HOTS Beta is now live

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.