How do you judge the faction(s)?

Discussion in 'General StarCraft 2 Discussion' started by Anansi_Tragoudia, Dec 23, 2007.

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When you think of how the game and units should be designed, where does your inspiration come from?

  1. The lore surrounding the faction.

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  2. The natural strategy that each faction employs.

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  3. How I wish the faction would function.

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How do you judge the faction(s)?

  1. Anansi_Tragoudia

    Anansi_Tragoudia New Member

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    So the lore would mean that you focus the most on the story line, and that determines how you would like the units and gameplay to be modified.

    The natural strategy is simply how they faction actually plays: Zerg, cheap masses; Protoss, few powerful; Terran...ect. In other words, what made hem work in Starcraft.

    Wish: how you envision the faction could work out, not specifically restricted to the story, or how the faction traditionally functioned.
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    I tend to judge based on the lore, and then run based on that. Tradition, to me, is too limiting. I would be perfectly comfortable with the Zerg changing quite significantly. For instance, I like the fact that the Zerg have excellent regeneration, though that clashes with the idea of being so easily disposable. I would love to see more of their infectious nature, corrupting flesh, viruses and all : )
     
  2. -LT-

    -LT- New Member

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    I judge by the lore surrounding the faction. I agree with everything you said.
     
  3. Maelstrom

    Maelstrom New Member

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    Lore is indeed important, but I think the most important thing is respecting the strategy sorrounding the race. Every single unit in the game respects this, so in the case of unit balancing, faction strategy comes 1st for me.
     
  4. furrer

    furrer New Member

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    Shouldn't this be posted in General StarCraft 2 Discussion
     
  5. Anansi_Tragoudia

    Anansi_Tragoudia New Member

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    I agree, could you Report to Mod please.
     
  6. LordKerwyn

    LordKerwyn New Member

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    I agree with the lore perspective but some wheight should be given to how they were played as well because you don't want to make to drastic of a change in play style.

    On a side note
    [me=LordKerwyn]casts Teleport Topic[/me]
     
  7. ZeR[g]LiNg

    ZeR[g]LiNg New Member

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    Yeah I think it really matters on what the races' abilities/advantages/strats (like the terran's new raiding strategies) should determine what unit concepts should be put in for each race. Each race's way of playing should be differentiated by skills and units. Then, the lore shoul determine how the concept is actually played in. For example, for Terran, if you wanted to give them the advantage of eing able to raid bases, give them four or five raiding units. Then a few abilities. Then, think of the concepts for each thing. Then, put it in realistically. Like, You wouldn't want a wormhole generator for a quick drop. You would use something like drop pods. It fits in with the nuke concept, and it has the original concept. And then there are the banhees, rapers, vikings, and so now the Terran are good raiders. That's how i think the faction's units should come about. The strats first, then lore and realness
     
  8. Anansi_Tragoudia

    Anansi_Tragoudia New Member

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    I like your thinking, very well said!
    ---------
    (fix that reaper typo, yikes)
     
  9. 10-Neon

    10-Neon New Member

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    Designing units around lore will lead to a craptasticular game. This is one of the reasons why so many movie-based games suck. If you want a good game, you need to, above all else, have good gameplay, so gameplay elements themselves have to be fun. Story comes second, and can be very easily built around whatever gameplay ends up emerging.

    Have you ever played Zelda or Mario? These games are considered to be pinnacle game series, but both of them have stories that are just thrown together to give color to the gameplay.

    From what I understand with Blizzard, they design units and races independent from the lore, build lore around them, then use the lore to come up with ideas for levels.
     
  10. zeratul11

    zeratul11 New Member

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    i think its should be base on lore. make the story first and then make the unit that will fit in the story.
     
  11. 10-Neon

    10-Neon New Member

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    Why? It would lead to a good story, yes, but how would that lead to a good game?
     
  12. stat

    stat New Member

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    good units in story... well convert and put them in game and balance them. there.
     
  13. zeratul11

    zeratul11 New Member

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    why thanks stat. lol

    uhm 10neon thank you for saying that i made a bad idea..can i know where or what exactly? thanks.

    back to the topic. just like the mothership you add them to the story and try to put them in game without it being imba. ^^
     
  14. 10-Neon

    10-Neon New Member

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    Multiple things on multiple threads that I ran into all at once, all of which seem to ignore what I believe to be fundamental game design principles.
     
  15. furrer

    furrer New Member

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    I think its a mixing of gameplay and lorewise really. Because you wouldn't give Terran a mass abilities like the zerg, just because it could let to a nice gameplay. Because that would screw up the whole story.
     
  16. LordKerwyn

    LordKerwyn New Member

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    10-Neon I completely disagree with you. Balance (gameplay in this case) may be important but it is the last step in the chain. You don't start off asking yourself how do we balance this idea we don't have. You start off thinking of some cool idea that fits really well in the faction the unit is being designed for. After you come up with said idea then you figure out how to implement it, how to make it work within the game itself. Finally, you start trying to modify numbers to balance or make it fit well into the gameplay.

    Take the Soul Hunter for example do you really believe this unit came about by thinking of balance and gameplay first? I would say no primarily because it doesn't work in the gameplay and that's why it was eliminated. It probably first started as,"Hey here's a cool idea why not create a unit that gets stronger as zealots die?" After some testing they probably said,"Having a unit get stronger by killing your own units doesn't make sense why don't we make it get stringer as it kills enemy units" after another good chunk of time of testing the unit and receiving some fan feedback along with thinking up other unit ideas the Soul Hunter was scrapped.

    Making new units and buildings with gameplay first is a bad philosophy, you should just try and come cool up with cool ideas that fans can support and then worry about gameplay second because numbers can always be changed to make a cool idea balanced. I would say its quite a bit more difficult to create a cool unit out of a generic idea.

    So in the end Lore/Cool Factor -> Implementation -> Balance/Gameplay.
     
  17. Bizarro_Paragon

    Bizarro_Paragon New Member

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    Actually Kerwyn, I believe I have to side with Neon. The Soul Hunter was a unit that came about because Blizzard was thinking of balance. Specifically, it was designed to be the Protoss' anti-Zerg unit, something that would have been even more necessary with the loss of the Reaver.

    Creative ideas are very hard to come by. When I was designing a unit for the Unit Design Competition a little while ago, I realized just how hard they had it. But one of the the biggest problems was that I was just trying to think up a unit out of thin air. I was all over the map. Once I had settled on a role for my unit to take, that's when I was able to hammer down some actual ideas for it.

    So for a game like Starcraft 2, where there is already established units and ideas, balance should be taken into account first. What sucked about each faction before? How do we fix it? By fixing it, are we overpowering the race? Then, once it's decided which problems are going to be addressed and to what extent, then ideas are put in place to take up those roles. Then the whole process repeats itself, over and over. I think it's apparent from the Zealot's Charge ability and the Twilight Archon lore that Blizzard can make up some pretty good lore no matter what the circumstances are.

    So in the end, for a sequel,
    Balance/Gameplay ---> Implementation ---> Lore ----> Lather ----> Rinse ----> Repeat.
     
  18. LordKerwyn

    LordKerwyn New Member

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    You make a good point Bizzaro assuming the Soul Hunter was originally designed to capture the souls of its enemies, which it wasn't. Blizzard has actually stated in an interview that the Soul Hunter originally captured the souls of fallen allies to augment its own power. It have been in affect a commander like unit instead of an anti swarmer which it became oce Blizzard decided that it was a bad idea to have a unit get stronger when your own units die. (How they came about this decision im not sure though) Also it should be noted the Reaver was still in the game before the Soul Hunter was scrapped, so while it may have been good against mass weak units I doupt it was designed that way.

    Also that is just one example what would you call the role of the original Mothership? The Mothership is a perfect example of a unit that was spawned from lore because it answered the age old question,"what the hell was that Protoss unit that glassed a planet in the original SC opening trailer?"

    The first thing you think of (in my opinion) when designing a unit isn't, "what role will this fill?", iits "whats a cool idea and how do I turn it inot a unit?" The Predator is another potential example of what Im saying, I would guess it started off just as an idea for a unit to shoot missles out of the sky and it evolved into a Terran AA unit. I would guees the decision of role comes about in the implementation phase of production when the question,"How do we make this work?" comes into play.

    So again Idea ---> Implementation ---> Balance (No matter what Balance has to come last because you can't balance nothimg in the terms of unit/structure ideas, if your talking about factions thats a whole different disscussion with balance still ending as the last check in the process)