[RTS] Starcraft II: A Clash of Warlords - Concept preview

[Jackyy.BaDitO2]

Starcraft II: A Clash of Warlords
General Concept

I: Intro
A Clash of Warlords is a RTS Mod based on Starcraft II and World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor.
The main goal of the mod is to provide a balanced and competetive RTS based in the Warcraft Universe, since a Warcraft IV is not in sight.
Due the focus on the multiplayer focus, there will be NO Singleplayer campaings.
Also to limit the amount of work, I decided only to include 3 maps in the „release“ version, but more CAN be added later.

II: Factions
You will be able to choose from two factions:
The Iron Horde: The Iron Horde is the faction created by Garrosh Hellscream and the rogue bronze Dragon Kairoz. Garrosh supplied the uncorrupted Orcs of Draenor’s past with modern technology. The brute strenght and the iron will of the orcs combined with the technology of Garrosh are a deadly combination, yet the Iron Horde lacks in magic. Even the Shadowmoon and Bleeding Hollow Clans provides Garrosh with casters, they are no match for the seasoned wizards from Azeroth.

Khadgar’s Expedition: In order to counter the threat created by Garrosh’s Iron Horde, the wise Archmage Khadgar launched an expedition to Draenor. Even his army is ill prepared to face the combined might of the clans, the powerfull wizards of the Bloodelves and the mighty Paladins of the Alliance may prove as the decisive factor in this conflict.

I plan to mostly mirror the two races for the sake of balance. But the difference (and the tactical depht) will come from the abilities of the units. As described above, the Iron Horde will focus on physical units and abilities while the Expedition will have to counter this with the clever and effective use of magic.

III. Maps
As already stated above there will be a relatively few number of maps at the beginning. I plan to bring for the beginning 3 old Warcraft III E-Sport maps back from the grave in a Warlords of Draenor Setting.

I picked this maps

WC3-----------------------------A Clash of Warlords
Echo Isles (1 vs 1) ---------=>---Zangara Isles (1 vs 1)
Plunder Isle (1 vs 1) --------=> ---Farahlon (1 vs 1)
Lost Temple (1 vs 1, 2 vs 2) -=> --The Temple of Karabor (1vs1)

Yet I have no plans to include a hero system into my mod, neutral units (creeps) and some special neutral buildings will play a very crucial role. Maybe even more then in Warcraft III. I have some very intresting concepts for them.

IV: Teching, Units etc…
The Techning will consist of three tiers and serval buildings which will provide upgrades.
You will be able to build ground, siegde, caster and air units.
There are no plans to include naval units.
In addition you will be able to hire neutral units on some maps and some special upgrades for your units will drop from neutral units (creeps).

V: Single Player content
Not planned.

VI: Addition Information
The main focus of the mod will be to provide balanced gameplay. I am willing to sacrifise every kind of fancy graphical stuff or over-complicated spells if they hinder this.


What do you think about my concept? I tried to design it so a single person (me) can finish this within a year.

 

[Dr Super Good]

You might want to stay away from copying WC3 mechanics exactly. One must remember that WC3 was built around being World of Warcraft originally before it was changed into an RTS. As such it has a lot of complex DND like mechanics to it which are completely superfluous to gameplay.

A good example would be with hero stats. Although the concept of levelling itself is good and adds to gameplay, the concept of heroes having individual stat quantities is adding pointless complexity. Instead of starting with stats, they could be integrated into the hero's base properties. Instead of gaining stats with levels, tomes and items you could gain the properties directly. The end result is the exact same unit without 3 different numeric values representing property modifications.

Instead of every point of armor representing +6% toughness to weapon damage, it could represent +1% toughness to weapon damage. This would mean that a unit with 100 armor (+100% toughness to weapons) could take exactly twice as much damage from weapons as one with 0 armor. This is a lot more logical for players than giving them a damage reduction amount and some abstract armor number.

Likewise armor types could be removed and instead replaced with the SC2 approach of damage modifiers. This allows each unit to be more precisely tailored with its combat capabilities (effective against X type units) rather than trying to fulfil a generic role (is a magic damage dealer).

An alternative would be to forgo armor completely and instead give units percentage damage reduction against certain damage sources. Improving "armor" would improve this damage reduction percentage a known amount. This approach was used by Age of Mythology.

I do not think SC2 style armor is a good approach. It results more often than not in the old Age of Empires problem of archers hitting buildings for 1 damage. Suddenly you get an upgrade for them and they are hitting for either 1 damage still or for >>2 damage (twice as much damage or better). As such the mechanic is highly criticised in the RTS community and strongly advised against. SC2 gets away with it because the game is very well balanced and the amount of armor is kept small (Zerglings and Marines can still deal more than 1 damage to the units with the most armor).

I would also recommend against upkeep mechanic. The purpose in WC3 seemed to be to discourage population cap sized armies (or make them harder to build). SC2 shows that such mechanic is not needed as people will still fight early game and late game the larger armies give more opportunities for micro and make for better viewing.

 

[Jackyy.BaDitO2]

thank you for your tips.

don't worry, this is not intended to be a clone of any of the Warcraft RTS games nor the Starcraft games.
Yet this does not mean I wont include systems of this games that I think will give the game more depht.

The desicion to clone the Warcraft 3 maps was a relativly pragmatic one:
it saves time for me to focus on balacing the numbers intead of balancing both the map and the numbers.

I really learned in my last major project, to keep the size of the project realistic. At the end i was working on the mod 15-30 hours a week (in addition to my full time job^^) over 1 year and it felt like i did not really make much progress.
At the end i had to cancel it due pure burnout, and i was really ashamed that i was not able to release something playable in some kind.
This is why some aspects might seem copied in the first place but it really should not feel that was once it reaches a playable state.

For the armor i have a classical sisser-paper-stone system in mind.

I'd planned to use this formula to calculate the armor and damage type inpact

Damage*Factor-(Damage*DamageReduction/100)=EffectiveDamamgeDone

for example, a Caster hits a heavy-armored unit harder lets say for instance for the factor 1.5, and the Heavy-armored unit has 20% damage reduction. The DamamgeDone of the caster is 10

10*1.5-(10*20/100)=13

In addition I plan to keep attack base damaged fixxed atleast until the last balance tests. At first i want to balance it with "fixed" numbers and then add the RNG factors, to keep matters atleast at the beginning more simple for me.