Ability to see into the future

A new protoss spell/abilitythat is cast on a specific area that shows the protoss player what that area will look like in 30 seconds time.

Say there is a swarm of zerglings running to a mineral area - they have aleady been clicked on by the player - they are on their way to that area - and if nothing else happens, they will most likely be at that area within 20-30 seconds..

If a nuke is being aimed on an area, and a protoss unit uses this ability, then where there is a base, there will be only ruins.

If the ability is used on a mineral area it could for instance show a zerg base being built - as a zerg unit has been given the instruction to build a base there... and is already on its way, arriving in a short while, then building the initial base.

This would be a very vague ability, which would give a possible future based on waypoints, endpoints and other factors.

This is a very crazy idea, but one that could in a way work. It would add a new element to the strategy of the protoss. The other races could use it against the protoss as well by giving false movements.

What are your suggestions and thoughts on this bizarre idea?

 

First of: welcome to the forum.

As for the idea: it would be a ridiculous advantage. Further, cpu opponents have no waypoints and such things like human players use them. It would be almost impossible to make such a thing work within the game.
Still, have you played Red Alert 2? The Russians had a radar tower that warned players as the enemy approached. It then had a dot in your base, with a line going towards the incoming unit. That could work. However, it would be a huge advantage for Protoss. To big. Any idea how to balance?

 

Zerg: You could balance it by having a building on the zerg base - say the Zerg Spire smell incoming enemies (biological or metallic) and lean toward the location of the enemy. If there are enemies within a certain radius, the spire leans toward that area.. this could warn zerg when enemies are approcahing, much like the radar system you mentioned.

The Terran could have the radar you mentioned, but it does sound a bit overdone with other games..

With the protoss ability to see into the future, it could work with human players, but against the CPU it would have to use some kind of endpoint or goal in the CPU's code. I'm not sure how they do that, but would assume if a CPU unit discovers some minerals that it would send an SVC to build a base and that that SCV would then have a end location to go to or instruction to carry out in its instruction queue.. This could be used for the prediction..

 

That would be able to balance it, but it would also create hard counters for almost every tactic. The strength of Starcraft lies in having variety.

Also, this sequal focusses on creating an even bigger gap between races. The more differences they have, the better. This way they would all 3 get a similar ability. And not just any ability, but a big one. I think it would be fun for a custom map type, but the main game would loose a big chunk of its ambiance.

 

The 'future' would be blocking the real time events of targeted area - ouch.

 

I know, just didn't feel like killing the idea. Now you did so anyway. It could have been a fun custom with some changes. RA2 did a good job. :/

 

sounds too psychic sensor'ish from Yuris Revenge

 

frankly i could not see how this is possible unless the spell went into the last know move order for that area, and if you're fighting a human player then it would be next to impossible to correctly guess where he would be sending his troops at that exact moment in time. If you moddified the spell to hit a unit and show where it was going i could see it working then, but only something along those lines would be useful.

 

I think the idea is a little too vague to be worth the (probably) excruciating programming work that would be required to implement it.

But i can imagine other uses for the idea. For example, I dont think its unthinkable of an observer ability that reveals all the units (or even research) being made at a certain area (Which the observer has line of sight of course). This would mean the protoss player could have a potentially big amount of information about what the enemy is planning to do in the next minutes (That could be some kind of future insight ^^)

 

There's an RTS game like this... wish I could recall its name. I'll ask my friends tomorrow.

The time mechanic (it's actually time travel, rather than just seeing the future, in the context of the game universe) is a central part of the gameplay.

This is not central to StarCraft II, and would require months or years of coding to work. So I would say no.

 

It IS cool.

But also outlandish, almost uncodable and might even be missleading for the user.

Giving a player a glimpse of the other players queues or commands seems like a big no-no in professional gaming.

Would be fun to see in UMS though.

 

Would NEVER work.

 

Or possibly the ability to see into the past? To see what was there... say 2 minutes prior... as the residual energies of these units still exists in the current area...

Now that would be easily do-able...

 

Time displacement in a game is no more no less paradoxical as time displacement in real life.

Seeing the future means that future is destined to happen, which would predefine each player's actions (or inactions). If that happens, then it isn't a game, but a video.

Travelling to the past is similarly problematic, because you could choose to disrupt the time you came from, preventing the time travel from happening, which is paradoxical. If that is forced to not happen, then you'd be predefining each player's actions (or inactions). If that happens, then it isn't a game, but a video.

 

Jasmine, not travel to the future or past, but rather SEE a possible future or SEE the actual past.

 

Again. It is impossible! Stop making threads with random ideas if you can't take the time to develop the idea.

 

The only thing is you would be able to see what the computer would be doing but

A. that could only be a campaign move

b. seeing into the past would be pointless to do and would have no strategy on it what so ever

c. why would you want to see a possible future all that matters is what your enemy is doing advanced players can already determine what other players are doing same way with chess players looking 4+ moves ahead of the other player.

d. it would be distracting and how would you show it for one and 2 you would have to use it in their base because having such ability would show the entire map if you had the full effect.

If your going to come up with a goofy idea please put it in something else like space junk or what ever.

 

I worded my post correctly. Seeing the future (in real life or in a game) can be as paradoxical as actually travelling back in time.

Seeing the past however is definitely possible, but how useful?

Travelling into the future is also possible. All you do is remove your units from the game for a few minutes while you take a computer break, then insert them again at the future time.


Seeing a possible future is something altogether different from seeing the future. What you're talking about here is fortune telling.

 

unfortunately they didnt give the protoss psychic vision despite how high their psychic levels are... maybe protoss are not that smart after all lol

 

They did pretty lousy on their SAT as a matter of fact