Should Heroes Look Different?

[Nicol Bolas]

All heroes are bigger than standard units for the purpose of being easier to see and select. Whether they look different is largely (that's a pun!) irrelevant.

Yes. Because not being able to tell the difference between regular Marine X and Tychus Finlay would never result in sending a hero out to die and losing you the mission. Never.

The fundamental purpose of visuals in a game, the most basic reason they exist, is so that the player can distinguish between different things. The player can tell what is terrain, what is unit X and therefore what is not unit Y. The player can tell what is on his side and what is not. This extends even to board games; you never see people play Chess with a set where every side's pieces are indistinguishable from the other side.

If a unit is special, but somehow based on another unit, it is important to be able to differentiate that special unit from its base unit. SC1 was able to do this by abusing team-color: heros were "captured" from a neutral team at the beginning of the game, so they were able to have a different team color. This is functional for gameplay; it gets the point across to the player that this is a different guy.

However, it could be more functional. As others have pointed out, there are issues where they run out of team colors. That's a limitation that game designers don't really need.

A new model is also functionally better for recognition purposes. If I have 6 BCs and the Hyperion, it'll be much easier to differentiate them if the Hyperion is a different model. It'll have a slightly different silhouette and so forth.

The only reason not to use new models for hero units is if you don't want to spend the effort and money on new textures/models/animations.

[electricmole]

hyperion should look rusty and not updated compared to the newer bc. jim marine armor is black anyway. tychus a little bigger than other marines. a hero ghost should look different, like no helmet, or having a complete green armor.

[StrongCoffee]

Luckily, the heroes like good ol´Jimmy and Tychus were first designed to look unique, with those decals, colors and stuff. So realism and art almost goes by the hand in this situation. Maybe a little "aura" around the hero can make it diferenciable from similar uniques, like a tiny green circle around Tychus. Remember people, details=LOVE

[Pandonetho]

Tiny green circles = the selection tool. Visible auras = WC3.

[Sheliek]

I was thinking something like that, but the circile is the selection tool, as Pandonetho says. A little arrow floating above them could work, though.

[Norfindel]

Obviously, heroes should be immediatly recognized in all situations.

However, Blizzard had said that they will try to avoid players keeping their heroes protected (and mostly unused) at their bases, and will make them available in some game situations, not constantly like they were before, so that would be probably not such a big issue, after all.

[Kimera757]

Have you heard of the thor mission?

Tychus Findlay and some other troops (I presume marines) will assault Valhalla base and destroy a massive heroic thor. In that kind of mission, you still need to be able to distinguish between Findlay and the other marines.

[Sheliek]

Have you heard of the thor mission?

Tychus Findlay and some other troops (I presume marines) will assault Valhalla base and destroy a massive heroic thor. In that kind of mission, you still need to be able to distinguish between Findlay and the other marines.

He'll definitely have decals, though that may not be enough to distinguish him.

Maybe the other troops will be reapers or ghosts, but that wouldn't explain why Findlay would be there.

[Norfindel]

Have you heard of the thor mission?

Tychus Findlay and some other troops (I presume marines) will assault Valhalla base and destroy a massive heroic thor. In that kind of mission, you still need to be able to distinguish between Findlay and the other marines.

No idea how are they going to do it. Even if Tychus is bigger than a normal Marine (something that seems to be more than plausible), maybe even so it can get confused with Marauders.

As the Hyperion had no team color, maybe no hero would get it, but it would be strange to see Tychus without it's blue color.

[Kimera757]

As the Hyperion had no team color, maybe no hero would get it, but it would be strange to see Tychus without it's blue color.

That could be a "we're not done yet" moment, though.

At BlizzCon 2007, Blizzard showed a Raynors Raiders vs protoss mission (on Jotun; the Raiders were looking for an artifact). In that mission, you were supposed to buy Vikings and use them to avoid the protoss base's heavily-guarded front entrance. The player still failed (no surprise, since they weren't going to actually build extra units) and so they cheated to beat the mission with extra battlecruisers and thors.

The mission looked really lame (no talking, nothing exciting going on) and Raynor's Raiders were portrayed as red terrans.

I'm a bit surprised the Hyperion didn't have team color (or was using a gray/black/rescuable color); it seemed to be either blue or teal in cinematics, so I expect they'll fix that. (I also expect them to respect the lore, not to mention any missions where you might get the Hyperion alongside other more modern battlecruisers, and make it look quite different.)

The Hyperion, if it ever appears as a combat hero unit in-game, would probably be controlled by Matt Horner, although I suppose Raynor could control it as well.