HOTS Beta is now live

Tenger

Seen a couple of videos of the Beta by HuskyStarcraft.

Any thoughts on the new expansion/version?


Personally I'm looking to a bit of variation from bio by Terran players. Am a bit wary of the Widow mines, Oracle, Tempest and Swarm Host.

And being a douche I am looking forward to more reaper plays!!

BlitzKrieg

strangely its some of the strange basic changes that has me curious (the workers auto mining at start, the number at each hatch/extractor being shown, not being able to click on enemy units etc)

surprised the mothership core is now free moving now.

Tenger

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

strangely its some of the strange basic changes that has me curious (the workers auto mining at start, the number at each hatch/extractor being shown, not being able to click on enemy units etc)

surprised the mothership core is now free moving now.

yeah, those are quite significant changes even from videos online from a 1-2 months ago.

I like to be able to check up on opponents upgrades, especially in TvT it can let me know I have the edge and should engage.

brimur69

Just finished downloading the Beta. Time to check out these new units!

brimur69

This is very strange altogether! As well as was mentioned above the workers will stop mining and chase an enemy unit if they are attacked

Grimebox

Check out stephano playing the beta.

http://www.teamliquid.net/video/streams/Stephano

He is making the swarm hosts seem crazy imba

Shiminay

Briefly watched some stuff Husky uploaded last night and whilst he's hardly GM level, he was able to build most units to get a look.

I too am most curious about the "mechanic" changes. Worker AI is one of those things that's sort of logical but makes a big change to the game. Not being able to click opponent units is a strange decision, it's really going to hamper the "check their upgrades to decide if I push or not" as Tenger said. I'll probably watch a few streams from pros to see what they're doing with it.

Grimebox

Shiminay wrote: »

Briefly watched some stuff Husky uploaded last night and whilst he's hardly GM level, he was able to build most units to get a look.

I too am most curious about the "mechanic" changes. Worker AI is one of those things that's sort of logical but makes a big change to the game. Not being able to click opponent units is a strange decision, it's really going to hamper the "check their upgrades to decide if I push or not" as Tenger said. I'll probably watch a few streams from pros to see what they're doing with it.

You can turn that off in the options. Its a noob friendly option to make micro easier. I watched those Husky videos and they're fairly painful to watch to be honest. You can really see the true potential of some units in the hands of better players.

From what I've seen the protoss units are rubbish. Tempest does hardly any damage (although has a ton of potential with its range), Oracle is made out of papier-mâché and doesn't seem to affect the resource graph at all. Haven't seen the mothership core being used really, the early-mid game recall has huge potential I think.

Shiminay

I think Oracle harassment will be a big thing that'll force early viking/muta/pheonix to counter and remembering to zap mineral lines with it every X seconds will be the key to making it work so there's a sustained harassment period. I don't see Marines/Stalkers being effective enough if it's a map with a big gap the Oracle can just retreat into. Tempests don't appear to do a lot of damage, but being able to do it from so far away with either an Observer or pre-ordain does balance that somewhat.

Grimebox

From what I saw one cannon/spore/turret shuts down oracle harass. They have 20 shields and 80 health. The oracle will take roughly 3 shots froma cannon in one harass run. Thats the shields gone and half its health. Another one like that and its dead. Add in a stalker/marine/queen and its even harder. It also costs 200 gas. Even the mining they stop is almost negligible (not entirely sure about this). Getting a few phoenix that actually does real damage seems far more cost effective.

TheDoc

From what I saw last night, Watched a good bit of Demuslim and Steph, and Demuslim pretty much went warhound, hellion and those shielded marines against everything with some vikings and wiped the floor with everything.


Protoss are ****ed....

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

the fact that observers and enemy players can see the range of a scan is ****ing unbelievable

blizzard do not have a clue what they are doing

Tenger

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

the fact that observers and enemy players can see the range of a scan is ****ing unbelievable

Must say I do not like that element of gameplay, better to leave dodging scans to be a skill learned with experience.

Similarly the workers auto-attack will lessen the impact of Shift-queued drop plays. In low levels (where I live) 2 medevacs on shift command to drop on mineral lines as i push his front to distract can do a lot of damage.

Dustaz

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

strangely its some of the strange basic changes that has me curious (the workers auto mining at start, the number at each hatch/extractor being shown, not being able to click on enemy units etc)

What POSSIBLE difference does workers automining at the start make to anything?

The numbers of workers mining can only be a good thing also.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

Dustaz wrote: »

What POSSIBLE difference does workers automining at the start make to anything?

The numbers of workers mining can only be a good thing also.

why not have an auto split hotkey for marines too to protect against banelings
or ghosts will automatically emp when they get in range of an energy unit
the game could take a look at the units you're currently making and once a production cycle ends could automatically start the next round of production
if you accidentally happen to put 5 workers in gas, the gfame will take 2 of them out and put them on minerals for you


this is supposed to be a competetive game of skill, good macro is something that is meant to be learned and worked on not just read off the screen

Grimebox

Ah gotta love the creative time we have in front of us

Dustaz

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

why not have an auto split hotkey for marines too to protect against banelings
or ghosts will automatically emp when they get in range of an energy unit
the game could take a look at the units you're currently making and once a production cycle ends could automatically start the next round of production
if you accidentally happen to put 5 workers in gas, the gfame will take 2 of them out and put them on minerals for you


this is supposed to be a competetive game of skill, good macro is something that is meant to be learned and worked on not just read off the screen

Are you really trying to compare the 5 workers starting to mine automatically at the start of the game to auto-emp'ing?

Really?

IRL_Sinister

Haven't watched but from what a buddy has told me HOTS sounds like it's dumbing SC2 down quite a bit. What a shame

VikingErik

I'm going to make a controversial statement: Fungal growth should affect ground only units. Fungal+invested marines is too strong a counter to air, especially if hydras are thrown into the mix now that they are a useful unit again. Between fungal and abduct Protoss (in particular) cannot justify going air, even with that tempest range (too expensive and too little dps).

I see a lot of people getting their observers sniped. I've yet to see someone use hallucinate to gain vision for the tempest.

Of course, like so many people out there I don't really know what I'm talking about, it's just my opinion.

Tenger

Well when I learnt about the collapsible rocks I wondered could that be used in a damage dealing way...........help is at hand:
Destiny Defending with Collapsible Rocks - Heart of the Swarm HOTS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA6cl0_UzqY&feature=g-all-u

Shiminay

I watched Day[9] and Sheth playing last night and whilst there's a lot of goofing off and Day[9] forgetting to use his Mothership Core properly all the time, it's pretty clear that Swarm Hosts are now an absolute must-have unit for any Zerg. They're definitely OP though, I'd like the idea of the locusts just dying after getting out of range of the Host as well as after X seconds to try and balance it a bit.

Tenger

Shiminay wrote: »

........it's pretty clear that Swarm Hosts are now an absolute must-have unit for any Zerg. They're definitely OP though,......

Warhounds seem that way too. However I'm sure the finished balance will be a bit different. Will be interesting to see what tweaks they do.

Gbear

I don't know why they don't just leave carriers in the game. As long as they're not OP they're not doing any harm. Meanwhile I can use them for, ya know, fun.

They're great craic in monobattles.:p

As for making mech more viable with WHs.. they seem to completely break it in PvT.

I wish they'd get air working first.
It'd be nice if there were some air-heavy builds that worked for P or T.

Something that might make the tempest a bit better - make them instant hit units as opposed to projectiles. Even make the shot look like a lightning bolt - in keeping with the name.

I suppose this is why there's a beta. It's probably better that somethings completely broken now - makes it easier to fix.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

well its not just balance it's design.. just look at the warhound

what can you do with that unit?
it's the definition of box, a-move
i suppose if you have godly apm and multitasking you can pull back weakened warhounds in a fight, but honestly I just don't know if anyone will ever be good enough to do that consistently

Gbear

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

well its not just balance it's design.. just look at the warhound

what can you do with that unit?
it's the definition of box, a-move
i suppose if you have godly apm and multitasking you can pull back weakened warhounds in a fight, but honestly I just don't know if anyone will ever be good enough to do that consistently

Mech isn't that micro heavy.
In toss death ball you might have to manage blink, FF and Psi Storm.

Mech has tank crawling, deploying battle helions. Maybe moving vikings around if you need them.

Shouldn't be too difficult to have to micro the haywire missiles.
Even so, they're kinda boring. Can't see a way to fix them - they're just bad units on a conceptual level.

This is what WhiteRa's solution seems to be:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z38ymoMh8nQ

It's a great game well worth watching.
Basically he just macro's Ourk to death.

So all a toss has to do is be way better than his opponent.:rolleyes:

Tenger

WTF!!!!

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/6571787498
Zerg
Swarm Host
The locust’s attack range has decreased from 3 to 2.

Terran
Warhound
This unit has been removed from the game.

Reaper
We have added a new passive ability called Combat Awareness.
This allows reapers to see up cliffs.

Hellion
Battle hellions can now be built from the Factory. It has an Armory requirement.
There is a new upgrade at the Armory that will allow transformation between Battle Mode and Normal Mode.

Widow Mine
We have removed the Armory requirement.

Protoss
Oracle
We have removed the oracle’s Preordain ability.
We have added a new area of effect ability for the oracle called Phase Shield.
Targeted friendly units are shielded from harmful effects for 5 seconds.
Fungal Growth, Corruption, Contaminate, Graviton Beam, Concussive Shells, Abduct, Revelation, Vortex, and 250mm Strike Cannons – Phase Shield removes the effect and prevents units from being affected.
EMP – Phase Shield removes the anti-cloaking effect but not the damage dealt.
Neural Parasite – Phase Shield will not remove this effect but it will prevent units from being affected.
The energy upgrade has been removed.
Entomb’s duration has been reduced to 25 sec, but the health per Entomb has increased to 100.
The cost per unit has changed from 150/200 to 150/150.

Tempest
The attack range has been reduced from 22 to 15.
The damage has changed from 30 to 30 + 20 to massive.
The ranged upgrade has been removed.

Mothership Core / Mothership
Recall will now cost 100 energy.
The mothership core will now start with 50 energy and when upgraded, energy will be set back to 50.
The range of Purifier Beam has been increased from 7 to 10.

Carrier
This unit has returned to the game.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

aye

one of the few things about sc2 lately that gives me a bit of hope. they took the warhound out to redesign it, possibly even remove it.

that's ballsy enough that you have to give them some credit

also carriers back, lol

that does kinda make them look like they havent a clue what they're doing... so their credit clearly wasnt very good

or.. my credit wasnt very good

i dont know,there's reason i dropped out of accountancy

Gbear

Tenger wrote: »

WTF!!!!

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/6571787498
Zerg
Swarm Host
The locust’s attack range has decreased from 3 to 2.
[...]

Carrier
This unit has returned to the game.

That is an utterly massive change.
I'm seriously impressed at their gumption.

SeantheMan

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

well its not just balance it's design.. just look at the warhound

what can you do with that unit?
it's the definition of box, a-move
i suppose if you have godly apm and multitasking you can pull back weakened warhounds in a fight, but honestly I just don't know if anyone will ever be good enough to do that consistently

M
K
P

Grimebox

SeantheMan wrote: »

M
K
P

I think he was being sarcastic about that point since its the most basic kind of micro in any RTS game, and its the only kind of micro available to the warhound.

SeantheMan

when is public release or chance to play HOS ?

Gbear

SeantheMan wrote: »

when is public release or chance to play HOS ?

If you look at where the game is at the moment - pre HOTS it was reasonably well balanced but Blizzard were unhappy at the rigidity in the game-play, the lack of options and the tendency towards deathballs, especially for toss.
Now they've unbalanced things further with new units and they're adding quite a few new ideas.

I'd be surprised if it's before december.
I'm guessing the game itself will be around March of next year.

GosuIrish

The changes for toss and zerg are fun feels like there rewarding the faster players with late game oracle/viper use , if you can manager everything its great but crap if you mess up , PvZ could see alot of stargate phoenix and oracle opening now that you can stop fungal , terran is just the same

Kirby

Gbear wrote: »

If you look at where the game is at the moment - pre HOTS it was reasonably well balanced but Blizzard were unhappy at the rigidity in the game-play, the lack of options and the tendency towards deathballs, especially for toss.
Now they've unbalanced things further with new units and they're adding quite a few new ideas.

I'd be surprised if it's before december.
I'm guessing the game itself will be around March of next year.

I've been saying since the wings of liberty beta way back when, the reason for this is mostly geographical. It's not the units so much as the maps. Too many small chokes that are easy to block with buildings and forcefields.

Bigger ramps and more open chokes will make for more dynamic, hit and run gameplay. Take Cloud kingdom. You can defend three bases with one deathball. How many times do you see 20 minute stalemates with people afraid to engage up the main ramp? They come in and then back away because you will get forcefield, fungaled or stormed if you move into it. It's torture to watch and leads to poor gameplay.

At the moment, it's not possible to do anything else so people just deathball, especially on ladder where the calibre of players is lower. Even in HOTS, every terran just deathballed warhounds every match so blizzard had to remove them for the moment.

Better designed maps will solve this. Maps like Daybreak are much better because of the multi-angled approach to every part of the map.

GosuIrish

daybreak is one of the most common stalemate maps

Gbear

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Rqx8s2qKXM

A great video about Carrier micro in BW compared to in SC2 by Tyler.

I think it's fascinating how something as subtle as the carrier interceptor AI can have such a big effect on the effectiveness of the unit.

Grimebox

It clearly shows from that video and the concept of the warhound that Blizzard intend on dumbing the game down. We need to fire them

SeantheMan

Also, anyone willing to hazard a guess at how long after release, can we expect to see the likes of GLS/MLG/IEM move to HOS as opposed to WOL for competitive play ?

Surely it won't be upon immediate release.
Do the Korean training houses have some HOS time in their schedules to be ready, or is that pointless considering they may alter a lot of the units.

GosuIrish

Most shows like sotg and inside the game predict everyone will switch once its fully released , tours staying on WoL may mean better games for a little bit but less viewers

Deadlocked

Getting Beta access on Friday due to Twitch.

Delighted!!

Gbear

A game between QXC and Gosuuser.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqtfaXI-71A

The latest beta patch has turned widow mines from mines into burrowed missile launchers.

They do 160 (40 splash) and can fire once every 40 seconds.
Their attacks don't get upgrades (it's an ability) and they auto-target any unit - air, cloaked, burrowed, whatever.

It looks utterly ridiculous. It's going to get nerfed rather quickly but I kinda like the idea, at least for the sake of Blizz trying something different.

Tenger

Gbear wrote: »

The latest beta patch has turned widow mines from mines into burrowed missile launchers.....

It looks utterly ridiculous. It's going to get nerfed rather quickly but I kinda like the idea, at least for the sake of Blizz trying something different.

I'm of 2 opinions.....firstly, how can you decide to turn 'mines' into burrowed launchers? That's mad.
Secondly...its impressive that Blizzard are willing to tear up previous add-ins to 'balance' the game. However some of the developments so late in the game program seem quite odd.

Kirby

I hope they don't gut the unit to pieces, and this is coming from a zerg player. It's their stealth detection that makes them broken.

Tone down the single target damage a little and take away stealth detection. That would make them a little more balanced. I also think that making them energy based instead of timer based seems fairer as all the other races have to manage their units with energy.

Gbear

A great post about the fundamental problems with protoss (not balancing but more about their identity) in the US beta forum:
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/6794032960

It's long but very well layed out.

I certainly don't agree with most of his fixes but the details aren't important - the isolation of the problems and giving some broadly workable solutions are.

A couple of extracts from it:

First Born of the Gods, the Protoss represent the setting's height of civilization and cerebral development. They are Purity of Form made manifest. Mechanically, the Protoss reflect this favored station with high unit damage and health versus their counterparts, absurdly powerful spells, and a high cost in minerals, vespane, and supply. When playing Protoss, the player should feel like they are in command of a small, but elite group of warriors.

Warp In is a fantastic and awesome mechanic that feels very Protoss. They need to allocate their few warriors where and when they need them. However, introducing it as a staple mechanic at a pivotal point in the Protoss tech tree (Cybernetics Core) is problematic. The ability to make units anywhere you have a power grid drastically reduces the defender’s advantage for the opposing player.
Moreover, Warp Gate is treated as a macro mechanic, meaning that the optimal play is to always make your gateways into Warpgates, raising the skill ceiling due to the fact that you can’t queue up units. To make this fair, Protoss units have been diminished significantly. The Stalker has 20 less health than its predecessor, the Dragoon (along with the coveted +2 damage per upgrade), and the Zealot has lost 10 Shield. Because of the power of Warp In, the High Templar can’t enjoy an energy upgrade without breaking match ups, and the Dark Templar has a 100 second structure with no upgrades to compensate for the ability to appear next to a Hatchery the moment the tech finishes.