Campaign Creations

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4nNfZwwhYg

First-hand opinion.

- Warhound should be cut, simple as that. The 'Mechanical-only' missiles are purely, blantantly hard-counters and that's about it.

- Giving Tempests a Siege Tank-esque long range strike is Blizzard typical ridiculous swing. They just should say the following: We don't want the Carrier. Period. Not only it kills the Carrier but also makes Void Rays utterly useless.

- So far the only things that I liked are the Battle Hellion and the Swarm Host, despite the fact the Swarm Host should be nerfed to attack ground only.

- The Viper is fine, IMO. Abduct and Blind cloud (AKA Dark Swarm) fit quite right.

- The Ultralisk burrow charge is only concerning for the fact it can kill mass easily. Maybe this should only cause initial 20 damage (Thinking mass-wise, of course).

- The Widow Mines (Spider mines that can also kill air) are interesting, but Blizzard could reduce the timer, unless it's meant to be detected by Overseers/Observers and then move the booby-trapped unit away. It'd also increase the presence of Ravens.

- Oracle's cloak field and resource sabotage will be more useful mid-game, I think.

Warhounds seem kind of specialized and desperate. I'm not sure how much better that is than the thing its replacing (which also sounded specialized and desperate)

Warhound: Inelegant hardcounter design. I wonder, does it transform from an SCV? Their chassis are very similar. Visually, the Warhound looks rather frail with those spindly little legs and top-heavy cockpit. Is that some sort of nonfunctional shield making up the entire right arm of the thing?

Battle Hellion: Finally finished merging the Vulture and Firebat, eh?

Tempest: Protoss version of the Zerg Guardian, basically? Couldn't come up with anything more interesting for an aerial artillery unit, like the Brood Lord? Couldn't redesign the Carrier to fit into this role in a clever way, rather than scrap the poor iconic unit entirely?

Mothership Core: Limit 1? This again? Gah, get that inelegant C&C design shit outta my Starcraft! Purify isn't any different from the Terran's Planetary Fortress, so I'm guessing it's the Mass Recall that's considered "OP" to warrant such an unprecedented hardcap. Yet we could have unlimited Arbiters in SC1, and they were mobile flyers that offered both defensive and offensive usage of Recall! The Zerg essentially have the inverse with the Nydus Network. I don't get it -- could you really not figure out a better design solution?

Viper and Swarm Host: I like them. They fit the Zerg thematically and mechanically, and offer interesting possibilities. Design more like this, and less like the lame hardcountering Warhound and boring Tempest. However, does this mean the Infestor's burrowed spawning of Infested Terrans is out? Because it's almost the same thing as the Swarm Host. It's kinda funny that the Infestor was once called the Swarm Host during early development.

@Falchion:
Considering, that you hate Blizzard so much, you really are in first place for any kind of news, aren't you?

Huh? Should I assume you're addressing Falchion? Either way, I don't understand your point.

I never understood how the Oracle, Viper, Warhound, Tempest, or Battle Hellion ever made it past some intern's head. The gimmicks just keep rolling in.

@Hercanic:
Sorry, my bad. Of course I meant Falchion...
My point was every time when there is a news from Blizzard, our hateful Falchion is the first one to post it promptly in the forum. As if he waits all day to...

IskatuMesk wrote:I never understood how the Oracle, Viper, Warhound, Tempest, or Battle Hellion ever made it past some intern's head. The gimmicks just keep rolling in.

i doubt they noticed the game they're making is Starcraft any more....

Also, Mothership core, what's the use of it? I have never seen any one actually uses recall to save units, nor do I think Purify would be useful since focus fire = insta death. It seems like they are very much successful in redesigning the Mothership to be even more useless.

More or less agreeing to everything posted.

I am afraid they might C&C'ing SC2 too much to my liking with HotS (not surprised with C&C staff around) ... especially the Warhound which screams C&C WAY too much. Rather keep normal Thors which feels any SC2 at least.

I even wonder how the melee community will react when all is said and done. Perhaps the HotS units would be boo'ed to the point that WoL would be considered the "true" melee while HotS would be considered some overall unwanted fan-made expansion that somehow got authorized by Blizzard. Or maybe there will be a half-half split between WoL and HotS melee players.

I expect the melee community to absorb hots with open arms if only because tournaments will do so. That said, anyone who isn't a diehard has already quit.

IskatuMesk wrote:I never understood how the Oracle, Viper, Warhound, Tempest, or Battle Hellion ever made it past some intern's head. The gimmicks just keep rolling in.

Believe me, Mesk, me neither, but the interns have the unfortunate tendency to surprise people with their lack of creativity.

Eredalis wrote:@Hercanic:
Sorry, my bad. Of course I meant Falchion...
My point was every time when there is a news from Blizzard, our hateful Falchion is the first one to post it promptly in the forum. As if he waits all day to...

Eredalis wrote:@Falchion:
Considering, that you hate Blizzard so much, you really are in first place for any kind of news, aren't you?

Please, Eredalis, I can even consider that flak I've got because of the Final Metamorphosis post, the talking about hard-counters and all that, but don't confuse stuff because this ISN'T about any hatred me or anyone else has with Blizzard. I'm talking about gameplay concepts in here, more of the sort of lenient counter wise.

Because, honestly, the only units I've liked so far in this expansion are the Zerg and the Protoss spellcaster. The Oracle and it's resource tap ability seem like an useful gimmick to control mass abuses, particularly those of Terran bio. The other units, however, don't seem to have this Starcrafty feeling, seeming like Blizzard is either doing a stairwell or a pyramid, each unit above being more powerful than it's below buddy, being THE pieces in an engine instead of simple pieces in an engine, which, combined and well used, can change the game.

Hercanic wrote:Tempest: Protoss version of the Zerg Guardian, basically? Couldn't come up with anything more interesting for an aerial artillery unit, like the Brood Lord? Couldn't redesign the Carrier to fit into this role in a clever way, rather than scrap the poor iconic unit entirely?

Taking an advantage of your point, Hercanic, I would like to talk of one of my recently-deceased campaigns, Infestation: The Pavel Reports, which included an interesting Protoss unit called the Disc. In contrast to the Tempest and it's Zerg Guardian like design, I instead made the Disc have it's rudimentary sight and non-artillery weapon range, making it a bombardment unit, i.e. ground-only. It's attack had a good splash damage and could particularly destroy bio balls. But I countered this by making it's attack an erratic one (Courtesy of the Valkyrie halo rocket attack animation), requiring it to have more numbers to be effective. Despite being cliché and an idea awful, this unit had it's value, but still it could be played with other units, not just replacing them as the ONE unit type.

Man, SCLegacy is liking it, but I disapprove. Blizzard managed to make the HotS Protoss portraits one step BACKWARDS from Wings of Liberty, a feat I didn't think it was possible!

SC Legacy is a fansite. Of course they like it.

Falchion wrote:

That portrait looks horrible. It doesn't even look Protoss anymore. The neck looks weird and out of place.
The Zerg ones aren't so bad, though. Could be a lot worse.

Jim_Raynor wrote:

Falchion wrote:

That portrait looks horrible. It doesn't even look Protoss anymore. The neck looks weird and out of place.
The Zerg ones aren't so bad, though. Could be a lot worse.

Agreed, the first time I saw this on YouTube, I could barely see it all. At first I thought it was a different Warp Prism esque portrait. This screams REMAKE ASAP.