The Blizzcon Thread.

[Kerensky287]

Originally Posted by Gregness

EDIT: I'm also kind of bummed that reapers are having their vs building attack removed in favor of HP regen because about half the time I use them it's to snipe tech buildings. This is more of a sidegrade though, since this will make them better at harassing workers.

I actually like this idea, because reapers were sort of impossible to balance previously. They were either useless, or gamebreaking T1 then useless T2-onward.

Now that they don't have to worry about somebody getting enough reapers to 1-shot buildings, they can focus on keeping them as harassment/hit-and-run units, and HP regen is a great step forward in that regard.

Protoss Oracles seem interesting to me in a lot of ways, but their building observation ability strikes me as utterly useless. For one, they're stargate units, which means they're T2. By tier 2, you've probably got a good idea of your opponent's build/army comp. For another, being able to see what one structure builds doesn't help much, especially if it's a limited-time ability.

Replicants are a cool idea but they'll probably be gamebreaking until Blizzard can find a good way to balance them. Build 1 Colossus, then start replicating it, and you get an army of cheap Colossi with all upgrades pre-purchased. I do want to see what it'd be like to use infestors in my protoss army, and Protoss + Medivacs seems like a ridiculous combination, but I'm skeptical about how it will all play out.

[Azisien]

Replicants can't turn into massive units. It would be cheaper to just build Colossi. Which is not to say there will not be balance issues. New units introduced will ALWAYS cause balance issues. I've used medivacs to support Protoss allies in 2v2s, it's pretty fun.

[synkr0nized]

lolderans

Looks kind of dumb, to be honest, but *shrug*.
Some of the changes to the talent system could be neat, though.

[01d55]

The Heart of the Swarm trailer makes me glad that the ending of Wings of Liberty was as bullshit as I thought it had to be and angry that they tried to get that bullshit past us in the first place.

Prince Smartypants gets his comeuppance. Get force choked, son!

On the other hand I'm not sure if they'll manage to recapture what made the Queen of Blades so great in Brood War. Putting her in the player position means she's gonna win every fight, which helps the credibility issue she suffered when you was beating her every mission, but that wasn't the whole issue. Memory shenanigans do not bode well.

[Kerensky287]

I feel like the biggest thing that made Wings of Liberty so bullshit was the fact that the Overmind was apparently just misunderstood, not evil. Kerrigan lost a lot of her badittude, yes, but I got the idea that she wasn't useless; Raynor was just kicking all sorts of butt.

A reveal that I feel could not only save the story but kick it up several notches is the idea that Tassadar's "ghost" is not actually Tassadar, but a psionic projection of either the Overmind or someone equally nefarious. I mean, think - Kerrigan's obviously not on the good side. Why would Tassadar tell Zeratul to save her? And why else would they do such a massive personality retcon to the Overmind as "he was working to fight the real bad guys all along"?

I still don't like Kerrigan's new voice actress, but that's mostly because 1) she's different from what my nostalgia says she should sound like and 2) Tricia Helfer fucking SATURATES the sexy villainess market in nerddom. I'm sick of her.

[Gregness]

Originally Posted by Kerensky287

I actually like this idea, because reapers were sort of impossible to balance previously. They were either useless, or gamebreaking T1 then useless T2-onward.

Now that they don't have to worry about somebody getting enough reapers to 1-shot buildings, they can focus on keeping them as harassment/hit-and-run units, and HP regen is a great step forward in that regard.

*snip*

Actually, I was having quite a lot of success with them in their current state as a mid-lategame option. In TvZ I've been getting lots of ghosts/hellions/marauders and since I have 8-10 barracks with tech labs in the late game, rather than go out of my way to get a starport and medivacs so I could drop, it's much easier to just research reaper speed and slam out one production cycle of reapers. There's basically no reasonable amount of static defense that can stop 8 reapers.

Essentially, the reason they're not used much is because 90% of terrans just do marine drops to harass so there's not a niche for them to fill. For those of us using different styles, they're a good option.

[Arcanum]

Originally Posted by Kerensky287

I feel like the biggest thing that made Wings of Liberty so bullshit was the fact that the Overmind was apparently just misunderstood, not evil. Kerrigan lost a lot of her badittude, yes, but I got the idea that she wasn't useless; Raynor was just kicking all sorts of butt.

A reveal that I feel could not only save the story but kick it up several notches is the idea that Tassadar's "ghost" is not actually Tassadar, but a psionic projection of either the Overmind or someone equally nefarious. I mean, think - Kerrigan's obviously not on the good side. Why would Tassadar tell Zeratul to save her? And why else would they do such a massive personality retcon to the Overmind as "he was working to fight the real bad guys all along"?

I still don't like Kerrigan's new voice actress, but that's mostly because 1) she's different from what my nostalgia says she should sound like and 2) Tricia Helfer fucking SATURATES the sexy villainess market in nerddom. I'm sick of her.

The Overmind was evil. It's just that it was turned into this all-consuming entity, and wasn't naturally like that. Which honestly makes sense since the Zerg and Protoss are supposed to merge into a single race (the Xel'Naga) after millions of years of natural evolution, but with the way the Overmind was that wouldn't happen, and the Zerg would just infest everything. It's not that the Overmind was "misunderstood" as you put it, but that its all-consuming tendencies weren't part of the original Xel'Naga plan, and the Overmind created the Queen of Blades in an attempt to stop those who were interfering with the plans of it's creators, since it couldn't do that by itself. It's not that the Overmind was working for the bad guys all along, but that the course the Xel'Naga planned was altered by the bad guys. Learning this doesn't change anything about the Overmind, it just changes what we thought about the original intent behind the creation of the Queen of Blades.

As for Tassadar telling Zeratul to save Kerrigan, it's simple. She is the only one who can fight the Hybrids (or the Dark One (dunno if that's his current nickname, the big bad guy who altered the Overmind, is the boss of Duran and Ulrezaj and who is apparently manipulating Mengsk as well), depending on if he/it is the one controlling the swarm or if it's the Hybrids) for control of the Zerg. It is basically the only way to stop the Dark One from having complete control of the Zerg Swarm, which is what helped him wipe out all the Terrans and Protoss in Overmind/Tassadar/Zeratul's vision of the future.

From what we've seen, yeah it doesn't look like Kerrigan isn't on the good side, but that's not the point. The point is to keep the Zerg swarms fighting amongst themselves, and possibly have another ally when the Dark One shows himself; since Terran+Protoss VS Zerg+Hybrids didn't end well, maybe Terran+Protoss+Zerg VS Hybrids might fare a little better. Basically what I'm trying to say is: I'm fine with the events of Wings of Liberty.

Anyway, I know Tricia Helfer from like, Halo:ODST, and that's pretty much it, so I'm fine with it.

[Kerensky287]

I'm honestly just sick to fucking DEATH of "Two hated enemies must join side-by-side to fight a greater threat."

I would be much happier to know that the bad guy's just more genre savvy than the good guys, and tricks them into thinking that they need to let Kerrigan live to win, when in fact she's more likely to just doom them all.

And then the Protoss campaign is all about winning anyway.

(Re: Tricia Helfer: Battlestar Galactica, Number Six. CnC3, Kilian Qatar. Mass Effect 2 and 3, EDI. And now Starcraft 2, Sarah Kerrigan. Bluh bluh huge overexposure.)

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

So when does the UED come back and positively destroy everybody since so far the Terrans are kinda holding their own despite being the descendants of a few colony ships?

[Gregness]

Here's a recording of the Starcraft II multiplayer panel, and here's the campaign and lore panel.