Campaign Creations

The visuals need chiaroscuro. Everything is so bright and oversaturated that it overwhelms the eyes. Details are lost, rather than defined.

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WB wrote: they do not RANDOMLY shut off. They have a set amount of Vespene, once all the vespene is mined out the gas shuts down for like a minute, your workers cannot use it. In a minute, the vespene will be back.

People are complaining because now they'l actuallyl have to pay attention to their economy.

Hercanic wrote: Dear WB:
Gameplay is a series of interesting choices. If players would always make the same decision, though, have the AI handle it. Otherwise, the action is a needless chore and does not contribute anything fun to the gameplay.

WB wrote: They already did that. It used to be that you had to manually drill deeper (this was the mechanic at the WWI) when the vespene ran out, they changed it to be automatic.

Dear WB:
I was more refering to workers idling rather than auto-mining when the Refinery goes offline.

Vespene Geysers automatically shutting down strikes me as pointless. I liked the idea behind the tradeoff choice, but if it wasn't working out, the entire mechanic either needs to be revamped or removed, not emasculated into an impotent relic. Personally, I'd like to see the choice stay, but have more impact and tradeoff, so it really is an interesting choice as opposed to a no-brainer chore.

What if worker units could participate in the drilling to increase its completion rate, removing the complication of idle gas workers? What if instead of costing minerals, the drilling caused seismic disturbances that slowed mineral harvesting in nearby regions, creating a choice between mineral and gas harvesting?

Maybe those tremors also ping everyone's map, creating a choice between stealth or gas (maybe the enemy needs a certain building to detect and triangulate these disturbances)? What if those quakes also slowed units in the area, lending a strategic element to drilling? Or, instead of slowing, decreased ranged accuracy like tree doodads or cliffs do?

Or, what if the shaking disabled any nearby defense structures? Combined with the pinging, it'd be a dangerous invitation to have your economy attacked. With stuff like this, the choice isn't just a mineral-to-gas exchange rate, but instead has a number of other risks attached that the player must take into consideration, ones which aren't always applicable in all circumstances, thus leaving it up to the player to determine the most appropriate time and place.

For instance, slowing down mineral harvesting, or reducing its droprate, would not be ideal in your main early-game, but gas-only expansions would have no such disadvantage. Map pinging offers a nontangible disadvantage that would be completely up to player discretion, could even be utilized against the enemy as a bluff, feint or trap. The gas repair mechanic needs more of those intangibles to make it interesting and strategic.

Naturally, every risk needs adequate compensation, so, depending on what is changed, the resulting gas gain would be far more substantial than in the WWI build, where the overall profit was only 200 more gas. The intent is to give the choice more impact, and lend each choice situational advantages and disadvantages so the decision is always interesting. Think of it like high-stakes poker.

Maybe an upgrade for each race (an advanced Vespene mining facility) might be the answer.  Like an upgradable building - that way you trade some resources and time for better vespene mining.  Then expanding would go slower too since you'd need to upgrade each Vespene geyser facility to properly accomodate regular mining.

This whole new gas thing confuses me, I wish they'd leave it the way it was.

Dear RCcola:

RCcola wrote:This whole new gas thing confuses me, I wish they'd leave it the way it was.

Why? Because you're confused by its explanation, despite having never played the game yet? I'm not sure that's the best reason to reject a concept. It seems a little weird at first, but personally I like the idea of strategic visibility. That's the purpose of requirement buildings for scouting players -- to see what the enemy is planning by what they have available. An opponent with one or two Refineries tells you something about how they're gearing their army.

Playing one match instantly lets you understand it. It's not too bad, but it is annoying.

I am just lazy and stubborn, I did not reject the idea of change.

Dear Lavarinth:
What, specifically, about it was annoying?


Dear RCcola:

RCcola wrote:I did not reject the idea of change.

"I wish they'd change it back" demonstrates that you did not like the idea, yet the reason you stated was due to being confused about it.

Every 5-10 seconds it was in repair an alarm audio would sound. For each one.

Q and A 45:

Chat with Devs: After BlizzCon, it has been very exciting to see all the feedback from the fans and pro players about the latest build of StarCraft II. There was lots of noted feedback about both the Colossus and the Nydus Worms (which we are currently polling on right now in the gameplay forum: ). At my most recent meeting with Dustin, we decided to chat about some of the lesser focused on topics, that have undergone quite a few changes since the original StarCraft.

Hallucination
The first topic was about hallucination, a classic Protoss ability, that honestly did not get that much use in the original StarCraft. To make it more interesting, Dustin explained how the ability has been brought down in tech to the Nullifier. Additionally, hallucination could be used to create units in which the player doesn’t even have prerequisite buildings for. That in itself should be an interesting scare for opposing players, watching 3 Colossi trampling in, only to counter with Corruptors and realize that they were not real. Furthermore, even probes could be hallucinated! Since the amount of hallucinations you get are based on ‘actual’ costs of what they would cost if they were real, you could get 8 probes per hallucination to trick those incoming Reapers. Dark Templars, Observers, and Carriers though were not on the list of units that could be hallucinated since the first two would be quite overpowering to use as an invisible fake scout (soo OP). Carriers too, would just have much too many hit points, as well as become quite a bit over complicated when you deal with how many interceptors they might have.

Queen Spawns 3 Mutant Larva
The mutant larva count has increased with the latest version of the Queen to encourage more use of a pretty powerful ability if used correctly. Mutant larva crawl around independently of a Hatchery and can create units at a discounted production rate. This is like a free Hatchery with each additional Queen! Along with the Queen’s ability to defend against air units early game, it shall make her quite a crucial unit in any Zerg army.

Everyone who made it out to BlizzCon or watched on TV, we definitely hope you guys enjoyed it! It is always a blast having fans and devs alike come together to celebrate the games we’ve all come to enjoy and love. As always, shoot the devs and I a w00t! if you are enjoying this Q&A batch!

---StarCraft II Q&A Batch 45---

1. Do enemy Zerg units also get a boost on your Creep? (StarCraft 2 Forums)

Yes, enemy Zerg units will still get the speed boost when on creep. Currently, the creep shares no affiliation.

2. Are there abilities that remove creep? (TheWarCenter)

The 2 ways to push that expanding creep is to kill the burrowed creep tumors, or kill those Queens building them. On another note, the creep no longer damages enemy buildings. Through testing, the ability actually affected players adversely in team games where players allied with Zerg players would end up having their units damaged by their friend’s creep. In 1vs1 matches, the usefulness of this mechanic was hardly ever used, amongst all the new cooler Zerg strategies that have spawned.

3. Does the creep speed boost apply to zerg air? (TheWarCenter)

No, they do not apply to air units or drones.

4. Won't Reapers, Marauders, Hellions, Siege Tank's splash damage, and Stimpacks be too powerful against a Zerg player? All of that seems pretty well suited to counter masses of low-hp units, like most Zerg ground units. (StarCraft Legacy)

As you know, there is still much balance to be done since we have not even entered into a beta phase yet. With that said, there are several counters still to these Terran units, but Zerg players will be forced to adapt with new units and strategies veering away from some of the original StarCraft strategies. For instance, Roaches and Lurkers are excellent counters to Hellions and Reapers. At a later tech, Infestors simply rock massed units such as Marauders with Fungal Infection, causing them to explode when they die. All the new mechanics and abilities will add many new strategies to your bag of tricks.

5. Can Allies ‘merge’ their Nydus networks? In other words, can you enter through the Nydus Warren of player A, and exit through the Nydus Worm of player B? (TheWarCenter.net)

No, allies can’t share Nydus networks between networks, but allied units can enter into another ally’s Nydus network.

6. Is the Thor still an anti-air unit? Does it fulfill this role effectively? – Thelorme (Battle.net)

Yes, it is still an anti-air unit with the longest range against air units of any unit in StarCraft II. Visually, we are moving to give the Thor anti-air missiles that will fire from his shoulders, unleashing a devastating barrage from a remarkable range.

I like the sound of the new and improved Hallucination!  Being able to create illusionary units that you don't actually have sounds like fun!  As a person who actually used that ability in original SC, I like it!

Poor Thor.  They should just scrap it and bring back the Goliath, they're pretty much the same unit at this point.

No way. Giant mech > smaller mech.

They'll eventually scrap the thor, or at least its current model. It's too big for what it's used for.

Same for the Colossus. It looked so weak and fragile in the Blizzcon build.

imo replacing thors with goliaths or a variant (maybe something bigger than goliaths but smaller than thors) for multiplayer melee would make more sense but keeping the thor as some badass giant mech that can also bombard land units would be cool for singleplayer

but then the terran campaign plot is pretty far progressed and i dont know anything about that and oh well!

needs more mecha