On the hot subject of #saveHotS: About integrating the compeitive & the casual !

[TheEconomist]

You mean, kind of like the rocks in practice mode maps?

[flak4321]

The problem is, how exactly would you implement that?

If you set all units to invincible for 5 minutes, it would not encourage long games. Fast mass Baneling and Widow Mine play, to simply enter the enemy base untouched and then wreak chaos when the invincibility wears off, would be popular. All-ins would be more common.

If you created an uncrossable line in the middle of the map, either a force field or though destructible debris, you'd deny scouting and cause pure build-order wins. So then you'd have to decide what units were allowed to cross the line to scout - maybe workers, Overlords, and CC Scan. But then Protoss is at a disadvantage because the only unit they'd have to scout is the higher tech, costly Mothership Core. Which has an attack of its own, effectively removing the NR5Min. With workers, you'd encounter more surprise worker rushes because its supposed to be NR5Min. It would also not help the Reaper's viability to be denied crossing the line.

No rush cannot work in ladder play because there's no way to ensure player cooperation while limiting cheese.

Actually it would be quite easy. Any unit other than workers would be makeable but would not be moveable by the player until the time limit expired. This immobility would include Terran's lift off. The only scouting option would workers. In order to increase the fairness of the no rush mode, players would also be unable to build any static defenses, inclusive of PFs. To avoid a worker rush, workers would be modified to not have an attack during the time limit. The last thing to regulate to allow fair scouting would be disallowing wall-offs in no rush games, which can be done by one of 2 options: either put a no build zone of one block around buildings for the time limit, or allow adjacent buildings but have them lose HP at a high rate that would freak players out within the time limit, i.e. have at least one of the adjacent buildings buildings die in about 30 seconds, the second one would be preferable.

An even more fair rush mode would be no rush until both players have 3 bases, with the caveat that there is a time limit to get the third (say by the 9 minute mark). This would include a requirement that a macro hatch/CC would count as a separate base.