This is an incredibly exciting time for the team at Frost Giant. Now that we’ve announced Stormgate, we can talk about our upcoming universe and our plans for the game in much greater detail. Please note that we are still early into development and things can change, but these discussions reflect our current plans and thinking. Let’s get into it!
We announced Stormgate just a few days after our last discussion topic, which explored some of the different aspects of modern video game publishing. We asked for your input on a variety of topics, including Early Access, box-model vs. game-as-a-service (GaaS) releases, physical collectibles, and so on. We greatly appreciated the fantastic response–we received more comments tha...
Read more External link →In various interviews it's been mentioned that in Starcraft 2, Air vs Air combat is both less interesting and hard for casters and/or views to discern what's happening.
Do you think some of the issues with Air vs Air combat are caused not just by the ignoring terrain, but also the the way that Air units also ignore each other and can just stack on top of each other?
Have you experimented at all with how Air units stack? Also, have you experimented with any form of "air terrain" (high cliffs, clouds, etc. - anything that could block line of sight or air unit movement)
Funny you should mention this. In one of our prototypes, we ran into a lot of problems where air units would stick together too closely by default when a-moving (no special microing required). This caused a lot of issues where the DPS density was too high against ground units, focused on a single point, and it was very difficult to target and pick off weak air units. So how air units stack and naturally spread while a-moving is something we’re looking at. That said, we think stacking air units has its place as long as the air units aren’t overpowering. For example, there’s very interesting play and counterplay against deliberately stacking Mutalisks that can hit-and-run in the StarCraft franchise.
In terms of terrain, we’re actively looking at air pathing blockers that “work”. Though air pathing blockers technically existed in SC2, units did not understand how to path around them, which led to odd behavior on maps such as New Gettysburg.
Your cloud idea is interesti...
Read moreWhat game would be the most similar one in terms of base building?
In terms of base building, two key sources of inspiration include Warcraft III and They Are Billions.
In Warcraft III, the placement of all your buildings matters a lot, and different buildings have different levels of vulnerability, leading to varied harassment and interaction among the factions.
They Are Billions takes this concept to another level where every building has unique abilities/adjacency bonuses, and base-building is almost half the game. That being said, we recognize that They Are Billions is a single-player RTS and thus the player can be expected to pay a greater % of his attention to this particular aspect of the game. But it is interesting to think about how much of this we can translate into a multiplayer RTS.
Hey folks. In what manner do you plan to design and distinguish units to fit into campaign, versus, and co-op simultaneously? Versus places strict limitations on what a unit should be able to do in order to be fun in versus, but that's very different in campaign and coop. Will you design the base unit and its functionalities for versus first, and then keep fun abilities and ideas in mind that can be added on to the unit for coop and campaign?
For instance, the basic functionality of the Diamondback doesn't work for versus and was scrapped as a design, but returned in the campaign and much later in Coop. So could we ever see a unit whose basic functionality and behavior isn't designed with versus in mind?
Yes! Our current focus is designing fair, balanced, and interesting units for the versus modes. But along the way, we’ll certainly have wacky ideas that end up on the cutting room floor, which will end up in our PvE modes. This doesn’t apply to just units, but also for potential abilities as well, for example, how the Adept has slightly different abilities across all the various modes of SC2. For a new RTS that has multiple modes, I think the process you’re describing often comes organically.
What 2022 games are you most excited about?
I'm a sucker for any new Pokemon release, so while I've had my fair share with Arceus this year, I still can't wait for Pokemon Violet/Scarlett.
How do you plan to avoid the deathballs?
As many of us hail from SC2, deathballs are a constant topic in our minds. First, to preface this topic, we aim to at least rival the crisp pathfinding found in SC2 that allows players to engage in the game with minimal frustration. That being said, we recognize that this style of pathfinding does encourage deathballs, so from this starting point, it’s all about finding strategies to mitigate these deathballs. Without going too much in-depth into each of the options, here are just some things we’re looking at:
For Kevin, about Co-op:
- What ways are you looking at to make Co-op 'infinitely replayable'?
- Given the focus on cooperative play in all game modes, including Campaign, is the 3vE Co-op mode likely to be called 'Co-op' or are you looking at different ways to describe this game mode?
Coming from the starting point of StarCraft II, we’re going to be tackling replayability from multiple angles:
The first is customization. StarCraft II had both the Mastery and Prestige systems of customization, which allowed you to customize commanders via four vectors with two to three choices per vector. In Stormgate, we aim to greatly expand the number of customization options you’ll be able to play around with. Combine this with a shift to three players and a greater focus on cooperation opportunities in Stormgate unlocks even more ways to play the game!
Second, we’re going to look at lethality in order to enable endlessly scalable difficulties. SC2 Co-op was built on the foundation of highly lethal SC2 units. And because of this high lethality, it became unintentionally balanced around deleting waves instantly either via your units’ high DPS or very powerful “nuke”-style calldowns. One of the side effects of this was that we could never make debuffs feel good ...
Read moreAnd from the bottom of my filthy developer heart, thank you for sharing your story.
Co-op especially has a very place in my heart, and from both me and the team, we can't wait to share with you what we've been working on tomorrow. =)
Discussion Topic - 2022/6 - Approaches to Game Launch and Beyond
The way in which games are developed and released has changed a lot over the years. Several distinct approaches to launching and supporting a game with post-release content have emerged over time. We’d like to discuss some of the more common models and get your perspective on them as a player.
The “Old-School” box model
Launching a game with a single primary content release is about as close to the old standard of physical boxes lining store shelves as it gets. Remember those? Some of us miss those boxes and the goodies inside, like art books, mouse pads, and cloth maps. Having a physical connection to the game feels great, and it’s easier to display a box on your bookshelf than a digital game key.
The main advantage of this approach, whether it’s physical or digital, is that a lot of content is released right away. From a player perspective this usu...
Read more External link →In February, we discussed some of our thoughts and plans for our editor and the experience of creating and playing custom maps within our game. We also asked you to share your experiences with player-created content, and what you would like to see from our tools and custom game experience.
As usual, you provided us with a great deal of fantastic feedback, and we have gone through all of it. The discussion even spanned multiple forums–in addition to the Reddit thread, we also heard from RTS fans on the SC2Mapster Discord, and on the ...
Read more External link →User-generated content (UGC) is one of several pillars we view as essential to creating the next great RTS game. We hope the breadth of this topic inspires discussion from a wide range of perspectives. Please feel free to offer your thoughts and opinions on any or all of the discussion areas below. While things like YouTube tutorials and community-organized events could be considered UGC, for the purposes of this discussion we’re focusing on player-created maps, mods, and custom games.
Legacy & Community
Desert Strike, Aeon of Strife, Defense of the Ancients, Cat vs. Mouse, Diplomacy, Micro/Macro, Mini-Game Party, Mafia, Castle Fight, Phantom, Bounds, Risk II, Bunker Wars, Nexus Wars, Golems, 4v4 Micro Jungle, Hamsters vs. Space Vacuums . . . we could go on and on. Players have now been creating and enjoying custom RTS game experiences across four different decades!
The legacy of UGC in RTS games is beyond comparison. Entire game genres, suc...
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