Poll: Units show battle scars?

This sort of ties into Terrans being gritty overall or not but this focuses on whether all units capable of showing 'battle scars' once damage has been recieved should be put into effect and how this can affect gameplay.

I think Blizzard should show battle scars where possible as it adds to the realism which is strong in Starcraft. Also it can give rise some tactics and management options that will be undertaken by the player at hand such as:
40 Marines vs 20 Zealots
The Marine are ready for the Zealots attack but they have been in a battle already and the battle scars vary due to severness of the damage so what do you do? Move the damaged ones to the back of the army while the higher hp Marines are at the front to take the majority of the first attack from the Zealots which boosts the Terrans survival rate as they can quickly distinguish which units will die easier than others.
This can also work on the Zealots favour as the player would be able to recognise which units will die first therefor cutting the Marines numbers down faster ensuring the majority of Zealots survive the Terrans range and stim-packs.
So in effect this will add another micro aspect making the game more interesting allowing players to adapt to a situation more effectively by such a simple thing as battle scars.

Please further speculate on how this could effect gameplay and other things related to this topic would tie in.

 

Since we know that in Starcraft II holding down shift + alt (I think) will show the health of all units on screen for the player, I don't think such a visual mechanic would really affect play very much.

That said, I'm all for some damage effects simply for eye candy. Good idea.

 

That'd be great alternative for WC3s system where you hold Alt and all the units get little health bars below them showing their health.

But I actually think that this will reduce micro, because instead of having to place your mouse over a unit to see it's damage or just selecting a group and seeing who's damaged you can just look at the units without having to do anything, although it may be a skill to be able to identify a unit's damage merely by looking at it's level of damage, I just don't think it's a good idea.

Also, I don't think that SC2 will be a detailed enough game to be able to adequately place damage marks of various level on units.

 

I was thinking that also, if I'm in a decisive battle trying to micro the shit outta my oppenent I wouldn't wanna constantly hold alt+shift to see every units hp. That also limits you less time for more useful hotkeys.

But on the damage indicators I was thinking for every 10% of damage recieved add a randomly generated graphic thats relevant to the unit of course, possibly the attack as it would look weird if Zealots were fighting Zerglings and they started showing bullet holes.

 

I say yes this would be a nice feature not just graphically but also and indicator as to when your units are about to kick the bucket (this has been done in many others and it works well)

 

Well while this is not exactly on top topic I would suggest adding a command (like ctrl something of shift something) that toggles showing the little health bar under units. I suggest this because I really like the idea of adding "battle scaring" to units as they take damage but because of the potnential graphical load it could give an unfair advantage to someone with a better computer. So adding a toggle would make this addition purely graphical with no effect on gameplay.

 

Thats a good idea if you wanna go down the purely gameplay route. Just for clearification, you mean like instead of holding alt+ctrl, you just click it once and instead of it going when you let go it stays?

Also I don't understand how people talk about graphical strains when its a large 3D engine with very rich graphics. Basic graphics like the battle scars would put little strain on the pc if it can run Starcraft2 anyway.
imo if people want to complain about tiny add on graphics and not on things that will put strain on hardware such as mass carriers or even any huge mass then I just don't know lol.
But little things also make gameplay a lot more pleasing not just the big things.

 

i think they should remove the alt(see all life of untis) button or options and instead add battle scars to maximize the use of the visual effect. this would create more complex strategy than just relying on looking on the green bars/ red bars etc of your opponents...and also you can see immediately your own units which are already been damage etc without clicking them.

 

Zergalicous yeah thats what I meant instead of holding it down you click the combination once and it stays on click it again and it turns off. As for the graphics part of your post, your right on a few it would make almost no difference to the lagginess of a game, but as more and more units gain battle scars it could start havbing a small effect and those small effects just slowly add up. Its kinda like hauling around a jar of pennies any indivdual penny won't wheigh very much at all but as that jar starts to fill its going to become a load to lug around.

 

Wow.... Intense metaphor..... I agree with LK, even if that wasn't my original idea.... or was it? i forget....

 

Depends on your knowledge of graphics and stuff, I don't know if you're familiar in the graphic design side of things (I am to an extent as I'm an art student in college ) But yea you would be right although it depends on what kinda rendering or texture formats etc they apply. Like if they did the battle scars in a non intensive format such as .gif it wouldn't have a signifigant effects as it would be similar to things like the grass, patterns on the rock etc. which do not create any lag, if anything the water would create more lag than battle scars.
But I do see what you mean, but I think by the time the graphics of battle scars could have any effect on the hardware the unit would die anyway as Starcraft is a high action game where every unit is expendable on different levels.

You could imagine how Protoss and Terrans would look damaged but what kinda battle scars do you think Zerg could/would have?

 

I think it would be more natural to identify damaged units by scars and visible damage than to look at small bars beneath them, which would make for better gameplay. After all, damage is visible in real life, health bars aren't.

I also agree that it would be better to see visible damage than having to hold down keys to view health bars, since I tend to use hotkeys a fair bit to take action more quickly.

 

I think showing battle scars would be helpful and cool for those of us with a hopped up graphics card.

 

It wouldn't impact your system tho, its the same graphic as grass and rock texture. The units them selfs will lag you if anything.

 

mhh i like the idea, but i agree with some users, since we are talking about 3d units, anything that happens to them needs to be animated, coded procesed, so if for example, you have a battlecruiser 1/3 of its hp, lets say it shows damage by releasing smoke or something like that, well that smoke is made of particle effects right? or at least thats what i understand, but hell, i guess they could add an option where you can dissable or enable these effects.

 

Maybe an option if you want smoke, but what I'm suggesting is just scars, small dents, bullet holes, blackening, cracks etc. anything simple along these lines but not really fire, blood or smoke.
But on the smoke thing I think it would lag the game if you have like 40 vikings and they was all emiting smoke.

 

that would be unbelievably much modeling work...

 

A simple scar/dent would be a lot of modeling work? Yet they have Motherships and what not.

 

I like something when it is near falling apart which is about to break

IMO, i think there shouldn't be any dents or any battle scars, it looks good as it is

 

a dent in a unit is as much work as creating the unit again,