Developer Update: Heart of the Swarm Multiplayer
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We are currently working nonstop on StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm (and Blizzard DOTA) and hope to be able to get Heart of the Swarm out to the public to see sometime in the near future. While we believe we have some great things lined up for the single-player campaign, I wanted to take some time to give you an update on the recent changes and what cool things we have in store for multiplayer.
Terrans
Terrans have undergone significant changes since we talked about them at BlizzCon. We have not kept the shredder, and even the warhound is in contention. The shredder was very confusing for players as well as being something that was easily used to kill a large number of workers with little to no warning. It was rarely used for its intended role of map control. The warhound still feels a little too much like a small thor, which is just not new enough to give terran players new strategies. We are still experimenting with a wide range of units, particularly from the factory, which we think is a little light on options. We have had a great deal of trouble with the terrans largely because they are such a flexible and effective race in StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. We want to provide terran players with new strategies, however, so we will continue to work on them.
If we keep the Thor, we are currently experimenting with an anti-air spider mine that would give the terrans a way to get some factory-built anti-air into small places that a Thor has trouble reaching (like near your minerals). Whether this is meaningful, considering terrans have marines, is still in question. We are also experimenting with an extremely long-ranged terran missile launcher that can be used to break siege tank lines to make terran-vs.-terran factory-based games more dynamic.
Protoss
Protoss have gone through some changes since BlizzCon as well. The oracle is still in and functioning as a protoss raider (as intended) that can give the protoss some reach in the mid-game to disrupt enemy plans. The replicant has been cut. He was causing enemy players to not build certain unit types and was actually removing diversity from the game instead of adding diversity.
The tempest was a powerful splash anti-air capital ship at BlizzCon. With the addition of the range upgrade on phoenix in Wings of Liberty we no longer feel like a splash anti-air weapon is necessary on the protoss, but we would still like to give the protoss some additional firepower in the air. The tempest is currently a very long-ranged aerial siege weapon that can strike both air and ground targets. This gives the protoss army some real reach to force an engagement on their terms in the end-game.
We’re also experimenting with some nexus abilities. One example is a mass recall that allows the protoss to be more aggressive. They can move out onto the map with their slower sentry/zealot force and, if things don’t work out, recall the force back to their base if and when things go wrong.
Zerg
Zerg are the most stable and largely unchanged since BlizzCon. The swarm host is still serving well as a zerg siege unit that can burrow and pressure the enemy from a distance (in a very zergy way), but the viper has some slightly different new abilities. In addition to Abduct, the viper also has the ability to blind biological units in an area of effect. Blinded units have their range reduced to 1. This is obviously effective against terran infantry as well as zerg roach and hydra armies. The viper can also regain energy by feeding off of minerals. This locks up the mineral patch and prevents it from being harvested, so you want to use this ability away from your base.
We have decided to keep the overseer and make the viper a pure caster. We will be taking a look at the overseer to see what we can do to make his abilities more interesting.
We are also trying some additional abilities on the nydus network to allow you to spawn different types of nydus worms. The most interesting worms have been a worm that can spew creep across several screens to create a zerg assault highway, as well as a worm that attacks only enemy buildings, meant to be used as a ground-based zerg base raider.
We have some more work to do before we’re ready to begin beta testing Heart of the Swarm. We know that everybody wants a date for when they can play, and we know how important it is to get this out in front of the community as soon as possible. We’re working on it.
Also, this is awesome:
—Dustin Browder, Game Director, StarCraft II
Comments (299)
I am excited for the HoTS Beta and the final release.
a) Terran army needs to be constantly microed to be able to survive any sort of engagement while the same doesnt happens for the other races.
A protoss deathball can be a-moved and be at ~80-90% effectiveness, same for a bunch of zerglings/banelings, while a terran army needs to be constantly microed either with stutterstep or splits to survive.
While this may not be an issue early on, late-game it gets pretty rediclous factoring the total army size / massive aoe / macro going on in the background.
Both protoss and zerg need to have more micro intensive units thus not also sharing the same strain in battle that terrans have, but also making the overral game more skill oriented, more balanced and also giving the players more room for special moves and displays of control.
b) The aoe effects in this game need to be toned down.
While you could argue that HT is fine or Colossus is fine, the lategame combination of both and/or adding on top of that archons, make the game less skill oriented and less enjoyable to watch, as the game inevitably will move towards 1 big battle were 2 balls are a-moved into each other, the screen is filled with aoe, one army or the other is vaporized and thats it.
c) It seems that you are having trouble with adding stuff to Terran. If terran is so flexible, then why do you have to make MMM every matchup adding just a pinch of tanks or vikings?
There are 3 things that Terrans needs, viable t3 units, a dedicated aoe ability (either make HSM viable or replace it with Irradiate) and some sort of defensive mechanism like spider mines or something that doesnt require supply to compete with creep/spine , warp-ins/cannons.
Terran don't have to go MMM every matchup, Tank/Marine is the most common TvZ I believe, whatever. Instead of saying you're forced to go MMM say that MMM seems to be the most powerful overall Terran composition, is that good or bad? Do you want there to bw two super effective compositions on one race? Or do you want MMM to be nerfed so that other compositions become equally effective, or that there becomes space for new units? What do you want?
Keep good work Blizzard.
Great... now give protoss more OP tier 3 units. They really needed their own brood lords...
And your point is .. it makes LǂWarKiNG point even more valid .. The tempest will be OP if it turns into a Broodlord that can hit both air and ground .. it should have remained as an ATA unit .. making it hit ground well is ridiculous.
About Terran and Siege Tank
Have you ever considered to make this unit more "realistic"? That is to improve the Siege Mode vs Infantary while beeing less effective vs Armored. I.e. Siege Damage 10 + 40 vs Ligth; and improving the Assult Mode vs Armored (and/or Mechanical), while beeing less effective vs Ligth.
This will give Terran player an incentive to use Siege Tank as a Battle Tank, while their opponents may use armored units to break up the artillery line.
About Protoss
To be honest, I have not played since before Phoenix got buffed, and then I mostly played Terran. Anyway, the buff was probebly needed and the greatest loss with the Protoss Carrier would be its ability to break up defenseline, like AA-turrets. Thus the changes to Tempest are appropriate.
At last about the Zerg
I like that you keep the Overseer, but it would be usefull if it got more offensive abilities. Perhaps from dropping x Broodlings for y energy; or improving the Changeling to make damage (at an increased cost in energy or mineral).
Thoughts?!?! ...
I have had thoughts about the Reaver beeing reintroduced but with Battle Driods (somewhat comparable to Infested Terran or Marines) produced similar to Interceptor and Scarabs.
Also while beeing strong, and at the begining too strong, the Voidray lack endurance for multiple battles with a Zerg dedicated to Corruptors, which with regard to the statistics in damage, armor-type aswell and cost would favour the Protoss. The problem is that the later (Corrptors) may be massproduced after a major battle faster than the reinforcement of Voidrays. Considered that Mutalisk works well against Voidrays and should be more cost-efficient than Corruptors, and that Corruptors were good vs Phoenix (I do not know about how Phoenix perform vs Corruptors after the range uppgrade) it is kind of bad that Zerg may dominate the air vs Protoss by only producing Corruptors.
and also, have you checked the new phoenix upgrade against the mutas, and probably strong against vikings too, its sick, the mutas will get big problems killing ff phoenixes
My - beta definitely won't start before World championship..
Wings of Liberty = Season 1 - 10
Heart of the Swarm = Season 11 - 20
Protoss expansion = Season 21 - 30
lol at the guessing... No one knows, thats the only right answer
So true, but its not going to happen because it looks like we're the only ones complaining about it...
I think that the tempest with splash and the void ray would dealt alot of dmg to corruptors brood lords, but then again I think hydra would be a problem, so I see nothing good to do against brood lords.
if you are going to complain or tip about this post, then please don't do it if you aren't in master or gm or very high diamond, I don't like people who comments me and are in no league-bronze-diamond, because most of those people do not know enough of balance, the real balance is at top level, blizz can't balance the games for newbies and pros altogether cause thats very hard in a RTS like sc2, but I am sure they are trying their best to balance the game for all of us :)
and also this is no balance suggestion or things like that, I for myself do not know enough about balance to make balance suggestion, although if it were things like ridiculous amount of splash and/or dmg or health I would report that as op especially if it cost little for it high amount of dmg/health/splash...
please do comment if you have any suggestions to this post of what to do against brood lords :)