Vapourware What would Warcraft IV look like, if you could design it?

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

I always like when WC3's story is praised even though the whole Arthas arc thing is yet another "Dark Wanderer" thing that Blizz has done in just about every one of their big three from Starcraft to Warcraft.

And Arthas was a faggot.

 

[Citizen]

Big anime tiddies I guess

 

[catfood]

Starcraft > Warcraft 3 > Solitaire >>>>>>> Warcrap 2

 

[L'ennui]

I would make a Kohan spinoff structured around a replayable Risk-type grand strategy campaign where you conquer the world one territory at a time. There would be storyline events tied to certain territories, triggered on your faction or the heroes present, complete with Blizztard-quality cinematics.

When using the Polymorph spell during repeatedly on the same unit, there would be an easter egg that turns it into Bobby Kotick running around with a bag of gold, like those Diablo 3 treasure goblins. Kill the greedy fucker and you would be rewarded with a boon of gold.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

I wonder... should we stick with four races or add more? Humans/Orcs/Undead/Night Elves is already pretty good balance. Burning Legion and Draenei could round it to six. Maybe add Naga (alongside and some sort of Old Ones' servant race to round it to eight?

The Legion was going to be a race originally but they cut them from development.

Its funny that WC3 and FT already feature those races in certain ways. Naga are pretty much a fully-functional fifth race in Frozen Throne, I remember they had some neat units.

Alternatively... take a page from WOW. Alliance (Humans, Dwarves, Night Elves, Gnomes) vs Horde (Orcs, Tauren, Trolls, Forsaken). Then Scourge (Undead and co under the Lich King) and Burning Legion.

It would be interesting seeing Humans >> Alliance shift, whatwith Night Elf units in place of High Elves. Imagine fighting a Knights-Huntresses combined cavalry force.

As for gameplay... I dunno. I would bring back naval units, naval units are cool. Perhaps deepening the RPG system of heroes, but no idea how. Perhaps take some cues from Dawn of War, like the squad system and terrain? Terrain definitively needs to be more important, fighting in Lordaeron terrain should't be same thing as fighting in Northrend.

I always like when WC3's story is praised even though the whole Arthas arc thing is yet another "Dark Wanderer" thing that Blizz has done in just about every one of their big three from Starcraft to Warcraft.

And Arthas was a faggot.

Arthas did nothing wrong.

I do wonder what would have happened without the Frostmourne corruption. Arthas was already kinda cray-cray even before the corruption.
He would't have killed his own father upon his return, but he would have probably been renegade as fuck.

 

[JarlFrank]

Starcraft was set in space I don't know if other RTS did that

Plenty of RTS in space, even before Star Craft. But my favorite is a Star Craft clone set in actual space, with planets and spaceships and shit.

EDIT:
What the fuck I forgot to mention its name. Conquest Frontier Wars.

 

[J1M]

If this is about a pitch for funding, tell them WC4 is an RTS with a 100 person free-for-all mode like Fortnite.

If this is about taking the RTS genre somewhere new, I would eliminate mechanics that primarily reward high actions-per-minute and shift things towards more 'strategy'.

This will be heresy to some of you, but I'm not convinced that building dozens of workers each game or manually placing buildings should consume as much of the player's time as it does. To test this hypothesis, I would start by setting income at a constant rate and testing various map-specific objectives that players could capture to increase their income rate. Some of those objectives would essentially be gold mines like a traditional expansion location. More interesting ideas would be things like an income boost for the player who has presently killed the most murlocs, or sacrificed the most units at an altar, or the player who has built the longest road. Pursuing each objective is a strategic decision with regards to how much time/resources it will take to obtain and if it can be done safely.

I'd also take strides to lessen the strength of ranged units and massing your entire army into one ball. (See StarCraft 2 for an example of what happens otherwise.) I want to see players with multiple effective groups of units in different places on the map and I don't think whether or not you were looking at the right place for the first half-second of combat should be the primary factor in who wins an engagement.

Now, if combat is going to take longer and it's going to be unlikely that players can completely starve each other of resources, that implies a very lengthy match if a losing player refuses to resign. So to address that issue and to add another future-staple to the RTS genre, I would also introduce alternate win conditions. You've all seen them in something like Alpha Centauri. Think WWII nukes, but fantasy-themed around a fictional god/magic/neutral army.

Each player could end a match with any of three win conditions:
- Destroy all enemy town halls
- Map-specific win condition any player can complete
- Faction-specific win condition

TLDR: APM matters less, no units mining, weaker ranged units, split armies, alternate win conditions

 

[JarlFrank]

If this is about a pitch for funding, tell them WC4 is an RTS with a 100 person free-for-all mode like Fortnite.

If this is about taking the RTS genre somewhere new, I would eliminate mechanics that primarily reward high actions-per-minute and shift things towards more 'strategy'.

This will be heresy to some of you, but I'm not convinced that building dozens of workers each game or manually placing buildings should consume as much of the player's time as it does. To test this hypothesis, I would start by setting income at a constant rate and testing various map-specific objectives that players could capture to increase their income rate. Some of those objectives would essentially be gold mines like a traditional expansion location. More interesting ideas would be things like an income boost for the player who has presently killed the most murlocs, or sacrificed the most units at an altar, or the player who has built the longest road. Pursuing each objective is a strategic decision with regards to how much time/resources it will take to obtain and if it can be done safely.

I'd also take strides to lessen the strength of ranged units and massing your entire army into one ball. (See StarCraft 2 for an example of what happens otherwise.) I want to see players with multiple effective groups of units in different places on the map and I don't think whether or not you were looking at the right place for the first half-second of combat should be the primary factor in who wins an engagement.

Now, if combat is going to take longer and it's going to be unlikely that players can completely starve each other of resources, that implies a very lengthy match if a losing player refuses to resign. So to address that issue and to add another future-staple to the RTS genre, I would also introduce alternate win conditions. You've all seen them in something like Alpha Centauri. Think WWII nukes, but fantasy-themed around a fictional god/magic/neutral army.

Each player could end a match with any of three win conditions:
- Destroy all enemy town halls
- Map-specific win condition any player can complete
- Faction-specific win condition

TLDR: APM matters less, no units mining, weaker ranged units, split armies, alternate win conditions

Just play AoE2 bro.

 

[Van-d-all]

Make it Wargame 4, then say I missed the memo it was supposed to be Warcraft.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

I never understood why Infinitron deletes the good stuff when it's much more fun to edit it.

 

[Lagi]

If this is about a pitch for funding, tell them WC4 is an RTS with a 100 person free-for-all mode like Fortnite.

If this is about taking the RTS genre somewhere new, I would eliminate mechanics that primarily reward high actions-per-minute and shift things towards more 'strategy'.

This will be heresy to some of you, but I'm not convinced that building dozens of workers each game or manually placing buildings should consume as much of the player's time as it does. To test this hypothesis, I would start by setting income at a constant rate and testing various map-specific objectives that players could capture to increase their income rate. Some of those objectives would essentially be gold mines like a traditional expansion location. More interesting ideas would be things like an income boost for the player who has presently killed the most murlocs, or sacrificed the most units at an altar, or the player who has built the longest road. Pursuing each objective is a strategic decision with regards to how much time/resources it will take to obtain and if it can be done safely.

I'd also take strides to lessen the strength of ranged units and massing your entire army into one ball. (See StarCraft 2 for an example of what happens otherwise.) I want to see players with multiple effective groups of units in different places on the map and I don't think whether or not you were looking at the right place for the first half-second of combat should be the primary factor in who wins an engagement.

Now, if combat is going to take longer and it's going to be unlikely that players can completely starve each other of resources, that implies a very lengthy match if a losing player refuses to resign. So to address that issue and to add another future-staple to the RTS genre, I would also introduce alternate win conditions. You've all seen them in something like Alpha Centauri. Think WWII nukes, but fantasy-themed around a fictional god/magic/neutral army.

Each player could end a match with any of three win conditions:
- Destroy all enemy town halls
- Map-specific win condition any player can complete
- Faction-specific win condition

TLDR: APM matters less, no units mining, weaker ranged units, split armies, alternate win conditions

this is goild. Every single word of this post. Thanks for the efford writing this. It makes me think.

- remove the heroes, and XP feed. So separate task force (flying harassers to kill some workers) make some sens.
- the units should react inertially to orders, like in DoW1. No micro to avoid single arrows.
- as Brazilian Slaughter said: more terrain use. and navy (sub, amphibious) units.

 

[vota DC]

And underground like Armies of Exigo.

 

[Lambach]

It would be RTwP because I colossally suck at RTS games, specially Warcraft where so many units have so many active abilities you need to micro-manage.

 

[Lagi]

people you dont have to play at max speed!
I play rts at top speed at start, to speed up the boring workers/structure raise, and then i set it to slow. Then its a complete different game, i have enough time for using skills, commanding troops, check other places on map, give orders, and combat dont end in 3 sec (but in 9 sec, and its a big difference).

If you have heros to feed with XP, it take away your attention. You cannot focus on droping siege machinces with air transport, to take down few buildings, because meanwhile opponents hero become unstoppable (and you need your own godzilla stop him).
If units are gaining XP, its a little better. But lets take TZAR f.ex. there xp is just a feature, until you get gamebreaking tech. Like training (grinding levels on dummys) then even your weakest infantry can compete with late units.

Underground in Armies of Exigo was undercooked. It would be fun (or chore?), if you could drill your own tunnels and make exits (like in Earth2150). Caves should affect economy, like: underground there is no trees, but plenty of crystals - surface could be opposite, and this would dictate army compositions (AoExigo has Gold,Wood,Crystal resources). Underground could ve been forbiden for flying unit to enter (make sens), this would nicely limit omnipresence of flyers, that happen in every RTS.

gold as a resource make little sens, in small scale warfare. Wood is great. Food as well, but its used to limit units number. Third resource, could be a metal/ore.

 

[JarlFrank]

All the night elf girls would be barefoot and get special foot-related magic abilities