Bloody mess?

Here's a thought: Would you like to see/experience tons of dead unit's bodies scattered around the battlefield? This idea came to me when i played protoss mission "In to the darkness" few days ago where you find marine corpses all over the instalation wich was actually really cool and scary. Ofc - dead units would have no team color (or just gray); they would also go pale so you couldn't confuse them with live soldiers, etc etc.... In other words simple like this: would you like to see dead units not disappear when they die?

(those who explode leave behind piles of dust and metal scraps, or if they are zerg blood stains)

I know this would eventualy hurt gameplay, but who do not wont to see how ground would REALLY look like after 20min brutal terran/zerg/protoss clash?
Since starCRAFT is epic struggle between three most powerfull races in universe: heck - let me see THE REAL Hell like it really is out there!

My suggestion: let this idea be some kind of reward or something so you can just check it in options later after you finish the game or collect enough points...

Please dont piss on this idea with comments like "How would you build on such terrain?!", instead make suggestions how to solve the issues wich would eventualy pop-up if this idea get green light. If not, simply elaborate why this idea sucks.

Thanks for you time, and sorry for poor grammar and vocabular.

In Dawn of war they have such effeckts so you can set in such setings in options if you want the corpses to disapear fast, medium or stay untill the map is complited.
I think it would be really nice to have such options in SC2 couse it would give a more realistic feel to the battle.
but the downside would be after playing some time on a map it would be sooooooo many corpses etc so the game would prolly start lagging etc. but then you can just turn it of and it would disapear.

Too many corpses = slow game ...then make some kind of limit on corpses - old ones would dissapear when new units die. This way I would be happy and there's no lagg. :D

Your not obligated to make them stay all the game. But a very slow despawn could be cool. Like you come 3-4 minutes after a big battle are there's still tanks in fire XD

Yep. Must love this idea.

That sounds like a cool idea, but all those corpses/hulls would mean one of two things:
a) Blocking the path for live units;
- or -
b) Live units would clip through them and it would look weird;

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Originally Posted by Freespace

That sounds like a cool idea, but all those corpses/hulls would mean one of two things:
a) Blocking the path for live units;
- or -
b) Live units would clip through them and it would look weird;

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Hm.. Right now corpse remains 2-3 sec on the screen and then it's gone. In the meantime units that kill them can walk over without problem and it's not weird.

http://starcraft2.com/features/misc/deathanimations.xml Here's my point. They stand on dead zerglings limbs and then walk over dead roaches and hydras few sec later.

Same thing would be implied in this idea.

Now imagine 10 ultralisk corpses and 5 colossi hulls. Make a marine go trough that.

Good point. Dead huge units should make physical barrier. If that's problem: let ultralisk's corpse have 200 hit points (couse it's huge!) so it could be utterly destroyed later - like rocks on passage.
But not those that explode (which most do).

They could do it but only for single player imo or ums. I don't think this is a good idea for multiplayer. You really don't want any lag and have a clear vision of what's going on. It might be harder to see your units if there's tons of corpses everywhere and so it could be harder to micro. Unless you show me with pictures a way for it to work, I don't think it's a good idea.

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Originally Posted by Bobo

Good point. Dead huge units should make physical barrier. If that's problem: let ultralisk's corpse have 200 hit points (couse it's huge!) so it could be utterly destroyed later - like rocks on passage.
But not those that explode (which most do).

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I hope that's a joke. If you're going to introduce that kind of things, you might as well re-balance the whole game.

It would work in multiplayer but only as a optional map mode: fun/gore or something like that... And in singleplayer as a reward maybe?

Or you could just have the blood and scorches on the ground remain. That wouldn't impact gameplay or look weird.

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Originally Posted by KDraconis

Or you could just have the blood and scorches on the ground remain. That wouldn't impact gameplay or look weird.

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Yeah, that sounds much better. Have the blood and scorches and craters stay for a much longer time. Also, units that walk through the blood can leave blood trails ( that vanish in a few seconds ).

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Originally Posted by LXM

I hope that's a joke. If you're going to introduce that kind of things, you might as well re-balance the whole game.

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Like I said: this would be optional.

Plus I dont see how this thing would shake the balance of the game even in multiplayer(?). It's just new destroyable doodad on tileset! Or do you simply dislike new suggestions? Because from what see, people will be most happy if they just make sc1 in new engine. So much from fondness of creativity...

Beside of flooding the screen with corpses and having hard time playing like that, i dont see good argument in coment like "this would impact fragile balance". If the idea is acceptable, fuck the balance. Why are so many people affraid of new things? They'll balance everything in the end eventualy.

Bad idea. Lingering corpses in MP causes unnecessary lag. This is a very old discussion, and it always comes down to gameplay > everything else.

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Originally Posted by DemolitionSquid

Bad idea. Lingering corpses in MP causes unnecessary lag. This is a very old discussion, and it always comes down to gameplay > everything else.

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I know that everything go in the meatgrinder for the sake of sacred gameplay...but have you consider the idea of corpse limit ?
20, 50, 100, 150 even 200 per team and there still wouldn't be no lagg! (even in 2v2!)

I like the idea of massive (or even large) units forming obstacles when they dies, provided that they have low hp and/or fade away in under a minute (say 30 seconds for large units, 45-50 for massive ones).

The long lasting remnant have to be little or close to the ground and don't clip whit any unit upper than feet or wheels. Like blood, ashes, zerg spikes or any member, protoss pieces or any little havoc think popping everywhere (they lose ability to move after a couple of second).

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Beside of flooding the screen with corpses and having hard time playing like that, i dont see good argument in coment like "this would impact fragile balance".

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That's like saying, "if you ignore all the stupid around the idea, it's great!" Making it harder to make things out is not a trivial issue; this is not something you can brush aside.

The fundamental purpose behind all graphics in a videogame, the reason why we have graphics at all, is to inform the player. This allows them to actually play the game, not just watch it. If you're adding things that make this difficult or impossible, then you are working against playability. And that's not acceptable.

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Originally Posted by Nicol Bolas

The fundamental purpose behind all graphics in a videogame, the reason why we have graphics at all, is to inform the player. This allows them to actually play the game, not just watch it. If you're adding things that make this difficult or impossible, then you are working against playability. And that's not acceptable.

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I just imagined a horde of Banelings hiding in an Ultralisk corpse and ambushing some Terrans. :D

And I don't think the "corpses becoming obstacles" is able to be balanced. It's like, "Hey, whenever you play a map, random doodads will appear that you have to destroy. They might block choke points or mineral lines, but oh well." It's way too random and sometimes exploitable that it couldn't possibly be incorporated well.

Although, the idea would be okay in singleplayer. But what isn't okay in singleplayer?

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But what isn't okay in singleplayer?

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Koreans showing up and kickin' your butt :p

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Originally Posted by Nicol Bolas

The fundamental purpose behind all graphics in a videogame, the reason why we have graphics at all, is to inform the player. This allows them to actually play the game, not just watch it. If you're adding things that make this difficult or impossible, then you are working against playability. And that's not acceptable.

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I have different position about graphics. Its main purpose is to make games
as much as real as possible so that you experience it closest to a real life
possible and then "inform the player". From my point of view: corpses
on the battlefield does make sense - it sucks you in to the horror of battles.
But I just wanted an opinion from you guys. I am more of singleplay
gamer...and in singleplayer, like KDrakonis said, everything goes. Just
thought if you make corpse limit and the whole thing as an option, you might agree.
But from what I see, most of you dont like it and it's not breakthrough idea
according brainstorm it (didn't) caused... so.. no GO.

Too bad.

For normal multiplayer melee, I am against the idea of corpses that remain for any reason; however, I would really like to see this kind of stuff in the campaigns and in custom maps. The "Broodlings ambushing Marines from an Ultralisk corpse" idea is a very good example of one I would like to see.

Something else though — I do think it's important that death animations and corpses in melee look very, very different from the living units. Anyone remember the old Viking death that made it look like you had more Vikings than you really had? Also, it would be a nice touch if corpses actually decayed rather than just sink into the ground. It would not only look cool but would also further the differences between living units and dead ones.

There has to be a setting for this in the editor. While I know the original subject of this would be for ladder games... I could imagine some zombie apocalypse games with interesting lighting elements playing with the "dead body" feel.

Imagine this... a map in a small city, kick the lighting DOWN LOW as in midnight darkness and the street lamps provide a very solid amount of light below them but are spaced between to give that "errie" factor. I think that this could be used to create an awesome atmosphere, especially if you're split up from another team, run across a new street and just see bodies LITTERED on each other in the lamps flickering haze.

I think it would be worth a moment of "Damn.. what happened here?" before I ran past it thinking this would be the direction of allies. (Only to find out it's a mutated beast [third party] that is hunting you the remaining humans. This is a result of it massacring the zombies as they assaulted it for a potential snack... uh oh!)

... I miss producing/designing games some days :)

I'm open for all ideas.
Decaying and rotting animations would be fantastic! Even better then corpses just laying around! But... I doubt they will animate something like that now.. :(

If nothing, hope they leave some secrets and options in editor. Because this is great what you just suggested Gifted!