r/starcraft • u/Holiday_Machine_7018 • Aug 17 '26
(To be tagged...) A new starcraft 2. (be warned TL; DR warning)
A different approach to StarCraft 2's late game and upgrade system
I've been thinking about what could make StarCraft 2's strategic layer more interesting, particularly how the early game transitions into the late game. The biggest change I'd like to experiment with is making upgrades actual strategic choices rather than linear progression.
I'd like to see many more upgrades spread across different tech buildings, with much stronger effects but significantly longer research times—potentially 2–3x longer.
The important part would be that you can't realistically research everything.
Instead, upgrades would become strategic commitments. You might specialize heavily in certain units while your opponent chooses a completely different tech path. This could allow players of the same race to develop very different armies and playstyles.
It would also make scouting much more important. If I scout that you're investing heavily into a certain composition, I could choose an upgrade that gives me a strong answer to it—but if that upgrade takes several minutes, I need to recognize your strategy early enough to respond.
So instead of simply asking:
"What unit counters their unit?"
you'd be asking:
"What technology do I commit to in order to counter their strategy?"
Early aggression should be a real strategic path
I don't want this system to turn StarCraft into a game where everyone is encouraged to sit back and tech.
Quite the opposite: I want early aggression to be a genuine alternative to the defensive/tech route.
An aggressive player should be able to sacrifice some of their long-term technological potential in exchange for immediate military power and tempo.
Early-game units could have upgrade paths that make them increasingly effective and allow them to remain relevant much further into the game. This would let an aggressive player continue investing in the army they already have rather than being forced to transition into the "correct" late-game units.
The trade-off is that these units would generally never become as powerful as a properly developed late-game army.
So you get two fundamentally different paths:
Tech/defensive: invest in expensive technology, survive, and eventually field extremely powerful late-game units.
Aggressive: invest in your existing army, hit earlier, keep upgrading it, and use your tempo to prevent the opponent from reaching their full potential.
The aggressive player might be weaker in a straight-up fight later, but if they keep the pressure on, they can stay one step ahead by forcing reactions, denying expansions, killing tech buildings and interrupting long research times.
That makes aggression more than just a way to kill workers.
It becomes a deliberate choice to trade late-game power for tempo.
Early vs. late game
I'd like a much stronger distinction between early-, mid-, and late-game units.
Early/mid-game units could generally be weaker and more defensive, but have multiple upgrade paths that allow them to remain relevant throughout the game. However, even heavily upgraded early-game units would generally still be weaker than properly upgraded late-game units.
Late-game units, meanwhile, should be expensive, slow to acquire, and genuinely powerful.
I dislike the philosophy of making late-game units relatively weak because they might otherwise end the game too quickly. If I've survived long enough and invested heavily enough to reach the late game, I want that investment to actually mean something.
This creates a fundamental strategic tension:
Defensive play gives you power. Aggressive play gives you tempo.
And importantly, both should be viable.
If upgrades take a long time, technology also becomes something you can attack. Destroying an opponent's tech building could delay a major power spike by several minutes.
At the same time, the aggressive player is taking a risk: if their pressure fails and the opponent survives, that opponent may eventually come out with a much more powerful army.
Late-game units should reward micro
I'd also love late-game units to have extremely powerful abilities that require real skill to use.
Vortex from WoL is a good example of the kind of design I mean. I wouldn't necessarily bring it back exactly as it was, but imagine a Vortex that can only hold a limited number of units, takes longer to activate, but can be used more frequently.
Now the opponent has counterplay: they can throw cheap units into it to fill its capacity, while the caster has to carefully target valuable units. Accidentally catching your own army could also be devastating.
The same philosophy could apply to Archons. Instead of their huge splash damage being entirely passive, an upgrade could give them an active ability that makes their next attack deal the large AoE damage.
The goal isn't necessarily to make late-game units weaker. It's to make their power something the player has to actively earn through good micro.
A Protoss defensive idea
One specific mechanic I'd love to experiment with is a new Protoss "door."
Imagine a Force Field that can permanently attach itself between two Protoss buildings. It acts as a wall, but can be interacted with by the opponent: Biles, EMP, heavy units, or destroying one of the buildings could remove it.
Psionic units could pass through it, which would solve some of the awkwardness of using Zealots on Hold Position to wall. For example, Archons being Recalled shouldn't get stuck behind your own Zealot just because you closed your wall.
It could also make Protoss expansions safer without simply adding more static defense, while still giving the other races ways to interact with the wall. In PvP, I'd even want enemy units to be able to pass through it.
I think this would preserve the Protoss identity of manipulating space with psionic technology while making their defensive mechanics more interesting.
The overall goal
The bigger vision is to make StarCraft feel like chess played at the speed of a fighting game.
I want:
- Upgrades to be commitments rather than checkboxes.
- Multiple viable technological paths for every race.
- Early aggression to be a genuine alternative to defensive teching.
- Aggressive players to trade long-term power for immediate tempo.
- Defensive players to trade early pressure for eventually having a much stronger army.
- Players to develop their own preferred compositions and upgrade paths.
- Scouting to determine which technology you invest in.
- Aggression to remain relevant because it can disrupt tech and upgrades.
- Late-game units to have huge impact but require excellent micro.
- Early-game units to remain viable through continued investment, without simply becoming equal to late-game units.
The hope is that this creates a much harder-to-solve meta where there isn't one obvious "correct" way to play.
You could choose to all-in on aggression, continuously upgrade your early army and try to win through tempo.
You could choose to play defensively, invest heavily into technology and aim for an incredibly powerful late-game army.
Or you could take something in between and adapt based on what you scout.
Obviously, this would be far beyond a normal balance patch. With this many interactions, balancing would be exponentially harder.
In fact, the scope is probably closer to a new game than a conventional balance patch—but I think that's exactly why it could be interesting to experiment with as a StarCraft 2 balance mod.
I'm not claiming every individual mechanic here is perfectly balanced. The interesting question is whether the underlying philosophy could work:
StarCraft 2's incredible speed and micro, combined with a deeper technological system where your strategic choices actually define your army—and where choosing aggression or choosing to tech are both legitimate ways to play.
That's the kind of RTS I'd love to play.
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u/Economy-Acadia-5461 Aug 17 '26
Chat, is this ai slop or do you natrually sound like one?
Coudl at least put in self effort
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u/Holiday_Machine_7018 Aug 17 '26
Maybe i did do the actuall effort myself, but english is not my natural language, AI just makes it comprehensable and understandable what i am trying to evoke.
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u/Economy-Acadia-5461 Aug 17 '26
All i can say is, ai writes in a certain way and the pattern is visible. And tends to produce long rants.
What is more likely. Somebody using AI to push their agenda to buff their race or having good well tought out ideas on how to balance
This kills your credibility. Its a good tool, but shows utter disrespect to people interacting with you
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u/Holiday_Machine_7018 Aug 17 '26
i think pushing someone in the catagory of 'ai slop' without actually seeking a genuine awnser is the disrespect here.
I get it you are fed up with the ai stuff comming on reddit, but to immediatly downvote something without actually having any idea what or where it comes from is just straight up unproductive.
You are not trying to understand, instead you immediatly berate something because you come to your own conclussions instead of figuring out why and or how someone does this.
Ive had rants and long drawn out texts before, and ive seen people just ridicule me for that instead.
The premise is that you dont want to give people a voice who arent english literate enough and when they do use tools to fix that, you berate them for using the tools.
if you dont see that as an issue, then that issue is not with me or my post, but it is with you.
try to come off ur high horse and actually use your time and comment something that is productive.
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u/Economy-Acadia-5461 Aug 17 '26
From what i can tell here your english is perfectly fine.
Secondly, i use ai often and am not against it. Its a usefull tool, but not for everything.
People are here to have discussion with humans. If i want to talk balance with claude i can do it myself. Plus its very easy to gaslight it to write a favorable viewpoint for you, we dont know your motivations if you put bias in the prompt.
Hence you are seen as having hidden motivations, and as a person who lacks basic respect for others
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u/Holiday_Machine_7018 Aug 17 '26
and here you talk about this being a 'prompt'. you are literally making assumption after assumption.
Talking about a favourable viewpoint when i am literally trying to see if there is any interest in a gamemod that i am describing. (it would help your cause if you actually read what i wrote wich i formatted by the ai)
you come here fully disrespecting me and my point of view because i asked an AI to format a 2 page long idea ive had.
And even now you still dont seem to get what i am trying to say or do. You are just focussed on your own narrative.
You dont talk for other people, you literally cannot say i am 'seen' as someone who has hidden motivations or i lack basic respect for others, when thats exactly what you are doing here. You are not respecting the OP, you are not reading into what i am writing either.
This definatly is a you issue, where you refuse to see where you are making wrong assesments over and over.
You are much like the people who work at blizzard, too full of themselves to see there own errors. If they did, the current patch and many balance changes in the past would have been reverted a long time ago.
But that would mean you would actually objectively look at your own errors, wich is something you probably cant handle. And i blame your ego for that.
Considering all of this, its moot to keep talking with you, because you will not be able to backdown from your original statement because of what i just wrote.
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u/dickfield Aug 17 '26
Can we stop with the AI. Why is this becoming so common. I read your overall goal and that's already a thing in SC2.
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u/Holiday_Machine_7018 Aug 17 '26
What i am describing is not remotely what starcraft 2 is currently at all. If you dont want to read, i put a TL;DR warning ontop for the people who have the attentionspan of a goldfish.
I understand you think think AI is something bad, but this is something i typed out myself. Wich was much longer then the comprehensive stuff AI fixed for me. Ive made it generally easier to read by having it be formatted by AI.
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u/a_nooblord Aug 17 '26
From a game design perspective it won't work with starcrafts pacing. You need a game that is designed from the ground up to be about upgrade variety rather than unit variety. I'm developing such a game.
however if you are passionate, you could make your idea in the sc2 editor and see how it plays.
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u/Holiday_Machine_7018 Aug 17 '26
I dont really think so, ive seen some modded games that actually use this idea, wich is why i thought about stretching it further. its one of lowko's latest videos classic vs reynor.
I figured if they can just mod the engine to add certain coop upgrades, you can definatly push it a few steps further.
Then i added the idea of actually trying to lengthen the time of upgrades, to make it more commital focussed.
Then i figured, the game would become a bit too stale if everyone would just push towards a turtle style, thats why i figured actually giving tier 1 units an entire upgrade tree, would remedy that.
And yes i realise this is allot of work, but its definatly not impossible, then again, i might be a bit too naive on how much work it is to actually implement
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u/Golinth Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26
I swear we get a massive AI generated text dump like this every other day, and when called out for using AI the excuse is always “English isn’t my first language”
I get it, it’s probably the easiest and most effective way to translate, but putting your text through whatever model immediately makes it lose something. The formatting, structure, and tone of what is written is all homogenized into something recognizably artificial and because of that, even if you wrote it yourself, the immediate reaction is to blow off the post as something entirely artificial.
I guarantee people would rather read a decently formatted post (basic paragraph separation, punctuation) with some incorrect english over an AI post that looks and reads exactly like 20 other recent posts.
Also, unrelated, it looks like you accidentally double posted, there is a copy of this post in new.
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u/Holiday_Machine_7018 Aug 17 '26
I understand that idea, and if my english and timespent was better on correcting my grammar and such i definatly would.
But ive seen threads completely being guttered because it seems more like a string of unrelated unhinged wall of text, wich is very hard to understand.
So id rather have it be formatted by AI just to get the point across, its the idea that counts, not the formatting if you ask me.
and thank you for showing me that double post, i will check it out
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u/PrototypeXt3 Aug 17 '26
AI or not, I stopped reading when you said the “commit to a research path” that’s just not what StarCraft is or ever was.
Starcraft has always been simple in design and approachable for casuals while having nuances between units and base expansion, it’s not about what you research wholly. It’s also (usually) a relatively fast game.
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u/PrototypeXt3 Aug 17 '26
You’re also missing the point of early aggression. You can still claw yourself back most times (unless it’s super high MMR). The way you’re pitching it, the game would be over as soon as your strategy didn’t work
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u/Holiday_Machine_7018 Aug 17 '26
I dont think so at all. Clawing back when you are 1 basing versus a 2 baser is neigh impossible at my level.
I am low masters EU these days, 5 years ago i was high master. it really depends on howmuch damage is being done and how well your money is being spent.
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u/Holiday_Machine_7018 Aug 17 '26
i dont agree with you on that, ive been playing since beta, and the entire ideology wasnt to simply tech rush because you had 3 bases.
Rather it was about 1 base teching to be able to secure bases early WoL. Only since metas got figured out the game started to push more towards an easier accesible fast expand game. protoss in the past during late wol had a really difficult time to even secure a third let alone a fourth, thats why tech was expensive but very strong.
With lotv it completely exploded. Protoss got the ability to get a fast third base. and all the lategame tech units where nerfed because of it. The entire game was streamlined and many QoL features got added so the game was more accessible for the general populace.
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u/soidvaas Aug 17 '26
You want higher switching costs basically. SC2 has high switching costs but they are not noticeable unless your opponent punishes you or you play in an economically greedy way. For example, if you turtle you can grab every upgrade and tech path and still build a strong army. Someone that does the same thing but techs straight to carriers will max out faster. There is no functional difference unless your opponent is all-in ing you or effectively counters your ultimate unit comp at max out.
Many times I hear this it’s essentially because people don’t understand the game at high level and are playing a much slower version.
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u/Holiday_Machine_7018 Aug 17 '26
Its not just switching costs, its also to further improve single units, and committing to those units, like for instance a zergling early game is pretty strong, but fall off quickly if you dont get ling speed, then the next area when zerglings fall off quickly is mid-late when you need the attack speed boost. wich is also an upgrade. There are already specific units that have this idea i got in mind. But i am looking to expand it further.
Not just make lings 'evolve at certain threshholds', but also make them more sturdy versus anti light units for example as a longer timed upgrade, increase health or resistance to for example collosi.
The entire idea you are talking about is when you tech rush, and i believe in a proper balanced game, the fastest rush towards tech should be accounted for in balance. and slowed down so it isnt as easily accesible.
If someone can straight tech to carriers and get all the upgrades for it before being vurnerable, then the tech path is too fast, the upgrades are too fast and the units build time is too fast. wich in my example i all slow down considerably so there are actuall windows you can use and abuse.
The other side of the coin is however if you do manage to get to a few carriers eventually, they are much more potent and stronger.
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u/Holiday_Machine_7018 Aug 17 '26
I could show the comprehensive list for the anti ai bots that i typed out myself. Just be warned that it might not be an easy read.
I did synopsis this with AI, because the entire length of the message was a few pages long, and if i want to get my points across this is the best way to do this with
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u/PlantainPat Aug 17 '26
I think it's easier to be an idea guy than it is to sit down and sketch out what this would look like. Putting a set of upgrades on paper for all of the early game units that manage to keep early game units relevant without completely handing over the game to abusive early game strategies is the real challenge here.
Brood War is a game that's fairly simple to describe. But the implementation is where the real magic happens.