Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm

[Skyblade]

Yes, I bought it. And so far, I'm enjoying it. I've been playing the campaign, and I'm quite enjoying the refinements to the gameplay since I last played Starcraft II.

But, really, I made this thread because I have to share one thing. Kerrigan's adjutant is Aigis from the Persona series, and that is really, really distracting. Ok, so she's a zerg information depository and tactician named Izsha. But, seriously, she's Aigis. Same voice actor, nearly identical tone, inhuman perceptions and viewpoints... It's awesome.

[kotora]

Couldn't care less about the singleplayer, but might be able to get it for cheap so I can see what they did with the multiplayer. My expectations are at pretty much zero, though. I didn't really like any of the units they presented when they announced them, but I haven't been following the scene for a couple months so for all I know things might've balanced out a bit.

[Slothy]

I didn't really like any of the units they presented when they announced them, but I haven't been following the scene for a couple months so for all I know things might've balanced out a bit.

Most of the units in the original announcement either no longer exist, or no longer exist in their original form. It's quite night and day actually between what was announced and what is actually in there now.

It's also just plain more fun than the multiplayer in Wings of Liberty thanks to the new units.

[Rostum]

I will get this eventually, but I haven't played seriously for around a year.

[kotora]

I didn't really like any of the units they presented when they announced them, but I haven't been following the scene for a couple months so for all I know things might've balanced out a bit.

Most of the units in the original announcement either no longer exist, or no longer exist in their original form. It's quite night and day actually between what was announced and what is actually in there now.

It's also just plain more fun than the multiplayer in Wings of Liberty thanks to the new units.

That's why my expectations are super low. WoL would've been much more interesting if it weren't for the stupid patchzergs that came to turn every game into the same macrofest since last year. If Blizzard did a good job on balancing the game, they wouldn't need to rely on new gimmicks to keep the game fresh.

[Slothy]

Blizzard makes one of the most balanced competitive multiplayer games out there.
"Blizzard needs to learn how to balance more."


And the new units aren't gimmicks. So far they've all opened up a host of viable new strategies. Will that get whittled down in time as the meta game works itself out? Sure, but I don't think we'll see these new units disappearing from use. Which is what you'd expect to happen if they were just "gimmicks" and didn't actually change the game in new and interesting ways.

[Goldenboko]

Have you looked at the win percentages kotora? The game is incredibly balanced.

[kotora]

Have you looked at the win percentages kotora? The game is incredibly balanced.

Have you seen the matches since the big zerg update in 2012? Have you seen the matches before? Have you seen how all Z matchups went from exciting matches with lots of micro we've gone to macrofests with all Zerg players going for the one optimal strategy they have, turtling on 4base until they get a 200/200 army with BL/infestor? Have you seen at how no-name mediocre foreign zerg players started beating Korean pros they never had a chance against before the patch?
It's exactly what turned me away from watching the game anymore last year. This is not how you balance a game. When you look at the winrates pre-patch, ZvT was nearly 50-50% anyway. Even worse, it has made the game just much more boring.
For a more detailed analysis: Lings of Liberty: The Rise of the Patchzergs

[Aulayna]

If Blizzard did a good job on balancing the game, they wouldn't need to rely on new gimmicks to keep the game fresh.

Yeah man I mean it's not like they added a host of new units in Brood War which was one of the longest running esports scenes ever...

Gimmicks.

[Slothy]

Forgive me Kotora for I almost immediately tune out when hearing someone throw around terms like patchzerg. It immediately reeks of knee jerk whining to me, and is rarely followed by an actual worthwhile argument.

But let's address this directly. In the late game, BL/Infestor is good. Really good. Almost always has been really because it just holds up well in direct engagements. Was it actually made better a year ago? Not really. Certainly not directly. It just became slightly easier to get there because improving queens and OL speed meant people weren't immediately dying to all sorts of all ins, from Terrans in particular. So for a while there it was a lot easier to get to Hive tech to get the composition so people started to use it a lot. Does that mean that it completely broke play against Zerg? No. It means it took people a little while to figure out how to deal with it. The same sort of freaking out happened when Stephano started going three hatches before gas and maxing on Roaches in about 11 minutes against Protoss. But you don't see that popping up very much lately either.

Fact is, people started figuring out how to peel apart BL/Infestor a while ago. And as someone who's been watching pro players in the Beta for the better part of the last six months, I can safely say it pops up even less now.

It's exactly what turned me away from watching the game anymore last year. This is not how you balance a game.

I want to address this directly as well because you are confusing game balance with game variety. As I've already said, BL/Infestor doesn't pop up as much anymore. But game balance has nothing to do with how many viable strategies there are. It might be a less interesting game, but it doesn't mean it's unbalanced. And frankly, I've been following professional SC games long enough to know that 90% of the time that people say a specific strategy or unit comp is the one ideal strategy and makes all others obsolete, they're usually proven wrong a month or more down the road. And even if they are right, there suggestions for how to fix it are worse than the problem itself.

As for the article you posted, I have a hard time taking any article which suggests Blizzard is deliberately sabotaging their game so more white people can win over Koreans seriously. In fact, it spends so much time discussing this sort of thing that I'm almost forced to conclude that the author is either joking or should avoid going outside on a rainy day without first removing the tinfoil hat.

Hell, it's even less believable when you consider the article talks about the Infestor getting a buff. But if you actually look at the patch history, it got one buff since release. It got +30% damage against armoured units. At the same time it also happened to get its stun duration cut in half (and keep in mind that fungals don't stack). Since then, they were made slower, their fungal damage was reduced against all targets, neural parasite range was reduced by two, Infested Marine eggs health was reduced by 30%, Fungal Growth had its range reduced by 1, and Infested Terrans don't get armour and weapon upgrades anymore.

So does this article really want me to believe that the Infestor was made so strong by a fungal damage buff two years ago (a buff that's been largely reversed since then) that it suddenly broke the Zerg meta game and that none of the rather substantial nerfs to the unit at the time and since then would have an even larger impact? Or that these changes have shown anything other than an intent by Blizzard to balance out the Infestor/BL composition compared to other Zerg compositions? Give me a break.

[Elly]

i picked it up at the Midnight Release, Collectors Edition Box and Guide, just like i did with Wings of Liberty... sadly i haven't had the chance to install it yet as my PC died several months ago and i'm currently waiting for the parts to get in so i can build my new one... i don't feel it'd be right to try to install such a marvelous game onto this little laptop, i wanna play but i don't want it gimped...
as for voices i noticed the guy that did the voice of Egon in Wings was the same guy that did the voice of the little brother in Mission Hill... i'm expecting more voices i'll recognize as not in-house Blizzard Voice Actors with Heart of the Swarm and Dark of the Void...

[kotora]

Well Vivi I can't really argue about the current state of the game as I've been out for quite a while. There's only one thing that interests me: you're saying that if I went back to HotS, I wouldn't still be seeing nobodies playing zerg give good players a hard time in utterly boring games that feature little to nothing happening in the first 15 minutes?

[Skyblade]

Gah, all this meta game and e-sport talk. I didn't realize that professional Starcraft was actually that popular of a spectator sport.

I'm really not that good at multiplayer. It gets way too competitive, and way too focused. I lack the speed required for good micro, and I prefer fun strategies over really effective ones.

I'm kind of surprised that multiplayer took over the discussion. I thought the new campaign was HotS's main selling point over seven new units for multiplayer.

[Slothy]

I'm kind of surprised that multiplayer took over the discussion. I thought the new campaign was HotS's main selling point over seven new units for multiplayer.

Each is going to appeal to different people. I'm not sure the campaign is what draws in the most people anymore though. As for multiplayer taking over the discussion, sorry about that. I don't have my copy yet so I can't play the campaign even though I'm looking forward to it. But on the other hand, I was playing the Beta back in November and have watched plenty of games of HOTS, so it's just easier for me to talk about that.

[kotora]

Starcraft is for most players primarily a competitive game. The campaign just doesn't have any real challenges to offer to most players who are decent enough at the basics of the game. If you look at the online communities, nobody's really that interested in singleplayer.