Thanks for the responses.
I think the "leash" could have a large radius. Having to move your parked cav halfway across the map would be a huge problem for rambo cav, and open up more reliable counter-play, while still allowing rambo cav to hover and poke enemies if the enemies just camp and don't do anything.
I like the idea of passive perks, but I think cooldown perks would feel out of place since it's not present in SP. The idea of perks working only if the original captain-unit was still alive is interesting, but it might lead to captains being too passive and the game mode becoming more boring since you just want to hide and stay alive as your captain.
The gold system was a hypothetical example of adding depth to the pick stage of the game. I'm not satisfied with an identical blind pick 3-5 rounds in a row, followed by a near-identical side-swap and 3-5 more blind picks in a row.
That essentially is rock-paper-scissors. So far, we've had one dominant meta (such as if rock beat both paper and scissors) so this wasn't really a problem. In the future if there are several viable comps that counter each other, we'll be in a situation where the round is won or lost on blind picks at the start of the map.
There's not a single successful game with this level of simplicity.
I've been on both sides of the argument regarding your proposal to introduce a "leash" or "distance limit" on a captains unit formations. At first when you proposed the idea I was vehemently against it as it would severely limit the overall freedom of movement that players have on the battlefield and I think any limits on player actions can negatively impact someone's overall gameplay experience. At one point I changed my stance on the subject and actually advocated for it's introduction as an attempt to stop the devolution of captain mode turning into skirmish mode with extra lives.
Captain Perks (Area of Effect, temporary bonus "abilities")
During the class selection phase each captain can choose a single perk or "ability" that grants a different temporary stat bonus to ai troops within a limited area of effect that is within the immediate area of the player captain unit. These unique abilities would ONLY be given to the captain unit that the player initially spawns into the game as, once that unit has died the captain no longer has access to the ability. Multiple instances of the same effect would not stack.
Examples of what bonuses could look like:
Resistance: When activated, friendly units surrounding the player captain gain 25% armor rating for 5-10 seconds. (25 second cooldown)
Bloodlust: When activated, friendly units surrounding the player captain gain 10% increased damage and 5% increased attack speed for 5-10 seconds. (25 second cooldown)
Field Medic: When activated, friendly units surrounding the player captain regenerate 1 hitpoint per second for 10-20 seconds. (1 minute cooldown)
Stampede: When activated, friendly units surrounding the player captain gain 20% movement speed for 5-10 seconds. (30 second cooldown)
Each of these abilities could be bound to a single hotkey in the F file, or if there are none left available, a simple combination such as F8-F8 could also be used.
These abilities could also just be passive bonuses in an area effect, the player unit would simply act as a beacon for these bonuses and any nearby ai units would receive the benefits.
Reminder that you would only have access to these abilities on your captain units first life and your captain must be within a close proximity to friendly ai troops in order for them to receive the bonus. Therefor if you die as a rambo before maximizing the usage of these ability bonuses, you would be missing out on a huge advantage for your team thus incentivizing players to stick near their units and not risk dying alone.
I think the "leash" could have a large radius. Having to move your parked cav halfway across the map would be a huge problem for rambo cav, and open up more reliable counter-play, while still allowing rambo cav to hover and poke enemies if the enemies just camp and don't do anything.
I like the idea of passive perks, but I think cooldown perks would feel out of place since it's not present in SP. The idea of perks working only if the original captain-unit was still alive is interesting, but it might lead to captains being too passive and the game mode becoming more boring since you just want to hide and stay alive as your captain.
I think most "new" captain players come from SP, which has a fair bit of complexity to it. There's various levels of resource management and I don't think adding a resource management element or two to captain (such as gold) would scare people away, if it was done right.@Brandis.
Very informative post about the state of captains mode. Just wanted to let you know TW would never ever add tactical depth, they are aiming for casual players, everything in this game is dumbed down for the sake of accessibility.
The money system would be terrible idea for captain. So instead of trying to predict what the other teams composition is now you also have to try and figure out if they want to spend more money this round? What's great about captain is that it is simplistic in that if you have played some single player you can be a contributing member to your team, unlike skirmish where it takes time to build up skill and knowledge to be contributing at all.
The gold system was a hypothetical example of adding depth to the pick stage of the game. I'm not satisfied with an identical blind pick 3-5 rounds in a row, followed by a near-identical side-swap and 3-5 more blind picks in a row.
That essentially is rock-paper-scissors. So far, we've had one dominant meta (such as if rock beat both paper and scissors) so this wasn't really a problem. In the future if there are several viable comps that counter each other, we'll be in a situation where the round is won or lost on blind picks at the start of the map.
What's great about captain is that it is simplistic in that if you have played some single player you can be a contributing member to your team, unlike skirmish where it takes time to build up skill and knowledge to be contributing at all.
There's not a single successful game with this level of simplicity.