StarCraft II Extension Mod – Multiplayer LotV

Rebalanced and redesigned version of StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void multiplayer mode

No limits on what gets changed, as long as we believe it makes the experience better

How to play

Discord

Forum

Checkout the race-specific changes

Terran

Zerg

Protoss

Economy Changes

Added the Hot Mineral Harvesting mod

Hot Mineral Harvesting on TL.net

The economy has been scaled down, and bases mine out slower

Now it is rewarding to expand even if you have not saturated your bases to 16 workers

Effects

Map control is now more rewarding than before.

2 bases with 8 workers each mine more than 1 base with 16 workers

More comeback potentials from worker harassment. Since your workers are mining harder when they are not many, it means that you can recover faster from the damage

The early game is back! No more feeling like you have to expand minutes into the game. You’ll notice that it’s not always as obvious to expand as it was in LotV

High-Ground Advantage

The damage dealt is -50% against units that are on higher ground

Does not apply for Melee damage, Spell damage, or Air Units

Suddenly ramps and High Ground are, in general, much more important – emphasizing map control on a broader, strategical level

Effects

You can now hold off a larger force with the correct use of High-Ground Advantage.

Defender’s advantage is back!

This opens up the opportunity to leave less units at home to defend, and the ability to go do stuff with your main army more often

It’s also harder to finish off players in the early game, as most maps start with player bases and natural expansions on the High Ground

Maps feel way more unique on the way they are played due to High Ground having such a huge effect on gameplay

High Ground Advantage on TL.net

Extremely Noob-friendly

This mod started because I couldn’t play StarCraft II with my friends.

Their biggest gripes were having to constantly macro and not getting to enjoy the more intricate parts of the game (micro, decision making, etc…).

They were also confused most of the time because there’s very scarce information on the minimap, and many times they looked away from their army for a second and died to a battle they didn’t even see happening.

Making an extremely hard game a bit easier isn’t a bad thing. It’s still infinitely complex on many other aspects, so you can focus more on those instead.

Macro Mechanics automated or removed

MULE, Inject Larva, and Chronoboost never felt right to me, they always felt like a “needy” mechanic, requiring your attention exactly every 23 seconds (for example), or you’d miss out on a huge macro boost. They also create a bigger snowball effect on economic advantage.

LotV Beta Macro Mechanics removal analysis on TL.net

Autocast Production

You can choose to set production on Autocast. It removes fine-grained control, but helps new players immensely enjoy the game.

Starting and stopping production is not effortless, it’s a different kind of effort and thinking, but it requires less constant multitasking.

Vision Range increased

All units receive a +2 to Vision Range, lowering the reaction time required to respond to battles and making scouting for enemy movements and strategies easier.

Buildings and burrowed units do not get this bonus.

With all these changes together, the early game does feel a bit like backseat gaming, and APM required to play on a basic level drops by a lot. The experience of a non-stress inducing, relaxed kind of StarCraft is also fun.

The required skill to enjoy the game has been lowered dramatically. However, this doesn’t mean that highly skilled players are at a disadvantage. Great players will find other ways to spend their APM, and excel at other areas to compensate.

Gameplay

Less Hard Counters

Standard armor type

Between Light and Heavy now exists the Standard armor type. Bonus damage has mostly been converted into a gradient transition between the 3 types. Viability of more unit compositions increased.

Fights take longer

Not so terrible damage

Extreme bonuses towards specific armor types have been reduced. High Ground Advantage further reduces damage taken by 50%. Damage with binary interactions has been reduced, removed, or reworked. More gradients in AoE damage (example: Baneling)

Air Units rebalanced

Air Units are not Core Units

The mobility advantage must present a damage, defense, speed, or HP disadvantage. Air to Air damage has also been reduced in order to not be forced to go Air if the opponent goes mass Air.

Max Supply now 250

Bigger battles, or more action

The maximum army size has been increased a bit. Take note that reaching 200 supply (previous cap) was harder already because of the economy downscale. However, armies at 200 supply still felt a little bit too small.

Game Time Speed

The game time is now again showing game seconds (+40%), instead of real seconds. Unit Speed and Weapon Cooldown now show the true numerical values depending on the game seconds, not adjusted to real time

Ingame Music

The live concert editions of the StarCraft Remastered music has been added, each to its respective race, and to the Observer

GameHeart Ready

GameHeart is implemented by default in StarLance!

Unit design

Compared to StarCraft 1, many units in StarCraft 2 suffer from the “cool design syndrome”, even more so in HotS and LotV. In order to make the unit attractive to players, designers thought of cool features to give to the unit, sometimes overpowering it through raw stats, and many times ignoring the resulting bad design which creates frustrating gameplay interactions.

In contrast to this philosophy, StarLance strives to make units interesting, allowing flexibility and a gradient of results in unit interactions. Many units and abilities have been removed or reworked due to this concern, and we hope it will allow you to enjoy the game more. In the end, we want the game to feel fun, fresh, and fair!

StarCraft II Extension Mod – Multiplayer LotV

Rebalanced and redesigned version of StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void multiplayer mode

No limits on what gets changed, as long as we believe it makes the experience better

Checkout the race-specific changes

Terran

Zerg

Protoss

Economy Changes

Added the Hot Mineral Harvesting mod

The economy has been scaled down, and bases mine out slower

Now it is rewarding to expand even if you have not saturated your bases to 16 workers

Effects

Map control is now more rewarding than before.

2 bases with 8 workers each mine more than 1 base with 16 workers

More comeback potentials from worker harassment. Since your workers are mining harder when they are not many, it means that you can recover faster from the damage

The early game is back! No more feeling like you have to expand minutes into the game. You’ll notice that it’s not always as obvious to expand as it was in LotV

High-Ground Advantage

The damage dealt is -50% against units that are on higher ground

Does not apply for Melee damage, Spell damage, or Air Units

Suddenly ramps and High Ground are, in general, much more important – emphasizing map control on a broader, strategical level

Effects

You can now hold off a larger force with the correct use of High-Ground Advantage.

Defender’s advantage is back!

This opens up the opportunity to leave less units at home to defend, and the ability to go do stuff with your main army more often

It’s also harder to finish off players in the early game, as most maps start with player bases and natural expansions on the High Ground

Maps feel way more unique on the way they are played due to High Ground having such a huge effect on gameplay

Extremely Noob-friendly

This mod started because I couldn’t play StarCraft II with my friends.

Their biggest gripes were having to constantly macro and not getting to enjoy the more intricate parts of the game (micro, decision making, etc…).

They were also confused most of the time because there’s very scarce information on the minimap, and many times they looked away from their army for a second and died to a battle they didn’t even see happening.

Making an extremely hard game a bit easier isn’t a bad thing. It’s still infinitely complex on many other aspects, so you can focus more on those instead.

Macro Mechanics automated or removed

MULE, Inject Larva, and Chronoboost never felt right to me, they always felt like a “needy” mechanic, requiring your attention exactly every 23 seconds (for example), or you’d miss out on a huge macro boost. They also create a bigger snowball effect on economic advantage.

Autocast Production

You can choose to set production on Autocast. It removes fine-grained control, but helps new players immensely enjoy the game.

Starting and stopping production is not effortless, it’s a different kind of effort and thinking, but it requires less constant multitasking.

Vision Range increased

All units receive a +2 to Vision Range, lowering the reaction time required to respond to battles and making scouting for enemy movements and strategies easier.

Buildings and burrowed units do not get this bonus.

With all these changes together, the early game does feel a bit like backseat gaming, and APM required to play on a basic level drops by a lot. The experience of a non-stress inducing, relaxed kind of StarCraft is also fun.

The required skill to enjoy the game has been lowered dramatically. However, this doesn’t mean that highly skilled players are at a disadvantage. Great players will find other ways to spend their APM, and excel at other areas to compensate.

Gameplay

Less Hard Counters

Standard armor type

Between Light and Heavy now exists the Standard armor type. Bonus damage has mostly been converted into a gradient transition between the 3 types. Viability of more unit compositions increased.

Fights take longer

Not so terrible damage

Extreme bonuses towards specific armor types have been reduced. High Ground Advantage further reduces damage taken by 50%. Damage with binary interactions has been reduced, removed, or reworked. More gradients in AoE damage (example: Baneling)

Air Units rebalanced

Air Units are not Core Units

The mobility advantage must present a damage, defense, speed, or HP disadvantage. Air to Air damage has also been reduced in order to not be forced to go Air if the opponent goes mass Air.

Max Supply now 250

Bigger battles, or more action

The maximum army size has been increased a bit. Take note that reaching 200 supply (previous cap) was harder already because of the economy downscale. However, armies at 200 supply still felt a little bit too small.

Game Time Speed

The game time is now again showing game seconds (+40%), instead of real seconds. Unit Speed and Weapon Cooldown now show the true numerical values depending on the game seconds, not adjusted to real time

Ingame Music

The live concert editions of the StarCraft Remastered music has been added, each to its respective race, and to the Observer

GameHeart Ready

GameHeart is implemented by default in StarLance!

Unit design

New Units

Many missing units have been added (Broodwar, WoL)

Medic, Firebat, Vulture, Goliath, Dropship

Defiler, Scourge, Guardian, Devourer, Infested Terran

Dragoon, Reaver, Dark Archon, Arbiter