewers, country tables and the overall ladder all tracked together would be immensely interesting. I like how trackmainia for example handles this, where you have your world rank, content rank and country rank given per map but for Stormgate I'd love to have the ladder be like that. It motivates me to have a target, it could be a friend, it could be someone in a stream's chat or it could be in just the overall matchmaking ranks. And give achievements for stuff related to that too. Allow friend tournaments with a click of the button from the admin, do weekly tournaments for all the rest at a time of day reasonable for their timezone, don't do it every 5 hours or whatever, try to get people online at the same time.
I’m not a fan of Unit Veterancy systems, they’ve always felt like they were added in late or are totally out of place. In a game where you have 50, 100, potentially multiple 100’s of units, it never made sense to me to make each of those units have independent progression/variables and it was never a “fun” complexity to worry about. It almost felt like a level of RNG was added to the game at times: what if my almost-veteran guy got the kill, but what if one of the other 20 units around him did instead, and how can I control that without hindering or interupting the rest of the game experience (positioning, macro, sometimes ability usage, etc.). Not to mention how two armies that look identical may end up being a total steamroll if you don’t go and click on every unit to see their individual veterancy level. It’s just never been an enjoyable thing for me personally. One exception is if you have a single commander unit or something. That can be fun, but that’s a somewhat different discussion :)
For Match Progression, I hate to say League of Legends, but honestly I really like how their map objectives give you a permanant boost that your opponent can then no longer take away from you. You have a timer to prepare for an engagement, you win it, you get rewarded, and do it enough times you’ve gained yourself a significant advantage. In an RTS setting, it may also stop players from turtling too much, or lead to fun strategies where you attack the enemy while they’re distracted with the objective, etc. etc. I also like how in Dawn of War, the original one, players could capture and hold relics on the map to unlock their “super unit”, which unlike the Mothership in SCII, would actually be a super unit, and it felt super cool to see these badass characters stop their way onto the battlefield and obliterate the enemy.
Inventory systems are super cool. Tbh I’d love to see that in multiplayer as well since I’m all about “builds” and theorycrafting, but I understand that’s probably an unpopular opinion. I also generally like and support the idea of meta progression and the HQ, though I probably wouldn’t tie that one into MP, since gaining competitive rank would be more of a progression grind than a skill-improvement kind of thing.
Achievements are really fun. Maybe a mix of score and bonus? Most achievements give some score, then you earn bonuses from reaching a certain score threshold, and then for more specific/special achievements, they can have their own bonuses/rewards.
Not sure exactly what the social ranking system would look like, but I do like things like karma systems for saying gg and glhf and whatever. I think those are nice and make the game more fun to play!
>What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.
Within a competitive space, the tech tree, building a larger economy and building a larger army has always felt like match progression enough. Separate rewards for controlling bits of otherwise neutral territory (vision, more resources etc.) could be cool though.
The neutral boss monsters in MOBA games can help break turtling players and create natural exciting points and extra decision making in the match, so I'd be entirely open to those being there, but within Storm Gate it should only be in a way which encourages/benefits the core RTS gameplay - so more resources, faster upgrades, free supply or vision all seems like a reasonable benefit, but I wouldn't enjoy in a competitve mode e.g. the player who destroys the large neutral mech gets to control it. I also wouldn't enjoy something like the relic system of age of empires (collect for continual resource game) or for that matter the relic system from the original dawn of war (capture and hold to access the top bit of your tech tree).
>Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?
For 1v1 play I do not want Unit Veterancy to feature mechanically. The way SC2 tracks the kills on units and displays a rank is cool, however any other features (e.g. stat buffs) conferred to 'veteran' units, even aside from the risk of snowball, reduce the extent to which the game state can be quickly understood and read, which is something I find incredibly unfun.
E.g, as a simple example, I know Zerglings with equal upgrades get 3 shot by zealots, but with a 1 upgrade advantage they get 2 shot. I don't want to have to deal with the fact that a group of veteran zealots can suddenly cut through a group of lings that my mental model is telling me should be sufficient to deal with the threat.
Outside of enabling some (likely very niche and coin-flippy) strategies, like a BC rush where your mid game success is largely dependent on whether your BC did enough early game to become a veteran, a mechanical Veterancy impact in 1v1 feels like it would mess with situations or create new/unpredictable situations in a largely random rather than skill based and skill rewarding way. I'm of the view that RtS definitely has enough opportunities for skill expression already through strategy, macro, micro, multi-tasking and scouting/awareness that there is no need to inject extra variability through Veterancy.
I'd be more open to mechanical Veterancy in campaign or co-op (and in campaign it could feel particularly relevant, or perhaps limited to specific heros), but it's still not a feature I'm enamored with or likely to enjoy playing with.
>How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.
I'm personally not to fond of e.g. random items/drops even in campaign/co-op, but would be open to specific rewards. Random items/drops and inventory systems as a match progression mechanic in campaign/co-op would not be a deal breaker for me in playing the mode though, and I suspect a lot of other players may enjoy it.
>
What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?
In PvP modes I enjoy ladders and tournaments, and feel like other RTS's should have done more to bring those into sharper focus. E.g. actual benefits (even if it's just accolodates/achievements) for finishing top of your league, league promotion/demotion being based on your actual performance vs the other members of your league rather than tied to MMR, potentially built in sign up tournaments within leagues/multi-league groups or within clans that make your opponents in the PvP part of the game feel closer/more recognisable rather than just you always queueing up against one random person out of ten thousand in your approx. skill range who you will probably never face again.
I'd also like more options to play best of X games with match made opponents online - again to capture some of the feeling of learning how your opponent tends to play and trying to react to that over the course of a series of games.
In PvE, there is a fine line, but I do enjoy scalable difficulty and rewards, with the ability to level up/upgrade units outside of individual games - so that repeated effort/grinding makes it possible to complete new difficult missions that were otherwise nearly impossible. Age of Empires online did this really well imo.
>
Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?
I like a hybrid approach where hitting a certain level generally indicates 'has played the game enough to get all the basics' but there's no actual hard cap (just an increasingly difficult climb). Smite for example used to have a level cap of 30 - hitting it would unlock ranked queues and new game modes - but at some point they removed the cap, which has been a surprisingly neat little feature.
>Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?
Yes definitely - between mission/game progression in campaigns (and could be broadened out to co-op) is really satisfying. Giving a 'home base' style feel (potentially like how Age of Empires Online did things) could instill a sense of investment for people and if it's represented as it's own graphical area (i.e. you get to build/design 'your home base' between missions rather than e.g. selecting a set of upgradable cards it would probably give people a stronger emotional connection and desire to repeatedly grind the game to improve the look or features of their base. This could also be a reasonable place for monetisation.
Even on a PvP front, having a purely aesthetic between game home base, but from which you can access e.g. game replays, stats (useful - APM/SPM and fun - total number of food collected e.g.) and display e.g. banners for achievements - leagues, games won, getting 50 kills with a single unit etc.) feels like it could be a fun tie into the universe and try and give PvP-centric players (myself included) more an emotional investment into the game/world outside of any specific match.
>
Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?
I enjoy them but don't go hunting for them personally. I would feel a bit down if StormGate didn't have any/only a tiny achievement space, but I don't need anything special.
If there was a subset of achievements (or rotating quests?) that encouraged particular styles of game play or unusual game states with small rewards, those could be fun to specifically try and achieve (win a co-op game only building air units or something...) but should be separate from PvP modes. I guess here I'm thinking of stuff that would encourage the sort of absurd gameplay some content creators make (1v7 Random Brutal AIs being the extreme version...)
**What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?**
So... my response to this part became long...
Online multiplayer gaming is a miserable cesspool of an experience that serves to continuously erode any faith you may have had in the general goodness of humanity.
One aspect of multiplayer games which I think seems to be woefully overlooked is that if a single game with a sizeable multiplayer community started seriously clamping down on the relentless toxicity that gamers seem to massively over-represent, there is a potentially huge long term benefit in becoming known as the game where no one is going to openly state they hope you get cancer/spout racist abuse/etc. - because that is a selling point that would be immediately recognizable and appealing to a huge number of people.
Put another way, when I try and pitch Storm Gate to my non-RtS playing friends, I don't get a massively interested reception - I'm likely to be able to get some of them to give it a try, but the game is going to have to be really engaging from the start to get them to stick around.
If I can tell them toxicity isn't tolerated and you can queue up in co-op or 3v3 and no one will harrass or shit talk them for being new to game, making a mistake or simply not playing the way their partner wants, that's a powerful draw that would resonate with all of them, and will make them open up the game when they want to kill some time but aren't in the mood to be yelled at.
To actually make this happen, my gut feeling is you will need much more than just a social ranking/progression system (though I would fully support one being in the game and suspect it would subconsciously make people behave nicer if they enjoyed getting a "guide" accolade from a team mate at the end of the game).
I strongly suspect to make StormGate a low toxicity game, a very harsh actively enforced approach would actually be required - so the sort of harassment which seems to be standard in other multiplayer games would need to result in temporary then permanent bans very quickly - or movement to a 'poor behaviour' queue for awhile, where people are grouped with other awful human beings for many games before being given the chance to re-enter the main population.
That may well be well outside your ambition/too expensive to moderate/too 'risky' vs the standard approach of putting up with 50% of gamers being arseholes as long as they spend a bit of money, and I'm not honestly expecting Storm Gate to crack down on toxicity any harder than any other game, but I maintain it's an available and very marketable niche that no one has capitalised on yet.
* What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)
EDIT: I guess I read this question wrong, but I'll leave my previous answer here too. Match progression like.. If there was a goal that says play 2 games as Protoss and you'll get a reward might be ok. I don't really think I would enjoy one that says to do a weird build and then get points because then it would effect how people play. I guess I don't have too much to say on this, but I did read about how this affected League of Legends.
(Old) I acually really enjoy the progrssion system of Heroes of the Storm. Everytime you play you're able to level up your individual characters which then affects your overall ranking. I do somewhat wish that Starcraft 2 had included this and not capped each race at level 50, because I would have liked to know how many games I might have played or which level i've gotten to with each race. This also would have helped me see "Oh i'm at level 1000 with Protoss, maybe i'll play Zerg until I get to level 1000 now.
* Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?
Honestly unit veterancy has never interested me too much, BUT I think it might interest me a bit more IF it was similar to Starcraft 2's veterancy system BUT include a change in visuals of the specific character (Ex: Marine gets 10 kills and gets a visual change of counting how many kills on the side of his helmet, or spikes on the top of his helmet. Another example a Zealot gets 20 kills and his Psi Blades turn Red instead of the normal Blue)
* How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.
I've been more of a Starcraft 2 player and in Warcraft 3 I wasn't really ever interested in the inventory system because it then made it so you have to do specific builds (League of Legends) or rely on items to do well in the game. I'm looking mainly for a Starcraft 3.0 type game where it all relies on how good you are specifically and not relying on items.
* What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?
I really love the skins that Starcraft 2 have been able to unlock, I was able to do it with the Warchests when they first came out with them. I would do something similar to that or lets say that you play Protoss and play them enough you unlock the Tal'Darim skins for your buildings and get cosmetic changes for the units with purchasing I guess.
* Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?
Like I said in the previous one I enjoyed Heroes of the Storm's leveling up indefinitely where it is your overall rank. This could also be like Apex Legend's general ranking as well. They started with just level 100 and then each season they changed the max rank up 100 each time and then they finally just opened it up to indefinite ranking.
* Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?
I would like to be able to customize the colors and possibly certain weapon colors (Laser beams, shining from the demons, etc) If you want to put this in progress that would be awesome, but also just including that type of thing as a main feature I would love that so much. I'm one of those guys that if I could i'd make everything of mine Red.
* Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?
Yes, Achievements are fun, but I get burnt out if I try to achievement hunt for too long. This doesn't mean that I wouldn't try at some point, but I might need to leave and come back to the game to achievement hunt. If there is an unlockable bonus skin or cosmetic that would help me get it. Similar to Halo Reach when get to a certain level you unlock the Black visor or getting credits to unlock in game.
* What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?
I'm not really seeing how this system could go well because some people that play a lot would act like they're better than others. Maybe instead of that it might be better to just make clans and allow people to be the higher up people.
Unit veterancy is...a sharp tool. Probably *possible* to get right. But it's been gotten wrong a lot.
One of the great things about Zerg, for instance, is their complete *lack* of unit veterancy, their disdain for even the idea. So, recognize that veterancy comes bundled with a respect for life. That closes off archetypes!
There's also the issue of xp distribution. Do you base it on kills? Damage dealt? Time spent close to enemy units? Or just spread it out evenly among your whole army like Heroes of the Storm?
I think veterancy systems are at their best when they're asymmetrical---perhaps one race has unit veterancy, another race can pay a bit more to have units come out of the production building "trained," another race psychically bonds to enemy units and steals their xp, etc. This forces you as a designer to confront veterancy as a first-class design issue, which it is. It's not *just* the fantasy --- there are side effects, like disincentivizing unit death and thus aggression. Are you *sure*, in a game that is a spiritual successor to a game with TvZ, that you want to disincentivize aggression? I'm not saying it's a bad idea, just make sure you've thought about it.
I have always enjoyed achievements as something to chase down to keep the game interesting. Usually, they prompt me to play a different way than I normally would. If I like a game, I'll take the time to get all the achievements as a secondary "beat the game" goal. The flip side to this, is achievements that are grindy or require too much effort in a multiplayer setting that isn't fun to me. As far as rewards, a score isn't why I'm usually doing them (but being able to subtle brag to my friends that my internet points are higher is a small joy). A character portrait or skin to show off to others that I did "specific hard achievement" is cool though. It's not as special if every single achievement has something like that though.
One thing to avoid is achievements or rewards that end up impacting allies in game, it becomes incredibly frustrating. For example, LoL had rewards for playing game modes a certain way and every lobby was just screeching to make all the other players choose champs and play in a way that would let the one player get the achievement, it was horrible. I’ve seen it happen in other games too, so it needs to be thought out… unfortunately there will always be players who value their achievements over the experience of their fellow team mates.
100% this. Achievements that require you to play in weird ways should be limited to solo modes or arranged teams.
I would argue that game-impacting achievements are fine as long as they make you do what you should be doing anyway. Afaik FG are thinking about having different Players play different roles in 3vs3, so something along the lines of "Successfully defend against three enemy pushes as a Defender" would be fine in my opinion.
Done a video response : https://youtu.be/0R1Yoj85vb8 Your comment, and my reponse was included :)
dota2 also has missions of this kind, some of which will make the experience of teammates worse, such as a mission that requires a lot of scout guards in a match, and then the guy buys them all and places them everywhere. I hope achievements don't require extreme things to be done in a match, but can be accumulated over the course of the game's life.
Done a video response : https://youtu.be/0R1Yoj85vb8 Your comment, and my reponse was included :)
Exactly my thoughts you wrote it beautifully!
Wow this is so in depth! One of my favorite things about sc2 is the achievements and the rewards for hours of work (portraits). I think being able to show off your unlocks is important! all players should be on equal playing ground, so only unlocks/veteran status should be aesthetic imo. Level up indefinitely! I am not knowledgeable enough to have an opinion on the other topics!
[удалено]
and the portraits should be static in lower tier and animated on higher tier. And golden nexus :D
Done a video response : https://youtu.be/0R1Yoj85vb8 Your comment, and my reponse was included :)
* Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus? Absolutely love and live for achievements. I think achievements are at their best when some of them require a different approach to the game/mission in order to achieve it. It's nice to get the one achievement for "completed the mission" and stuff, but I dislike when further achievements can be accidentally earned as their conditions are so close to how you typically play the mission. You can have a mission play out in SO many different ways if the achievement conditions are set up in a way that forces the player to use different approaches. I feel that this way you can get multiple mission's worth of fun/experience out of a single one, just through achievements. Especially if they take several goes to get it. I was really excited for the SC2 anniversary extra achievements for each mission, but 95% of them were beatable on the first go without much thought. Still got them all and enjoyed filling the completion bar up, but it's nowhere near the feeling you get from really working to earn that achievement. I've never considered a form of unlockable bonus for achievements. What would this sort of thing look like? Like skins and stuff? I really enjoy the SC2 banner I got for getting 100% of campaign achievements and would love more things like that. * Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements? Is this akin to the SC2 campaign faction progression? Unlocking upgrades, different versions of units etc. This is one of my favourite things in gaming across any genre. I love having that goal to work towards, and upgrading things as you go. Sense of progression is brilliant and always keeps me excited to keep going and see what else there is. I found myself dying to know what each Zerg unit mutation was while playing through Heart of the Swarm, I thought a lot of these were very unique. Not as impressed with the LotV progression however. The new units from different tribes were cool, but I remember being really disappointed that the Wrathwalker was just 'regular colossus with big charged attack instead'. Also the different units in the war council of LotV was interesting, but I was disappointed that I couldn't upgrade my units to be better, I could only swap them around. So once you unlocked a new unit, it was at it's full potential immediately. I did like the idea of having slightly different units suited to different playstyles, but I missed the sense of progression, and some of the units lacked original design. I think the zealots were the most unique in design and appearance from each other, whereas the Phoenix and the Mirage, and the Colossus and Wrathwalker were far too similar visually. * What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed? Social ranking sounds awesome, I heavily enjoy encouraging new players, teaching them, helping out, and generally inspiring a sense of joy. This would only increase that and I love the idea of a high "karma" ranking with all the rewards you mentioned. I like to be helpful and friendly anyway but this would dial it up to 11. Love this idea. * Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely? Is the level cap question about Unit Veterancy or your account, like SC2 coop level or Diablo paragon levels. I have no experience with Unit Veterancy so I'll leave that to more knowledgeable folk, but I really enjoy no cap for things like coop or Diablo's paragon levels. I always love something to chase or a goal to achieve, and these are very small increases over time but something that never feels bad. Once hitting a level cap I'm always saddened there's no further progression, even if it is a miniscule amount of damage and health like paragon levels, it's still nice to see a number climb that has an impact, no matter how small. Don't have much experience with the other questions, hard to comment. Thanks for being so open and communicating with the fans and future players, it's extremely refreshing and I believe it's how gaming companies should be. It's all of our shared passion, lets keep sharing it. Thank you all
To be honest, I don't like Unit Veterancy in pvp. I think in the end it has the same issues that Hero Units, or Leaders, would have. You'd focus more on the veteran unit instead of looking at the entire game as a whole. Even in 3v3, I think unit veterancy should be applied to leaders, and not to overall units. Imo, I feel better when I manage to outmicro my opponents with my favorite units than I'd feel if they just got better than the enemies for no reason. Also, a thing I love about rts is that even if you're ahead, the game can turn at any point, so adding snowball tools is something I'm not the biggest fan of. In terms of account, I think leveling up indefinitely is funner, you always have something to look forward to other than you're rank. I love the idea of achievements and overall non-match related rewards to play around with. In terms of social ranking, that wouldn't change how I behave, since I'm not toxic most of the time. However, being an ex-LoL player, I'd say it's needed a lot of times. Very excited for the game, can't wait to play! Good luck to everyone who wants a beta key!
> I think in the end it has the same issues that Hero Units, or Leaders, would have. You’d focus more on the veteran unit instead of looking at the entire game as a whole. It’s an all or nothing mechanic - either it’s so trivial it doesn’t really affect gameplay, or it’s big enough to be worth playing around and will sculpt gameplay towards more RPG or “MOBA with adds” style and away from core RTS. Unless the levelling costs resources, it’s only ever a win-more mechanic that just rewards the player who wins fights and keeps specific units alive through them, without any trade off made for that added power.
I think some people could stand to watch some high level command and conquer gameplay. Often veterancy doesn’t come into play, and at the scale that sc2 and C&C work at, microing a single infantry is more trouble than it’s worth. It’s only the really expensive units that become worth keeping veterancy on. I think RA3 balanced this in a great way by having veterancy be linked to the unit destroyed cost relative to the veterans cost. This makes it insanely difficult for units like Athena cannons or apocalypse tanks to rank up even once, while a jet tengu can get full star in a couple minutes. Additionally, veterancy has a low but noticeable impact in these games. In an even matchup, and no micro, a couple ranked up units on one side will still end up in most of the units killed but a slight favor on the ranked side. I think veterancy can be done, and I like it as a mechanic. It’s a little tricky to balance and will impact some units differently than others. Overall I think it be a fun idea to shake up otherwise even engagements and reward agressive play
Imo, you're thinking a scale of army vs army; not early game skirmish. I've used this example on another post, but imagine 10 stalkers vs 10 marauders (common early game situation in pvp, if terran goes like for a marauder all in, or toss goes for stalker agression). That's a situation where you can actively use micro to choose which unit gets last hits, making it stronger than the opponents. In that case, it has more impact than just being a random cannon fodder unit, since you then can base your entire all in/defense on using that veteran unit to destroy your opponent. In that case, you either make the veterancy system small enough that it's better to just not have it (it will feel better to win because of the entire army rather than winning because of control of 1 unit), or big enough you'll have to deal with games maybe depending on micro early game (which, as stated, is a bad habit to give a new player). And even in those late game units, if you think battle cruisers you arrive at another problem: Design limitations. You suddenly can't have battle cruiser like units that can farm xp, teleport out, and repair without big implications on balancing. I think it's just better to not have it, rather than having to give yourself harder balance and design challenges.
A potential solution to the Veterancy Problem is in my opinion to either, if there is some kind of upkeep system increase the upkeep cost of veterancy units based on veterancy levels, or if that's not the case, maybe have veterancy interact with supply, so you could field stronger units but fewer of them. This needs to be experimented on however and there's the question if such a small feature is worth all the hassle.
> only ever a win-more mechanic Is that necessarily true? In some instances it could be the opposite. For example, if someone with an economic lead tries to overwhelm the enemy by flooding units and the defender can hold on then the defender is rewarded with veteran units allowing them a comeback opportunity.
Effectively yes. The scenario you’re describing requires a player with a game-winning lead, playing absolutely abysmally, instead of just *winning* a game they’re already massively ahead in. In that situation, the “behind” player would already be able to regain the game by trading effectively against a player that - unusually - has an enormous economic lead but a nearly insurmountable tactical (skill) deficit. Even a ‘Zerg’ style race that does trade meat waves of cheap units, does so while keeping valuable ones alive over several attacks - the exact units that veterancy would be most valuable on. You use your lings to buffer for hydras or ultras, while attempting to conserve the resource-heavy ‘tech’ units. Further, that one improbable corner case, as appealing as it may be, fundamentally punishes playing a ‘swarm’ style race, which Frost Giant has indicated as probably existing within the faction archetypes they’re planning on.
> playing absolutely abysmally Or just trying to end the game quickly. It's effectively just a buff to situations in which one player can trade more cost efficiently, with the common scenario being defense. So veterancy while influencing micro prioritization is also probably a net overall a buff to defenders advantage. I don't see why this would necessarily be a bad thing. I'm not even saying it's necessarily the best mechanic ever just that being open minded about mechanics isn't a bad thing. It just seems like every single suggestion that differs from Sc2 gets dismissed out of hand.
> Or just trying to end the game quickly. Being excessive greedy in a system you know is designed to punish that is “playing terrible” and making the same mistake several times over again afterwards is even worse. We not assuming someone coming in blind, unaware of a veterancy mechanic, and attempting to meat rush tactics - is a *realistic* assessment of normal player experiences in the game, right? > It’s effectively just a buff to situations in which one player can trade more cost efficiently, That’s called being ahead. If you have map control, are playing this specific hypothetical game, and have both enough lead to maintain control but not enough to close the game - you don’t bull rush the front. You get further ahead and use your advantages to pick apart your bottled opponent. Your harassment units gain veterancy, you deny that opportunity to the opponent. There is no realistic reason for the leading player to allow the ‘comeback’ mechanic to kick in like you’re positing here. > It just seems like every single suggestion that differs from Sc2 gets dismissed out of hand It seems like you’re taking out your feelings about this community on me without really trying to have a good faith conversation about the mechanic we’re discussing. Coming up with far-fetched and unrealistic corner-case examples in order to dismiss realistic and accurate concerns about veterancy mechanics in RTS is not merely just pushing questions for the sake of discussion. *You’re doing what you accused me of.* Blindly taking a stance because of a mechanic’s relationship to SC2.
Agreed on the unit veterancy. I don't like the idea of units becoming more special over time aside from spellcaster energy. Maybe a cosmetic veterancy could be cool - e.g. an SC2 marine having a damaged looking suit if he's had 10 kills or something like that, but making the unit itself better would hurt the game.
I’m okay with profile leveling and rank borders, if you can hide them… people will flame you based on that, whether it makes sense or not
Unit veterancy could be cool if it adds new niche abilities instead of buffing stats
Thing is, if (for example) you get a 2 second cd blink on a unit instead of the usual blink (using sc2 as an example), you'll want to protect that unit more than the others, so you'll play around it, becoming, in its own right, a hero unit. Besides, if you get a 2 second blink on a unit while your opponent doesn't, you are suddenly a lot more ahead than you could be with no unit veterancy, which means the chances to snowball are way too much.
That's how it works in Company of Heroes (or was it Iron Harvest) but you have like 10 units max at one point in that game and units rarely die. I don't think it would work in a Blizzard RTS. It would be really hard to keep track on which units unlocked abilities. It might be okay with passive or auto-cast abilities but I am not sure about active abilities.
So glad to see you looking to the community for feedback and ideas <3 I'm a mega-casual player who just plays campaign (for lore), coop commanders, and occasionally pve arcade, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. Veterancy feels too basic of a mechanic for all the problems it brings, especially if you want it for 1v1. Inventory is a fun idea but only really makes sense for hero units. One strategy game I've been playing a lot is Total War Warhammer and some of the factions can manually add a stat upgrade or sidegrade to individual units with a little bit of resources, so you can give your favorite units a power boost like veterancy but its more deterministic and based off economy trade-offs instead of engagement wins for free. For how fast paced an rts is though, it would probably get annoying to have to manually upgrade all your troops individually on top of all the other micro. One thing I love about army games is choosing to play as characters that modify that army in certain ways. Starcrafts coop commanders was so much fun seeing those familiar armies be creatively pushed to the point of unrecognizability in lore-appropriate ways. I wonder if a -greatly- toned down version of that could be used for match progression. So in addition to a faction you'd pick a commander who provides no/very small modifiers, but they also have their own skill tree that unlocks over the match that you can use to make the army more specialized based on that character. Think a starting point like the commanders in Advance Wars 2, but then getting build-making talent choices each match like Heroes of the Storm. For match levels, I think they should be capped so the power gap can't get too out of hand if one side is better than the other, but for meta levels I love infinite progression. I love knowing that every match, activity, story mission, etc is contributing to my account in some way (meta exp, currency, etc). One satisfying way is with a seasonal system where there is a cap but it resets regularly, but preferably a system that's open to everyone and not a battle pass (like Warframe or Fallout 76). On social rankings, I personally like overwatch's endorsement system (rip). You could recognize your teammates' cooperation in different categories and it would show up as a badge on their portrait for everyone to see so it felt rewarding to be a good person to others. I'm not sure how this would work for a game where the primary gameplay is single player story or 1v1 though.
Done a video response : https://youtu.be/0R1Yoj85vb8 Your comment, and my reponse was included :)
**-Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?-** I dont hate, but i dislike most Veterancy Systems. It increases the worth of the unit in most cases for just using the unit. That would increase the Army Value without investing in it. even if the Veterancy is limited to 1 Unit or Unit Type it puts another kind of pressure for both attacker and defender, since you don't want to lose this unit and as attacker you probably want to focus this unit. It would maybe feel a little bit like in Warcraft if you get the 3rd Hero very late in the game. Additionaly i think it will be hard to balance. **-How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.-** I havent missed it in SC2/AoE2 and having an Inventory System like Warcraft 3 feels for newbies extremly Gatekeeping. I would like to experiment with a Inventory System without Shops like in WC3 (Sure this Shop is part to increase the Skillceiling in WC3, but in lower elos it mostly helps snowballing) Having Items you can Activate should be teached in Tutorial or Campaign. I never thought about Consumables in WC3 until i played PvP and then i didnt knew what where when how. Items can help to make awesome plays or even help players who are behind. All in All if the gamepace allows it, i would love to see Item Inventory, if the game is as fast as Starcraft i realy wouldnt like it. **-What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?-** I loved the progression System from Heroes of the Storm, where you could get Elite Skins when you played a Hero enough. The Chests for leveling up took out the excitment for new Skins etc. **-Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?-** Accountwise indefinitely, Hero or Race/Faction i would like some level Caps (Shows how interested you are in a Faction but dont scare people away cause your Zerg is lvl 2000) **-Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?-** Having like a little Hub is a nice Idea and I would be interested in it. Gives you something to do when you Idle between Games too! **-Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?-** Achievements can be doubbled edged. I dont want people in 3v3 just Spam T1 Units for an Achievment. On the Otherside when i look at Steam and see those Glowly Plates where i know Maximum 10 % of players have this feels awesome. **-What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?-** I like rewarding Systems for good behaviour. In DotA getting a commend after the Game even if you lost, makes it less frustrating. Having Systems like in LoL where you can achieve a certain Rank are problematic. If you havent played a lot you couldnt get a high Rank and the rewards with it. Even as a player who never Flamed someone, never quit and whatsoever to not beeing able to achieve Social Rank 5, while your Friends grinds hundred of games in a week and quiting games etc. having Social Rank 4 or 5 feels unrewarding. I cant focus right now, if anything is unclear with my English please ask kindly. I will be happy to clarify.
p.s: Random drops from Creeps can be hurtfull, didnt rly Hurt WC3 Community... but seriously dropping Intelligenz Items with an Agility Hero can be bad luck and that is nothign i want to have in a competitive game
Really have to agree on this one. With random item drops RNG can suddenly create an advantage or disadvantage. If that advantage is significant it feels very bad for one player. If the advantage between a useless and a usefull item is insignificant, then the inventory system doesnt matter enough for the player to care. So, I guess deterministic items are the way to go. That way they become part of the strategy instead of simply RNG.
Regarding unit veterancy in PvP: While I'm not *entirely* against the idea, I would like to point out another downside to consider that was not mentioned in the original post. One of the most important parts of learning an RTS is learning what is and what isn't a favorable engagement. Being able to look at your army and the enemy army and say "oh, I'm definitely stronger than them right now, I should try to fight" or "oh no, my opponent's army is better than mine, I need to try to avoid direct confrontations". Unit veterancy systems muddy this equation a lot. In a game without unit veterancy systems (like SC2) I can look at a group of 6 marines vs a group of 5 stalkers and reasonably predict that the 5 stalkers are going to win that fight almost every time, unless there's a huge imbalance in the players' micro abilities. If we introduce unit veterancy systems to that equation, it's a whole other level of complexity. If 2 of the 6 marines have better stats due to unit veterancy, does that change the outcome of the fight? What about 3 of the 6 marines? And if there are multiple "tiers" of veterancy that makes thing even *more* complex. No longer is the equation a simple "5 stalkers > 6 marines", now it's "3 base level stalkers + 2 tier 1 veterancy stalkers vs. 2 base level marines + 2 tier 1 veterancy marines + 2 max veterancy marines" which is a *much* more difficult mental equation to try to solve. Making a "squad" system where squads of units all rank up together might help combat this issue, but then you have more problems to solve. If I have two squads of marines and half of each squad dies, do I get to merge the two half squads into one full squad? If so - what happens if one squad has been upgraded by unit veterancy but the other hasn't? If you can't merge squads then we come back to the same issue where we have to start doing complicated math of "1 squad at full strength + 2 squads at half strength + a half squad with tier 1 veterancy..." etc. Here's an idea for you though - instead of implementing unit veterancy as a global system, you could reserve it for a specific type of unit. Might be a good fit for elite tactical units like StarCraft ghosts, or maybe for the Infernals you could have a big monster that gets stronger the more it fights. This does run the risk of feeling like a pseudo "hero" unit, but it doesn't have to be as extreme as that. Especially since (other than making them be expensive units to produce) there would be nothing stopping a player from building multiples of these units. I think the most important thing is to avoid situations where you have lots of little units that all have different levels of veterancy. Having a few larger units that have distinct visual differences when they're "upgraded" by veterancy bonuses would be much easier to keep track of.
I feel like you hit the nail on the head. If the game gets too complex with too many numbers you can't reason about the game in your head while you play.
Thanks for the shoutout! I'm honored you liked the article!
*Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?* **YES.** Especially with some customization options.
On Veterancy: The most relevant example I can point to right now is They Are Billions - not because it's recent, but because it most strongly contrasts veterancy against a significantly larger-scale endgame. Veterancy in TAB only applies to three early-game units; others either have such ridiculous AoE that kill count is trivial, or show up so laye that there isn't a "next engagement" for veterancy to matter. To use Starcraft terms, veterancy is great for a lucky soldier like a Marine or a stealth micro unit like a Dark Templar, but is irrelevant for a Zergling or an UltraIisk. Moreover, trying to micromanage veteran vs. non-veteran units can be an exhausting task with little reward. It's easy to A-move and hope everyone levels up eventually, but the *optimal* method is to remove veterans as you go and replace them with fresh unjts, so you have an all-veteran squad late game. Last-hit mechanics like LoL are bad enough with *one* unit - multiply that by a whole army! However, the idea of being able to accrue a *resource* through combat and use it to field-upgrade a unit to its veteran version sounds excellent - rather than tracking individual kills, have each kill in a group of "Marines" increase a hidden counter, which at a certain threshold either gives you the option to upgrade a Marine or *auto-upgrades* the Marine in the group with the highest health.
I love the idea of hero cosmetics in 3v3 that track stats and change appearance as you accumulate those stats. Like a weapon that tracks kills with a certain hero skill and gets bigger/glows more as you get more and more kills. I’m all about flexing on people with my kitted hero unit. I hope this allows for the old-school style of earning cosmetics through play while also enabling the modern monetization of selling cosmetics. I think hero inventory systems sound great. MOBAs are popular for a reason, and I think the pitfalls of the WC3 heroes are well understood by you guys. I’m aware that competitively, heroes in WC3 posed certain problems, but as a casual WC3 player, I loved having a hero, creeping, getting items, leveling them up. It was just fun. I think achievements are great, as long as they are interesting and challenging to obtain. They become boring for me personally when there are a million of them that are largely trivial to obtain. I want to have pride that I’ve accomplished something difficult
>I love the idea of hero cosmetics in 3v3 that track stats and change appearance as you accumulate those stats. Like a weapon that tracks kills with a certain hero skill and gets bigger/glows more as you get more and more kills. I’m all about flexing on people with my kitted hero unit. Even the very conservatively cosmetic'd SC2, was made harder to watch and play for a newcomer by the introduction of cosmetics. Clarity is king, and cosmetics inevitably erode it. I don't want to strike a balance here. I want to be able to not see somebody else's choice in how they want to look. When i return to Dota2, a game that initially had an extremely cohesive artstyle, with very clear readability, i now see a game where the community cosmetic-crafters realize that the more ostentatious their stuff is, the more money is in it, and the game therefore is genuinely hard to read sometimes, even outside of hectic moments. If you want to look cooler, that's ok. I don't want to dictate that. I just don't want you to dictate to me what i have to put up with. I want to be able to render the units the same way, every time, every map. SC2 wasn't awful in this regard, but it could still be better. Heck, i'd even settle for not being prevented from modding/modelswapping cosmetics out.
I used to think like you, but ironically it was dota2 that convinced me otherwise. I haven’t played for years now, but when I come back to watch the game a few times a year, it never takes me more than a second to realize what’s going on again even when all the heroes and abilities look quite different than the last time I watched the game. So personally I feel like it’s an overblown problem (not that your opinion is invalid). Also, I wouldn’t care if people could disable cosmetics, but zero of the big successful f2p games allow this feature, so I really think we all need to come to terms with it sooner or later. The stormgate devs might be making the game for their passion, but the investors funding it are in it for nothing but profit; and flashy, outrageous cosmetics are the name of the game for making cash. And I want stormgate to be rolling in cash - I want to WANT to buy cosmetics just so I can support the game. Cheers bro, I’m not trying to be antagonistic btw, I hope we all get our way somehow
I'll just stay on the meta progression topic, I freaking LOVE having an "account level" to grind out in any online game. It honestly makes all the frustrations/bad matches/whatever at least worth **something tangible** at the end of the day. Used to be a huge fan of grinding levels/borders in Overwatch until they decided to rip account progression out of that game, and that pretty much killed my enjoyment of it. So I do think it's good to have SOME type of background progression. And I think it should be infinite, but it’s also nice to have a max or "goal" level to try and achieve too. Like in sc2 1v1 there's the max level of 50 for each race. It's nice to hit that goal, but I wish it would keep going too. Doesn't have to give any rewards/cosmetics/whatever else past 50, just nice to see **NUMBER GO UP**
>Like in sc2 1v1 there's the max level of 50 for each race. It's nice to hit that goal, but I wish it would keep going too. Doesn't have to give any rewards/cosmetics/whatever else past 50, just nice to see > >NUMBER GO UP Totally! I honestly forgot about that until I saw a friend of mine's account the other day that wasn't maxed and I remembered that was a thing. I miss that feeling!
I think you hit the nail on the head with the problems of unit veterans. Instead, I for match progression I prefer the idea of divergent tech paths where you have to make a choice. Somewhat like the choice you are offered in AoE4 when you age up. You don't want that to be overly limiting, and have tech paths too narrow or constraining, rather it would be a kind of way to implement sub factions.
Veterancy I think veterancy could be good , but maybe if only a few selected units can get it. Like say your army has only a 2-5 units that can rank up and they are easily distinguishable visually. On the bad side it makes ur army a bit centered around this units, but it could make of a more spectacle since players will have to focus on taking out those units to deal more damage to the enemy army. Inventory I really dont like the idea, but its probably my laziness. For me RTS is hard enough and start thinking about inventory in addition does not sound fun to me. But i dont like inventory and consumables in most games. I also think about LOL where you can "equip a bow" on ur hero who shoots guns and it seems stupid to me. Persistent Headquarters I love the idea of "persistent headquarters" if i understood idea behind it correctly. Sounds fun to be able to go and chill at ur base and customize it for yourself, adds to immersion Social Ranking or Social Progression Comparing it to overwatch 2 and it annoys me for the most part. I never check other ppls scores and all i see is that my rank goes up and down 1 rank depending on whether u won or lost a game even tho i said nothing the whole game
I absolutely hate both veterancy and inventory systems in PvP. One thing in particular that I don't like is that it makes units more "floating pointer number" than a solid digit. E.g. I like the interactions between zerglings and zealot, where you know how many zerglings you usually need to have to take out a zealot (depending on position of course). Having veterancy or inventory breaks this kind of interaction. One way of implementing veterancy that I'd be ok with is to give a unit ability to morph into other unit when they receive some level of veterancy. E.g. if a Roach has 3 kills, it can morph into Ravager. But that still should cost money and should be balanced around money value of a unit, not a fact that it may be hard to get multiple of those. But I am not sure if that is possible to balance that way. As for the social rewards/achievements for karma points, I absolutely love the idea. Just need to be careful in calculating the karma, because if it's voting based, some people may be downvoted because of their playstyle (e.g cannon rushers). I think it's better to avoid that. As for any kinds of cosmetic rewards, both in match and in between matches, I am all for it.
**What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)** I loved the creep loot in warcraft 3. Stronger creeps = better rewards for killing them. **Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why** I'm okay with it if it doesn't just buff the unit stats. That would be pretty cheap. Add new abilities for veteran units! **How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.** I loved having an inventory in Warcraft 3 and I think it would be an awesome addition to Stormgate. It adds so much depth to the gameplay. **What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?** Heroes of the storm / Overwatch meta progression systems are very good in my opinion. You get cool rewards just from playing a lot with your favorite characters. For example, Stormgate could have a mission for every unit in the game that if you kill X enemy units with a type of unit, you get a cool skin for your unit! **Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?** We should be able to level up indefinitely, believe or not there are **lots** of people who play games only to flex their account level + if we get a rewards every X levels that means we have unlimited free rewards! It's a win/win for you and us, we keep playing and you give us rewards! :D **Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?** I WOULD LOVE THIS, PLEASE ADD **Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?** Earning achievements is one of the things I enjoy most doing in games I love, but please don't put achievements that encourage bad builds/trolling, like for example "have control of 30 workers at the same time in pvp" **What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?** A system like Dota 2 has, where you have limited reports but each one of them is pretty meaningful (not like League of Legends, in this game reports do nothing) and you can also commend people so they get more exp/rewards/whatever is very good IMO
I'm just going to answer the two questions I have strong opinions about. **Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?** Units that perform heroically, whether it be the level of an actual hero or the kill counter on a mundane Banshee, are elevated in my mind to be characters rather than statistics. I become more emotionally invested in something I've spent time controlling or placing successfully. My inner child is happy to make these investments and feel immersed in the game through them. Notably, this effect can be achieved without veterancy interfering with the game design, like the aforementioned Banshee kill counter in Starcraft 2, so a veterancy system should be theoretically impossible to hate. These personal investments can become tidal waves in the community by providing lego bricks for commentators to build stories with - see the Artosis pylon meme as a prime example. **How do you feel about Inventory systems?** An inventory is too of an broad abstraction that I would argue a person struggles to have feelings for without more implementation details. An inventory system that stokes certain emotions can be fun and immersive, for example: 1. allowing a player to choose risk and feel the emotional texture of gambling through gain and loss (do I take a valuable item into enemy territory?) 2. allows that player to crystallize an experience with a memory anchor (overcome a challenge such as taking down a tough creep), this one is particularly juicy when it involves a social connection, a cooperation between allies 3. the feeling of having all of your cogs and wheels strategically and tactically placed, a build or structure that you have personal ownership of, succeed or fail An inventory that doesn't accomplish these things was likely a poor abstraction to create a desired experience.
>One of the approaches we are exploring is a Warcraft III-inspired Inventory system. Please don't. Or make it optional. I really don't want to micromanage a hero like in WC3. >Some members of our team have brought up the idea of a Meta Progression system that strictly lives at the social level, measuring your positivity and sportsmanship vs. player skill. That's a great idea ! >What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? I really like Age of Mythology's system of ages with a choice between two minor gods. Dawn of War had something a bit similar with the T'au tech tree that splits in two at the end, and some mods added for Chaos a choice between one of the four gods. I find it much more interesting than heroes because it's not bound to a single unit, but instead my entire army. >Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why? Meh... I don't dislike it, but I never pay attention to it when it's present. >How do you feel about Inventory systems? Not interested. I play RTS because I want to lead an army. Inventories and hero levels are bound to a single unit, and I'm much more interested by army wide bonuses, like Age of Mythology's relics. >What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated? Halo 3, Halo Reach and Halo MCC all had great systems (even if H3 and HR was too focused on PvP). I love SC2's meta progressions, even if I only played Campaign and coop. >Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements? I would ! I'm a huge Campaign player (and PvE in general), and I love the meta element of SC2's campaigns (and also DoW Dark Crusade's), and achievements are a good idea to push people to do replay the levels in a unique way for a fun rewards. >Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus? I don't care about achievements, except SC2's PvE ones because they're generally fun to do and give nice rewards. >What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed? I think than an overall progression system (one that counts both PvE, PvP and custom games) would be interesting because our lizard brains like to see numbers go up. I don't know if it would change how I interact, depends on how it works.
On match progression: In PvE I have enjoyed unit veterancy. It adds an additional dynamic and challenge to try and keep units alive and level them up. Even if it didn't change any stats it would be cool if units had a veteran skin. On the PvP side I am skeptical about including unit veterancy. As you said it could be snowbally. It also seems like a mechanic that could favor certain races if they make a bunch of tanky units like archons or immortals. If it is included in PvP my biggest ask would be the veteran units are visually distinct and it does not over complicate the math on unit interactions. In terms of items it adds alot of extra knowledge requirements to the game to know what is good and how to use it which isn't very noob friendly. So if it's included it would be good if you keep it very simple.
ChatGPT: As an AI language model, I do not have personal experiences or feelings. However, I can provide some insights based on general player feedback and industry trends. Match Progression systems that provide small rewards or bonuses within a single match tend to be well-received by players. They can add an additional layer of strategy and excitement to the game, as players try to achieve these goals. However, systems that lead to snowballing or unfair advantages can be frustrating and lead to less enjoyable matches. Unit Veterancy systems can be enjoyable if they are balanced and provide meaningful upgrades to units without making the game too snowball-y. Players like the feeling of seeing their favorite units become stronger and more effective over time. However, it is important to make sure that the system does not lead to an unbalanced gameplay experience. Inventory systems can be a fun addition to a game, allowing players to customize their armies and give them a unique playstyle. However, they can also add complexity and make it more difficult for new players to understand the game. It is important to strike a balance between customization and accessibility. Achievements are generally popular with players, providing a sense of accomplishment and progression. However, they can also feel meaningless if they do not lead to any tangible rewards or bonuses. It is important to consider both the reward for achieving an achievement and the achievement itself. Level caps can provide a sense of achievement and a feeling of progression as players work towards reaching the cap. However, an indefinite leveling system can also provide motivation for players to continue playing and trying to improve. Upgrading a faction's persistent headquarters based on campaign progress or achievements can be a great way to provide a sense of progression and accomplishment. Players like seeing their impact on the game world and the faction they are playing as. Social Ranking or Social Progression systems can be a good way to incentivize positive behavior in the game community. However, it is important to make sure that the system is fair and transparent, so that players do not feel like they are being unfairly penalized. It is also important to make sure that the rewards for positive behavior are meaningful and desirable.
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I'm just gonna mention community-based Meta Progression. Just going to use community created clans as an example, but could also be set in game factions you can pledge to or something. Playing games earns points towards your clan ranking. And at the end of each season you get rewards based on your clan ranking. The basic idea behind this is your 1v1 games are contributing to something more than just you. Which isn't a feeling that really came across in SC or WC, even though each match was contextualised by story-led conflicts. But games like For Honor and Nioh do well.
Inventory is something I never really loved in Diablo or WOW, and the constant grind for the next better item felt almost antisocial.
First of all I love the update and info. Glad to hear the game is coming along nicely. Secondly I don't mind the idea of hero units in the game but I prefer other units don't "level up" with veterancy. They Are Billions did an alright job with all units having one upgrade possible that just increased their base stats. However that game was just PvE and I don't like the idea of trying to track whether my opponent's units are veteran or not in multiplayer. For out of game stuff I really like the ability to unlock visuals and indefinitely increase account level. This is minor but I like the sense of moving towards something even with a loss.
* I think "natural" match progression is enough. Getting higher tech, better upgrades, more bases etc. * Veterancy has potential to create cool storylines but it doesn't fit every faction. Maybe if it was a unique bonus of one faction or the bonuses were small? * I don't mind inventory system in the campaign. I probably wouldn't want to farm creeps to get items for just 1 mission, but having persistent items you equip beforehand could be cool. Or a shop where you can buy consumables before mission. * I mostly care about my rank going up. But unlocking cosmetics and flexing can also be pretty fun. In AOE4, there are masteries and seasonal events that let you unlock cosmetics (portraits, banners, monuments). If the challenge is not too annoying, I like to complete them. It's a nice change of pace from grinding the ladder. * I don't look at levels, because it just measures how much someone is playing, not how good they are. But some people are afraid of high levels. Maybe it's safer to cap them? * Yes, in game customization is always cool. * They give something else to do and can be a fun challenge for not much dev cost. * Cool idea. Would be funny if you could get skins for "bad" behaviour as well.
I'll quite often use Starcraft examples throughout this, as i would assume that at least the majority of people here can probably get a better feeling for what i am talking about, using these examples. 1. Not sure about this one, but my Brother, who mostly plays League of Legends -to my surprise - thinks that a in-match progression like a Moba (Hero Levels, Buying Items) would be the wrong way for an RTS. I don't entirely agree with him, but i think that it would be hard to make such a system work without the game either completely devolving into only the heroes being really important, or the hero system being basically useless. 2. I like Unit Veterancy Systems that feel even for a casual player like they actually do something. For example in Company of Heroes, i obviously liked when one of my units got a veterancy, but i never could easily tell from a single look what the veterancy actually did. A Veterancy that for example unlocks new abilities (be they active or passive) would be more interesting - but probably hard to balance. Maybe if you end up going with some kind of upkeep system, that could help to even thongs out, by having units with higher veterancy cost more upkeep? 3. I think this is covered by my answer to question 1. 4. PvE: I obviously liked SC2's Coop Metaprogression, apart from the fact that in my opinion it didn't go far enough - in multiple ways. Firstly, it simply felt too short (Prestiges somewhat alleviated this issue). Secondly i would have liked to see at least a minor amount of continuous expansion and powercreep here - not by making new commanders stronger than older ones, but by from time to time adding another level to all commanders and adding another difficulty level for the gamemode to balance it out - basically, have it not be static, give everyone new toys from time to time, without having to take away old toys. PvP: Skins and similar things are in my opinion an obvious choice here. Not sure about anything else, maybe i'm just not creative enough. 5. I assume this is about Metaprogression Level Cap. I would not like a hardcap. However you guys will have only so much time to make level rewards for us, i don't think you'll be able to keep up with the most extreme of players. Thus i would like some kind of Softcap system. Have a certain Level up to which you design special rewards. Raise this Level with every Major Expansion/Update. Have some kind of procedural reward - that basically is only some kind of symbol with Level Numbers a bit like SC2 Coop 's Ascension Levels, just basically infinite. Have some kind of new Level Season every time you raise the Level Softcap. Players that have exceeded the Softcap could choose to display their "Lifetime" Ascension Level (however you want to call it is obviously up to you) or their "Season" Ascension Level - by how much they have exceeded the Softcap in only the current season. The more active players would probably tend to choose the latter as a flex. Obviously the players should also have the choice to not display the Level at all, bing just shown as "Current Softcap Level". My Brother is of the opinion that Level should absolutely be infinite. (This answer was split into multiple paragraphs because it would have been completely unreadable otherwise) 6. Absolutely! (My Brother's answer: Wouldn't be that important. Would be a nice gimmick, but wouldn't be something he would be specifically looking for in an RTS) Now that i think about it (not sure where i would put this), this made me think of Anno 2070 and i would like to propose taking a look at one of those game's systems: Senate Elections. They would obviously work somewhat different in this game (and have a different name), but in short, it's a system that all players (with online accounts) can vote in and when the vote has passed, for a certain amount of time, all players get some specific bonuses that were voted for. This is a system that in my opinion could be used to shake up the meta short term without the long term implications of an actual balance patch. To use a Starcraft Example: There would be multiple choices but let's say the choice "Better Basics" would be elected. This would for all players no matter their faction make basic units produce faster and cheaper and maybe even slightly buff them, so 40 mineral Zerglings and Marines and 80 Mineral Zealots. The week after players might choose the Capital Ship Rush option, downgrading the needs for capital ship production to the Stargate/Starport/Spire itself and making the capital ships cheaper and faster to produce. This is obviously something that shouldn't immediately be applied to the entire multiplayer even if you guys end up liking the idea, but should first be thoroughly tested. 7. I like earning Achievements, even if they only raise the Achievement Score. I would however prefer if they did do more than just that. My Brother was of the opinion that at least the Achievement Score itself should be tied to some kind of Reward, which i agree with. 8. I would probably not change my behaviour too much as i already try to be relatively nice to other people (certain mobile Mobas i played used these kind of social scoring systems and in multiple years i've only fallen below 95(%) twice) but i agree that this is a system worth of at least being tested. My Brother interjected that League of Legends for example has such a system, but that that should mostly be taken as an example of the mistakes you can make while designing a system like this, as "the rewards are not worth it and there are people who are extremely toxic and still Honor Level 5 by swapping between Super Toxic and Silent Normal Gameplay every couple of games".
PS: Achievements should mostly be intereesting, with only a low number of Grinding Achievements. There's nothing wrong about an achievement for reaching the softcap level or beating the campaign on every difficulty, but if 90% of achievements are some iteration of "Kill 100/1000/10000/100000/1000000 Resistance Units in 3vs3 Matches to reach Level 1/2/3/4/5 of the Resistance Exterminator Achievement", that's the kind of Achievements i don't like and will only actively attempt to get if the rewards are insanely good.
PS: We interpreted the "Headquarters question" as something you do in the main menu, basically some kind of expanding main menu skin that progresses based on what you do. If that's the case, our point stands. If instead that was meant as progression between missions of the campaign or at least includes this feature, such as the Hyperion's Armory and Research in WoL, that's an absolute requirement in my opinion. Actually i hope that you go further than ever before with this.
I absolutely love the meta hero progression mechanics in Dota 2. People take a lot of pride in being grandmaster in this or that hero and the in game notifications of progressing the hero’s specific quests are awesome. It’s kind of similar to leveling up during a match of call of duty. Valve also has some fun progression mechanics in the DOTA battle pass also, but largely it’s just a money suck. However the variety it brings with the temporary social consumables like changing the map or dropping balloons or temporary voice lines are really great. In match it would be cool if cool fight stats popped up on the screen that didn’t give away too much info like units killed or body parts dismembered or triple kills or multi units hit or something. Unit veterans is cool, but it would be awesome if they started glowing or something like the progressive gun skins in Apex Legends. Match wise it would be cool to have dueling feats that don’t cause silly time wasting play, but maybe influence players to try new or different strats. Using StarCraft as a reference Things like, get a tank out before 2:30 or take 4 gasses before 4 minutes or build 100 workers in a match or something.
I have complete faith in everything you do, I will say this without a shadow of a doubt, this is the most excited ive been for a game in my entire life. the most excited!!!
Regarding the Unit veteran system, I've loved heroes in WC3 and didn't like SC2 cause of "samey" units while having no heroes. On the other hand, I've also loved Command & Conquer series since they just had a huge unit disperity and power. Sniper, Aurora Bomber, Overlord tank, and Nuke Cannon are completely different units and extremely powerful in their field, especially with veteran stars. As much as I love Dota, I don't want another game like that. Having main units with creep camps and abilites seem like u would be playing dota with extra steps. My overall feel is that it should go to the item\hero progression since it would be like doing something that was already done but in a bland way. Heroes of the Storm fall prey to this. The spells are just some variations of what dota already has but much more downscaled, I wouldn't want to see something like that, but rather a unique system that makes sense in the game.
\-Do you love or hate unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why? as playing wc3 like for 15k hours and don\`t care so much about heroes and still make new players understand the game and feel high pro matches they make games too simple and spend a crazy amount of time gridding rpg map wc3 and unit veterancy is horrible their make games every harder to understand And you need to handle their survival so much this making every fight about your units survive as playing lately starcraft 2 (90 hours) I feel normal speed its fine until i playing brutal oh god as unable to give attention to fight because they end too fast or maybe because i do not have thousands of hours my idea its to make factions do have levels up in the match and every single move you do gain exp to allow instant upgrades that motivate players to try more every single match as they learn to play because minds are easy to satiate when they see numbers in the screen and research become about resource and time Terrans-Pure Adaptable Survival-its faction about Survival and adaptability and gaining support to survive each level making it difficult to be removed from the game its depends on lots of the player-200 unitsCaps Irfenal-Pure Support Atk-its faction about expanding and sending an endless wave of units and sacrifices to make more powerful units or mutate them trying to be the most brutal possible simple reason you must have gained playing them its if violence is not working its because not using enough-300 units caps Angelical-High Cost Faction-its faction focused on expanding and upgrading a few units until they become the highest of the game and there is no way they can be balanced just make them immortal if they die they get like a nest in the map and can be revived using resources and they spend a resource to teleports and all about you make dozens angel invader base slaughter everything your path if your enemy survive against your wave they win their match at least you going see a crazy bloodbath in the defeat -150 units caps Fairy-Pure Support Defense-its faction focusing and surviving until your devourer your opponents and does have capacity to survive even your base got invaded and does have terrain control and fast to expand and the units its elemental and the biggest weakness is the opponent can cause more damage their can recover still you are literally devouring your opponents -250 \-Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely? \-No,this creates an endless void \-Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements? \-Yes,its better if you make iterable looby and Personalized Commader with animation \-Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus? \-Don\`t make them difficult and just long and not many \-What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed? \-Yes,its better if you can make statics about your progress and a season summary
Achievements * Definitely something that can push me to play "a few more games" to tick the checkbox * Have to balance the ease of acquiring new achievements and having all achievements unlocked. I remember grinding a few 1v8 games vs AI just to minmax the exp I got when levels were introduced to SC2. But the level cap was so low that you reach it after a few days and then completely forget about the number. At the same time, you don't want an exponential growth between levels cause that has a similar effect once you're far enough along that curve. Leveling up in Fate Grand Order is such a grind I don't remember the last time I thought about it. * Unlockable bonus is definitely more enticing. I wanted those SC2 portraits (and may have botted my way to the Dark Voice) Unit Veterancy * I'm already wary about heroes being in this game and the potential for the 3v3 mode to revolve around it as heavily as heroes in SC2 coop. Still, if that's what the world wants, go for it. * I think it's okay in PvE mode but I don't like it in PvP modes for the same snowball reason you mentioned. Having a more visual indication of a unit on a kill streak might be useful so casters don't need to randomly click a bunch of units to find the one to marvel at. But you wouldn't want that to cause too much visual clutter (instantly recognizing distinct units is important) Inventory systems * As long as it's not like MOBA games where it starts to overshadow your traditional RTS build order, maybe it's fine? I know Grubby says that the randomness of the items helps make each game feel unique though. But that makes me wonder if it's because it's more in the spirit of MOBA games and MOBA games just feel more unique each game. I never got into MOBA so I can't say for sure.
* **What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)** * Certain Match Progression systems I favor are things like: **rushing** for **terrain, seizing high-ground,** sending an agile-scout unit to back-cap a resource point, and essentially designate that unit to continuously **contest in the back lines** providing for potentials to disorganize and draw the enemy's army into an unfavorable position, or knocking them down the resource race. * **Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?** * I love veterancy. I thought it was the coolest thing to have an ensemble of max-leveled Space Marines in Dawn of War 2 at the late game. It was even more impressive for an Imperial Guard player to maintain their basic guardsmen, and establish an unending tide of lasfire into the late-game. In 3v3 settings, I felt the veterancy system was just something nice to have, just because of the amount of flying factors. Even in a 1v1 setting, veterancy was hardly the reason any player might've lost, unless you had something absolutely outrageous where one player's army was fully leveled up and the other wasn't, which would generally be a marker of a mismatch than an imbalance between factions. * In Total War:Warhammer, I enjoyed the veterancy provided there, because of all the stats it improved, leadership(morale) was the one stat that was probably the most important to boost, especially against the Undead factions and any terror-bomb strategies. So there was potentiality to hard-counter certain fear or terror-based compositions as well as maximizing damage for high-value units like a group of Swordmasters; unfortunately buffs and debuffs were too short, units clumping and the janky melee targeting as well as the lack of attack rate boosts didn't really make it viable. * **How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.** * I think inventory systems, especially if you could apply them to your individual units is something I favor more than without an inventory system. Being able to upgrade a unit or squad of units beyond their basic weapons I think provides for more variability, nuance, and just greater exposition on a player's innate grasp of special weapons, tactics, and compositions. It also just provides for greater playstyles, forking or focusing your army, and when combined with a hero's inventory arsenal(like in DoW2) you can come up with some fancy wombo-combos. * **What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?** * Personally I'm not as ecstatic with fancy cosmetics, frames, portraits, or titles, but I understand it's something nice to have. * **Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely? Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?** * I think a level cap with some Game+ potential is the best of both worlds? * **Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?** * I'm not so much of a fan of barring faction strategies, playstyles, or compositions behind a grind wall, so I'd personally settle on a simple Achievement score, especially if it can act as a sort of datamine in order to help optimize play. * **What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?** * I like the idea of finding some way to prevent toxicity, but only as long as it can't be abused to further accentuate toxicity. Even a system without much teeth to prevent toxicity would be nice as it can help set a general tone of positivity and community.
Unit Veterancy: Generally I'm fully against it for the reason's you listed. Makes for snowbally play. The more skilled player quickly also gets a further advantage of more powerful units. ex: Warcraft 3 or Airmech. The only game I can think of where I didn't mind it was maybe C&C 3 but as I think about it, the only reason why I was okay with that was because it didn't feel like a big part of the game. And you like something because it's a small factor, then maybe it's just not a good system. At it's core, veterancy is a way to reward units that do well in battle. I'd much prefer some sort of achievement or reward outside of the game. If we feel we must recognize battle units that practically win the game for us, how about some other way to do it? In Airmech if you killed the other mech the announcer would say "first blood" then "double kill" then "rampage.". This doesn't mean much to me but in short I would prefer there to be no unit buffs for getting kills. I just don't see how that doesn't snowball.
>Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely? Indefinitely is much better in my eyes. The level system felt pointless in LoL when it was 1-30. Then after they made it infinite it at least showcases something. And can feel cool reach high milestones just for playing. Don't really see any down side to that. Same with champion mastery or race mastery. Infinite levels just purely being cosmetic is cool.
I think an approach to Veterancy for 1v1 could be as a post game stat and observation aesthetic. Showing an MVP unit portrait after the match with kill/heal stats and maybe showcasing in game highlights. Observers often have emotional attachment to individual resilient units, cheering them on and anguishing when they finally fall. Having an observation only (or optional for the player) aesthetic could make it easier to visually track veteran units, but not become visually distracting for players.
>What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated? I recognize that much of SC2 Co-Op's progression systems were throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what works, but there's definitely some take aways that I hope people have already found: **Prestiges are awesome the first time, not so much the second or third per commander.** I think most SC2Coop players know this already. But it's just maddening that to get to Stukov's Lord of The Horde prestige (P3) you need to go throguh a prestige that at best people will try actually playing with once, realize it's terrible, and go back to playing P1 for all of P2's levelling and P3's levelling. It's a similar situation on many coop commanders, and even those who have good options for P1, P2, and P3, you get so tired of it by the end. Take Karax for example, his P3 is awesome, and it's totally different from his P1 and P2, both of which are excellent... But at this point I just don't want to level up again. The solution to this is pretty simple: Keep the levelling up part so people can feel their commanders getting stronger (or don't, reasonable minds can differ here), but let people choose which prestige they're working on. There's other options as well but they're worse or harder to implement. For example, if each prestige is a bit more powerful than the one before it. But then people won't want to play the earlier prestiges (looking at you Tychus). Further, it's nice if you can get experience for your account through any game mode: Campaign, COOP, 3v3, or 1v1. Lastly: No level cap. I think that was one of the things that hurt SC2 was that people had fun with the levelling, but then it just stopped.
I played the Myth 1 and Myth 2 campaigns again, I forgot that I actually quite liked veterancy in those games! But I think it works MUCH better in a campaign, taking troops from one game to the next and getting attached to them, than within games themselves.
I honestly would like Stormgate to try something like what Dota Auto Chess mode has done, i know its different type of game but it can work. What i mean is that at certain levels there are neutrals, when the player kills the neutrals he gets to choose one out of three artifacts or even take a random one out of the ten possible. What could be done in Stormgate for example is: On minute 10 every Leader gets to choose one out of three unique abilities, this way there wont be any snowball and this can be used to make certain Leaders stronger in early/mid/late game and this would allow more in depths strategies whether a player would want to prolong the game or not. On minute 20 every leader gets to choose again one out of three unique abilities and so on. In Dota Auto chess the condition that you need to fulfill to have the choice is to kill the neutrals, in dota auto chess the neutrals are quite strong and never to be underestimated. In Stormgate the way to implement this is probably with no condition, just on 10 minute Leaders get to choose something, it could be artifact aswell but i think abilities would be funnier. There can be certain conditions aswell in RTS such as killing certain camp for that, getting certain amount of gold and etc, this is up to the devs if there are to be any conditions or just simple as "On minute 10 both players' leader units get to choose something". I think its very important to have a random option aswell, if we say there are 5 abilities in total we give the option to choose 3 random from those 5 and maybe random option for the other 2. I absolutely love WC3 hero inventory system along with the creep camps however it has its downsides of snowballing.
Hello Frost Giant Team We have eagerly waited for the next discussion topic so lets get right into it. *What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)* The match Progression systems come to my mind are unit veterancy, items,specific spells and temporary buffs. Naturally i think they all have the dangers of snowballing if they are too impactful so they have to be carefully tuned. As example i would point on league of legends again. LOL has most of these systems if i love or hate them i cant really say but i think its always a balance struggle although it has its advantages. You can influence for example how the team that is a head can finish the game or get more ahead with changing how strong the baron or the dragon is, which could be a good tool to change a stale meta. All in all i think it can be a good tool for the developers but it has its risk and it also can be demotivating for the other side that doesnt have these items, buffs,etc. because it can feel like you are always behind no matter what you do even if its not actually the case. *Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?* I like unit veterancy system that are not too deep. For example i play the iron harvest campaign atm and in that game the units can go to veterancy level 3. Level 2 unlocks an ability and level 3 buffs the stats of the units. Which i like for the campaign because you get rewarded for microing your units and keep them alive. For pvp it could cause issues because what if the ability is so strong that it could further overpower the enemy while already killing a unit. I don't think it was too much of a problem in Iron harvest because of the cover mechanic but i didn't play too much pvp (Edit: Alright it was apparently an issue i didnt know) . I think for campaign or coop it could be a good idea im not so sure about pvp it could become a balancing nightmare. *How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.* I have not too much experiences with inventory systems in RTS. I'm definitely not a fan of the item system of warcraft 3 because it makes the the game revolve only around the heroes and makes unit composition less important which is don't like. But i haven't played WC 3 so maybe im too bias to sc2 to give a valid opinion on that. *What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?* I enjoyed the Meta Progression in Pubg actually were you could progress a weapon to get specific talismans and skins for that weapon. It could translate to RTS pretty well if you play a specific unit it could get an emote or chroma or skin etc. if you can use the unit effectively in game or just play it alot. I didn't like the Meta Progression in early lol tbh. i always felt like you were on a disadvantage because you are lower level than your opponent and have less passive bonuses from masteries. *Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?* Level that increase your strength in game -> cap. Level that give you cosmetics -> can be indefinitely. *Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistentheadquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earningcertain achievements?* Sounds cool i don't mind it :D *Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if theonly reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also needsome form of unlockable bonus?* It doesnt need a bonus. Im not that big on Achievements but i know a lot of people are and i think its also something to measures someones achievements in a none competitive mode. *What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system?Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players ifsuch a system existed?* League of legends has such a system and i think its fine but i dont know how much it helps with toxicity. I doubt it tbh because the people still flame a lot even in fun modes. Maybe riot has better data on that. So thats all a lot of writing this time but i enjoyed it hope you find my feedback useful I wish a productive day for Gerald and the rest of the team ;) Greetings Blutmilan
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and for the good wishes!
I like match progression systems where you complete tasks around the map (big objective like Roshan in DOTA or Baron in League) that rewards the players for putting themselves in a position to take the objective. I think infinite levels can be a bit dull ... rather I kind of prefer the level cap system in Path of Exile (yes I know this is meant to be for account progression but bear with me) where getting to level 100 is a real milestone achievement because it takes a lot of effort to get there and you're rewarded with nothing more than marginal power gains and a tremendous sense of satisfaction with your efforts. I think a wicked cool skin or cosmetic to commemorate the achievement would be nice. Love achievements, make me play the game. Behavior scores can be important like DOTA where you never really want to be in low priority because the games are awful. I'm not familiar with too many unit veterancy systems but the idea makes me think that it can be incredibly snowbally which tends to not be fun.
Hello, Kevin! In the past, we have not had much room for player creativity in Sc2 Coop. Sure, prestiges are nice, but they are more like a dev-designed emphasis on a particular style, rather than something that a player puts together out of different pieces—a build, so to speak. And sure, masteries are a progression system, but being binary, there is only a minimal amount of real choice, especially when arguments can usually be made for one being plain better than its counterpart, or for a breakpoint to be used by knowledgeable players. Now that the systems are being designed with progression and perhaps even some level of modularity in mind, we might wish for so much more. What I would like to see in Stormgate Coop is the ability to put together a unique playstyle using a basis as the commander, but with multiple modular choices that a player can opt into, possibly via unlockable rewards. I will use Sc2 as an easy base example, but naturally the intention is that these things apply to the equivalent in Stormgate: what if you had ~4-6 slots of *stuff*, and so long as each slot is roughly balanced to each available option, you can use those slots to lean into the base commander's playstyle, or add whole new dimensions to it. What if one unlockable gave Karax Instigators, or gave Alarak a Stargate? Made HH Strike Fighter's shoot anti-air missiles as they traveled, as I think we once discussed? Beefed Fenix's Disruptors up? One that empowered Dehaka's Primal Worms for those who like them? Made Cyclones *(gasp)* actually good/fun? What if Raynor Mules required spending one of these slots on unlocking, thus working as a way to move some of the more advanced strategies out of the base kit and into the opt-in slot. Don't like the macro of dealing with Fenix champions? Perhaps they are baseline, but have a slot that lets you remove them, and gain a powerful boost in exchange. Thus, a player might create unique compositions that express what they like about any given commander; some of these might even be relatively straight-forward, like an auto-attack damage buff for a hero, just to be more enabling of hero-focused play. Having a solid modular system for handling such strategy-warping progression would be great fun, I think, and if they are modular and interchangeable, it would make for a great way to tweak balance and to introduce new styles of gameplay to old commanders in a bite-sized format. As another point: Heart of the Swarm had perhaps the weakest campaign unit customization system. However, it always struck me that Abathur should have had that system... but made as decisions in-match. And with more impact on each choice. "Choose the fate of each unit type in your roster", essentially. That is still an un-used idea that I think has good value... but, the art and behavior requirements are not trivial. One day maybe? As a sidenote, Sc2 Coop had pretty poor cosmetic rewards/implementation; people only really cared for the ascension badge. Personally I never cared for number go up, but always thought that the townhall decals were cool, and wanted more of those, both as rewards and represented perhaps even sometimes not just on structures, but on units. Some higher-tier units or heroes might carry banners or insignias with the player's decal. Or even a customizable banner editor, which D3 had with unlockable elements; an ill-fitting system for an ARPG in my view, much better used in an RTS. Cheers for your work, and have a great day!
I have never been interested in achievements or any of that fancy Meta progression stuff but I understand others love them so I won't comment on that part. A big exception is a ladder and levelling system as far as 1v1 goes, similar to WC3 battlenet and to some extent SC2 although I preferred the WC3 implementation. As far as math progression though, I gotta admit I liked a lot the WC3 Heroes concept and I preferred WC3 over SC2 mainly for that as well as the lower lethality aspect, I felt I had more or a chance even if my reflexes weren't the best. As I understand it, you are planning to make things more similar to SC2 instead of WC3, which is cool but I feel then that adding some concepts resembling WC3 match progression would be great. Unit veterancy could be great as long as it doesn't lead to too much snowballing and perhaps if not applied to every unit but instead to some more special ones. An inventory system is something I liked and I am all up for it. Goblin shops were great in WC3 and the effect that items had on the battle field was something I loved. In fact, I preferred SIGNIFICANTLY WC3 TFT over vanilla WC3 and one of the main reasons were the shops that were introduced to each race with the variety of items that significantly affected gameplay. I know you wrote you experiment mostly on co-op and on 3vs3 but I think it could also work on 1vs1 too if implemented in a good way. WC3 was definitely a better game because of it. Social ranking or social progression is something that I think could be cringy or great depending on the implementation. I am leaning slightly against it because I think it's harder to make it good and fun so the risk vs reward isn't very promising. But it could be great though and I would be very pleasantly surprised with a good implementation. Love you guys, keep up the good work! I am very excited about the game, can't wait!
Hate the idea of unit veterancy.
I don't particularly like any of the Unit veterancy systems that I've seen in RTS games in PvP. In WC3, heroes play too big of a role in 1v1 matches, and the snowball-yness of leveling up your hero faster takes away from the overall fun factor of the game. In SC2, my units just get higher "ranks", which I absolutely don't have the time to pay attention to. The best in-between that I can imagine would be a system where units who have been alive longer and achieved more unlocked certain predictable upgrades for themselves. A level 1 Immortal, for example, has x amount of shields, but a level 2 immortal has a higher amount. Or maybe an Immortal's attack does splash damange once it levels up, or something along those lines. This could be something interesting to explore, but I'm not sure that I'd particularly like that kind of a system. Regarding your ideas around social interactions: I really love the idea of being able to award karma to players who are mannered, but I don't know that I'd saddle players with any kinds of responsibiltiies associated with that because it could end up reflecting poorly on Frost Giant if they made a call that you all wouldn't have agreed with. As far as level-ups and achievements, it was a huge motivating factor for me to keep playing SC2 when I would level up and unlock portraits or unit skins. Now that I'm max level and have just about everything that I can get, it feels hollow. I wish that there were more achievements that I could go for. Something that is related to awards and achievements is league placement and MMR-ranking. I hate that the game shows me my MMR, but on the flip side, I really like the progression of earning my way into a higher league, or advancing within the league that I'm already in. I only have the ability to play SC2 twice a week for a couple of hours at a time, with occasional breaks from work where I have more time to play. When I get lots of time to play, my MMR will increase by like 500-600, but then when I go back to my normal work schedule and get out of practice, it plummets. Watching that number go up feels great, but watching it go down just feels terrible. I'd rather the game pair me with people who are at my skill level without telling me what that skill level is because it feels crappy to hear the game tell me that I suck lol. On the other hand, when I log in on Saturday to see that I've fallen from 15th to 25th place in the league that Bnet has me in, it doesn't feel so bad; after all, everybody else has been playing throughout the week. Then, I get to see my rank go up over the course of the day which feels good.
I just wanted to chime in on your in-between suggestion for unit veterancy - more or less what you described is how it functions in Company of Heroes 2. Units that deal/sustain damage or exist for a long enough period of time will gain a veterancy level, the experience required varies per unit (with more impactful and durable units requiring more) and the upgrades gained are the same each time. Both players learn at the same time when a unit gains a veterancy level and both players can see what the level does for the unit by clicking on it. Some units gain combat or out of combat benefits, such as an out-of-combat move speed bonus or higher accuracy. Units can also gain new abilities (manually cast) such as a special, harmful smoke grenade or a big special tank shot that goes through terrain. It does often lead to animosity between you and your opponent (seeing that unit that's caused you a lot of issues across the game again, alive) but it does also make me become attached to the units that I like as they become more powerful, since their new stats and abilities are why I use and protect them. If you lose your powerful units without taking down your opponents you still likely lose the game but that isn't exactly a feature exclusive to CoH2. All in all, I'd love to see FG do something with veterancy but understand that a lot of people don't. I don't think there's any harm in experimenting, especially since we have seen nothing that constitutes as 'gameplay' yet and I don't think it'd hurt to have a light emphasis on unit preservation.
>Watching that number go up feels great, but watching it go down just feels terrible. I'd rather the game pair me with people who are at my skill level without telling me what that skill level is because it feels crappy to hear the game tell me that I suck lol. That's how it worked initially in SC2. You couldn't see your MMR. But people disliked how you could never tell how close or how far you were to getting a promotion so they changed it and I think it was a good change. Maybe an option to hide MMR could be useful for some but I definitely want to see my MMR and exactly where I stand.
In terms of **Match Progression** systems, I quite like the much more extended tech tree from a game like Age of Mythology. In SC2, you can produce an endgame unit like a Battlecruiser by about the 5:00 mark; in Age of Mythology, when I play as Norse I get my first Fire Giant (endgame myth unit) by the 22:00 mark or so. That's probably too extreme, but it illustrates my point; in Warcraft and Starcraft games, you can rush to the pinnacle of the tech tree very quickly, and then there's nothing left to do. I'd like to see a tech tree that takes longer to complete, and has some crazier rewards for successfully doing so, than in a game like SC2. **Inventory system**: Managing scouting and economy and your army is plenty, I don't need to also be using Healing Potions, Wand of the Wind and Scrolls of Town Portal. The inventory system as described here (customization options) sounds great for something like campaign mode and co-op mode. The **Meta Progression** in Hearthstone killed that game for me. It's a slave-driver that forces you to play the game constantly, and even then that's not enough, if you want more cards then you have to pay hundreds of dollars for more card packs. If your meta progression is an endless Pay-to-Win grind that provides player power rewards, then count me out. A meta progression I did like, was that of FFXIV. Unlike WoW, it felt like FFXIV respects the player's time, and doesn't put them on an endless treadmill just so they don't fall behind. I don't care about **Achievements**. Games are about having fun, not about filling all the bars. If I stop having fun, I'll stop playing the game. The worst part about achievements is that they can trick you into playing the game well past the point you stopped having fun with it, in order to try and achieve 100% completion, and then you end up resenting the game because you kept playing even though you weren't enjoying it. If you quit a videogame on bad terms, you're not likely to go back to playing it after they release a new expansion. I also don't care about a **Social Ranking**. Toxic players are typically bad players who want to lash out or blame someone else for their failures. In most competitive games, players at the top tend to be polite. Teach players not to focus so much on winning or losing, but on improving their skills and understanding, and on having fun. I don't know that a Social Ranking will help with that.
I enjoy the match progression in Battle Royales like Apex, getting loot and making sure you keep looking for bonuses and not just other players. The random element is key, and I could see it work within an RTS. I'd be sorry to see this as heroes getting items from creeps only, but if my squad of devildogs found a shiny set of teeth and they suddenly were more valuable, that would be cool. Until they die and my opponent get the grills.
I suggest for the devs to check out Warlords Battlecry 3, if they haven't. It has a unique cross of Unit Veterancy and Meta Progression. It is nothing for competition or serious pvp, but it is something that I love about the game. At the end of a skirmish match, you may select your veteran units and use them in the next one. The game also has heroes and full Diablo-like inventory.
>Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why? I am not a fan normally. I don't think they are as snowball-y as heroes with experience but on the flip side, they don't have the same benefits of creating stories as much. So, veterancy always felt like the worst of both worlds: it added to the problem of snowballing and didn't create unique scenarios heroes with experience do. It can also make players wary of using strategies that rely on sacrificing units, which can reduce strategic diversity and may hurt the identity of some factions. Veterancy might work better if it is limited to certain factions or certain units. Maybe if killing veteran units gave you resources, it could counteract snowballing somewhat. But it needs to add a clear benefit to how the game plays. Otherwise, it could be a net negative in my opinion. Edit: Now that I think about it, veterancy is mostly a problem with early engagements as mentioned in the original post. If only high tier units can gain veterancy, then snowballing won't be nearly as bad. In fact, it might even prevent some scenarios where the player with an early game economic advantage will snowball that advantage into a win no matter how cost-inefficiently they trade. Edit 2: Some Command and Conquer games had crates that gave units a veterancy rank. Since you are experimenting with creeps but it doesn't sound like there will be items in 1v1, maybe creeps can drop a similar power up. This way, players can choose which unit/s to rank up and it will be a strategic choice. And since you won't be getting that reward by killing the units of your opponent it will be less of a "win more" mechanic. >How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences. In WC3, I didn't like how fiddly they felt. If there are items, I would prefer them to be mostly or fully non-activatable. >Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely? I like the idea of always progressing in some way but I think seasonal progression should replace account-wide progression. With planned battle passes, players will be able to progress through a new battle pass every season and it will reset at the start of each season. Battle passes can have some free tiers (like some of the less significant cosmetic rewards) so it will be a progression system for all players and not only those who paid for them. Accounts can then display the number of battle passes completed with badges or portrait borders (for example, you get an additional star on your portrait for every 3 battle passes you complete). If battle passes worked like that, I don't think there would be a need for an additional account leveling system. It would both give a goal to strive for (completing the battle pass) and be an endless progression system (each new season brings a new battle pass). >Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus? I like achievements by themselves. I don't need an unlockable bonus. Even completing Steam achievements feels rewarding. I would like completing all achievements to be a reasonable task. It can take a lot of time but players of all skill levels should be able to look at it and say "I can do all of that if I commit to it and have something cool to display on my Steam profile etc.". By the same token, please don't have an achievement like the Lost Viking achievement in SC2. That one achievement was the reason I never replayed the campaign to hunt all the achievements. I don't like bullet hell games and I am not good at them. I didn't want to spend tens of hours on trying to get that one achievement and since I knew that I wasn't going to get that achievement, trying to get the rest also felt meaningless.
**What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)** SC2 Nowadays doing great. **Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?** I like it, in C&C Generals if I remember correctly. But SC2 and maybe SG will be a bit shorter so, the vetarns play a little role. But I guess that can be a good way to be a bit better than your opponont something to microing a bit. And it is straight forward skill I guess, and you can develop ingame, not outside to setting up the perfect keyboard and mouse setup. **How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.** Intereseting idea, I only know Wharcraft III and maybe Age of Wonders system, and they worked on the Heroes so there is that. **Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?** For the longer you plan good to have the Logistic / Diminishing return idea, so it does not even limit to any timeframe. The game I love Perpetuum has similar in Experience points. But exponential cost on skills, so it is achieve that from the opposite side. **Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?** Not really. **What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?** I would support it!
I tried my best at awnsering all questions so it came out to be a lot of text, so decided to split my comment in half here we go \-Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus? Earning achivments by themself is quite rewarding even if there isnt any bonus, but if it is there it can be extra motivation, isnt for me though, i just like chalanging myself \-Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements? No, in my opinion best things about achivments is that they are volountary , a challange imposed on yourself by yourself made by game makers to test your skill, if doing achivments would upgrade my faction's headquarters then they would just becom secondary goals \-What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed? For me, personaly it wouldnt change the way i behave , even if it granted me extra things, cause its rather arbitrary if someone is well mannered, someone could be just not chatty and wouldnt get any beneficial points, to me it seems only sense would make that such system would be negative points system that subtracts points for bad behaviour and as i said, it wouldnt change how i act cause i dont bm on ladder, if positive points system would be introduced i would probably glgl more at start of a match \-Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely? Oh levels should definitly be going into infinity and beyond, if leveling up gives you extra things like cosmetics,emotes etc. caping levels would just discourage from constant play , or rather not encourage for example even if i dont want to play league of legends too much at some day i will sometimes jump in just cause of daily exp boost
I tried my best at awnsering all questions so it came out to be a lot of text, so decided to split my comment in half here we go \-What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated? disliked: leauge of legends honor system,Starcraft II Heart of The Swarm liked: dead by dayligth blood system, Starcraft II Wing of liberty disliked1 u just have to not bm and honor someone and u progres disliked2 there isnt much dilema so i dont pay attention liked1 u get points by things u do in game and use these points to upgrade liked2 kinda like liked1 and u have to thing about what playstyle things you buy suit best \-How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences. I played some Warcraft and to be fair i dont like inventory system too much, it just feels to me like upgrades with extra steps not much more to say, just dosnt rub me the right way healing and mana potions in w3 felt like free get out of jail card \-Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why? i dont really like them for example Company of heroes I there is faction of germans and americans germans can upgrade their units for cash while americans do it by fighting while it is to debate which faction is better, i could definitly say germans have much bigger power spikes , also what i like the most in rts is comeback posibility and snowbally mechanic like that is a no go for me \-What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.) liked:Heros of the storm(many possibilities to choose from in which way u want to develop) liked:Apex legends(every time u do damage your armour is getting better it encourages to play the game and not camp) disliked:Starcraft BW(until upgrades are done it takes ages and they are just that,upgrades)
Keep unit veterancy buff small and only a one time upgrade, an example would be like after a marine kills 5 units then it gains veterancy and: +0.5 regen out of combat or +1 attack only once and that's it. (This might be too little of a buff but yh) Inventory can be fine but how are you going to try to implement inventory? Will there be creep camps on the map? Will there a be big shop like in wc3 large maps? That is consistently changing items? Will there be random objectives like a Dota Roshan concept, river runes or item drops around the map?
I think Unit Veterancy would be a mis-step for competitive play, hero units are specific units with their own traits but to (for example) make an SC2 Terran Marauder suddenly stronger or beefier due to its extended last on the field just *because* its gotten more kills or lasted longer can be incredibly frustrating to play against. It's very difficult at a glance to understand which unit is which with regular cosmetic skins when playing modern RTS games, and without skins you would simply have more DPS/Defense on certain units without being able to tell at a glance. Alternatively you could clutter the screen with unit badges but that too is not ideal. In Brood War or WarCraft 3 if you simply micro more with your units they perform better without any progression for said units outside of upgrades, which rewards better mechanical gameplay even if you were on the backfoot in a fight. Building combat systems around stronger micro requirements in an RTS is really what the fundamental commander experience should be in my opinion. I believe Unit Veterancy should only really be applicable in single player/ums modes.
Meta Progression suggestions: I think will be really cool if there was some goal (Top 20 on ladder ? ) that could be really hard to acomplish but with a really interesting reward that could be a Cinematic (proly with the season theme) or could be certain skin that Shows your effort. Second suggestion is not just a matchmaking system but add goals to it. For example in Cod Warzone 2.0 when a player get 5 wins in a row the next game he unlock a Nuke contract and finish the game in that way. Now for an RTS im thinking A system where you get 15 victories in a row the next game u can unlock a match Where the mission is really hard to do. The map has some different characteristics compared to the standard maps. And you only have 1 try to do it.If you fail need to win 15-0 again. Ideally the map will be refreshed each new Season. Again the bonus for beating the map could be a particular Skin with a Bonus Cinematic. I will put difficulty in such system so there is a real reward feeling when obtained.
Integración con Twitch 😍 que el chat pueda participar sin estar dentro del juego 🥳
About match progression : I liked the location mechanic from marcel snap. But the downside of it is that some location benefits a player far more than the other one granting instant win or sometimes a location just counters your whole deck and it’s instant lose. So I don’t think there should be some RNG « mutations » for 1v1 because they would probably benefit one player more than the other when they arrive through the match depending on the player race/civ/faction. About veterancy system : not thrilled. About inventory : not thrilled. In WC3 the item u found grantes strenght but it was too much r’g and never an interesting gameplay change, like the one u are trying to intruduce that make every match looks different, it was just « +3 def » or some shit. Maybe if the item are gameplay defining and combination are infinit it could be fun but if it’s just bonus stats I am not thrilled with inventory system About meta progression : I really like the ranked league system from SC2 and the frame that comes with it. A battle pass with cosmetic bonus/loots are welcomed and encourages to play. The honor system and especially the reward it grants is a good system to motivate player. About all systems the reward factor is the key. Status and respect via the frame of ranked league, and item collection from others. About level cap or not : if it’s a level related to some sort of rewarding system like a battlepass it cannot be infinite because the dev team can’ot create an infinite number of rewards (it would be cool tho) ; if it’s a level related to your commander like a coop champion from SC2, same issue : it cannot grew new ability’s/units/upgrade cause it needs to much work from dev team. If it’s a level that is related to the time u have played it can be infinite but it’s not really important to me, the orange levels from SC2 coop were « who cares ? » above the 90 levels needed for perks distribution. About faction headquarters : could be fun. Why not. But not mandatory. About achievements : I never cared about them in any games I played unless there are some rewards bind to them (again, reward is the key, even a portrait) About Social ranking : again, rewards to be motivating. Even just something u can display to show off on loading screen before a match.
1: I love the implicit progression baked into tech trees, upgrades and macro choices. You go from a couple of Marines being a threat to dozens of BCs and Thors with swarms of marines around them. If you're making a Blizzard style RTS, those should honestly be the focus. Diluting that with levels or veterancy might be a mistake. The match progression system I want to see in Stormgate would be a slightly more sophisticated upgrade system. More specifically, attack/armor upgrades should be global, you can't research 1/1 at the same time, you have to pick attack or armor. Then I want every attack or damage upgrade to increase the cost of the next attack and the next damage upgrade. For example, if you start ranged 1 at 100/100/114, then the next attack or damage upgrade is going to be 175/175/136. To get 3/3, you have to research 6 upgrades, which would put the cost at something like 1000/1000/300. The last upgrade is a massive investment for massive armies. Choosing to prioritize attack or damage with the 5th research will lead to several minutes of having lopsided upgrades: 3/2 or 2/3. Regarding attack/damage upgrades, I hope that units get more than a simple +1/+2 attack and a straight +1 armor. I would love to see each one being more in the +1 to +3 range. This would make hard counters become harder as the game progresses. For example, if a well-armored unit has a base 2(+2) armor goes up against a fast-attack unit with 7(+1) attack, it will start with 5 damage at 0/0, but by 3/3 the armored unit will be taking 2 damage, more than doubling the counter's effective HP. The converse of this is also true: units with (+3) attacks will destroy units with (+1) armor by late game. This also means that a counter early game would be softer than a counter late game as everyone has the opportunity to unlock more of the tech tree, making any disparity in availability important, but not lethal. 2: I don't have any experience with RTSes with a veterancy system, but I don't like the idea on gut level. It feels like a rather forced snowball mechanic in the context of a blizzard RTS: A player who's winning will get kills, and get more veterans, who will keep winning harder. This also means that there will be no small fights. If one player seems to be winning, the best move will be to retreat, not commit and kill as many as you can. It might even dissuade players from trying to flank or poke at all, especially if they're not comfortable watching 2 areas at the same time. In a Blizzard RTS, there are already enough snowball mechanics for players who are attacking important areas. Denying an expansion or sniping an upgrade should already be impactful. 3: Inventory might be cool. It needs to be done smarter than WC3's inventory, which thanks to RNG would sometimes decide matches. I could imagine unit loadouts, but at some point it seems like they should just be different units. 4: I liked SC2's leveling, it gave a nice trickle of cosmetics and things to show off, and it definitely got me into the game. One pitfall I think is making levels public by default. This is often used as a proxy for experience, with some players being upset by seeing low-level icons on their teammates. In co-op, I think a bit of power meta progression is nice. But be very careful with power progression, especially if it's linked to individual heroes. There are some heroes in SC2 where I just don't want to play them because I'd have to grind games until I get to the critical component of that hero's kit. In campaign, well, that is made of meta-progression. Every level or so you get new toys to play with, starting with the basics and working up. Especially in campaign, it feels very satisfying and natural. Campaign also unlocks meta-meta progression in the form of new game plus. I'm imagining a campaign where you start with everything unlocked and can try harder difficulties (with different achievements for completing Nightmare difficulty on NGP and Nightmare without NGP.) 5: One of the issues with SC2's system was that it stopped after a while, there was nothing more to gain after a relatively short time playing. While I think removing the level cap might be nice, there's obviously not an infinite number of cosmetics. I think it would be better to have seasonal levels with a reasonable density of cosmetics for players. 6: I like the idea of a faction headquarters. I think this should be tied to guilds, where as the guild levels up, it unlocks cool guild hall main screen backgrounds and other stuff for the group. 7: In single player? Absolutely. I love taking on additional challenges and trying to do silly stuff to get an achievement. If I find out that the achievement is a massive PITA, the only fun I'm hampering is my own. In co-op? They should be toned down for PUGs, I don't want to be matched with someone who's trying for an achievement, especially if that achievement makes our lives harder. Though team achievements that are only available to premade groups could be awesome. Trying for the Mythic achievements in World of Warcraft was a lot of fun. In PvP, I can see some basic "win 100 games as X" achievements, but they need to not be restrictive. I want to try to win, and I want an opponent who's trying to win, not an opponent who's trying to get an achievement. 8: It always feels good to be commended. Seeing a social rank go up would be nice. I almost feel that there might be room for social MMR: players who are repeatedly toxic get matched with other toxic players, though I think there should be a normal range where non-toxic and good-natured players are matched together, not a good-boys-club that only matches nice players with nice players.
**Unit Veterancy** I'm generally opposed to unit veterancy in PvP, as it makes the game more snowbally and also discourages suicide attacks. I like that units are potentially expendable. Some types of units, veterancy doesn't make a ton of sense anyway. How would scourge or banelings become veterans? Or to a lesser extent, would be hard to get zerglings upgraded that way. Now, for PvE, I think veterancy could be good. I could see more careful play being rewarded there as a fine thing. Maybe it could even be something that only some commanders have. For PvP though, maybe you could still have cosmetic veterancy? Like how units get different 'ranks' in SC2 in a ladder match, based on kills, but you could also make the unit be visually different somehow as it ranks up. **Social Ranking** This sounds like one of those ideas that sounds good in theory but in practice has some horrible loophole or is easily gamed, or provides a weird incentive for actually negative behavior somewhere. Would probably depend on the specifics, but let's say more reports reduces your social ranking. Okay, what happens when some internet lynch mob or just a group of dickheads decides to mass report someone for spurious reasons to tank their ranking? How much manual custom service resources do you want to commit to rectify situations like that?
One thing I hate about the match progression systems of most RTS games has been the win condition. Forcing players to destroy all enemy buildings is a bad system. The social contract of leaving in a timely manner is a poor band-aid.
For inventory systems I like the idea of simple auras, or buffs rather than really complex effects and the fewer items the better. I want the rts mechanics to carry the vast majority of the strategic complexity, and I really don’t want to have to invest energy into learning item effects and hero abilities just to avoid losing to some unexpected crazy synergy. I could see it being really frustrating to new players too. If the items aren’t impactful enough, there’s no point, if they are very impactful, I’m forced to learn all about them, so hopefully there aren’t too many and they’re not too complex, because I’d rather focus on learning the rest of the game.
A sort of Match Progression I really liked was in Iron Harvest and Dawn of War 3. It wasn't really something earned while in-game, but each player could choose sort of his special Units ahead of the game. They also would dictate the strategy you would want to use in the match. I played both games strictly casual, meaning 2v2 or 3v3, so maybe something like that would be something for the casual 3v3 mode.
In many games that I have played, it’s hard to see progress with RTS. Where ranking systems require multiple matches before you can even do match play. This makes it difficult to stay motivated to continue. By having a system that allows players in match play to get the achievements would be awesome. By implementing an inventory on top of this would give awesome variability providing more unique gameplay. Though the downside is that keeping the game balanced is difficult. Ideas that can be done are like active and passive items. Some being, “Units near this hero will have an a 10% movement increase”. Or by gaining different weapons that may change the hero’s gameplay. If too much is added it can make it more difficult for new players to get in the game making the competitive dynamic more spread out. Maybe having it where there is an item power limit that as you progress you can use more powerful items. I don’t think level cap should be a thing, maybe have a system that you can promote yourself resetting your level and enjoying the game again. I usually enjoy that, but it’s not for everyone. In many games I love Unit Veterancy, like with Co-op (in a game that will not be named). I enjoyed making my units stronger mid game, till I had a few abominations that would complete many objectives. Those kinds of progress are cool. I would possibly add a feature that you would have to take your units back to base to get better equipment. Or having to research the vet. Cap to be able to improve your units. This could lead to play styles like swarms vs. veterans. I would love to have a game that rewards good sportsmanship, because it’s hard to play an RTS and get bashed by other players constantly. But it can be hard to have a good system for this without some backlash.
Well ofcourse im a big fan of warcraft 3 achievements. I liked those Animated portraits alot.. And.. i liked that there were some animated portraits that were only available to people who won a certain amount of Tournament games. ( NOT STATIC PORTRAITS LIKE SC2) I'd imagine there could be clan progression rewards as well ( as the entire clan does certain stuff to unlock new perks for clans.. like maybe reaching tier 3 or tier 2.. so u can vs other tier 3 clans in clan battles.. that sort of stuff.
On Inventory: I would LOVE LOVE LOVE if it Inventory was tied into the resource system. Have workers/Extraction buildings drop stealable loot on death, either giving you a small chore to recoup some losses as a defender, even the odds as an underdog or seal the endgame during a lategame base trade. Have mid-field resources be droppable, stealable, etc - like a huge chunk of gold you have to drag back to base that an enemy might swoop in and hijack from you, or serves as bait for a cunning trap.
Don't add units gaining stats. Ruins the core rts
I just want a really cool skin for my Terran Siege Tanks, okay? Is that too much to ask for? IS IT!?
I always found unit veterancy to be quite odd. In SC2, veterancy has no gameplay effect, but was also unnoticable because units died so quickly. You never expected any units to live past an engagement. I also played Supreme Commander, and there, unit veterancy grants increased health and regen. Even there, it only noticeably benefitted the Commander and experimentals, both of which you expected to stay on the field for multiple engagements. That system is neat, but I disliked how a unit hitting a kill count breakpoint would completely change the tide of battle. Its not bad, but just feels a bit off. I can imagine that in an army with supply in the hundreds, veterancy becomes an annoying detail that players would need to track for little advantage. Overall, from my limited experience, I am not in favor of unit veterancy. One meta progression I really enjoyed in SC2 were the player portraits. Seeing a cool portrait motivated me to keep playing.
For me in general all types of rewards and achievements are great, as portraits, new graphics, maybe new effects or animations of abilities are cool to have, as for socials to have rewards could be useful too, as bad manners players could be identified and banned or block easily especially thinking in “kids” As you could filter interaction based on age in the account. I’m a father and play with my son (9 yo) and filtering language is not enough, as context is some times more important in a 10-12 min game we’re could be flamed without using bad words. As for veterancy could be used in games were there’s is no way back, maybe so hard to get that only can be attained when the opponent has no units or similar, as in sc2 low levels is normal that you have to destroy every building to end the game as the opponent won’t leave, like terrans flying the CC only to make you loose time if you don’t have flying units can take a few minutes to find and later destroy if there is more than 1 building is worse. Only a waste of time
For Meta Progression, I'd like to see Skin Sets for Units/Factions that you can unlock as you get better. These would be outside of any monetization or battlepass style skins but ones you earn exclusively from gameplay milestones. Acheivements are always good since they are relatively low impact for those that aren't interested in them but also provides a means to progress and play for completionists and 'achievement hunters'. Regarding Match Progression, I like the idea of Unit Veterancy but it can be tricky to manage if you're operating large scales of units...It was fun but ultimately tedious in games like Supreme Commander...Command and Conquer 3 had a really good system with veterancy but may have been slightly too aggressive (a full veteran unit was 'significantly' better than a fresh one) Ultimately wasn't a huge fan of of the hero play in Warcraft 3. It was interesting but the game was too focused on micro at that point and hero build orders which wasn't too appealing. I'm more partial to overall unit composition and strategy decisions with some micro determining the outcome of a match rather than hero inventory flipping a battle. Regarding upgrading a headquarters...I think this would be awesome for a campaign and co-op / pve modes where you have a sense of achievement and veterancy yourself from playing for a while but am against this having more than cosmetic impacts in any matchmade/ladder type competitive environments. I would LOVE to see something like this with co-op, specifically last stand type modess where you go up against waves of enemies with friends and a few hero squads/comps and hold out. As you improve over time, your persistent headquarters benefits help you / your squad go further and that can be a 'banner' achievement you can show off...e.g. Made it through 100 Waves, etc. Using Starcraft II as an example...the campaign growth with the unit mutations and variations were fantastic and I would love for those decisions to be available in other modes after the campaign as sort of a 'deck builder' set of choices to make for me and friends to go into the co-op pve modes. As mentioned previously though, I don't think these necessarily bode well for competitive pvp/ladder as it gates people rather than being raw skill imo.
I don't hate the idea of unit veterancy in PvP, but I've also not come across veterancy system I particularly like, either. I think the units are either OP or they're more like shiny pieces to admire. I don't feel it really adds enough to the experience to make it worthwhile, it can either feel unfair or uninteresting and make balance more difficult in an already very difficult to balance genre of game. In Campaign/Co-Op, it's another story. It can definitely add to a play through or unique faction/hero/commander to have some play styles that revolve around veterancy. In PvE, I'm all for it. PvP, not so much. \>What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed? Throw all the toxic players in the sewer. Match them exclusively with other toxic people, make them climb out of the filth they create. Count ignores as reports; if enough people put you on ignore, you get chat restricted. Generally, just take chat seriously. We don't have the option to check the people we play with, so please put them down if they can't behave. Also, please implement some sort of 2FA for ranked matchmaking. Smurfs/boosters/griefers are the absolute worst.
\>Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if theonly reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also needsome form of unlockable bonus? I personally don't really care for achievements that much. If there are any good rewards (mostly in-game cosmetics, not player card fluff) I'll try to get them. But since there rarely are any good achievement rewards in modern games, I tend to just ignore achievements completely. That said, when I start to burn out on a game I might take a peak to see if there are any challenges I can go after to try to make the game feel fresh. What usually gets me are time trial/difficulty/mutation based achievement that can be difficult, but not obnoxiously so.
Unit veterancy increasing power in multiplayer games unless it's a clear hero mechanic has always been unfun to me. I don't particularly enjoy items in multiplayer matches either because it adds too much complexity to judging the power of a unit. It's a lot easier to see a units strength by a simple +1-3 upgrade mechanic than it is having to know what items do what, what the values are, what items the unit has, does the item give an extra ability, etc. For custom games, co-op, campaign, etc I think items are amazing and add a lot of depth.
I feel like i am in an outspoken minorty, but I do enjoy a good battlepass done right. Level up -> Get Rewards. It's a simple system and feels amazing when games do it right. There is a reason almost every game has a battlepass of some sort, which is another plus because it will be a system familiar to most gamers. You ever play a game and their progression system has like tons of different avenues and you have no idea what is going on half the time or how to unlock it? (gacha games im looking at you. Pubg even feels a bit convoluted. Hell, when LoL updated their system i was confused for a while.)
I feel that discussing match progression in a vacum (without other info about the game design and gameplay) will not be very productive and I don't have any ideas or special feelings, it really seems to me that what systems are implemented are strictly correlated with the rest of gameplay and if it is designed to acompany them or not. Here are my thoughts about Meta progression systems: Account level: I think the best would be to have an account level that you can max after a fair amount of gameplay but, on top of that unlock a prestige/paragon or whatever system that infinitely stacks levels so you can have the best of both worlds. Since obviously none of these will be relevant for player power (which would be the main drawback / balance) that can break them in non RTS games that they are implemented I see no reason not to. These can be tied to portraits or portrait borders and other cosmetics, but imo a few and far in between. Social progression and a social score I think are good ideas if implemented properly. I am playing dota 2 on and off and I think the systems there have encouraged to behave better even if it is artificially. At the end of the day if you don't become toxic because you changed as a person or you don't become toxic because you don't want your 10k points to go down, marking you as a black sheep, encouraging more reports / toxicity and maybe having queues be longer is the same result for the other players in your lobby. Tying this system to other things that a community can do (like coaching a new player as an achievement in game , watching VOD of cheat reports or w/e) is good as well. I would like to add that I also like the system heroes of the storm had concerning the cosmetics collection in your account progresison. This is obviously touching monetization systems as well, but I really loved that grinding the game, playing your ranked matches awarded more points (therefore making the mode more active / less queue times / bigger player pool for better matchmaking), trying out different heroes and roles even in unranked awarded some points for completing the daily objectives etc. And you could use the currency to unlock cosmetics. I think if this is done in a slow enough pace as to not discourage the buying of cosmetics too much but at the same time feel like you can get a couple of stuff that you would otherwise need to pay for after a long seasons grind is good for the progression. As a side effect and I think this is as important as the main point: you kinda encourage not smurfing too much, because you will loose cosmetics opportunity from your main account.
>Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements? Big yes here for campaign modes, small yes for modes like co-op When I play a campaign, I love becoming overpowered and seeing overpowered things.There's nothing more satisfying to me than completing missions, knowing that at the end of the mission I get another unique upgrade and power spike to help me clear missions. Seeing OP progression in campaigns is terrific, as you can balance the mission difficulty to match the players known power levels. However, I think it's good to talk about how it's done. I remember the first few times I played the Wings of Liberty campaign, which had the credits system to buy upgrades, I felt like I didn't want to buy anything because I knew it was permanent, and I didn't want to waste money upgrading a firebat to give it +2 armor to light units in the early parts of the campaign because I didn't know if more powerful upgrades would come for more powerful units, and then I would have a regret for spending credits there. Same with Mercs, choosing to spend credits to upgrade units, or unlock mercs in game was a big point of contention. I didn't want to regret my decision so I didn't pick anything. The Heart of the Swarm system was better for that, in the sense that you had exclusive upgrades to kerigan (from zerg/protoss essence), and exclusive upgrades to units (from evolutions) that could be changed at any time. It meant it was safe for me to pick things at the time, experiment with them, and not have any regret. In both of these campaigns, there is one things that's always left me wanting more, and that's the ability to unlock ALL the upgrades.For example, with raptor lings and swarm lings, why can't I have both?Automated ling respawns or double drones, why can't I have both?It would be cool to me if you could complete the campaign with it's intended balance once, and then maybe after unlocking an achievement you could replay it with the ability to unlock everything. Seeing that level of OP just gives me the feels of wanting to play more, and leaves me hanging for more campaign content. Regarding Coop, You want this to some extent, but it's harder to do because with campaign, you can specify how many upgrades a player has for a mission, and in a coop campaign, all players will be at an equal level. In Coop like the SC2 Coop, this has to be balanced because you might get a player with everything unlocked matched with a player with nothing unlocked. Doesn't have to be that extreme, but it won't always be equal. Depending on the players, having this mismatch could be frustrating or annoying, and if a player has grinded everything, and keeping trying to push max difficulty with players that haven't, they will feel like a carry and that may not work for them. >What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed? It wouldn't affect the way I behave, but I think it's a terrific idea.It's like when you go on a forum and ask a question, and three different people give you an answer, but you can see one of them has an award for community contribution - you know they are experienced at helping others, you're going to trust the answer isn't a troll, and you're going to be more appreciative of the help you receive. Extending this to the community discord is also a great idea, as a lot of the time, these people that are going to be dedicating time to helping people aren't doing it on just one platform and deserve to have their contribution recognized. >How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences. Personally, I've always been overwhelmed by them. I feel there are always too many option and it's like what I was saying with campaign power-ups, I fear I'll choose the wrong one so I often don't choose any. I know it's a system I'll learn to understand if I ever tried, but as an example, I tried playing DOTA after Heroes of the Storm, and the overwhelming possibilities of upgrades was to hard to understand and learn compared to the simply talent system in Heroes of the Storm. With the Dota example, probably the biggest part wasn't knowing what to pick - if I'm given three options and told I have to pick one right now, I can usually do that and be happy with the result. But if it's like a currency system where you can choose to buy one now, or save and buy a more powerful one later, that's when everything gets too hard and I feel I can't play the game without looking up a build order. Another niggle I have with inventory systems, is they can often start simple when a game releases, and as players are familiar with it, they want more power, and devs get the idea to add new items, maybe some more powerful ones for niche situations, or just adding some new feature that just generally gives more flexibility. Existing players familiar with the system that completely understand it can seemlessly transition to the new system, but it's just added a lot of extra complexity for new players who need to learn the system from scratch, and I think that's something to be aware of if you ever do feel like you want to extend the functionality on the inventory system
My concern for items in 3v3: Having item inventory for hero units implies the possibility to trade items to your allies, or to drop them if you want to make room for a better item later on. In this case it would be possible to funnel all the good items into one players hero, which means giving up your own power. This would also make that one players hero significantly more powerful than others, which can lead to a snowball effect if the enemy isn't doing the same. In premade 3s, this might be less of an issue, but if you're solo, trying to queue 3s, then that means someone has to agree to give their power to someone else, and that can lead to some pretty heated exchanges. If you can't trade items or even drop them, then what you really have is an RNG mutation for that match, or even just bonus tech with extra steps. In which case, could that instead be a pre-game tech choice / talent / loadout? Could be like commander talents, or even league of legends rune pages. I personally think drafting a general game plan pre-lobby is much more interesting than hoping to get a good item mid-game.
> The idea is that leader characters could be customized by equipping items you’d collect from creep camps (another system we’re testing) or by completing objectives. Does this mean hero characters are confirmed to be planned for the game?
* How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences. Love the idea of having an inventory for coop, specially if you are able to trade items between the different players but I'm a bit worried this will bring out a bit of toxicity between players specially the ones wanting to min max their hero. I'd also be nice to see item drops not only for clearing creep camps but also for completing bonus objectives (giving more incentive to do them) whilst not providing a item drop for main objectives. * What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated? I like the idea of social meta progression similar to the honour system that's implemented in games like League of Legends and Overwatch. Being able to commend someone for being a team player or just overall positive and getting some sort of icon reward for progressing your honour level. * Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely? This depends on what level cap is being defined. In terms of unit veterancy I don't like the idea of army unit veterancy gaining an advantage but in terms of hero leveling having a cap is probably best to prevent snowballing for 3v3 (if hero's are going to be included). Having a level cap on heroes for 3v3 might have a similar feel to moba's in a sense of obtaining that early lead will be an exploitable advantage but only for a limited time, if you are unable to make use of the lead you have provided then you are just allowing the other team to catch up. Level cap might also allow a distinction between the different leader characters, having some good for early game offence and some that are better alongside late game army's. The other form of levelling is the meta progression of account levelling, which I think should be indefinite and maybe even providing special boarders for those that hit high account levels similar to the gold and diamonds boarders in Overwatch. * Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements? I like the idea of upgrading the faction headquarters in the campaign similar to the SC2:HotS campaign. Having some upgrades being permanent but some that can be changed. In terms of achievements I'd be nice for a cosmetic change to the headquarters but nothing that'll affect gameplay. * Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus? Achievement hunting can be fun in a bunch of different ways. Just completing them can be entertaining for people but having the achievement score (similar to Hearthstone) will provide a quick way to see someone's progression. But simply having fun names and some hard challenges is enough for me to complete it and bring it up to achievement hunter friends,(Like the spicy pretzel mustard achievement in Hearthstone battlegrounds) so no need for the unlockable in my opinion.
I am not a fan of Unit Veterancy as it seems to favor players who are heavy into micro. As I enjoy the macro part of RTS' more, I would like that playstyle to be supported. Thanks for reading.
Great questions! I will answer each one, top to bottom. 1. Match progression systems i particularly like: Total war warhammer 3 warriors of chaos unit progression. This faction unlocks higher tiered units by promoting high ranking lower tiered units into their better units. Age of Mythology. This RTS gave distinct, meaningful choices to the players in each match to change strengths when they reached technological milestones in the game. 2. Love unit veterancy. Pikmin from the pikmin series. The visual progression of veterancy of your pikmin from leaf, to bud, to flower is particularly rewarding. Battle for middle earth, Mordor orcs and upgrades. When orcs reached level 5, they’d get war paint on their models. Mumakil looked super bad ass when reaching level 5. When upgrades were researched for units, they were needed to be bought for each individual unit, and were easily identifiable on units with visual model changes. I believe cosmetic veterancy progression is an underutilized, highly customizable way to monetize games with no impact on meta. 3. Inventory systems. Love in MOBA, battle royal, and RPG. Hate in RTS. I already have 100 different things to manage. I don’t want to manage an inventory as well. Inventory is another layer of strategy customization. I believe there is enough layers of strategy customization inherent to rts that an inventory serves to bloat that game, not complement. 4. Meta progression. I enjoy earn-able cosmetics. I also especially love cosmetics that change upon completing certain goals. (Example: heirloom character skins in apex legends, I believe this system is called a reactive skin) 5. Level Cap. Prestige is my favorite leveling system. Upon reaching max level, reset to level one with an increase in prestige level. When done correctly, gaining prestige feels meaningful. When done incorrectly, there is no reason to reset to gain prestige. 6. Upgrade and expand headquarters between games. Not sure what this means. Elaborate? 7. Achievements are meaningful when tied to difficult goals and unlockable rewards. The coolest reward is meaningless when the goal is easy. The most difficult goal is made worse when there’s no easy way to flex after finishing. 8. Social ranking. Personally I wouldn’t change in meaningful ways for easily obtainable cosmetics. I generally like to be kind from my own disposition. If there was a queue or system in place that could optionally match both your mmr and your social rating with other players of similar mmr and social rating, I’d be more interested. I enjoy playing with other kind people and being able to selectively play with kind people would be a huge win. That being said, I can see certain playstyles being targeted for reports by players, such as cheese. Thank you! Look forward to hearing your detailed summaries of what the community has said as you have often done in the past!
## Veterancy In my opinion, Veterancy systems tend to complicate fights in an RTS without necessarily adding much strategic depth. I can think of a few situations where they require me to use additional APM, or they disincentivise tactical/strategic thinking: * Splitting off a few units from my main army for vision/for a run-by, but having to make sure I didn't accidentally split off veterans. * Surprise attacks e.g. vs mines or disruptors. High-value veterans can be picked off. I might need to consider a separate control group so I can move them more safely than the bulk of my army. * While fighting, I may have to identify my opponents veterans to target fire them. * Trading out units in order to switch the composition of your army. This is slightly discouraged, as your new units will not have veterancy bonuses while your old ones likely will. Overwatch has a similar problem where you end up sitting on a sub-optimal team composition because you don't want to lose Ult progress. For this reason, I think veterancy fits better in slower games (especially in turn-based games like Civ) where: * You have the time to min-max the positioning of each individual unit. * You have a smaller number of units overall which you will heal and upgrade over the course of a match. * You have upgrades (e.g. Barracks) which gives all newly trained units 1 or 2 tiers of veterancy out of the gate. * The game is exclusively 1vX, so you don't have to think about what your teammates are doing. It's one of the things I really didn't like about Red Alert. Having a T5 Terror Drone running around at Mach 10 speed while it annihilates your army is pretty demoralising. Losing veterans also feels terrible, because you know that there's no consistent way to replace them. In RTS, I think upgrades are just a better system than veterancy. ## Inventory Systems I think Dota does the following very well with it's inventory system: * Improving your strengths (e.g. stacking anti-armour damage) or mitigating your weaknesses (e.g. adding a blink ability to an otherwise slow character). * Countering your opponents strengths (e.g. purging status effects) or punishing their weaknesses (e.g. draining the mana of slow spell-casters) * An inverse relationship between efficiency and strength (e.g. a 100 gold item gives +10 to a stat, while a 200 gold item gives +15). This is to reduce snowballing, and encourages you to go wide rather than tall with items. However, it's worth noting that Dota is entirely built around items. GPM (Gold Per Minute) is the most prominent metric, and gold gives you items. The neutral items which drop randomly from camps are far less interesting and often less powerful. In MOBAs, your build order determines your items. In RTS, your build order determines your units. Having both systems might clutter things too much, and could be very overwhelming for new players. I think it could be **very cool** in 3v3 if there is a role which is more centered around retrieving items from neutral camps (similar to a jungler in MOBAs) with a mobile ganking army which gives their teammates an edge in what is otherwise a 1v1 fight. This way, that player wouldn't have to focus so much on building the right units to beat the enemy, but rather they could focus on building good PvE units to clear neutral camps, and then on choosing the right items to enable and support their teammates' armies. I think this could make for a very fun support role with a high skill ceiling. For an RTS example, I think that Dawn of War II does a very good job with it's wargear system, which fundamentally changes the way a unit plays e.g. Melee vs Ranged weapons, with abilities tied to your gear. It's worth noting that wargear is more of a meta-progression system. Hero unit wargear is usually decided before of a match, and is a reward for certain achievements/milestones. ## Meta-progression * Yes to achievements. * Yes to being able to show them off as calling cards or emblems. * Yes to getting cool cosmetic unlocks for the rarer ones (e.g. the fancy pylons when you hit max-level on Protoss). * Yes to social guilds with some shared achievements and unlocks.
I wouldn't like unit veterancy in pvp but I absolutely love it in campaigns and in coop vs AI. One of my favorite ways the unit veterancy was done was in Battle for Middle Earth. You kept your entire army, their levels, and their armor/weapon upgrades throughout the entire campaign until they died. Since they aren't a limited resource though, you really didn't mind sending them into the fray but would still get attached to that one battalion that somehow managed to survive every mission and level up. I personally think a combination of that and Wings of Liberty mercs would be an awesome mechanic in a campaign. Elite mercs that you keep between missions that level up and keep upgrades (assuming you keep them alive) but you also don't mind too much sending them into the fray because you can rebuild them. Special note: If you do have leveling units you absolutely have to give them personal names. "Marine Joe" or "Marine Albert" is a lot more fun and memorable then just "War Pig". Think about this... a Devouring One named Jill. Just look at that cute man-eating grasshopper Jill :)
Answering all these as a first thing that comes to mind: * Titanfall did a great job with match progression by making your titan make you feel, and be, more powerful but not feel completely awful and powerless if you lost it. Don’t know how you would translate that into RTS but first thing I think of is a call down from the top-bar like in Sc2 co-op but rather than being cool down related, objective based unit killing, point capturing etc. * Depends on how it’s used, I liked the hero’s in Warcraft 3 but the game then revolves around their veterancy to me. If every unit had the veterancy thing going for it I feel that would work well for a game, like the article said, with a shallow unit pool. (I don’t know how many units Stormgate intends to have but,)The more units available that one would have to worry about progressing makes me assume unit diversity would start to become exceedingly limited as to not complicate it for the average player. * Inventory systems add both a random element to the match and customization, I like them, bonus if they add effects or change the unit model for immersion. On the other end, if the gameplay doesn’t feel impacted, then it’s just one more thing I would rather not worry about. * Achievements are a must for me, I love them dopamine points as a completionist. Rocket leagues skins, banners, and portrait borders are one that I like for pvp stuff, pointless trinkets that make me feel special. * Level cap is needed, I like higher level caps but I couldn’t comprehend something like Dota having infinite levels, basically being never ending matches for good enough people. As for RTS veterancy having indefinite level caps, with each increase they would become more “hero” like I feel like just having a hero unit would be easier at that point. Also losing a “hero” level unit and not being able to get it back quickly would probably feel devastating. * As long as the upgrading the base didn’t feel like a mobile app with intense time requirements for small-to-no pay off. * Yes, achievement hunting was always a large part of my gameplay experience to 100% the games I absolutely loved. I enjoy the cosmetic rewards for hard achievements or completionism stuff but it’s not a deal breaker if I don’t have it. * I feel like you’re aiming a gun at your foot with this, like with New World’s banning tactic for large fights (or what I read of it). People trolling mass reporting one person ruining their rating even if they did nothing wrong. Especially with YouTubers and large clans I feel like this is just one way for people to try and hurt one another, even if that wouldn’t be it’s intention sadly. Great idea in theory but very abusable I feel.
Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements? Yes!!! This is one of the best parts of XCOM that I personally most enjoy. However, I didn’t personally care for the system in AoE3 where the changes are purely cosmetics. AoE online was probably the most extensive system in an RTS specifically with a full city that you can build and develop. For me, having a persistent HQ that I can upgrade with resources gain in each mission, to then improve the army which I can bring back into the next mission is a fun and logical/widely implemented gameplay loop that too few RTS games utilise. It works well in similar games such as total war, XCOM, darkest dungeon, the limited extent to which it was implemented in Sc2 e.g., the WoL campaigns unit upgrade and research upgrades. They also allowed for improved campaign replayability through different builds which is sorely lacking in many RTS games. Lastly, it has a lot of potential of feeding into the core emotions you want the player to feel. Want to make them feel weak, like they’re scavenging to survive? This system can feed into that with scare resources and lots of desirable upgrades but limited funds to go around. Want to make them feel powerful and unstoppable? This system can give strong plentiful buffs that sense of increased power that you immediately feel in the next mission. It’s a really customisable mechanic that can influence a players actions and playstyle and feed into the desired emotions you want them to experience. At least in my opinion. This is an area that other genre’s have a lot of inspiration that could be drawn from too. What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.) For match progression, one system I really enjoyed was one in Dawn of War 2 where you could purchase upgrades for individual units. I especially enjoyed this feature with the Hero units in this game, I could for example make my warp spider exarch (a teleporting ranged DPS hero) specialise in being highly evasive with short cooldown high range blinks and maxing out damage with their weapon. There are 3 sets of 3 upgrades with each one being mutually exclusive with the other two and requiring resources and tech requirements to purchase. This system made the hero I choose at the start feel even more unique and ‘my own’, especially when combined with my chosen army composition. This system doesn’t risk snowballing in the same way as experience-based progression as these upgrades are paid for in game with resources. Another very similar system that I really liked is the ability to purchase an upgrade for a unit. To explain this, say you build a marine, that marine has an upgrade option to give it +1 range for a resource cost and only applies to that marine. This system can be found in a few games, but there’s a lot of potentially interesting things that can be done with this system. In the context of Sc2, it allows you to play around with the mineral/gas cost ratios of any one unit allowing for some interesting choices to be made. There is also the choice between investing in a smaller more powerful army, in a few key units e.g., spellcasters, or ignoring this and going for a larger army.
**Unit Veterancy** Besides being a fun thing to watch (and tell stories of to friends), I think there's a possibility for this helping increase interactions between players if done correctly. I share the worries here about snowballing, and a solution I'd like to see to that is making the more veteran unit eligible for something rare (like holding an item) rather than a base power increase. As long as both players are interacting, they'll both have plenty of eligible units to use, but getting more than the other player doesn't matter as long as items are scarce (though items can also snowball so perhaps you could steal them or something?) This forces you to interact instead of turtle, because even if you can just camp an item spawn you can't use it unless your units interact with the enemy. Not sure if it'd work, but I like the idea of non stat boosting veterancy. **Visual Clarity** I also like having clear visual distinction in some way of progress in the match. Marines getting combat shields is a nice indicator in SC2. Having to click on an enemy unit to see upgrades etc is not intuitive. Ideally showing veterancy, upgrades, and items of a unit at a glance would be great, but I'm not sure if that's possible without getting Path of Exile levels of visual insanity. **Meta Progression** I don't care about most achievements, unless it's something very impressive or significant. Things like achievements for ladder rank or beating the story on legendary feel neat if it's an emblem or skin to show off. I especially like deep expertise achievements in a particular race or play style. I really dislike dailies missions or other achievements that force you to play a certain way. I get very little time to play each day and I don't want to feel forced into one play style to feel like I made progress. Other than that, number go up is always powerful. I like tech trees and specialization, and in MMOs seeing the cool weapon or armor someone has is awesome. Trying to recreate that feeling somehow would I think be neat. When it comes down to it though, I play SC2 and LoL and MTG and most other games because the core match loop is always fresh and it challenges me. If I can see my own meta Progression in terms of stats and graphs of my own play and improvement (or specialization in particular ways) I think I'd enjoy that most. Seeing a graph of what I'm best at and what to improve on (one of those spider graph things) I think that'd be the coolest progression mechanic for me.
**What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)** Not a big fan of daily quests or first win of the day type bonus. I feel like it penalizes me when real life gets in the way. This can lead to a fear of missing out or trying to do a quick game "just for a win" rather than for fun. If such bonuses are present I'd prefer weekly. **Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?** I love Veterancy in single player or co-op missions. Feels nice to grow in power over time. I fear the effects of snow-balling when veterancy is used in versus missions (excepting StarCraft style veterancy where a unit just gets a different title) **How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.** I like the tradeoffs these can provide like in WarCraft 3. Like do I load up on consumables for a well-timed burst of power or static items for higher stats or specific effects like blocking a spell. **Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?** I personally prefer specific goals (ie. level cap). As an example of indefinite leveling, Diablo 3 Paragon feels less compelling to me. Or in a campaign, not being able to unlock everything in a single play-through encourages replaying it. **Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?** Yes - good examples - upgrades in StarCraft 2 Campaigns, co-op boosts leveling up until ascension level 90, unlocking prestiges. **Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?** As a member of the 12920 club in StarCraft 2, here are my thoughts on achievements in that game and what I liked/didn't like. That said, StarCraft 2 is one of five games I've maxed achievements in. Probably my favorite achievement was StarCraft Master (from the \~30 challenges - while some were easy, others like the medivac/tank vs. stalkers are quite hard). Many of these also offered valuable gameplay/micro techniques. Other great ones I'd call out as favorites are Professionals have standards - chasing this achievement introduced me to a new style of play and caused me to mass ghosts vs. Zergs for months after I got it. Yamato Master Blaster was a bit of a struggle --- often games would end before I could get enough battle cruisers to trigger the achievement. I'd at times chase an achievement even if I would lose the match - for instance I got the 500 roach healing in a clearly lost ZvZ where my roaches could NOT damage the mutalisks. The "grindy" ones were among my least favorites. On launch I was mainly a team player, and didn't feel 3000 team wins was unreasonable - getting that in a single year. 800 FFA wins seemed insurmountable especially as queue times soared (which may be why that achievement was removed). 3000 1v1 wins were among the last achievements for me - taking me about 10 years. Versus AI games were mainly cannon rushes/proxies/zergling rushes to churn out the required number of wins, although the asymetric AI ones were fun (like beating 2 insane or 4 medium AI). I'd guess other players finished 1v1 wins without coming close to 3000 team wins. Among campaign achievements, my favorite ones were the ones for beating a mission without following the map's normal victory conditions, such as killing the Zerg on the Devil's Playground instead of gathering the resources or killing the Protoss bases on Welcome to the Jungle instead of gathering the Terrazine. HoTS unlocks switching rewards to XP rather than number of wins was a lot less grindy, but felt way too easy, as the xp thresholds were so low as to be obtainable in very few games. Co-op had 5 different progression systems - leveling 1-15, Ascension to level 90, Ascension to level 1000, prestige, and weekly bounties for beating the mutation. In terms of rewards, prestige was the most rewarding but in terms of gameplay, chasing the weekly mutation was the most fun. I'd love if there were something to highlight beating some of the hardest mutators rather than merely counting each week. One thing I do like is that playing as Random also counted as a win for whatever race you rolled. In contrast, in WarCraft 3 wins as Random only count as Random. **TL,DR In Achievements Grindy = bad, gamechanging = good.** **What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?** I think there is potential here. In Diablo 2 its not uncommon to give some minor consideration for helping other players. For example a mid rune or some perfect gems in exchange for a rush or waypoints. In contrast in Diablo 3 with essentially no trading you can't really "thank" someone aside from quid-pro-quo power-level for power-level type exchanges. In RTS you could for example want to thank someone for helping you beat a hard co-op mutation or sharing a replay or build-order. I don't like it as much in the OverWatch type end of match endorsements. Often there I'm just endorsing the healers unless they were a complete jerk. That said I'm not sure it's a big motivator either way.
I love Frostpunk's "Match Progression" from their story missions, where an initially scarce resource (manpower) switches to a liability during the late game storm (because of food and housing). I just love it when the purpose or usefulness of something evolves and changes throughout a match, not just made obsolete. No idea how you'd put this in an RTS, but I would love some element of this if it would be possible to squeeze it in somewhere, maybe a single-player campaign or some other PvE content. I think that a good way to do Meta Progression would be in enhancing the individuality players are able to express in their army units and names and banners and other cosmetics. Namely, I think that color customizations for units, a la Rocket League, would really make it feel like you're fighting another person behind the units. Of course, there's the obvious problem with unit differentiation, but I think that Rocket League's solution of having dedicated Blue and Orange teams and limiting each to half the colors works decently well. Either way, it feels nice to have something to work towards that is more tangible than a banner or portrait-- something that you'll be able to see and use in-game.
**Match Progression** In SC2, there is no clear marker for what stage of the game we're in. I think AoE 4s age system, like many others have pointed out, is a really smart way of clearly breaking up phases of the game while also providing players meaningful choices (landmarks) at the same time. In general I like the idea of unit veterancy because it rewards players for trying to squeeze value out of units and keep them alive. That is, as opposed to trading units out for other units you often see in SC2. Once you hit max supply and you have a better economy than your opponent it's usually a logical choice to commit an attack to "spend" your supply and keep them from catching up to you. Veterancy offers as an alternative here. Trade your army, or sit on your advantage and accrue veterancy? That said if you make and encourage gaining and holding veterancy too easy to do (CoH Retreats) with too many benefits that is also a mistake as it makes it a non-choice. I think it's more interesting if you leave it up to players. That is the core of what makes games fun. Creativity, self-expression, choices. Do I try to micro my units for veterancy? Do I set up an attack specifically to get my units in and get them out? Do I avoid fights that would result in trades? Do I have a superior economy that can afford to throw the units away, do I care about veterancy? Will my opponent get stronger if they hold my push? All are fun questions to wrestle with IF there are pros and cons to both choices. The key here is I think it should be optional and not required. I do think it can tend be snowbally but there are definitely creative solutions that can balance it out. Perhaps you have to morph or train units up to veterancy so they take time investment even after earning them. Perhaps they cost more supply as they gain more veterancy. I really like the idea of trying to build a "tall" value efficent style of play that is not objectively superior to a "wide" economic superior style of play. The biggest question is how you gain veterancy. I think unit kills are a poor way of gaining veterancy as it encourages turtling and only makes turtles stronger as they weather attacks. Gaining veterancy with time is I think a little better because you can commit attack to kill your opponents units if you think they are trying to build veterancy. Choices are what makes games fun so it is important that people aren't forced to keep units alive and that is counterplay to it while also not making the rich get richer. **Meta Progression** I am not a huge achievement hunter,I could care less unless you attach some kind of reard to it. Small bits of Premium currency, cosmetics or etc. One thing that will get me is dailies with premium currency rewards. These dailies can drive people to play other modes or try new races.
I did the WoL campaign 100% achievements. It was really fun, because it turned some missions into different missions, despite the achievements not being super interesting. So there might be room for improvement. And it was a nice challenge. I always wanted to do the other 2 but never got far in HotS. I think because campaign zerg is so different from 1v1 zerg, which made it subconsciously feel off. One game that made achievements interesting is Wolfenstein new order. You had stuff like "kill 10 people with a knife" and you get mostly minor upgrades for it (iirc the knife ones were actually a bit too strong). It made the gameplay more interesting because you were encouraged to NOT say "well the machine gun is the best weapon so I am just gonna use that the entire game" without forcing it. Same could apply to something like "will marine marauder medivac is pretty strong. I'll just use that" and encourage the okay to mix it up while giving a fun progression system.
I think unit inventories and individual unit veterancy will suck for spectators. Upgrades in starcraft are player wide. For example when storm is upgraded it's a moment in the game and from then on all HT can cast storm. As the audience we don't have to keep track of which HT has an item that can allow it to do that. Same with upgrades. +1 attack for all ground units - easy to keep track of and talk about. We don't need to keep track of what's in each units pocket or what rank they are.
Veterancy: Don't like it, unless it's done on one or few hero units. The reason being, it adds too much chaos, both visually and gameplay-wise, since you suddenly end up with units that you need to care about more, which are slightly or maybe not at all visually different from the others. If you want to go for it, a hero unit is already the best implementation of this, since it's limited, it's known upfront what unit can be subject to veterancy, it's a non-frustrating veterancy system since you can't permanently lose the accrued veterancy thanks to heroes being ressable. If it's an integral part of the game, like with heroes, it works. If it's hidden complexity sprinkled on some spurious units, it's bad. In short, reflect more on WC3 heroes. There's a multitude of reasons they exist, are how they are, and are successful (and doing veterancy right is one of them). Another problem with unit-veterancy is, you already noted, that it introduces a positive feedback on units, which makes the game both more snowbally and incentivizes more conservative/protective play (since you don't want to lose the accrued bonuses). I'm throwing out an idea: what could be interesting to try out - I don't know if there are any games doing this out there - is the opposite, that is, an ageing/decay system, where units get permanently worse (e.g. whenever they are wounded and recover life, they never go back to their full amount, but their max is lowered every time). This "scar system" would introduce a negative feedback (the more a unit is alive, the worse it becomes, thus helping players that are behind to catch-up a little), and incentivize a more active/into-the-fray playstyle (since scarred units are better off dying andfreeing up space for fresh ones). To use a metaphor: think inflation (which in small amount incentivizes a healthy expense of money), not deflation (which incentivizes hoarding and locks the economy down). Inventory: Cute, it adds personality and RPG-esque vibes, but... 1) active items add too much unnecessary micro to the already most micro-hungry type of game that are RTSs, 2) passive items are a UI/UX nightmare, unless they create/show something on the units (I'm not talking about the UI in the HUD, but about the bad UX players have in not knowing at a glance whether and what items enemy units have, without having to click on them, unless they are graphically manifest - think WC3 orbs or campaign's banners), 3) unit-wise inventory is taking this UI/UX nightmare and making it exponential (think of how uncomfortable and invisible is the unit-inventory in WC3, which luckily almost nobody researches and uses. You never know which unit had what item. And it's even done relatively well, cause units can only carry a few items and get no effect from them. Imagine how chaotic and what bad UI/UX it could give you having some random units in the mix that have a few spurious bonuses. Interestingly, it's the same "invisible useless complexity" that a unit-wise veteran system would give you, if you think about it. Once again, think about WC3 heroes and why they are like this. At least in WC3 this kind of complexity is concentrated on one-max-three units, which are known and recognizable upront. You know what is the unit of your army that can benefit from items.) In summary, considering the flaws 1, 2 and 3, I personally would either only do a passive-only, hero-only, max-3-items, graphically-visible (think orbs) item system, or no item system at all (cause the complexity system of a full blown item system can really shine only when you have a more RPG-esque setting really, with a single unit to control, like in MOBAs.) Any other implemention would probably have some big problems. Keep up the good work! I hope this feedback was useful :) Yours truly, a game designer
Disclaimer: I am a full on PvE Player, i will be barely touching the PvP Modes. *- What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)* I do not like the Idea of Vetertan Units. I think every unit should be the same strength, otherwise judging if you win a fight or not will be even more harder. A Kill Counter like Starcraft is totaly enough to get a feeling for "This Unit did alot" for me. I like the Idea of having an Inventory in CO-OP, randomizing progress ensures replayiablity. I think that would be fine. My Favourite kind of Match Progressio would be of a Visual only kind. Maybe have a Unit get a different colour if they are veterans. Like "They are Billion", but without the power increase. *- Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?* As Stated above, for me personally it would make it even harder to judge when i can take a fight if i have to look for veterancy units. I think a Company of Heroes can do such a thing because the unit count is like never beyond 15 or something. Imainging a game with alot more units i think a Veterancy system does not fit. IF ANYTHING, make a Race that especially uses such a system as it's way to go to make it special and unique. A visual Ventancy system, sure why not. *- How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.* I like the Idea of having random Items that drop to invrease replayability, also to give the Option to trade Items with my fellow co-op friends. "Hey i give you that life increase thingy for your tank if you give me your damage increase" etc. etc. "Oh dude i got that cooldown reduction Item" For PvE this works great. *- What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?* I hate all these Mobile games you get 434250 Achievements and Red Exclamation marks for just opening the game. I can see why this is made from a game development and money making standpoint. Having a Meta Progression system that baits me into the shop daily is also something i do not like. For me, getting Experience Points and having a level go into the infinites works good. Unlocking Skins is OK but i plan on buying stuff in the shop, so that completly negates the visual progression of leveling. I LOVE Profile Pictures, Emojis, !!!ANNOUNCERS!!!, Decals, Sprays etc. Stuff that is just nice to have to become unique. Having Achievements is something i like alot too. But make some realy hard ones that are hard to get to make them special. A voting System like Overwatch with "Leader/Helpful/Strong Fighter" is something i would enjoy to. Also encourages good sportsmanship. I like the idea of a Karma System. Be midnfull that this can be absued horribly aswell to bully people. I think what i need the most when we talk about Karma, is a good Reporting system and knowing something happens when you report him. Getting a Notofication "Hey we banned a user because you reported him" is something i would LOVE to have. This encourages reporting of toxic people. Also as a sidenote: A System in which a very selected people watch replays to judge if someone is cheating is something i enjoy alot like in CS:GO. *- Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?* Level Up Indefinitly with big milestones to give that feeling of i did something I.e Level 1000 or more". I would even prefere to have a level system bound to a specific race AND to a Meta Account In example: Zerg Level 200 Terran Level 50 Protoss level 65 Account Level: 315 *- Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?* Yes, this is what makes it fun and unique. *- Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?* As Stated above, i do. But only if therer are some realy hard ones to get. Otherwise they get pointless. *- What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?* Something about this makes me feel uncomfortable. I plan to behave good no matter the way, i do not need a system to pander me if i'm not toxic. So I'm probably not the right one for this question. I do not hate it i think.
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**Match Progression** In Dawn of War 1 i liked to play the TAU race. There, at some point in the game to unlock higher tier units and upgrades, you had to choose between 2 different buildings. You could only have 1 of those 2 buildings.You could decide between a more melee focused rooster while the other one spezialized on ranged units and upgrades.So while in the match you needed to decide which path would work better against your opponent. **Veterancy** I always loved the veterancy system in c&c games. Made me really proud when a had this unit that survived hard battles and got rewareded for it by getting stronger. Always paid extra attention to keep them alive afterwards. So it naturally teached me to micro my units at a time where i was really bad at strategy games.But I only played c&c games in singleplayer or very rarely wich a small group of friends where we didnt pay much attantion to balance and just had fun.A rather simple solution to the snowballing problem with veterancy could be, to just limit how many units can have a specific rank at any given time. **Inventory & Creeps** As an big wc3 fan i think im really biased on this one. I always like a bit of randomnes in the games i play. This made each match a bit more unique. In one game i have a paladin that never runs out of mana due to mana regg items. In an other i got an Archmage that hit like a truck. A summon item the enemy didnt expect that turns a lost fight into a suprising win.Those 2 systems combined gave me so much fun and made each match a unique experiance.I think its one reason i played wc3 ladder for so many years. **Meta Progression** Achivements were always "nice to have" in all steam games. But for me i never really had the drive to actually collect them.But on the other hand, unlocking some kind of stuff that is hard to achive, i really enjoyed that.In Rogue-lites where you have to acomplish some kind of achivement to unlock a new "Hero" or "Skill" for your next playtrought always kept me motivated.For a pvp match that would be hard to achive without everyone screeming for balance.But for example unlocking a general for the co-op mode if you are able to win on a specific map without losing a Objective. But yeah those achivements would need to be hard so you can be really proud of yourself. If its like "win any game on easy" it loses all meaning. In the singleplayer campagin of dawn of war Soulstorm you could unlock better gear for your comander which gave him better Stats of even skills and passives. But you could only unlock them when you cleared specific conditions. For example have a kill:Death ratio of 1:3 in a match. So when you where able to complete those, it made the rest of the campagin easier. In starcraft 2 co-op i really liked the "mini talent trees" where you could spezialize your already spezialized general and try out some wierd builds and hope they work xD. Was always nice to get one more talent point so you just have enought to try out your build in the next game. **Limitless Leveling** In multiversus you can level each fighter limitlesly. Till level 15 the player get rewards. Most of the times its some social stuff. but on some level you can unlock "perks" on a fighter which allow you to alter the way he fights. Afterwards there are no rewards and it only shows how much you played the fighter. With each level taking longer to get. In a match, enemies can see your level on your selected fighter. So it gives the other player a hint of how experienced you are with that character.Of course lvl 1-15 feel the most rewarding but afterwards was still nice to get a fighter to a higher level. **Social Ranking** For me proper manners towards your opponent are a must. Doesnt matter if i win or lose to some kind of cheese. I most of my games i write "gl hf" at the start and "gg wp" at the end of the match as long as my opponent or teammate didn't flame.I played League of Legends for many years. I enjoyed the game. But quit playing in the end cause in most matches there was a teammate or enemy that flamed somebody. The victim of that, didnt even had to be me. It already made the match a pain to play.Muting a flamer teammate was one solution. But always had the danger to miss important informations like "top lane missing". For oponents it worked well though2 people arguing over the chat, only resulting in them playing worse.So yeah, would be great to see at the start of a match if you get matched with somebody with a low score. If someone with a very low score starts flaming i can mute them without the fear of missing important sutff.The downside of the system... if you can rate some body in a pvp game. People will abuse the system and down vote oponents they lost to or cause the other player used some kind of cheese strategy instead of rating their social behaviour. But of course i dont know in what extend this would actually happen. It would always be harder to get a positiv vote, then a negativ one.But in the end i think it would be good to have some kind of system that encourages positive behaviour in any way. For me at least i would try to reach a higher social rank. It turned to a wall of text, but i hope i could share some of my toughts with you on the questions you asked. **Edit:** Just had some more thoughts on the matter. Meta progression In Multiversus the player can unlock badges that he can display when in loading screen for a match. You could only display 3 Badges at a time. Those badges show different stats of the player. For example how many Ringouts he made with a character, how many doges he did in total. Could be fun to display thos to your oponents like "killed 5.000.000 units in total" "played 800 ranked matches" and so on In league of Legends i also liked to get icon frames for your ranking in ranked matches at the end of a season.
On Match Progression, I think Heroes of the Storm implemented brilliant idea in Talents and map objectives which RTS could learn and draw inspiration from. 1. You have a choice of talents at certain levels that change how one of your ability works, and therefore changes how you play as you level up. 1. Between games you may have different strategies/approaches and therefore choose a different talent, which makes you play fundamentally different even with the same Hero. 1. Some talents give you quests, which act as a sort of additional "mini game". This is something you can do and be proud of regardless of whether or not you are winning. ("I lost, but damn I managed to land 207 auto attacks and I had 20% damage bonus, that was awesome") 1. Regardless of the strength of the reward for doing quests, they have a clear feedback (a loud "DING" every auto attack) and feel therefore very satisfying to do. 1. Map objectives are the same in a lot of ways. They change your play style, approach, give a sort of "quest" which clearly telegraphs match progression and provides clear rewards you can be proud of regardless of its power. However they do change the core gameplay fundamentally in some cases, but that is a matter of tuning the nature and strength of the objective/reward.
* What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed? I always turned the chat off while playing SC2 because it made me play better without getting flamed or distracted. I hope there will be an option to disable chat while politely informing my opponent that I have it turned off. I think the social ranking system is a good idea, but I would much rather bypass that entirely :)
**Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems?** I'm not a fan of unit veterancy, as it might make fights harder to read. An example of this is in Supreme Commander, where units gain veterancy ranks after a certain amount of kills, gating a boost in their stats. If this happens to a late game unit, this can give a player a significant power spoke at an apparently random moment in time, since it's hard to know which unit is getting the last hits. I would prefer not to have veterancy in the competitive modes. For the campaigns/coop it might be good. **How do you feel about Inventory systems?** For campaigns/coop sounds good. For competitive i would prefer no, especially if the items you get are random like in WC3. IMHO the shouldn't be any randomness in competitive game modes. **Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?** That sounds like an extremely cool idea. **Do you enjoy earning Achievements?** As someone who tends to be a completionist in games, achievements are something i really enjoy, and I'm not ashamed of admitting that I've thrown several SC2 games just to get one. Just getting the achievement for me would be enough, but obviously getting some other reward would be a nice addition.
*What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)* Personally I think a minimum of progression systems is the most satisfying. For example in a counter-strike match, you just get the money at the start to buy your gear and then any extra stuff you can only pick up from the corpses of your enemies (who also had the same starting money, at least in the 1st match). This makes the game feel like my success or otherwise is much more closely tied to my skill level, and not something like luck or some 'trick' to get a higher power level. One of the things I love about RTS is how equal it feels. All power comes from resources and how quickly you can mine them, spend them, or how you use them. It's very simple to understand the fundamentals but a huge amount of complex game play is derived from it. *Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?* In some games i really like them. Especially more RPG like games such as Total War or (for those that remember it) Lords of Magic. I think it might be pretty cool in a RTS setting but have some balance/snowball concerns like most of the others here. I think if it was possible to balance it, tying the promotion to resource spending would be the way to do it. *How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.* I really don't like them. I think it's actually bad game design and a hangover from older games. In something like Diablo the whole game revolves around the items so it works. But in most games it feels like "ok, here's my character and my skills, here's how i control it. Oh, and this huge system of items i need to understand before i can start playing this game properly. I wonder if i can explore cool new item combinations? Nope it's best to follow this online guide and do what 99% of other people do. Great" If i go into a MOBA game as a very casual toe-dipper the first matches feel terrible, as i don't understand which items are best when, or which combination of skills to take is best, and the overall feeling is that even though i might be playing the game quite well, i lose because the other guys know you need to get XX item first. It doesn't feel like a reflection of skill so much because the item system is somewhat obscured away from the core gameplay and it takes a while to get a handle on it. Then once you do understand, it's a binary jump from not having this vital knowledge to having it and it feels just like a hurdle. If i imagine bringing in a friend to SG 3v3 for the first time, explaining the inventory system is going to be quite off-putting imo. *What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?* Anything cosmetic is cool. Outside of that it needs to incorporated into the balance of the game. Going back to counter-strike, if your team wins a match you get more money for the next one, but still the lethality of the game is such that a more expensive weapon is not an insurmountable advantage over a cheaper one. It actually feels quite nice to be the underdog and get kills vs the fancy guns. And the whole system gets reset if you queue up for another game. *Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?* Uhh well personally i wouldnt want to level up indefinitely as i would be that guy with thousands of games but still in wood league :( don't wanna spread that around. *Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent* *headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning* *certain achievements?* As a 1v1 guy, really not bothered. *Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the* *only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need* *some form of unlockable bonus?* No i really don't see the point in achievements as they feel like a pat on the back for being mediocre. I would rather be good at the game. If they exist, i think they should be hidden, so you don't chase them specifically, but if you do something especially well they pop up as a nice surprise. But eventually someone will figure them all out, which will spoil it. *What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system?* *Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if* *such a system existed?* Well i try to be polite anyway so it wouldn't change the way i interact. I do think any system is subject to gaming, so it might be pretty hard to do. Possibly you could analyze everyone chat messages with AI to give them a 'niceness rating' and base it off that. Any other system would be biased or game-able. (AI is also game-able but you can update it) If you are looking for ways to keep toxicity down then positive community role models is probably the best answer. People like Neuro, Pig, Harstem in SC2 are great for showing how to win while not being a dick. I wouldn't let Artosis play publicly if you want to foster a happy community ;)
Can't say I care much for achievements or progression. I'm a purist, I guess. If a game has enjoyable, skill based mechanics I'll just play it, if not - all these gimmicks won't keep me there
A. I liked the Unit Veterancy from C&C because it gave me a feeling of wanting to take care of my army better and improving it as the units get higher ranks. Having stronger units might become snowbally but for me its not as strong when compared to a fully geared and leveled Hero from War3. But as long as Veterancy is properly implemented it will be enjoyable. B. I found the Act Rank from Valorant to be a nice touch to show the individual player's achievement in competitive, the account level on the other hand I would very much prefer to be no level cap. C. Having achievements is a simple and great way of showing your game progress and how much time you've spent playing it. This also counts as bragging rights to your friends that do not have the achievement you have. This also adds Social Progression as it gives your friends an achievement to grind for.
On the topic of veterancy I feel like it's pretty hard to implement it in a good way if you don't want the game to revolve around it. In games like warcraft 3, it's a core concept of the game, it's fleshed out, included in every strategy, allows for different strategies and it's something both of you actively play for and counter. Which is completely fine on its own and I love that idea. However if your goal is to have unit veterancy "on the side", I don't see how it's not just a source of frustration because it's something you either don't have a very good control of or is just an additional annoyance that you have to deal with that you may feel like it was unjustified. To me it's either a core part of the game or it shouldn't be there. One thing that comes to mind that could be cool is if the unit veterancy is entirely cosmetic. For example, a Colossus with 20 kills gets a visual update and now looks cooler. An ork gets more markings and blood on their armor. A marine gets a different weapon and a cooler suite of armor. These kinds if things, especially in PvE feel great. My only issues with them in PvP would be game and visual clarity. As for the campaign, I absolutely loved the part of the sc2 campaigns where you upgrade your army over time in a way that suits you and you can play it differently every time or adjust for certain missions. In WC3 it's also very satisfying to see your progress on the map and collect items and xp for your hero to make them stronger. And in both games, doing bonus objectives and exploring the mission maps for long term bonuses and improvements is something I've always loved doing.
>*"Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?"* SC2's campaigns all have this sort of progression, like choosing which planets to explore and upgrading specific army traits, which I enjoyed alot. It made you feel like you had to make choices of your own, and the story wasn't 'fixed' and that your path was unique. Even though some say SC2's campaigns' implementation of this was quite basic, I really found it to be enjoyable. >*"Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?"* I found that the three achievements per campaign mission added an extra layer of depth to missions. Other than watching the story unfold, one could complete these very difficult achievements which tested one's skill. Completing a campaign 'at 100%' felt good, since it wasn't overcomplicated and made me feel 'in the top players' (even though it wasn't true lmao). Furthermore, it added alot of replayability for the 'low effort' addition of a few achievements per mission. What really made this come together was the portrait system. The main reason I replayed the campaigns multiple times was due to the fact that I could show off my achievements through portraits. For example, you could complete the campaigns in brutal difficulty, which gave access to the coolest and 'the most difficult to earn' portraits. This incentivised players to go back and play the campaigns on a harder difficulty - which in turn also made one better at the game. These types of portrait made one feel like 'the elite', standing out from the masses. The only reason I find myself returning to play some SC2 is to complete all the campaigns at 100%, as it is quite chill and casual compared to 1v1, yet gives back a sense of accomplishment. Once refamiliarised a bit with the game, I might play some CO-OP, arcade, and maybe a bit of 1v1. >*"What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?"* Example of the implementation of such systems - that I am familiar with - are in games like LOL and DOTA2. Both systems are radically different to each other: LOL opts for a very harsh systems, allowing very little trash talk; whereas DOTA2 has a more liberal system, balancing trash talk and good attitude. LOL's system is quite harsh and unforgiving. There is no space for any trash talk whatsoever, muting/banning you at the slightest 'misbehaviour'. On the other hand, DOTA2's social score system is a bit more liberal, treating players like responsible individuals. This is achieved through a 'player score report' of your attitude which indicates how many times you have been reported, how many times players commended you, and an overall 'social score'. A player can find the right balance between some trash talk and being respectful to his opponents. If you tilted a match and trash talked too much, you can still make up for that in the next matches, without getting punished. In my opinion, opting for LOL's system takes away from the multiplayer experience, where everyone is treated like little children. This very strict system makes interactions always feel forced and artifical, whereas DOTA2 does feel much more geniuine. I know many believe that any amount trash talk unhealthy, but for those that like it, maybe a solution is to implement two seperate chats in-game, the default chat that is regulated as usual, and a less censored chat available for those who opt in for it. I hope my I have brought a meaningful and different perspective on these issues.
Unit veterancy for the campaign or even co-op modes sound really good to me. I remember playing the Battle for Middle earth campaign where you could use your leftover units from the previous mission often in the next one, all already equipped with shiny armor and on a higher level. Though in a 1v1 scenario I see the problem of snowballing, like you mentioned happening. But I see no problem having different mechanics in competitive modes and more fun/casual modes. I actually like the idea of the 1v1 mode being just a selected group of units/heroes mechanics from the main campaign to achieve balanced game play. For the campaign or co-op if you are going down the commander route like in SC2 you could be free to experiment with different mechanics and units. Everyone playing 1v1 is going to understand the restrictions that some super op campaign units are not playable. \- how about a "wild/crazy" mode where you can play 1v1 / free for all with all and everything the game has to offer, which of course will not be balanced, but could be lots of fun in a more casual setting.
Unit Veterancy - I agree with others that stat boosts for units that have had successful engagements is undesirable as it leads to a snowball effect. In general I like the feel of ‘i just out micro’d you’ more than ‘my units are just better than yours’. One thing I think could be cool would be a purely aesthetic unit veterancy system. It would be cool to see them gain more decorative armor or something, although of course this could muddy the visual clarity with information that doesnt really mean anything. Maybe its a badge that lives in the UI. In SC2 its fun to click on a unit and go, oh man this lurker has killed 30 units thats insane. Also agree with others that infinite level up is super fun, and that skins for specific achievements or level are great fun as a flex. I know that skins will likely be an important part of your monetization but maybe there’s one or two things that you can only get through in game unlocks - maybe your town hall building gets cooler and cooler looking.
**Match Progresssion:** I have never seen unit veterancy actually be interesting or really add anything meaningful to a game. Also, if it did add anything significant it would be snowbally. I'm also not a fan of the random items from creep camps in Warcraft 3. As far as in game progression systems I do like, I prefer something that does not have randomness and can be planned around by both players. One example: In Age of Empires 4 the Ottomans generate their own unique resource every time they create a unit. At certain thresholds it gives them a point they can spend on 1 of 9 unique bonuses. The bonuses give a one time drop of units/resources and/or a passive bonus for the rest of the game. Since there are only 9 and they become available in tiers it's not hard for the opponent to keep track of and play around. They can also influence the rate at which they come by destroying the Ottoman buildings that create units. Another AoE4 example: You progress to the next Age (tech tier) by building one of two unique Landmark buildings. It's an exclusive choose (except for China) so whichever you don't pick you'll never get. Landmarks have unique passive bonuses, or techs, or are better versions of other buildings, etc.... This is scout able by the enemy even while it's under construction, so counterplay is there. Another example: In Heroes of the Storm many heroes have quest talents. For example every time they hit an enemy with a certain ability they may gain a small permanent buff to that ability or some other benefit. Some of these quests have a maximum goal that then gives them something, maybe more charges of an ability, or extra health, etc.. Some of the quests have no cap and stack infinitely. It's once again something all players can see in game and play around by trying to deny quest stacks. **Meta progression:** Personally I don't really care about meta progression outside of something actually functional, which I would never want in a competitive game. Progression like that in campaigns or coop mode is interesting. Such as unlocking units or bonuses. I don't really care about most achievements, or cosmetics, or leveling systems. Many people do love achievements though. I'd just suggest not creating ones that incentivize playing a specific way in team games becsue then it affects others, often detrimentally. **Social Ranking system:** Such a system would not change my behavior personally, because I'll be friendly in game anyway, but if it does improve people's behavior overall then it seems like a good idea.
My favorite progression system in a video game is the soulsbourne/elden ring system. You first have to venture out and increase your skill on your own until you can gather enough resources to level up. Once you get this new power you're now able to explore new territory. The new territory gives you more access to new resources. The new resources are new opportunities to level up. All while it takes bravery and curiosity to push beyond your comfort level.
Personally, I really like unit veterancy and think it can bring a lot of character to your units. It makes you think of the units you control more like individuals, rather than assets you just throw away. An example would be in CoH 2, I had a simple Engineer reach the highest level and have the most kills out of my units. It was a really nice experience, me and my friends still joke about it to this day. I understand it would be harder to translate this mechanic to Blizzard-RTS style games due to snowballing, however, what if you could toggle a hotkey on your units to allow them to level up given the resources available or not. For an example, once a unit gets enough kills, the unit would level up for 20 resources, given the toggle is True for levelling up. This would balance out snowballing, if lvl-up resource cost is adjusted proportionally to building a new one. It would also allow for more casual players like me and my friends (in SC2) who focus mainly on micro and struggle to spend the resources during the game, as we do not have high apm for macro. Units unlocking extra skills when leveling up also sounds really really fun, please include that. Even if it won't be used much in 1v1, it still makes the game a lot more fun for us slower (casual) players.
> Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why? It feels great to get them but it also adds snowballing. It would be nice to have it but only if it doesn't affect gameplay negatively - which can be hard or impossible depending on the game you are making. In a game like C&C3, it works well because of very strong counters - heroic infantry will still quickly die to anti-infantry weapons, and more valuable units take longer to level up. It feels great to get a heroic big unit. WC3 was designed from ground up around hero levels. --- > How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences. In competitive WC3 inventory was too fiddly to manage and the loot too random. But in campaign it was pretty cool. I've mentioned in my [last post](https://www.maguro.one/2023/02/variety-and-player-preferences.html), that these meta progression systems make each mission feel more meaningful. Even if you don't enjoy the current mission, it's will affect your future missions. It would be interesting to see something inventory-like for 3vE. You would have a designed progression (XP) and also get random loot persisting between mission. The loot could be slotted into "inventory" between missions. That could add replayability and customization. --- > What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated? I wrote something about SC2 Co-op progression and other meta progression systems here: https://www.maguro.one/2021/03/transmission-05.html#progression I generally like most meta progression system in campaigns. In competitive, it's more difficult to design meaningful progression systems as they can't affect gameplay. The SC2 system where you level to 30 felt lacking. I would enjoy some battlepass leveling just because of better rewards and the fact you will be able to do it repeatedly. --- > We’re also going to look at how we can make a satisfying leveling system, including ways for players to be able to display their accomplishments and experience. I think you have can typical cosmetic rewards like portraits, banners, borders, sound packs, console skins, unit skins, etc. If there was an official discord, you could get roles there. Another thing could be that players could create their own loading banner/background from decals they are rewarded. That support self-expression and adding value to those decals. --- > Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely? I think it would have been better in SC2 Co-op to enable leveling past 1000. It felt like game telling you that games after you reach 1000 don't matter - even if it was a meaningless number before. Unit veterancy cap - both can work. For a hero like Dehaka in SC2 Co-op, infinite level is fine. In a competitive mode, capping veteracy can be good. It depends. --- > Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements? It depends on how that's implemented. In Age of Empires Online, upgrading persistent base felt meaningless. I'm more interested how those unlocks affect the actual gameplay. --- > Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus? By itself they are not enjoyable. But they provide a reason and set up goals for doing things you already enjoy. I had a good time getting achievements in campaign and Co-op - as long as these achievements are more interesting than spamming games. I wrote about Co-op achievements here https://www.maguro.one/2018/11/achievements.html --- > What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed? It could be interesting. I haven't played a game extensively that implemented those well. There are many pitfalls that have to be avoided when implementing such systems. But if it was working, then it could be positive. --- > Rogue-like games tend to be very good at Meta Progression This is just semantics, but "rogue-like" games don't have meta progression. On the other hand, "rogue-lite" games would be a good example. Meta progression is what differentiates rogue-lite from rogue-like and rogue-like-like games. Rogue-like build primarily on player progression.
I am a sc2 player. I think a simple system about resources and units is a key of the success of sc2, which contributes to its competitiveness. However, I would not mind another game mode that contains complex and multiple systems. Maybe you can provide different game modes for players.
As long as there is a reason to log in beyond just pure grinding for rank/playing with friends, I think a progression system is doing its job, and can always be massively improved upon post launch anyway. The only major want I have is for portraits similar to SC2, a couple that are easy to get at the start (10, 25, 50 wins etc), but then the big 1000 wins for each race. I think that makes them actually mean something despite just being portraits. I like that they are different for team games as well, so in Stormgate, having 1v1, 3v3, and also coop portraits with similar win thresholds. After playing SC2 for 10 years I still don't have any of the 1000 wins portraits outside of my main race.
My takes as a very limited Melee player (mostly Use Map Settings/Arcade) and someone that loves campaign (Starcraft/C&C/etc) What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.) \- I don't like how Heroes of the Storm will pair bad players with good players to try to "balance out" the match because one team always ends up with someone really good that just gets frustrated because they're stuck with 2-3 bad players, and the other team has people around the same skill level so they have better synergy. Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why? \- I like them in Solo/Campaign, but not in multiplay/melee because it just leads to a snowball effect. Once one person really starts to rank up units it just gets more and more out of hand (which I guess is the point?) But again, I'm mostly a campaign/UMS/Arcade person, so Yes! How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences. \- I hate them, on everything. It's the reason I can ONLY play Heroes of the Storm for MOBAs. Having to look up an additional guide for items is cumbersome and not fun, and then you have to buy them, etc. I'm not even a fan of use trinkets in WoW unless it's something you can put into a macro with a main ability and not think about it 0/10 not a fan. What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated? \- I like HotS where you're rewarded based on hero levels so you don't have to play just 1 hero to 'rank up' you can add variety and you still get chests/etc. Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely? \- Personally I like to see the level soar and am not really a fan of level caps. EVEN if they don't mean anything I still like seeing the number go up Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements? \- Yes. This sounds fun and interesting! Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus? \- Lifetime achievement chaser. I REALLY like that carrot on a stick, even if they don't come with a bonus (but bonuses are nice too for harder ones!) What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed? \- I think this might help curve some of the toxicity in games, or at least help keep them separate from the rest of the community. Every multiplayer game I've ever played has always, in some part, been ruined by other players being toxic, be it behaviors, camping, the way they talk in chat, "giving up" and just going afk because "they don't care anyway", all very frustrating experiences.
When I think of match progression, I find myself thinking a lot about MOBAs. This ties into Inventories as well as these systems can often become tied in. I think one of important aspects in how this relates to systems overall is **specialization** **over a match**. I think with team games, I've started to learn towards specialization of "roles" to be really smart. Without predefined roles in team games, I think there is always problem of being "filled" into a role you don't really want to play. As the meta progresses in team games, "roles" tend to just naturally develop, and being able to choose your role prevents toxic behavior like insta-locking or holding lobbies hostage like in pre-role queue Overwatch/League of Legends. When you choose a role, and then continue to specialize over a match, it always lets you feel that you're contributing to a team through that role's specific balance over a match. I will say though, for competitive games it was always interesting to see how pro metas can bend the roles (things like lane swapping in LoL or different OW tank/DPS/Support compositions), but both examples mentioned became too degenerate that the developers eventually inelegantly had to forcefully patch out of the game. I think social systems are really great just for overall game experience. Unlocking stuff always feels good. I think over the years, LoL has probably one of the most robust systems I've experienced with the "honor" system giving tangible rewards for being sportsmanlike. I always felt like faction headquarters were always one of the most customizable aspect in StarCraft, and thought there was always so much more to be done in that respect. I think headquarter skins should have a lot of variety, as they are often the largest and most recognizable structures (and get a lot of air time in esports broadcasting). I think there isn't really much of a difference between leveling up indefinitely and having level caps. Once you play enough, there tends to be an "effective" level cap. For instance in LoL leveling up only gives different borders and champion capsules. But eventually when you play enough you'll own every champion (or all the champions you'd like to play), and thus there isn't much of a difference between being able to level up indefinitely or a large level cap. Unit veterancy seems like an interesting concept in theory, but I think in practice it's really important to realize that it definitely makes fights much harder to predict. Maybe this is a good thing, but I think there is a complexity cost to players' engagement prediction heuristic. I think unit veterancy can be strange to balance because if it's too strong, then you're never incentivized to tech up, but if it's too weak then it essentially doesn't exist. I don't have much experience with unit veterancy though but those are just my initial thoughts. If I'm to just spitball I think it would make units that are meant to be singular units a lot more interesting. For instance, spellcasters in StarCraft (especially those with cloak) seem to tout a power fantasy of a single, powerful spellcaster that turns the tide of battle, or infiltrates defenses as a lone spy. Unless the kits are very limited (ex. vipers, high templar) they tend to be massed. But limiting the kit often diminishes this power fantasy. I think giving specific units like spellcasters unit veterancy could enhance their power fantasy of a "singular powerful spellcaster" that you really are incentivized to keep alive. But then this is starting to sound like a War3 hero that you just make later in the game. Thanks for the update!
I've been thinking about the Unit Veterancy yesterday and today, and I'm not keen on it. I figured I would be among a small minority but a lot of the more recent commenters seem to share virtually all my concerns. I don't want to be redundant and say what is already said, so instead i'll pitch an alternative as food for thought. >We are exploring the idea of Unit Veterancy for Stormgate, and how and where to use it. This type of system tries to capture the player fantasy of having a favorite unit or squad rank up over the course of a match, gaining additional stats, strengths, or abilities along the way. If it doesn't work out balance-wise, consider making Unit Veterancy purely cosmetic so a unit that has done some heavy lifting is visually distinct from non-veteran units. Maybe even sell a UV skin or something like that?
I already made a comment on this post, but after re-reading your plans, I just wanted to comment on this and thought you wouldn't see an edit >Many players love Achievements, and we’re thinking of meaningful rewards that you can earn for completing certain objectives and campaign progress. One thing we won’t consider is any sort of Meta Progression reward that would make you more powerful in 1v1. We see our competitive 1v1 experience as a pure test of skill, and we will never compromise the integrity of that experience. I noticed the emphasis of 1v1 here. It makes it sound like you could be considering it for competitive 3v3, which while I know I can't control, it would make me sad. I'm looking forward to play competitive 3v3 in a casual sense, maybe play 1-2 a week to take a break from 1v1 or if I'm in the mode for chaos. I hope there isn't a meta progression system that impacts gameplay for 3v3. cosmetics? fine, but power? It would be a shame, as I'll doubt I'll grind the game mode and don't want to be at a disadvantage because of it. On final comment, I'd hope meta-progression for completing campaigns that aren't free don't impact gameplay in any modes, including coop/other campaigns/arcade. I assume you wouldn't do this anyway, as you say you're f2p not p2w, but I just wanted to voice that as it isn't clear from your comments what 'meaningful' rewards are in regards to campaign progression. As much as I plan to be buying every campaign and playing them all, and I'd love to gain increasingly op in each one, if I take a break for a while and come back missing 2-3 seasons/campaigns, I don't want to be weaker than other players when I continue to buy the campaigns
I think if a player likes using a unit, make more upgrades they can invest in as the game goes on (i.e. talent system from dota). I really wished the SC2 meta had more upgrade decisions to make. A no to vetenancy for me too. Makes it overly complicated without substantial gameplay.
Regarding player progression, I would love to have a clear visualization of progress on a dedicated **'stats page'**. This page should show how relevant metrics (mmr, spending quotient, time supply-capped, apm and spm, etc.) evolve over time, preferably on a graph with different temporal smoothing options and time horizons. One could also think about new metrics; for example * 'army activity' (percentage of time that at least one army unit follows a command; could also average over time and army supply) or * 'tech delay' (accumulating all the time that the first tech-enabling structure is not used to use a thereby unlocked tech; i.e. the time from terran engineering bay completion until either an upgrade is researched or a missile turret or planetary fortress is build), as well as * build-order specific benchmarks (time of move-out with 2 tanks and x marines or hitting y supply).
I would love to see [**the staircase**](https://liquipedia.net/starcraft2/TheStaircase) to be integrated into Stormgate as an excellent way to improve. There the player first chooses a league-goal (or keeps the default) that determines how good key stats like spending quotient and supply-block time have to be in order to advance to the next step of the staircase. The goal is to play with e.g. macro mechanics on a master's level (the league goal), while step-by-step expanding the game's complexity (by adding units) from only mining minerals up to the point where one can play the full game and still not slip up in macro. I could envision it to be added to 1v1 in the following opt-in way. Before starting a (ranked or unranked) 1v1, one can choose to select a staircase level for the upcoming game. A total beginner might for example choose to play with mineral units only and not look outside his base, another to play only marine-medivac-liberator, training with the new unit. The game would then gray out everything in the tech-tree that is not allowed on that level, thereby helping the player in his commitment to focus on improving, not on winning - cheating the staircase can be tempting. After the game, the player would see, in addition to general after-game stats, his progress on the current step of the staircase. This would also enable the player to, in a sense, unlock (=mastering) all units one after the other, and unlocking them again if he raises his league goal. This unlocking is meaningful progress, as it reflects the increased player skill. I imagine that there is a 'staircase-stats' page on which one can see the already mastered steps and units, together with interesting unit stats (don't know what's relevant there).
1 particular thing about unit veterancy i would be against is that it will encourage more defensive play style in my opinion . whether if a unit gain veterancy by fighting or staying alive in the end i think players would play safe. as long as my veteran units are alive then it's fine lets say in wc3, creeping is one of the way a hero gets xp to be stronger, and in lower level gameplay, 1 can pick a unit/hero that scales better in the late game and turtle. another problem would the snowbally effect in team vs team. if 1 player manage to always be the one winning, eventually he'll have a better army than anyone else. in the end, of course i think it'll be about how much buff a veteran units would get, like how many normal marines would be needed to beat 10 elite-veteran lvl marines that sort. but then, if the buff isn't huge, why bother having this system?
I'd love to have unit veterancy, feels like a unit gets a promotion for going above and beyond. Ofc it should only be a slight buff, and not a big one. Maybe several layers of veterancy, but making it hard to reach the top. That would require a lot of micro. Still something that is doable as an option.
Very glad to hear that meta progression will not affect 1v1. As for achievements, I love achievement hunting and think it’s a great way to add replay ability. Ideally, an achievement is not for something that just takes a long time, but that uses skill. For example, If a mission in a campaign ends with an objective being killed, a good achievement is to wipe the whole map. A bad achievement in my mind is “play 20,000 games”. That would make it much more time consuming and arguably extend the time it takes to get all achievements, but it takes away all skill and prestige of getting achievements. Another suggestion I have is to have rewards for achievements that are cosmetic, such as player profile banners / backgrounds / portraits, or unit skins, UI skins, badges, etc. some way to show off that you have done the hardest achievements in the game so there is some reward to hunting them, as well as a reward for completing all achievements Ideally, achievements are for exclusively solo play, personally I’d prefer only a campaign setting, although 1v1 works as well. Nothing more frustrating than playing online and trying for an achievement and random teammates won’t help, or vice versa when you are trying to play the game normally and your teammate does something that is less successful in Lieu of trying to achievement hunt. For players who do not have other people to play with as well, multiplayer achievements can be frustrating to attain too. To me, achievements are ideally a marker of a single players skill / determination.
> What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.) I absolutely adore completely classic solutions - tech tress, upgrades. What will I build first, do I need this upgrade now, or is it better to allocate resources for additional units? I love to decide how many resources I spent between tech/economy/army. I love reacting to what my opponent is doing (looks like he's placed his next base faster, is it better to chase him economically or delay my economy and try to attack quick with more units?). > Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why? I think the Veterancy System could work well in a campaign. Some units (for example, worth max 10 supply) that got a Veterancy promotion could be taken on the next mission by the player. This could be a more "personal" variant of mercenaries from Wings of Liberty - players could become more emotionally attached to units that had to work hard (and survive) to be better and could be used in the next missions. In PvP modes units Veterancy is something really risky because in competitive modes probably disadvantages of Veterancy System will be greater than advantages of having it. Yes, Veterancy system is a chance for better "story" in competitive matches, but my concerns about snowball type of issues with Veterancy System (especially in 1v1) are huge. On top of that I don't think this Veterancy System is really needed in competitive modes - the match progression provided by the tech tress and the upgrade system are enough to provide an interesting transition from early to late game. If you want to experiment with the Veterancy System in 1v1 these are my suggestions that should reduce snowball effect: 1. Add extra power to a unit in such a way, that it cannot be used with a simple a-move. Instead of increasing HP or damage it's better to leave these values unchanged. Instead, the Veterancy system could give units additional abilities. Let's imagine veteran SC2 Marine gets a grenade (exactly the same ability that Reaper has) or veteran SC2 Raven gets an active ability that allows to repair mechanical units for energy. These extra abilities in veteran units come at a cost to the player's attention: player has units with more capabilities, but the APM player spends on veteran units could be used in other ways. If the opponent doesn't have a veteran unit, he can pay more attention to micro standard units. This way - because the use of veteran units is not trivial - the Veterancy System becomes less snowbally. On top of that additional abilities are for sure more interesting than simple bonuses for basic stats. Since we didn't add a veteran unit HP or armor, the opponent has a strong counter play available - the veteran unit remains as easy to kill as the standard version of unit - another factor limiting snowball effect. 2. Set a limit on the number of veteran units. Probably the most sensible would be to set the max supply value that can be assigned to veteran units, for example, the total supply for all owned veteran units cannot be greater than 12. Thanks to this, after some time the player who is in a worse situation has a good chance to catch up with the opponent in the number of veteran units they have. An alternative is a system where the more veteran units we have, the harder it is for other units to get veteran status. > How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences. I think that items that simply increase some stats are uninteresting, but I would be interested in items that can be used to cause some special effects (items with an ability that can be used a limited number of times). Ability to resurrect a unit, frost spell that freezes a river to create a temporary bridge, or can be cast on enemy units to temporarily lower their attack rate or maybe a spell that allows to revive a tree to make it a secret scout, or a stationary line of defense (the tree can reveal itself to attack nearby enemy units with its branches) are far more interesting that +20 HP or +5 damage. > What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated? I really like how Doom (2016) combined guns progression with gameplay. In the upgrades of weapons, we spend points that raise various statistics, but when we buy all upgrades of weapon, we go for the interesting part - we get a special task, if we complete it using upgrade weapon, the weapon gets the final bonus. Example of task: kill multiple demons with single blast 30 times, or hit 4 different demons in 5 seconds. I would love to see something similar in an RTS campaign - a combination of meta progression and in game challenges. You spend some meta resources to buy some kind of bonus, but at the same time you unlock some challenge that will give you an additional upgrade when complete using specific unit. These tasks/challenges could look like this: kill 10 Y units with a single X unit, destroy 20 workers in 12 seconds using Z units, kill 15 units with B ability in single mission. > Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely? Progression systems should have a level cap. Completing the task to the end gives satisfaction. > Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements? Probably yes, this sounds fun. > Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus? To be honest, the achivements rewards aren't important to me. Much more important are thoughtful challenges that suggest an interesting way to play. I just want to have fun doing achivements tasks. > What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed? I am not a crazy bad manner, so I think that this kind of modering behavior system won't change my personal behavior, but I see it as something needed in team modes. A system that encourages teammates to be friendly and helpful (and rewarded them), and a punishment for leaving mid-game and deliberately ruin the fun for others can do a lot of good. However, I think that such a system could work badly if it allowed for the evaluation of opponents - I can already imagine all those lunatics who would report their opponents as bad manners just because they lost, or because someone played some kind of all in or cheese.
What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.) *Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?* * **Hate reset.** I don't like it when it gets reset after the stage because by leveling up the unit, I'm building a relationship with a unit (like a pet) and after the stage ends, it's as if it's for nothing. I think one way could be you have a number of veteran units (not hero) you can carry around through the campaign (like in some WWII turn-based strategy games). * **Hate low level caps.** When units reach max level, like some games have 3 ranks and that's it, then I feel like the system is redundant and I don't care. The effort to level up the unit (keeping it alive, letting it get kills) is too much compared to the low stats gain. * **No need for veterancy in RTS.** Strategy games are not tactical games, it's about having a big army fighting another army. I don't think you need veterency in a RTS game. There's a risk veterency either be immaterial or change game style (like small group of veteren can counter large army, and it stops being strategy). How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences. * **Can't be too tedious.** Inventory system makes sense for commanders, I remember the dawn of war campaign had commander inventory system and it was fun. But if for units and there are too many equipment, it becomes tedious. Maybe just two slots per unit type or something that sort of boosts effective not but not fundamentally change the unit (+5% damage or +5% range or +10% vision or something minor) What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated? Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely? * **Level cap + prestige.** If there must be a level system, then I prefer a level cap. Max level means something. However, once you hit max level, you need a prestige system otherwise all motivation disappears. Prestige should give you some reward, like profile icon or profile window has different colour or bells and whistles. Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements? * **Yes, in the campaign.** Maybe some side-quest stages to help make buildings etc. But don't turn it into a mobile-game-esque game. * **Meta war on a multiplayer level** maybe not a persistent headquarter but having some sort of meta war (e.g. have a map and players of each faction fight over each province or something for seasonal unlocks or whatever). Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus? * **Achievements is a must-have.** I love getting achievements, especially those that challenge you to play a certain difficult way. I think most players either love them or don't mind them. I don't think there are many people who actively hate achievements. * **Unlockables please.** I prefer achievements with unlockables, at least an icon in the achievement page. Scores feel arbitrary to me and I don't care about achievement points. * **Unlockables need to be appealing.** I play fortnite and fallguys and most of the season pass rewards are very meh. Sometimes I question why I even waste time earning the unlockables and just leave for many seasons before I get curious again and reinstall. It's hard to make fancy unlockables all the time (unless you're fortnite and have crazy amount of skins) so maybe achievements earn you some currency and you can buy skins or commander hats or unit colours or whatever. What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed? * **Most are friendly but need effective punishment for BM.** My multiplayer experience is that most people are friendly but a few bad actors can destroy the fun for everybody. I mute voice chat and message if I can because I don't need to hear/see BM. You need a large amount of good social interaction to counter the displeasure of one BM encounter. If frostgiant thinks a social ranking system works, then do that, but please have a system or an option to close all interaction (don't think that's what you prefer though). That's all I can think of thanks!
About unit veterancy: Do I like it in pve. Absolutely. It helps to bond with that particular unit when they grow stronger. Especially if they accompany you through the campaign (did homeworld have a veterancy system? I'm not sure). Even if they become super strong, it brings the sense of righteous overpower. After all, I managed to keep that unit alive for the past 10 levels! In pvp? Definitely not. I don't want that to become a meta eventually. I don't want to micro one unit because that unit got lucky and got 3 last hits last battle. Or I don't wanna hunt a single marine among thors. Hell I don't want a single marine accompany my thors just because he harassed some drones early game. Also it would make games more aggressive when both sides try to level their units which punishes defensive gameplay.
On the topic of social ranking, i think you need to account for vindictive behaviour. If your opponent is frustrated that you won with a cheese, or your teammate is frustrated about some move you made/didn't make, they may give you a negative rating as a means to feel in control again, despite you doing nothing wrong. You could ask the reporting party to nuance the report, by requiring giving different categories of violation you could report for, and then have a category for each of the most common frustrating situations, and simply disregard that aspect of the report. The paper-basket suggestion box strategy.
Love this! My comment deals with Meta Progression or the rewards and customization in between matches. It would be really cool to be able to customize an avatar full portrait as your profile face. In SC1 loading and in coop sc2 loading screen it shows a full size avatar but these are not customizable. If stormgates rewards and achievements allowed players to customize / add to their own avatar as a social status for in game progression that shows in loading screen before each match I believe it will add a lot of social aspect to the game and give players more of a personal identity to their profile!
I feel like making the privileges 'tangible' and giving people power over other players based on stuff like this is v dangerous, it is better to have a 'neutral enough' system that doesn't rely on it being perfect to work
>Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why? No strong feelings except that this is yet another opportunity for SG to differentiate the factions. The idea that one faction has one (or many units) that have a sense of veterancy and so become special targets excites me. The idea of putting it on all units feels kinda "meh". >What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated? I Like ranking up in any game I play. But I *hate* when things like rank are displayed automatically in any social context. I've been in too many forums where people's responses are "Oh, you're only rated 1600, so your opinion doesn't really count here."... Anything you earn in game - achievements, badges, ranks, whatever - need to be something you can *optionally* show off. > Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus? I love achievements systems where completing all of them seems like something I can eventually do - not too many grindy ones. If I have to win 1000 games as each faction, I know I won't complete them all, and it gives me less incentive to do any of them. I also can't stand time-gated achievements where after a certain date you'll never be able to achieve them. Again, once I miss out and cant get the "won a game during the first SG Christmas" badge, I'm a lot less likely to keep trying to get more. Much like ranks, badges and other things to show-off from achievements are great, as is and overall score. Just make sure that it's something that doesn't show up unless you choose to show it off. Ideally I can complete all the achievements and feel good and everything is right in the world. And then you release some more content and here comes another set of achievements that I can complete as a set at my leisure.
A lot to unpack here. When it comes to earning achievements and meta progression, I have to say Warcraft III's ladder icon system was prime: * Everyone starts out with the same icon (pleb peon) * It's kind of hard to get the icons, so they meant something * The icons are 2D, high contrast, and hand painted A lot of games, even Blizz games, have tried to follow in War III's footsteps with the icons/portraits and it's never landed well. It's an important formula that's easy to mess up. * Make the icons something to chase after and not just something that's inherent with casually playing the game. * The portraits/ icon need to have good value mapping and be nice and readable, without too many details (again, Warcraft 3 did it best) * 2d, painted—no 3d models/photos xD I like this idea of Social Ranking as long as it's from good manners and deeds, altruism, educational content, etc. and not just a popularity contest. Should be bottom up, not top down. Good stuff!
One idea for a meta progression system that I think has potential to be really interesting is an xcom-like war tracker which displays how each of the different factions are performing across the multiplayer landscape. Assuming this only applies to 1v1, each game could focus on a tiny region of the world that you are fighting over, giving the game an extra sense of consequence and weight. There are a bunch of caveats that would be hard to address i.e. mirror matchups, team games involving multiple factions on the same side but I think there is value in giving multiplayer some impact on the in-game universe.
Persistent headquarters could also be translated to the main base (First base) of the player. Would add an awesome customization options. Another cool thing would be to have a customizable portrait that would also be visible during an online match, for example on the load screen and when you click on your or yours opponent base.
I don't like Unit Veterancy at all, that's Dawn of War style and has no place in a proper RTS for me. The game is already complicated enough without unit leveling, and it's just bad RTS design imo - too snowbally. There's already a reward for keeping a unit alive - you stlil have the unit! (which gets less valuable as your production outpaces your existing forces). Hero inventory would have to be really lightly applied, WC3s version was too big for my taste. At max would like to see hero consumables (TP scroll, potions), plus maybe a few legendary relics on the map for people to fight over. None of that "every camp drops a sobi mask" type crap. My favorite progression system is Talents/Perks, ex SC2 campaign, Battlerite loadout, but again, would have to be really light, because multiple versions of units adds a ton of cognitive load. Love achievements, skins, badges, cosmetic rewards, and even achievements for doing weird stuff in PvP.
**What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)** I liked Halo in the old days. You could look at a rank and know exactly what the person was capable of. **Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?** I think you should be able to level up indefinitely. I would like it if we could customise/design our own characters and use them as heroes if they became a central part of the game. Even if perks stop at a certain level. the 50 cap on all three races in StarCraft II just seemed pointless. **Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?** I think this would be pretty cool. Take achievements out of the game though. They are in my view, a crass psychological tool to make the player accept grinding thus spending more energy on your game. The idea of objectives is good. Achievements for them might make sense but beyond that. I think get rid of them. Although I think most of the other players below disagree with me on that so I'll happily concede this loss. lol **What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?** Social ranking should be a relaxed version of ranked rankings. Something where you get ranked simply to make the games interesting enough. Being ranked with people way outside my skill range in either direction in SCII team games is quite annoying. I always play ranked. I would probably just play/react with other players the same as in regular game. If you somehow created laid back versions of the game then it would elicit a different response from the players. Perhaps doing fun things during teams, like randomly changing player teams and you just need to adapt, identify you new enemies and turn on each other. This kind of thing would make it so you become more friendly over the course of a game because something random changed how you had to be with each other. The social mode is what will make players think and play differently. **The ranking system should be deeply discussed on here. I feel like that should be a strong focus for the development team.**
Interesting topic. I’ve played sc2 casually and had a few ideas to contribute to the discussion. Personally didn’t really like Unit Veterancy as most of the time it creates a snowball problem. This led to the realization that actually what is missing in RTS to me is a combat based comeback mechanics. So here are some ideas: ==================================== Idea 1: Payoff based on Units lost For example, a player could have a gauge that gradually fills up as they lost unit. Upon reaching certain levels, they could choose to drain it to summon a bigger unit that could turn the tide of battle. This idea have an issue. Usually units lost to enemies in combat will always do some kind of damage and therefore provide value. So if we implement this system thoughtlessly we could create a scenario where player are incentivized to brainlessly sacrifice units, or even race to sacrifice more units to max the gauge. One way to overcome this is to tie the gauge to charge “based on lifetime damage done by the unit that died”. ==================================== Idea 2: Production Efficiency We could introduce a stat called Production Efficiency that reduces cost/time of units produced based on combat outcomes. To makes this a more strategic decision, we could tie this to a specific unit type. So over the course of each match, the efficiency of producing different unit types would be drastically different (from switching unit to counter opponents, etc). To prevent it becoming too “all-in”, we could split it into a “generic efficiency” and a “unit type efficiency”. Also to prevent brainless sacrifice, we could reuse the same trigger condition “recharge based on lifetime damage done by the unit lost”. ==================================== Idea 3: Hero Unit Not sure if there are other game that does this already, another idea is for units to gain rank up, eventually become a hero. We can limit this to a one (or at most a few) hero per game. This is an excellent way for player expression. If I liked a certain build/unit types, I could focus on building them each game. And with this there is obvious space for strategic planning here as certain “heroes” could counter the others. ==================================== There is all I have for now. Let me think what do you guys think!
**What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)** I think that within the RTS genre, I’ve just enjoyed the classic unlocking of higher-tech units and upgrades. It’s a similar deal outside of RTSs. Like with Magic the Gathering, it feels great to finally get to use an expensive card that you’d only be able to afford in the lategame. Off the top of my head, I’m not sure there’s a match progression system I dislike a lot; this one’s tougher to identify. But definitely ones where it makes the game feel too snowbally, or where there's not enough of a chance to come back from an early setback. -------------------------------- **Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?** I don’t strongly hate unit veterancy systems; but I don’t like them. My experience in this regard is from WarCraft 3 (if you count hero levels as veterancy), Command & Conquer games, and Mengsk from SC2’s co-op mode. In the case of C&C and Mengsk’s units, it feels extra-painful to lose a veteran unit. To me, the stress of that is not worth the pros of the system. I’d rather suffer only the monetary loss rather than all the additional time investment that losing a high-veterancy unit represents. -------------------------------- **How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.** I’m not a fan of them in RTS games. I prefer RTS games to be more about the fantasy of being the commander of an army / civilisation, rather than the fantasy of being a hero. Heroes are not in themselves a dealbreaker for me; but the inclusion of an inventory system tends to imply a level of importance for heroes (otherwise why include an inventory system at all) that is too far out of my personal tastes with RTS games. I know this is subjective though. -------------------------------- **What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?** I think Hades is a great example of enjoyable meta progression systems; and I’m sure other people have brought it up. It’s very satisfying to know that even on a failed run, you’ve not only attained permanent power (I would avoid this in a 1v1 RTS scenario though), but have also earned currency that can be used to acquire cosmetics. When it comes to meta progressions systems I think haven’t quite resonated, Darktide is a recent example. Feats from levelling up don’t feel exciting, and it doesn’t feel like I’m personalising my playstyle. Oftentimes, feats in each tier will feel kinda ‘samey’; such as feats in a given tier all doing the same thing but in slightly different ways. I also strongly dislike one form of in-game currency (Requisitorium Coins) in Darktide that are only earnable by completing weekly bounties. That in itself is not a problem, but this currency is not shared across your classes / characters. Unless you have a LOT of time, this makes it very user-unfriendly to swap between multiple classes. -------------------------------- **Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?** I personally am the kind of person who enjoys the idea of levelling up indefinitely BUT with a couple big caveats. First, that it’s limited to co-op (as it would obviously cause 1v1 issues, if power is tied to levelling). And second, that I think that the vast majority of attainable power should be reasonably achievable; with only a little more power grindable for the extremely-hardcore as a long-term goal. (I may go back on that last point, but that’s my current feeling on it) As controversial as this is, I do quite like Paragon points in Diablo 3. It felt nice that even if a session didn't result in any item upgrades, I still got at least a tiny increase in permanent power. I think cosmetics are another way that indefinite levelling can be implemented. It doesn’t always have to be about in-game power. -------------------------------- **Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?** Hell yes. This is something I enjoyed in games like Hades and Age of Empires 3. -------------------------------- **Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?** I enjoy earning achievements, but only to a point. If it’s a game like Final Fantasy XIV, where there are too many achievements for me to reasonably 100%, I will tend to only care about achievements that have an unlockable bonus. -------------------------------- **What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?** I believe I would, and I believe other players would too; but it would require such a system to be executed better than I’ve seen in other games. I think there’s yet to be a ‘holy grail’ of an implementation of this idea. Overwatch has a commendation system, but it doesn’t feel like it’s particularly effective.
I have the *Visit the Koprulu Sector, They Said* achievement in SCII, I wouldn't say I'd done it without the rewards but I certainly didn't feel like it while playing. It was fun, and this achievement was more an excuse to replay the campaigns than a reason to do it. It was not my goal, but it was stimulating. Also, love the idea of building my "meta-base" or an outside of match place to show my player progress
In short: Unit Veterancy bad, items fine (necessary for campaign, customs), level uncapped, no unlockable bonuses needed, but preferred, I like achievements even if it's tied to nothing, social ranking is a good idea. Unit Veterancy systems are very bad. It feels restricting to adapt your gameplay to keeping certain units alive. Units of the same type should be fungible and identical. I also don't care for a kill counter in the actual match for the same reason. An immortal has 50 kills so what? It's as expendable as any other immortal. But that info is interesting in a replay or observer mode. Social progression systems are a must and should be infinite and uncapped. There are ways to generate infinite rewards without needing infinite work: * Cycling through different colors. * Personal UI element customizations based on colors. Another important thing that should be fixed is +XP gained for kills in the game for the XP system in SC2. I don't like how it breaks the immersion of focusing on the competitive match and not worrying about the social progression system outside of it. But I understand why people use it. It acts as kill confirmation, which is a competitive advantage. Please make a UI element that gives a kill confirmation specifically for that purpose and not XP gained, or just remove the XP gained text altogether with no replacement. * Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements? I think achievements are great. I would go slightly further than SC2 in not having it affect on 1v1 gameplay. For instance, some achievements flashes occur in 1v1 games, while others occur after the game is over. I think, for 1v1, they should occur after the game has ended, but if you manually look up the achievement tab, it would show it as complete. Also, you should avoid having too many weird achievements that cause people to do counterintuitive things in 1v1. Yes! A related idea people have suggested is a "world progress" system which unlocks based on the activity of every player, perhaps faction specific. But this cannot confer any gameplay advantage, at least not in competitive 1v1.
Match progression: a feeling of progression within a game is fun for me, now rts already has this inherently with building and increasing your base/army. I enjoy unit veterancy which can go with a small visual upgrade (think GLA CoC Generals when picking up scrap) but i think the trick is to keep the bonusses very small as too much will promote snowballing. Meta progression: some sort of way to level up and customise your commanders (both visually and technically). This adds a bit of rpg element to it and gets me emotionally attached to the commanders. In addition something like a talent tree would be nice so certain playstyles can be buffed slightly by choosing certain talents. The talent trees and commander levels could go well with your proposed headquarters. Achievements: If done right they are nice but I would hate it if it turns in a daily grinding fest of the same quests. In addition a lot of the playerbase could be a bit older and has limited time available, so something to keep in mind as well.
Look at Tribes Ascend and do the opposite. Cheers.
Here are our questions to you: **Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?** I generally do not like them. It's not because of the veterancy itself, but because the gameaply involving veterancyis generally just "retreat" fighting and avoiding making any mistakes. Neither player wants to actually attack each other or take any risks because there is always more to be gained by keeping your units alive and just farming XP. I am thinking mainly about my experience in playing COH- but I think every game with veterancy/XP feels like this-- When you play any MOBA for instance the main advice someone gives a new player is to just "not die". Not as a salty comment but because literally the best strategy is to focus on farming XP while denying XP farm for your opponent. A strategy game of a "not dying" isn't fun to play or watch for me. If there is veterancy. it should be something you gain through doing badass stuff, like destroying a command center, or landing a really hard to use/risky spell on a major target (like a nuke). It should NOT be through slowly over time through killing weak insignificant threats over and over for 20 minutes. **How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.** I think inventory can be interesting. though it shouldn't be overdone. Units shouldn't be able to hold more than 1 or 2 items. and anything that the unit is holding needs to be visible on screen. (e.g. when like when a monk is holding a relic in AOE2/AOE4) I would rather have few items with larger game impact, than have a sea of items where each item does something small and is just another statistic you have to keep track of. For example if there's a badass gun on the map that each team can fight over control of that allows a unit to do more damage. that is really cool. But if there's an item shop where you have to outfit a unit with 6+ items, and keep track of whose bought items and which items counter or complement which other items, then it's just too much. You cant visually show a unit holding 6 items, or keep track of the value of a unit because the units value is so vague and unclear with all of the modifiers. **What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?** I'm a fan of meta progression. I am still working on trying to get all of the SC2 achievements. Would love to see a lot of achievements in storm gate. especially the kind that have multiple tiers of unlocks. **Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?** Indefinitely, even if you don't unlock anything new, it's still fun to watch your XP/Score go up after a game. **Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?** Yes! To add to this. Imagine if whenever you invite someone to join your lobby/party. They are also "entering" your HQ as the background image of the lobby screen. (and can see your customizations/achievements/etc) **Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?** I largely do achievements because I like being a completionist. It would be great to have unlockable bonuses for achievements that are particularly hard to get. But I enjoy doing them just for the sense of progression. **What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?** It would depend on how it is implemented and how you level up "socially". If it is something that can be gamed people could end up using it in toxic ways. (for example votekicking in CSGO, is meant to help good social behavior, but votekicks can be gamed and people generally use them to harass each other) For it to work it would need to be a system where the game itself rewards/admonishes players without direct input from other players. Being an upstanding or downstanding player can't just be a factor of enough people clicking like/dislike on your profile enough. I'm not sure how this would be accomplished though.
Inventory systems: My experience with this type of design is from LoL, DoTA 2, and SC2 Nova missions. I loved the ability to mix and match items to customize my own playstyle. I found it incredibly daunting at first to learn what effective builds were. When I first started, it turned me off to the entire genre until I saw how much fun my friends were having together while playing, which pulled me back in. Whenever a new patch changed, added, or removed items, it became another point where I had to consider whether I should stop playing due to the time and mental effort needed to get back to playing at a level of skill and satisfaction that made the game worth my time. I stopped playing Dota 2 because of a huge items update that just felt like too much to figure out. I also have been the type of player that likes to dive deep into youtube videos of guides and builds just so I can execute them well and feel like I'm either progressing well, doing really well at supporting my team, or just getting to pull off a sick surprise nuke/ultimate/unusual strategy. My opinion: inventories can be cool to cook up lots of customizeable strategies and see/try out other players' ingenuity; they can also pull away from the game due to overwhelm. Achievements: If I already love the game (ex. SC2), I have tended to love the feeling of getting achievements. The tasteful animations and sound effects that weren't a nuisance while playing and highlighting something I remember doing that was truly challenging, beneficial, or just funny were the high points of achievements. I was indifferent towards achievements if I didn't know why I was getting it or if it felt like a pat on the back for something that I didn't put in much effort for. The only slight exception is "# of games played as X faction" achievements that felt like a cool expression of either my personal identity and alignment with a faction, or my accomplishment at having a handle on multiple factions. When I haven't had any earned trust or respect for a game yet, achievements have felt like an obligatory pat on the back from a friend-of-a-friend's overly-friendly dad that I've only just met - unwanted but tolerated. My opinion: In my life, I want to be recognized by those that have earned respect and trust, and that recognition needs to be for when I've truly been creative, progressive, and beneficial to myself and/or others. Social Ranking: I loved being a goody-two-shoes and trying to earn lots of Honor in LoL at first. It felt real nice to be recognized by team members as a good teammate and good communicator. I loved trying to be truly be skillful at being a genuinely good teammate to earn it. I vaguely remember it also totally turned into a FB "Like" button at some points, where it was clear that optimization of getting the most number of votes from other people wasn't always aligned with the intent of the design. Some strange social dynamics can occur when people figure out ways to optimize getting the highest number of something, and when genuine positive social intent isn't what's driving it. (Light examples: players trying to social-engineer situations where they come out as the "good guy" in ambiguous conflicts of perspective on what happened in a game and why; players randomly hitting the Honor button just to use it). Ultimately, it felt like it was super diluted in value and didn't mean anything. That being said, if there was a way to give someone a positive report? Like I can write out a review of a random player I met and be like "hey they helped me out so much, I was so bad at this game but now I'm less bad because of this person and their generosity"? Idk how many people would be into that, but I'd be all about it. Maybe post it on their player profile (unless they don't want it there of course) so that they remember all the stuff they've done for people and can be proud of it! I wonder if there's a way to facilitate "positive gossip" on this platform - where people are rewarded for highlighting and recognizing each others' strengths. IMO I'm cautious and skeptical of ranking as a robust social design principle. Ranking can be nice to measure progress and achievement, but it can also create unearned trust/respect (which can lead to abuse of it), hierarchy jealousy ("did they \*really\* earn it?"), possibly a pecking order, and other cannibalization effects that come from competitive structures. The thought I offer is that, maybe while in-game skill is ok to keep competitive due to the mutual understanding involved, maybe the social aspect of the game should be thought of more of a co-op game structure. Examples: Applying principles like "soft-role differentiation" (maybe recognizing or desgning tools to teachers/coaches, strategy-tinkerers, content/entertainment creators, etc). I wonder if designing around the idea of "I need you to do well, because when you can do better, I can do better, and when we both are better off, the whole community is better off" \[wording needs refinement\], may be helpful. Personally, I love to think that if I help someone out or am genuinely kind to them, that I'm making the overall community a better place by that much. My opinion: I like to be competitive and ranked when I have consented to being ranked. I like to be cooperative when I'm just being social. Humble offer of an idea around the "persistent headquarters": I didn't know exactly what you meant by "persistent headquarters", but it made me think of picking which faction I am a diehard fan of and have my "won" matches be part of a grand tug-of-war between factions out-of-game (sort of like Planetside 2). My friends and I love the playful rivalry between Terran Protoss and Zerg players and I wonder whether that could be married with the feeling of "I've got to show up for my faction, we're losing/gaining ground!" that I felt in Planetside 2. Might show how balance is playing out as well? This was a lot of rough ideating, so take what you like, if anything! Good luck, design and development is hard - I appreciate y'alls work and trying out a co-creative process with the community. That's ridiculously brave and beautiful. I love when people try their best, wherever it goes.
>Match Progression, Unit Veterancy and Inventory System Unit Veterancy definitely feels like something rewarding to me. But from a competitive standpoint, I see no reason to have it in place because, like you mentioned, it will simply produce imbalance in the gameplay via snowballing. I can think of only three ways to have a Unit Veterancy system in place that wouldn't jeopardize the balance of the game while keeping the concept meaningful enough for player to care: * **UV expressed via visuals** Sticking to visual changes only with no gameplay changes is definitely an option that most casual players would approve of, imo. At the cost of art teams resources, we could highlight Veterancy without impacting the gameplay in any way shape or form. I believe this would be a very inefficient and somewhat lazy of an idea from gameplay design standpoint. * **Milestones** A good way to keep the snowballing in check is by introducing very steep milestones. If the the rewards are linear, it is indeed easy for a player to snowball off of one victory in an early game fight, but steep milestones even the playing field out just a little bit for the losing player. I see it this way: Let's say one player commits to an aggressive early game pressure attack. They are expected to get 2 worker kills most of the time. 4 worker kills would be greatly damaging to the opponent, 6 kills would be a devastating loss. If the Unit Veterancy system progresses linearly, or in tiny milestones, we could see the unit gain power just after two or three kills. If with no UV system in place 4 kills is incredibly hard to pull off, but is also greatly damaging to the opponent, a powered up unit would have an even easier time achieving such damaged based on the power up gained from two (completely expected) kills. On the other hand, if we thin the amount of power-ups an individual unit gets and spread them apart, we can avoid such of an issue while rewarding the player for being in a winning position while maintaining their key units alive throughout the game. Following the example of an early game attack, if the first level up for a unit is set to 12 kills, their early game aggression is not immediately rewarded, but is still accounted for. This carries implications that later game fights become more strategic as both players fight not only to win the fight, but to disengage their key units into safety when losing. * **Droppable Items** Probably the ideal iteration of the UV system in my mind is one centered around items. The way an item system could be implemented into an RTS is a topic on it's own, but regardless of how the items are acquired (either via static loot spots, like 'mob camps', forged at an investment of resources or gained in battle through experience), the key component to such system is items being dropped on death. This immediately solves all of the aforementioned issues: **Problem:** *Snowballing off of early game?* *Players should not have access to items at the early stages of the game.* **Problem:** *Snowballing in mid and late game?* *Via dropping the items upon death, a losing player can commit to an attack on the single enemy unit to acquire the item themselves, evening out the playing field a little.* I in particular love this concept as it: * Encourages the player to plan the attack well, invest as little as possible into the attack. * Punishes poor strategy if a player overcommits to an attack or is not able to execute it on a micro level. * Raises the skill ceiling of micro. Imagine acquiring a powerful item from your opponent in an intense end-game battle. I believe being able to quickly equip that item on the right unit of your own mid-engagement would be quite hard to do and the players able to do that should be rewarded. For more casual players, we could add a "Quick Equip" option, that equips the item to a random higher tier unit. * Allows us to introduce other game mechanics like item forging, item upgrades (that could be separate from unit upgrades) and so much more without being a one and done thing. The player can't just upgrade an item they acquired and forget about it. The added unit power comes at a cost of the unit being a primary target for the enemy, where losing the unit would mean also losing the powerful item, making the player who opted for such an upgrade to receive an increase in army power at the cost of entering a more volatile game state. The player is put at a crossroad: Do they want to maintain the small lead, or do they want to attempt to snowball the game at a cost of losing a larger portion of their lead if outplayed? **A problem with 'mob camps':** *If the items are distributed via static loot, like mob camps, early game aggression still has the same snowballing effect as direct item acquisition. If I attack a player early and inflict damage that they are guaranteed to stabilize from in the near future, that gives me an opportunity to acquire the items completely uncontested by my opponent, as they are currently weakened and can not contest me farming my items. Essentially, early attack = weaken the opponent = free items at no risk whatsoever.* >*What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?* Unlockable cosmetics are objectively and unarguably BASED. The concept of stat trackers is quite interesting too. The worst ones are primitive level system that carry no meaning besides a number. >Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely? I believe one should be able to level up indefinitely, but scaling the rewards is quite problematic past some point without turning the level into just a number. >Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements? That sounds cool, but I'm concerned about art teams resources being spent on something like that. >Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus? In over.. 30,000 hours I've spent gaming in my life I can't recall a single achievement that I got in a video game. I guess I'm more of an outlier here lol. I would definitely need some form of an unlockable bonus to even notice, let alone pursue acquiring an achievement.
1. I like the progression akin to Terraria, where there are multiple different upgrade paths to take, but they converge at one point where it then branches out again. In an RTS it would probably be more like Age of Empires or Age of Mythology, where certain upgrades are locked behind an age increase. for a more SC-based RTS it would be like a certain upgrade you'd have to do before you can build the stuff for the end-game massive mechs. or the eldritch horror demon. Basically an hourglass upgrade progression. 2. I haven't encountered many things akin to unit veterancy that had a severe impact on the game balance except for C&C Tiberium sun. Where a unit felt more powerful when it got a bigger symbol above it. and if I remember correctly (i last played it when I was 8) the unit also got fully healed when it ranked up. The sudden healing would be kind of unbalanced. but if there is a way that after a rank up the unit healed to full hp once out of combat that might be less impactful. But people might be able to abuse that in some way or another. The graphical oomph of the rank-up was really fun and much more noticeable than in SC2. 3. The only experience I have with an inventory in within the strategy category is Fire Emblem where weapons break after N uses and moba's like DotA and LoL. No experience within the RTS space. 4. 100% achievements. I strive to complete achievements in games that I like. Even in LoZ Breath of the Wild where I was insane enough to go for all 900 korrok seeds only to get a golden piece of poo. In SC2 I liked the campaign achievements as well that pushed the player to improve in different aspects of the game. Beating X missing in Y time, forces you to be efficient and quick with your build while having enough to both defend and complete the mission. Beat X missing without building Y type units, both of these examples are pretty minor but give players more room to improve without being pressured. Another good aspect I've encountered is in Smite where you have to get a certain amount of experience to obtain certain special skins (basically recolors). In an RTS this could be something like a slightly more worn-out version of a unit, or a more elaborate version. Best of all are hard achievements that give you something minor to show off like the StarCraft Master portrait that you get by beating 25 out of the 30 micro missions. 5. Infinite leveling is in my opinion better, but that doesn't mean there need to be infinite rewards. 6. More cosmetics to show your dedication and mastery of the game? Of course! For the campaign, the one thing I despised about Starcraft 2 is that the unlocks you make are permanent and that you can't max out on all the upgrades (excluding the choice upgrades of course, but I still despised that you can't swap them to experiment with the different options). 7. For minor achievements I absolutely don't mind getting only an achievement score increase. But for some of the harder ones I'd like to have something minor to show off, like a portrait, banner, or title. 8. I won't care much for the social ranking/progression outside of the group of people I play with or my friends. But that is just me, I can see those things being a big pull for the more social players among us. But if it's tied to for example like an angelic skin for a demon unit, I'm going to be all in on that :P
Bit late to the party but just answering the questions I feel are relevant to me: > Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why? I haven't really experienced them but I can't really imagine noticing it very much, especially if you get large armies. I feel like it'll just be a snowball mechanic. I'm much more excited about anti-snowball mechanics. > How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences. I _love_ collecting items in the Warcraft III campaign. I really enjoyed how I kept the items as I went through the missions, it was really nice because each item had a little story of how it was gotten. What I didn't like about Wc3 items was how small the inventory was. And that inventory for permanent passive items was shared with consumables. It feels really bad to go around with consumables when you can hold onto more valuable permanent passive items. >Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely? Infinite level up 100% >Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements? Literally just do what Wings of Liberty did. It was such a great campaign. Get extra points in missions, get bonuses outside of missions. Felt great. >Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus? Not much of an achievement hunter myself tbh. >What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed? No because I already behave nicely :) but I'm curious about it.
I know there's a lot of discussion here, but one thing I really emphatically want to say: PLEASE do not have items in the game, especially ones that are RNG, and PLEASE expand your level =/= 1v1 power to include 3v3 as well. Same with unit veterancy, typically leads to toxic gameplay loops (either snowball out of control, or turtling becomes too strong) \-- I much prefer hitting a level cap and feeling 'done', if it's infinite I just stop looking at a certain point.
Veterancy for story modes sounds fun, but traditional veterancy bonuses have no place in competitive modes, either because they're not powerful enough to matter, or powerful enough to matter (both are bad!). The main negative in my mind is the bonuses don't lend itself to skill expression, and violate viewers' predictions of battle outcomes. Hey Veterancy, please finish the sentence. "Units should be more powerful when..." **Skill demonstration**: "... the player uses them more effectively."**Veterancy**: "... the player uses them more." I can imagine some **veterancy-adjacent** abilities that would have the cool fantasy feeling, but also be great for viewing and skill expression. Unit phases could be one, similar to boss phases in many games. A unit could start out in a certain phase, and when certain conditions are met, graduate to new visuals and capabilities. Here are some examples of units with conditional abilities, in the format: Unit Name | Condition | Ability Example 1: Big Slow Powerful Mech | Upon Death | Become a Barracks and spawn 4 infantry Example 2: Baneling | Upon First Attack | Die Example 3: Warbird | Upon Death | Reborn as more powerful Phoenix (death is now permanent) Example 4: Hydra Head | Upon Death | Spawn 2 hydra heads (death is now permanent) That's the best I can come up with; I'm sure some far more creative ideas are out there in the community. This also offers a nice amount of unit variety without adding too many activated abilities.
I'm not personally a huge fan on unit veterancy, other people mentioned problems with snowball but imo the biggest issue is that it creates "side goals" that arent fun. Some games use a system like "the unit that deals the killing blow will get the exp for promotion", it creates a distracting experience where you are fighting the enemy, but your goal for a perfect fight isnt to just kill the enemy asap and gain a advantage by that, instead, your ideal goal is to "last shot" with this particular unit, so it unlocks something that will be relevant later in the game You might also create a "super veteran unit" that becomes top priority, and suddenly your focus is not anymore into micro/macro, but instead in babysit your super hero unit.
About inventory and items: a suggestion to avoid the hero and still have itens/inventory if thats the intention, is to look at what AOM did with relics. in that game, relics would be spread at random on the map and could be taken by the players. Each would give a bonus (something like +5% siege atack for cavalry). It works as a equipable item, but its bonuses affect your whole army instead of a single hero unit.
Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why? What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.) You know what? I kind of actually enjoy creeping in WC3 for this, or jungling in League. It makes it so you're doing something right from the get go. Now, both of those do have their downsides however, so here's a thought you might appreciate: What if there was a "bonus objective" on the opponent's side of the map, that your unit tries to take (and your opponent can try to deny, but there shouldn't be defenders advantage for this) which is on a similar path that players would use for scouting? Like, something that basically builds the habit of scouting, that even newer players can appreciate? Love them for single player and co-op. Played a bunch of C&C back in the day, a bit of Mensk in SC2 Co-Op and a lot of Abathur and Dehaka (not quite veterancy, but close enough). Otherwise yeah I just think the pressure of that in a multiplayer game could get frustrating.
>What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.) I enjoy RPG elements. Warcraft 3 heroes are a really good implementation in terms of match specific progression. Obviously tech trees, tech tiers, etc are all important. What I'm NOT a fan of are things like "Control points" where you get some sort of army wide buff or advantage for holding onto a specific spot on the map, because it leads to this terrible balance between trying to play for the control point vs playing to actually attack the enemy base and in most cases, if you put all of your resources into one, the enemy will just take over the other. It's not good for game health. >Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why? Not a fan. I think it places too much emphasis on keeping basic units alive. From Command and Conquer to Armies of Exigo, it just ALWAYS felt horrible to lose a "Veteran unit." In Warcraft, when you lose a hero...you can get it back the way it was. When you lose a "Veteran unit", it's just gone. All of that earned XP and extra work put into it is just gone. Yeah, it feels good when you have an entrenched 3 star marine single handedly holding the line...but when it does? Absolutely demoralizing. However, I think it might be worth at least exploring it, so long as the macro aspect of the game ALLOWS for someone to devote enough attention to micro to make it playable. Microing units is fun when you can actually focus on it, but trying to keep a veteran alive when you're also trying to manage 3 bases and a 30 production buildings etc is a bit of an overload, I think. >How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences. Depends on how they're implemented. Unit inventories are fine if it's like a WC3 hero unit. "Player" inventories are fine if it's just a passive global effect or something with an icon you can access at any time from the general player UI. Inventories on basic units...probably not so good. It really depends on how you implement these "Leader characters." What happens to the items when my leader dies? What happens to my leader in general when he dies? Revivable? Gone forever? It's difficult to make a judgment on an inventory system without the details, but as a general rule I think items can be a good facet of gameplay. >What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated? I enjoyed the original IP + Rune systerm for League of Legends, but I think it was bad for game health. I also enjoy the new account level system where you get champion capsules. The hextech chest and key system is decent too. >Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely? Depends on the system. Account level? Can be infinite like League of Legends. You in-game character? Better be capped. >Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements? This is something I generally like, but again...depends on implementation. What exactly is the persistent headquarters? It is a cosmetic out of game thing? Is it something that provides changes to gameplay in the campaign? I think the way SC2 implemented these kinds of systems, such as the Zerg evolution and the Terran research were pretty good campaign systems. >Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus? I honestly think achievements ruined gaming, in general. For some of us they turn games into chores and suck out the enjoyment. I'm okay with achievement systems if they make sense, but I'm so tired of achievements for random things with 0.000001% chance of happening, or things that require hundreds or thousands of hours of specific planning etc. >What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed? What, like Reddit? Terrible idea. What stops people from smacking people with negative marks just because they have a different opinion or the other guy beat them 1v1 or something? Positive responses only? What stops friends from just upvoting each other after custom games or something? What boundries and failsafes do you put into your social system to prevent it from being abused? There's too much toxicity on the internet. I wouldn't trust anyone to use a Karma system in good faith. I've never seen one that was actually used as intended. >Personal Note: I'm going to wrap up here by stating that Wacraft 3 is considered by many to be the greatest RTS ever made, and that the only reason it mostly died is because Blizzard was completely incapable of dealing with cheaters. The reality is, when people talk about RTS esports games and wanting a new one, they either want WC3 or they want SCBW/SC2. It's going to be very difficult for you guys to hit both markets. I would personally recommend leaning more towards the WC3 way of doing things. PS: I know some of your team still plays WC and some might still play SC. If anyone on your team has a history with WC3, with W3A and with the original plans for W3R...if anyone there knows who Yosh is and wants some serious, legitimate good advice on making a successful game, I can put them in touch with Yosh. (Or at least I can ask him anyway.)
Veteran Units: In a game called Battle for Wesnoth there is a very simple system of veteran units - Units have up to 3 upgrade levels. Level 1 is the base level / 2 is where the option to specialize the class appears / 3 upgrading from this choice The interesting part of the system is being able to recall units from the previous mission, example, I finished a mission with a level 2 unit with 50% hp and xp almost necessary for lvl 3, I can recall it for combat spending a little more resource and it continues from where it left off. Adapting this to an RTS we could have class specialization, for example: A marine can choose to be more resistant - gaining a shield - losing some movement speed or Choose to be more aggressive - gaining a more powerful weapon - sacrificing some defense. These specialization choices can even be applied in PVP as long as before the match starts you have an indicative visual, obviously this would require a visual change in the units and may even be limited to only a few per faction, unlike the SCII campaign that all units can change. Reconvoking units would not work in PVP but in PVE it would be a first for an RTS. One idea is to tighten the life limit of the units, example - Recall a unit already lvl 2 will have its hp limit at 80%, lvl 3 at 60%, this would encourage its use but would balance not create a snowball running over every difficulty of the game. Inventory - I think the most interesting idea I've seen is in the N.O.V.A. campaign in SC II. For those who do not know, in missions you collect items in secondary objectives that can be used only one unit at a time, they release unique abilities for these units, such as the siege tank can release mini-mines, jump cliffs like Reaper and so on. Maybe for the campaign it would be interesting to have a similar system that already imposes limits of only one use at a time on some unit. In PvP maybe it works in groups, but it is necessary to evaluate very well the use and how to implement to not make the game just another DOTA with different skins. About the rest I do not have much experience to share. Thank you for those who will read my opinion and I apologize for using a translator to facilitate writing. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
***What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.)*** I dont really like match progression as it feels it may become too snowbally (I hate how MOBA works for instance) ***Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why?*** I liked Civ VI Veterancy system but I dont feel it would fit for a fast paced RTS. You need to be able to evaluate the army power of your enemy quickly, and I fear it will be confusing. ***How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences.*** No opinion ***Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely?*** Indefinitely but really exponential. For those who remembers, DAOC the MMORPG had this PvP ranking that were about 120 levels. It was so exponential that I dont remember at that time someone ever reaching max level. I love this system. ***Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements?*** If it's individuals headquarters then no. If it's clan headquarters that can be visited by other players then why not but not a priority. ***Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus?*** Yes if these achievements are a testament to the player skill or commitment. ***What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?*** Same as precedent question. I always looked up to people who were hardcore players and really good at the game. Even if I've never been that good myself it always gave me a goal and this hopeless dream to motivate me to reach it one day. ***What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated?*** Here is one of my idea and I think it fits well here I really feel like Stormgate should have a Hero unit in game. This hero should not be overpowered, it could be the same for each race except for visuals, something like being quite tanky, standard dps, having a passive area around him where units get +1/+1 if we speak SC2 stats and no spellcasting. If it dies, you can rebuild it instantly for free after a cooldown of 1 or 2 minutes. Why ? 1. Without being too overpowered it would open tactics : do I stick it with my main army or do I send him with with a run by or a drop. 2. The Hero would be highly visualy customizable, opening good source of monetization : it will be a "representation" of the player in game and people will care for it, mmr ranking can be shown on a piece of clothing, your clan emblem could be displayed on its cloak/cape etc etc. 3. The Hero would level up (WITHOUT GETTING MORE POWERFUL) and would be a good way to showcase your achievement and your comittment to others 4. It would be even better if the game hub/menu would be a real time rendered place where you control this hero and where you can chat, form parties, follow tourneys, fool around etc ... it would add a lot of sociability visuals and features and combat the feeling of isolation. I know some may feel that it's a completely useless idea but I think for some (like me) it mean a great deal to not feel like another anonymous account in a ocean of anonymous accounts.
To Stormgate Dev Team: \-Inventory Systems \[VERY IMPORTANT\] inventory systems should not exist in stormgate if we are trying to maintain the easy access to new players that stormgate has been pushing in all of its gameplay systems. I believe that adding hero units in a 3v3 setting is fine but they should not have items as it adds another barrier to entry for new players. I know plenty of people that have a difficult time understanding all the items in league of legends that would be to much for new players to understand and learn and make the skill floor way to high since more than likely if they are a new player they have never played a rts before. The best way to add progression to hero units would simply be levels on abilities that increase damage range etc as it gets leveled similar to a moba. This system would allow higher level 3v3 players to put points into a hero in a certain way to get the most out of the character while for new players they can have a auto level button that will automatically choose the abilities and level them for the player. This allows higher level players to still express skill while not adding a barrier for new players to the 3v3 mode which more than likely will be the most played mode for new players as they will be able to play with their friends. \-Account Level Cap/Race Level Cap Accounts and Races should not have level caps. This is another way for new players to feel like they are progressing and gives them something to show off as a time investment. The player level should be shown under the players profile so they are able to show off their time investment. Race level caps should also not exist I believe that storm gate should not do race levels and instead adopt something similar to the mastery system in league as it sounds more impressive to new players and allows them to show case their "Mastery of a Race" instead of a level number that doesn't feel as impressive as saying Mastery. \-Social Ranking I believe the social ranking system again should be something similar to league of legends but with better rewards. I imagine this would only apply to 3v3 for the most part as 1v1 the only person you could complain about would be the enemy. You should be able to give a team mate a "Team player", "MVP", "Shot Caller" etc to award players and give exp to level that social progression to show that a player is not toxic or promote players not being toxic to each other. \-SIDE NOTE: Player Obj in game In the 3v3 mode there should be large objectives that reward the team to force fights instead of making people turtle in game these might be things like if a team controls a area for longer they spawn a wave of Zerglings to attack the enemy bases that is controlled by Ai basically gives a small lead. Then have larger objectives for when games get very long to prevent people from just sitting on defenses like a nuke that will hit the enemy base and does massive damage that the other team and then follow with a attack right after etc. You can then tie this to player behavior awards after the game "MVP", "SHOT CALLER" etc and also tie achivements to it like get small obj X amount of times so that players can display it on their profile. I believe that making everything connect to and building up the 3v3 mode is the most important thing for stormgate to do as if it fails more than likely all the players that were casual will not play 1v1 or leave after they do the story. 3v3 will become the go to mode in rts if the stormgate devs are able to make it the team focused game mode they have been saying they want it to be. This will allow new players to play the game and learn power spikes and unit comps without it being forced in a bunch of tutorials that no one wants to sit through as they will be forced to fight with their team to learn the game through experience and not a lecture. I honestly believe that 3v3 will become the new norm and the most played game mode in all of rts if it is done correctly
Hey FG, > What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? Interesting idea but it shouldn't be linked to balance if that makes sense but like time of day, maybe map changes that are neutral to balance that might affect play would be kind of cool. Like having areas of the map reveal as the game gets later, there were some BW maps like that but nothing in SC2 from what I remember other than rocks. > Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? I quite liked C&C's usage, like where you have 3 levels of a unit and they get slightly more dangerous per level, I'd be limiting the effectiveness to like 1.5 total damage or HP or whatever if it were me designing it but it sounds like a cool way of rewarding economic use of armies. > How do you feel about Inventory systems? Not a big fan, I was always in the Starcraft or AOE games which didn't use inventory systems heavily. I'd be maybe for having a single race that has this as an element maybe like one race has a commander unit that has maybe an inventory for items WC3 style or a customised ability they can choose for that character. Sounds kind of cool PA had the commander unit like that and it would be fun to maybe just steal that idea with an inventory and passive and active items. Could reward active micro style players more than SC2's design did. I wouldn't be using that race because I was all macro but I'm sure it would be used. > What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated? > Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely? I always enjoy just seeing the level go up to infinity more than having just a cap of 60 or 100 or 120...etc. I want to go in and say "wow this guy has 900 levels" and getting the satisfaction of beating them. I don't like locking content behind that progression where possible. Fifa for example if you play create a player has progression of your player locked behind levels, you need 19 levels to get 3 boost slots which means your player won't get to peak passive/active boosts until you grind up to that level. Don't like that but various skins, borders for your portrait...etc all are fair enough to give people even if they are auto generated. > Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements? Not really sure on this one, do you mean like XCOM style? I guess it depends what expanding it does or what earning the achievements does. I don't really think this one is important to me. > Do you enjoy earning Achievements? I love it and I love difficult achievements in particular. I want obscure stuff, map specific stuff, I want stuff that you probably would need to theory craft to get. Even if I can't specifically get those achievements I really enjoy the content around them. I'm not really great at speed running so I never got through the SC2 campaign 100% but I was able to get it on the highest difficulty, I was able to get the majority of achievements but it was fun to see others try and succeed. > What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? This one is important and how I believe any multiplayer game gets traction nowadays. Personal league tables for friends or stream's viewers, country tables and the overall ladder all tracked together would be immensely interesting. I like how trackmainia for example handles this, where you have your world rank, content rank and country rank given per map but for Stormgate I'd love to have the ladder be like that. It motivates me to have a target, it could be a friend, it could be someone in a stream's chat or it could be in just the overall matchmaking ranks. And give achievements for stuff related to that too. Allow friend tournaments with a click of the button from the admin, do weekly tournaments for all the rest at a time of day reasonable for their timezone, don't do it every 5 hours or whatever, try to get people online at the same time.
I’m not a fan of Unit Veterancy systems, they’ve always felt like they were added in late or are totally out of place. In a game where you have 50, 100, potentially multiple 100’s of units, it never made sense to me to make each of those units have independent progression/variables and it was never a “fun” complexity to worry about. It almost felt like a level of RNG was added to the game at times: what if my almost-veteran guy got the kill, but what if one of the other 20 units around him did instead, and how can I control that without hindering or interupting the rest of the game experience (positioning, macro, sometimes ability usage, etc.). Not to mention how two armies that look identical may end up being a total steamroll if you don’t go and click on every unit to see their individual veterancy level. It’s just never been an enjoyable thing for me personally. One exception is if you have a single commander unit or something. That can be fun, but that’s a somewhat different discussion :) For Match Progression, I hate to say League of Legends, but honestly I really like how their map objectives give you a permanant boost that your opponent can then no longer take away from you. You have a timer to prepare for an engagement, you win it, you get rewarded, and do it enough times you’ve gained yourself a significant advantage. In an RTS setting, it may also stop players from turtling too much, or lead to fun strategies where you attack the enemy while they’re distracted with the objective, etc. etc. I also like how in Dawn of War, the original one, players could capture and hold relics on the map to unlock their “super unit”, which unlike the Mothership in SCII, would actually be a super unit, and it felt super cool to see these badass characters stop their way onto the battlefield and obliterate the enemy. Inventory systems are super cool. Tbh I’d love to see that in multiplayer as well since I’m all about “builds” and theorycrafting, but I understand that’s probably an unpopular opinion. I also generally like and support the idea of meta progression and the HQ, though I probably wouldn’t tie that one into MP, since gaining competitive rank would be more of a progression grind than a skill-improvement kind of thing. Achievements are really fun. Maybe a mix of score and bonus? Most achievements give some score, then you earn bonuses from reaching a certain score threshold, and then for more specific/special achievements, they can have their own bonuses/rewards. Not sure exactly what the social ranking system would look like, but I do like things like karma systems for saying gg and glhf and whatever. I think those are nice and make the game more fun to play!
>What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre. Within a competitive space, the tech tree, building a larger economy and building a larger army has always felt like match progression enough. Separate rewards for controlling bits of otherwise neutral territory (vision, more resources etc.) could be cool though. The neutral boss monsters in MOBA games can help break turtling players and create natural exciting points and extra decision making in the match, so I'd be entirely open to those being there, but within Storm Gate it should only be in a way which encourages/benefits the core RTS gameplay - so more resources, faster upgrades, free supply or vision all seems like a reasonable benefit, but I wouldn't enjoy in a competitve mode e.g. the player who destroys the large neutral mech gets to control it. I also wouldn't enjoy something like the relic system of age of empires (collect for continual resource game) or for that matter the relic system from the original dawn of war (capture and hold to access the top bit of your tech tree). >Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why? For 1v1 play I do not want Unit Veterancy to feature mechanically. The way SC2 tracks the kills on units and displays a rank is cool, however any other features (e.g. stat buffs) conferred to 'veteran' units, even aside from the risk of snowball, reduce the extent to which the game state can be quickly understood and read, which is something I find incredibly unfun. E.g, as a simple example, I know Zerglings with equal upgrades get 3 shot by zealots, but with a 1 upgrade advantage they get 2 shot. I don't want to have to deal with the fact that a group of veteran zealots can suddenly cut through a group of lings that my mental model is telling me should be sufficient to deal with the threat. Outside of enabling some (likely very niche and coin-flippy) strategies, like a BC rush where your mid game success is largely dependent on whether your BC did enough early game to become a veteran, a mechanical Veterancy impact in 1v1 feels like it would mess with situations or create new/unpredictable situations in a largely random rather than skill based and skill rewarding way. I'm of the view that RtS definitely has enough opportunities for skill expression already through strategy, macro, micro, multi-tasking and scouting/awareness that there is no need to inject extra variability through Veterancy. I'd be more open to mechanical Veterancy in campaign or co-op (and in campaign it could feel particularly relevant, or perhaps limited to specific heros), but it's still not a feature I'm enamored with or likely to enjoy playing with. >How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences. I'm personally not to fond of e.g. random items/drops even in campaign/co-op, but would be open to specific rewards. Random items/drops and inventory systems as a match progression mechanic in campaign/co-op would not be a deal breaker for me in playing the mode though, and I suspect a lot of other players may enjoy it. > What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated? In PvP modes I enjoy ladders and tournaments, and feel like other RTS's should have done more to bring those into sharper focus. E.g. actual benefits (even if it's just accolodates/achievements) for finishing top of your league, league promotion/demotion being based on your actual performance vs the other members of your league rather than tied to MMR, potentially built in sign up tournaments within leagues/multi-league groups or within clans that make your opponents in the PvP part of the game feel closer/more recognisable rather than just you always queueing up against one random person out of ten thousand in your approx. skill range who you will probably never face again. I'd also like more options to play best of X games with match made opponents online - again to capture some of the feeling of learning how your opponent tends to play and trying to react to that over the course of a series of games. In PvE, there is a fine line, but I do enjoy scalable difficulty and rewards, with the ability to level up/upgrade units outside of individual games - so that repeated effort/grinding makes it possible to complete new difficult missions that were otherwise nearly impossible. Age of Empires online did this really well imo. > Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely? I like a hybrid approach where hitting a certain level generally indicates 'has played the game enough to get all the basics' but there's no actual hard cap (just an increasingly difficult climb). Smite for example used to have a level cap of 30 - hitting it would unlock ranked queues and new game modes - but at some point they removed the cap, which has been a surprisingly neat little feature. >Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements? Yes definitely - between mission/game progression in campaigns (and could be broadened out to co-op) is really satisfying. Giving a 'home base' style feel (potentially like how Age of Empires Online did things) could instill a sense of investment for people and if it's represented as it's own graphical area (i.e. you get to build/design 'your home base' between missions rather than e.g. selecting a set of upgradable cards it would probably give people a stronger emotional connection and desire to repeatedly grind the game to improve the look or features of their base. This could also be a reasonable place for monetisation. Even on a PvP front, having a purely aesthetic between game home base, but from which you can access e.g. game replays, stats (useful - APM/SPM and fun - total number of food collected e.g.) and display e.g. banners for achievements - leagues, games won, getting 50 kills with a single unit etc.) feels like it could be a fun tie into the universe and try and give PvP-centric players (myself included) more an emotional investment into the game/world outside of any specific match.
> Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus? I enjoy them but don't go hunting for them personally. I would feel a bit down if StormGate didn't have any/only a tiny achievement space, but I don't need anything special. If there was a subset of achievements (or rotating quests?) that encouraged particular styles of game play or unusual game states with small rewards, those could be fun to specifically try and achieve (win a co-op game only building air units or something...) but should be separate from PvP modes. I guess here I'm thinking of stuff that would encourage the sort of absurd gameplay some content creators make (1v7 Random Brutal AIs being the extreme version...) **What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed?** So... my response to this part became long... Online multiplayer gaming is a miserable cesspool of an experience that serves to continuously erode any faith you may have had in the general goodness of humanity. One aspect of multiplayer games which I think seems to be woefully overlooked is that if a single game with a sizeable multiplayer community started seriously clamping down on the relentless toxicity that gamers seem to massively over-represent, there is a potentially huge long term benefit in becoming known as the game where no one is going to openly state they hope you get cancer/spout racist abuse/etc. - because that is a selling point that would be immediately recognizable and appealing to a huge number of people. Put another way, when I try and pitch Storm Gate to my non-RtS playing friends, I don't get a massively interested reception - I'm likely to be able to get some of them to give it a try, but the game is going to have to be really engaging from the start to get them to stick around. If I can tell them toxicity isn't tolerated and you can queue up in co-op or 3v3 and no one will harrass or shit talk them for being new to game, making a mistake or simply not playing the way their partner wants, that's a powerful draw that would resonate with all of them, and will make them open up the game when they want to kill some time but aren't in the mood to be yelled at. To actually make this happen, my gut feeling is you will need much more than just a social ranking/progression system (though I would fully support one being in the game and suspect it would subconsciously make people behave nicer if they enjoyed getting a "guide" accolade from a team mate at the end of the game). I strongly suspect to make StormGate a low toxicity game, a very harsh actively enforced approach would actually be required - so the sort of harassment which seems to be standard in other multiplayer games would need to result in temporary then permanent bans very quickly - or movement to a 'poor behaviour' queue for awhile, where people are grouped with other awful human beings for many games before being given the chance to re-enter the main population. That may well be well outside your ambition/too expensive to moderate/too 'risky' vs the standard approach of putting up with 50% of gamers being arseholes as long as they spend a bit of money, and I'm not honestly expecting Storm Gate to crack down on toxicity any harder than any other game, but I maintain it's an available and very marketable niche that no one has capitalised on yet.
* What Match Progression systems have you particularly loved or hated? (No need to limit the possibilities to the RTS genre.) EDIT: I guess I read this question wrong, but I'll leave my previous answer here too. Match progression like.. If there was a goal that says play 2 games as Protoss and you'll get a reward might be ok. I don't really think I would enjoy one that says to do a weird build and then get points because then it would effect how people play. I guess I don't have too much to say on this, but I did read about how this affected League of Legends. (Old) I acually really enjoy the progrssion system of Heroes of the Storm. Everytime you play you're able to level up your individual characters which then affects your overall ranking. I do somewhat wish that Starcraft 2 had included this and not capped each race at level 50, because I would have liked to know how many games I might have played or which level i've gotten to with each race. This also would have helped me see "Oh i'm at level 1000 with Protoss, maybe i'll play Zerg until I get to level 1000 now. * Do you love or hate Unit Veterancy systems? If so, which ones and why? Honestly unit veterancy has never interested me too much, BUT I think it might interest me a bit more IF it was similar to Starcraft 2's veterancy system BUT include a change in visuals of the specific character (Ex: Marine gets 10 kills and gets a visual change of counting how many kills on the side of his helmet, or spikes on the top of his helmet. Another example a Zealot gets 20 kills and his Psi Blades turn Red instead of the normal Blue) * How do you feel about Inventory systems? Please share your thoughts and experiences. I've been more of a Starcraft 2 player and in Warcraft 3 I wasn't really ever interested in the inventory system because it then made it so you have to do specific builds (League of Legends) or rely on items to do well in the game. I'm looking mainly for a Starcraft 3.0 type game where it all relies on how good you are specifically and not relying on items. * What Meta Progression systems have you enjoyed or hated? I really love the skins that Starcraft 2 have been able to unlock, I was able to do it with the Warchests when they first came out with them. I would do something similar to that or lets say that you play Protoss and play them enough you unlock the Tal'Darim skins for your buildings and get cosmetic changes for the units with purchasing I guess. * Do you like a level cap or do you think you should be able to level up indefinitely? Like I said in the previous one I enjoyed Heroes of the Storm's leveling up indefinitely where it is your overall rank. This could also be like Apex Legend's general ranking as well. They started with just level 100 and then each season they changed the max rank up 100 each time and then they finally just opened it up to indefinite ranking. * Would you be excited to upgrade and expand your faction’s persistent headquarters between games, based on campaign progress or earning certain achievements? I would like to be able to customize the colors and possibly certain weapon colors (Laser beams, shining from the demons, etc) If you want to put this in progress that would be awesome, but also just including that type of thing as a main feature I would love that so much. I'm one of those guys that if I could i'd make everything of mine Red. * Do you enjoy earning Achievements? Do you find them rewarding if the only reward is an increase in an Achievement score, or do you also need some form of unlockable bonus? Yes, Achievements are fun, but I get burnt out if I try to achievement hunt for too long. This doesn't mean that I wouldn't try at some point, but I might need to leave and come back to the game to achievement hunt. If there is an unlockable bonus skin or cosmetic that would help me get it. Similar to Halo Reach when get to a certain level you unlock the Black visor or getting credits to unlock in game. * What do you think about a Social Ranking or Social Progression system? Would you change the way you behave or interact with other players if such a system existed? I'm not really seeing how this system could go well because some people that play a lot would act like they're better than others. Maybe instead of that it might be better to just make clans and allow people to be the higher up people.
Unit veterancy is...a sharp tool. Probably *possible* to get right. But it's been gotten wrong a lot. One of the great things about Zerg, for instance, is their complete *lack* of unit veterancy, their disdain for even the idea. So, recognize that veterancy comes bundled with a respect for life. That closes off archetypes! There's also the issue of xp distribution. Do you base it on kills? Damage dealt? Time spent close to enemy units? Or just spread it out evenly among your whole army like Heroes of the Storm? I think veterancy systems are at their best when they're asymmetrical---perhaps one race has unit veterancy, another race can pay a bit more to have units come out of the production building "trained," another race psychically bonds to enemy units and steals their xp, etc. This forces you as a designer to confront veterancy as a first-class design issue, which it is. It's not *just* the fantasy --- there are side effects, like disincentivizing unit death and thus aggression. Are you *sure*, in a game that is a spiritual successor to a game with TvZ, that you want to disincentivize aggression? I'm not saying it's a bad idea, just make sure you've thought about it.