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[demosthenes]

It's worth you installing the free version. Hopefully Lotv will overhaul the arcade setup. I mean serious guys, just make the BW USM model the default and then give people separate tabs to do all that other stuff.

I'm starting to really like Liberators. I'm not sure if they are op, but I enjoy the micro based unit interactions, and the Atg attack is fun to see.

also

The Liberator AtG attack will hit larvae - meaning you can plant one (with one or two more for defense) at a zerg production/gas expansion and start impacting their unit production! That and 3 are good for shutting down nydus play since the Zerg units pop out one at a time. Also overlaping targeting areas will make them overkill, useful for killing Ultras (they are great at that)

I wish I could play around with the new units on my own instead of having to play against ppl.

 

[Syf]

I wish I could play around with the new units on my own instead of having to play against ppl.

You can still do vs AI, just gotta work around the usual way by going to custom games and browse for the right type. Should be vs AIs available for all difficulty levels.

 

[Lethe82]

Reapers are a lot more fun to use haha
But seriously blizzard nerf blink stalkers and put Dragoons in as well

 

[demosthenes]

You can still do vs AI, just gotta work around the usual way by going to custom games and browse for the right type. Should be vs AIs available for all difficulty levels.

Oh alright. I'll take a look for it.

 

[SmartWaffles]

Reapers are a lot more fun to use haha
But seriously blizzard nerf blink stalkers and put Dragoons in as well

Dragoons are the remnant of the past, there is no strategic value for them unless you do a complete overhaul of the entire unit structure.

 

[Lethe82]

Blink Stalkers and warp in leads to such easy snow balling. I dunno they're just annoying like almost every protoss unit.

 

[ScOULaris]

Here's a thread of mine that some of you might find interesting:

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1061919

It's an interview with one of the last remaining Brood War UMS mapmakers who has been working on an ambitious RPG map for the last five years. I was so impressed by his dedication after all these years that I was compelled to bring more exposure to his project.

 

[phoenixyz]

So I got an invite to the beta recently. But when I start the game I get a warning box telling me that I "don't own SC2 or have run out of gametime". When I dismiss this I am being put on the ingame-login-screen. When I try to login there it tells me "game version mismatch". There are multiple threads in the LotV bug report forum with quite a few people having the same problem but nobody suggested a working solution/workaround. Does anybody here have some insider information on how to fix this?

I had this problem once but went away after rebooting my PC, dunno what else to do:/

A little heads-up for everyone else affected: it seems this issue has been fixed today.

 

[Syf]

Prequel missions for LotV are coming. Not sure when yet but it was just announced at the PC Gamer show. They'll be Zeratul missions, similar to the ones in Wings of Liberty.

Edit: Apparently coming in July for people who pre-order the game.

And here's the trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qJgSR7C2FM

 

[Lethe82]

Community Feedback Update - June 19 - LOTV

As we mentioned before, we’d like to provide our thoughts on areas that we’ve looked into this week based on community suggestions. Before we get into the details, we’d like to point out while we try our best to hit majority of the big topics, it’ll be impossible to cover every single topic every time. The goal here is to discuss big issues with you guys, and continue doing so over time. With this first post, we’re covering a few more topics than we might typically cover in a normal update. However, we think this is a good way to kick off these updates.

We’d like to also make it as clear as possible that game design is not about implementing every idea that the majority thinks is correct, it’s about finding the key ideas that will be best for the game. So we’ll do our best to keep an open mind on topics and even if we’re currently thinking that we won’t try something out, we’ll keep it as part of our regular discussions if those issues keep being brought up by the community. Please also try your best to do this as well, and remember it’s not about how many people say something, and it’s not about bandwagoning onto the loudest idea. It’s about trying to look at issues from every angle possible to make sure it is in fact what’s best for our game. Just as an example, internally in design meetings we try our best to detach ourselves from every idea. Even if I’ve suggested something, I try my best to analyze how it might be bad. This way, I can focus on the specific idea and if it’s the correct move for the game, rather than pushing for the idea just because I thought of something I think is awesome.


Here are our thoughts on many of the bigger community discussions this past week:


Flying unit separation radius

• This requires a code fix, and we’re currently exploring and testing something that we can add to the beta soon.
• We agree that when you are controlling larger numbers of air units, it’s difficult to do the moving shot micro.

Making all damage points to zero for air units

• One of the reasons we don’t have a default damage point of zero is so that the timing of micro has to be mastered by players. Just making it zero will mean microing is just much easier, which is probably not the direction we want to go.
• We generally don’t make extreme changes that alter so many things at once, due to the side effects these changes can cause. Changing every single air unit’s damage point is not something we’d like to explore, but we’d be open to specific air unit damage point changes if the change makes sense.
• With a damage point of zero, a unit that is facing its target can immediately move away after being issued the attack order. With the default damage point, the player must instead time their movement to happen after the attack is performed. An example of where this is pushed even further is the Hellion, which has a higher than normal damage point. The unique timing required for this unit requires additional mastery, which makes it more impressive when pros are able to be so effective with them. Since the suggested goal of the change is to have more interesting micro, in this specific case, we wonder if what we currently have is more interesting micro than the proposed changes.

Siege Tank /Immortal turret tracking

• This sounds like a very minor change that probably won’t have a huge impact. However, because many players believe this will be of great help, so we’ll test it fairly quickly internally, then put the change in also in the beta. So you can expect this change to go into the beta soon.

Community resourcing model suggestion

• We also watched show matches, tried games ourselves, and we agree with the majority of you guys that it’s too similar to Heart of the Swarm. But we wanted to comment again on this because it’s still a topic discussed by some.
• Just to reiterate once more, we’re not looking to make minor tweaks in this area. We’re looking for a big change that will make sure that players will spread out their expansions at a much faster rate than they do in Heart of the Swarm.
• Currently, the resourcing model that we’re testing in the beta is doing a very good job of this.

Ranked play in the beta

• We hear your feedback and agree that it’ll be good to enable ranked play.
• We may not be able to do this right away as we’ll need to introduce this with a client patch and can’t use the same method we use for the balance update which is done through publishing.
• Due to the feedback we’ve seen on this topic, we’ve currently scheduled to enable ranked play in the beta with the next client patch.

Disruptor being too all-or-nothing

• We agree with you guys here. The optimal case looks too strong, and when you miss with a hit it seems like the Disruptor is killed too easily at such a high cost investment.
  We’ve been trying various things in this area for a while now, but this is where we’re at right now:

Much lower radius (this is the biggest change + Disruptors look too underpowered right now in our testing)​

Lower cost​

Faster speed when activated​

Less delay before firing​

• Overall, it looks like we have a decent solve for the case of a single hit ending games often.
• We believe the next step in this area is to test out changes that would allow players to more easily save and reuse the Disruptors. This way, we can solve the issue where a miss creates a high chance of the game being over.

We’d also like to comment on some topics that we found interesting this week. Again, please keep in mind just because we don’t mention something here, it doesn’t mean we haven’t read it. While it’s impossible to read every single post that comes up every day, we do try our best and can tell you that we read a big majority of the things you guys bring up.

Adept micro tips video was very cool.

• It was a very good example of relaying more info on something new, so that players in the beta can better test new units.
• It would definitely be more cool to see more tips on new units videos, because we believe faster we have the majority of beta testers ramped up with new units, the more high quality beta testing we will have going forward.

There was a post asking if players want battles to last much longer. Our thoughts are that the current pace feels really good, and we were happy to see that most players didn’t want battles to last longer in StarCraft II.

It's really good that Blizzard is doing this.

SC2 LotV Beta - Reaper Grenade WTF Defence

Also I can't find this Adept Micro video

Starcraft 2: ZvP Adept + Disruptor Analysis

 

[Lethe82]

Good Riddance, Snipe (a Starcraft Parody of "Good Riddance" by Green Day)

 

[Caesar III]

Rocketbeans - a german twitch TV channel did a cup with the beta already. It finished a few minutes ago though.

You can watch all the replays of some of the games from the last round here (in english!):
http://sc2casts.com/event777-Rocketbeans-Archon-Cup

this one is really good. The micro with the grenades is so great: http://sc2casts.com/cast18208-DeMus...ga-Best-of-3-Rocketbeans-Archon-Cup-LB-Finals

 

[Lethe82]

Rocketbeans - a german twitch TV channel did a cup with the beta already. It finished a few minutes ago though.

You can watch all the replays of some of the games from the last round here (in english!):
http://sc2casts.com/event777-Rocketbeans-Archon-Cup

this one is really good. The micro with the grenades is so great: http://sc2casts.com/cast18208-DeMus...ga-Best-of-3-Rocketbeans-Archon-Cup-LB-Finals

That is a really cool opener.


Feel like the new Brood Lord range bush could be a better answer to Cyclone mech, especially with the mech upgrades split out again.

TvZ looking at new Ghost

I sort of wonder if it will have any application outside of ultras, maybe ghost rush builds might be a bit better against roach? I don't see why they didn't just keep snipe as well.

 

[Mr Swine]

I feel that Blizzard should scrap Thors, Ravens, Ghosts and Reapers, crappy units that should be totally reworked from the ground up or just delete them since nobody is using them at all

 

[Lethe82]

I feel that Blizzard should scrap Thors, Ravens, Ghosts and Reapers, crappy units that should be totally reworked from the ground up or just delete them since nobody is using them at all

As someone who use to play mass raven and pure mech in TvZ, I object XD I wish they gave Ravens irradiate though.

Big Undocumented Reaper Change: Starcraft 2 Legacy of the Void

Community Feedback Update - June 26

We bring you another Community Feedback Update from Senior Game Designer, David Kim.

Thank you for the responses regarding last week’s update and the continued discussion on those topics. Let’s get right into the topics for this week.

New Ghost ability
Before we discuss the new ability, we’d like to point out that the beta exists so that we can test various changes, and some will be bigger changes like this. As we’ve pointed out before, we’re still in beta and nothing is final. If we end up feeling the change doesn’t work, it’s easy to just revert the change, and there was no harm done. On the other hand, by trying out bigger changes such as this one, we can learn more about a tool that the Ghost can potentially use, or even give us more ideas in terms of what else we can try next. We saw a range of responses to this change, from those immediately dismissing the change based on the description to some analyzing the changes and providing constructive feedback. In order to help the development process and work together, the first type of stance mentioned above helps no one, and the second type of stance is what we do internally. We’d really like to give shout-outs to people who are also willing to work for the better of the game like this.

Getting into the details of where we’re at with this ability. We agree with you guys in that this is probably not the final version of the ability. This ability was created with two main factors in mind:
Something fills the role of Snipe
Snipe, at its core, was used to help take down larger units (before it was changed to mostly focus on eliminating High Templars).
The problem was that there was little micro on both sides, since Snipe is instant burst damage. And it was moved to a spot where it’s rarely used due to how it was used. Games where Snipe would take down a few critical units instantly and the game would end.

Something that has more interaction, unlike Snipe.
There are many potential interactions with the new ability. Say one of my Carriers got tagged. Now I can make a choice out of many options: I can move that Carrier out of range to not take additional damage from the Vikings, focus fire down the drone, move back out of range if too many drones were used in a specific location, or not care and deal damage through the armor debuff.
Compare this with being hit with Snipe: he used Snipe enough times to kill my Broodlord or he didn’t and my Broodlord survived. There really isn’t a choice for me here.

It’s too early to make a judgment on this new ability, but that was our thoughts regarding why we wanted to try this ability out. One point we saw from the community was that the fantasy of the new ability isn’t as strong for the Ghost as Snipe was. We agree here, and this will need to factor into the final decision when we decide to keep, improve, redesign, or revert this change.

New Medivac upgrade
As with the Ghost ability, this was a bigger change we wanted to test that isn’t final.

Here are our thoughts behind this change:
Splash damage options have been buffed against Bio
Lurkers and Ultralisks for Zerg.
While we don’t exactly know where Disruptors will end up, we’d like the unit to be in a very powerful place against Bio.

If we had to buff Bio, we thought we’d buff in an area that’s the most exciting.
So in this specific case, the ability wasn’t added because Marine drops were underpowered, but we wanted to try this buff to see if a strategy that we want to see a lot of in Void could also be more interesting after the upgrade has been purchased. For example, even in some cases where lots of Mutalisks are flying around, it may be possible to do a forced drop.
We’ve also tried straight up buffs in main engagements, but we felt this route helped distinguish bio play more so from Mech play.
Mech can be more about the direct engagement strength whereas Bio, while it may be weaker in Void due to changes to other races, we wonder if they can hold up better due to stronger harassment play.

We obviously don’t know the full effect of the changes, and also it’s not possible to make a call on whether this was a good add or not this early, but we just wanted to clear up our thoughts behind this change.

Disruptor Update
We’ve been testing various changes here and we want a version of the Disruptor where each hit isn’t that big, but it’s possible to save and reuse each Disruptor so there’s a lot more micro and decision making needed on both sides. This week we’re trying a version of the Disruptor that has much less impact per hit, but stays in its “phased out” mode for a few seconds after the hit has gone off. One concern here is that the Disruptor could feel too difficult to kill, and this is why we’d like to internally explore more in detail before deciding on the list of changes for the beta.

Passive abilities vs. Active abilities
One thing we’d like to clear up here is that we iterate and polish our design philosophies and processes as well. What we said ~10 years ago regarding this topic is a good example of us having changed our stance in an area. We have design philosophies we follow and try our best to improve over time. Currently, we believe both active abilities and passive abilities can offer interesting additions to the game. But with that said, if there are specific, solid suggestions on a new unit improvement in this area, we agree that could be a potential win. But we’d like to consider this on a case by case basis and just saying “get rid of all actives on new units” isn’t very helpful. It’s also incorrect to say that active abilities are always more difficult to use than passive abilities. For example, outside of high-level play, the passive Voidray ability was very difficult to use for lower-level players because it’s very difficult to have the powered up state stay on and the exact right times. In comparison, pressing one button to activate all your Voidrays for a power boost right when you need it is much easier for lower-level players to use.

We’d like to also point out there are different degrees of active abilities. The Liberator’s active isn’t something that must be done at that split second moment and also doesn’t need to be done with completely accurate and precise clicks. Compare this to the Disruptor’s active ability where you have to manually micro each one to each different location after using the ability. In this specific situation, the reason Disruptors require such high micro is because we agree with community suggestions that Protoss can use more skill differentiating units especially during engagements, whereas Terran has a lot of it so we went with easier to use units on that side.

Medivacs picking up siege mode Siege Tanks
Thanks to your feedback, we’re exploring potential ways to tone down the Siege Tank without nerfing it too much. We’re not saying we know for certain if the current version is too strong, but we’re exploring this area internally to see what we can find. This week, we’re trying a version where the pick-up is instant (but the tank still stays in Siege Mode), and when this type of Siege Tank is dropped, the tank itself needs time to set up at that new location. This way, there’s a bit of a delay before firing each shot, and the Medivac is still free to move around since both the pick-up and drop on this side is instant. We don’t know what the optimal number of seconds will be for the tank to set up, but it’s something we’re playing around with.

Some additional thoughts on other threads and topics this week:
An Archon Mode suggestion thread discussed displaying more clearly which player within a team just made a cool move. Our previous thought was that in Archon Mode, it’s about the team doing cool stuff as one person, and less about each person doing cool stuff individually. But after reading the thread and comments within it, we’re wondering if the other route can be cooler. We don’t have immediate solutions here, but we’ll be discussing and exploring options our end regarding this topic.
We’ve seen a few different threads on strategies regarding the Overlord drop change. It’s always great to see this kind of discussion as it helps in our balance discussions.
We also wanted to give BasetradeTV a shout out here, because the uptime of their stream on various events is really impressive to us.

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/18194514747


An essay on the 2-step yield differential paradigm
Geiko's Economy Model [GEM]
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/legacy-of-the-void/488630-brilliant-new-lotv-economy-model

 

[FluxWaveZ]

Cool, I just got an invite for the beta. Didn't think I'd get one.

 

[Anarion07]

Tomorrow, 12.07.2015, the third and last round of the Rocketbeans TV Archon Cup will be held from 4 pm CEST until around 8 pm.

German cast: www.twitch.tv/rocketbeanstv
English cast: www.twitch.tv/basetradetv
French cast: http://www.ogaming.tv/stream/starcraft-2

The round winner will receive 500€.

more information here:
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Rocket_Beans_TV_Archon_Cup

(The German cast team got pretty famous last time for being pretty attractive, if anyone cares lol)

 

[SmartWaffles]

Community Update July 10th

Before we get to this week’s topics, we wanted to let you know that the SC2 team is hard at work this week and are in the process of finalizing the changes for a balance update which will be coming next week. More info on the specific changes will be coming early next week, but some of the things we’re looking at for the next update are:

Disruptor
New ghost ability
Minimap improvements – icons for rocks/towers, and showing possible enemy spawn locations
Turret tracking for Siege Tanks and Immortals
Addressing the issue of making large numbers of air units difficult to micro.
Combining mech ground and air armor upgrades.
More balance changes throughout the game

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/18301002290

 

[Syf]

Ranked ladder finally being enabled.

 

[FluxWaveZ]

Ranked ladder finally being enabled.

I kinda liked not having ranked enabled. This is a beta, not a full release. I don't see why people are so eager to get so competitive with LotV just yet. Maybe it's just so that they can be matched against opponents of their level, which I understand.

 

[Wafflecakes]

Stopped playing SCII quite a while ago. Debating whether to try this out.

 

[Enthus]

Stopped playing SCII quite a while ago. Debating whether to try this out.

Same here. I think I'm just going to wait and play the campaign to finish the story.

 

[Lace]

I stopped playing a little over two years ago. Only got to platnium before calling it quits. I'm guessing at this point the majority people playing will be veterans which makes it hard to dive back in.

 

[FluxWaveZ]

I stopped playing a little over two years ago. Only got to platnium before calling it quits. I'm guessing at this point the majority people playing will be veterans which makes it hard to dive back in.

Not really; there's still a very large playerbase with all skill levels represented.

 

[Syf]

The new chat system with this last update is such a huge improvement over anything SC2 has had before. Glad they put some effort into it.

And some other things.

New minimap shows rocks and base locations more visibly, as well as the possible opponent spawn locations

New model for the Disruptor

 

[Hystzen]

Still not sure go for this or wait for full game in more interested in how they going to ruin Zeratul like they ruined every character nearly in Swarm.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

There are 2 things that stopped me from really getting into sc2 multiplayer.

One thing I could never truly get a handle on in sc2 was optimizing build order. I just could never really nail it down. I'd often forget to do one small thing and then everything would be off, I would fall behind from the very beginning of the game.

The other thing was the repetitive tasks that you must do during a match or you fall behind. For example, the zerg had to use broodmother to speed unit generation every 45 seconds or so. I hated doing that and if I forgot to do it, I would fall behind and lose.

I haven't followed lotv, and I frankly didn't play much at all of the zerg expansion, in terms of mp, have these things been alleviated at all? I noticed you start with more workers so they do seem to have paid some attention to the beginning of the game. Any thoughts on these "qualms"?

 

[Mr Swine]

Is the next patch coming out this week even though this large one came out a day ago? I'm talking about the changes for Siege tanks and Immortals (turret tracking) and aren't they going to change Cyclones like they talked about a week ago?

Also I love the Cyclones new improved model!

 

[phoenixyz]

One thing I could never truly get a handle on in sc2 was optimizing build order. I just could never really nail it down. I'd often forget to do one small thing and then everything would be off, I would fall behind from the very beginning of the game.

The other thing was the repetitive tasks that you must do during a match or you fall behind. For example, the zerg had to use broodmother to speed unit generation every 45 seconds or so. I hated doing that and if I forgot to do it, I would fall behind and lose.

I haven't followed lotv, and I frankly didn't play much at all of the zerg expansion, in terms of mp, have these things been alleviated at all? I noticed you start with more workers so they do seem to have paid some attention to the beginning of the game. Any thoughts on these "qualms"?

I think these are core concepts of SC2 multiplayer. It's not meant to be simple. There are multiple mechanics you just have to train until they become second nature.
It's probably more of a mentality problem. Why don't you see it that way: Your opponent has to do the exact same thing or he will fall behind. If you do it better you will be at an advantage.

 

[Syf]

Looks like the pre-order will be available soon

http://i.imgur.com/ggiZfdA.jpg

 

[The Lamonster]

I need dat CE. Hoping to get details soon.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

I think these are core concepts of SC2 multiplayer. It's not meant to be simple. There are multiple mechanics you just have to train until they become second nature.
It's probably more of a mentality problem. Why don't you see it that way: Your opponent has to do the exact same thing or he will fall behind. If you do it better you will be at an advantage.

To me those mechanics aren't really fun and end up being tedious. Each their own of course. The rest of the MP has a lot to offer and is still complex yet less tedious and more choice/risk/reward driven.

 

[Syf]

I need dat CE. Hoping to get details soon.

Yeah details should follow. I'm probably just gonna double dip to get the prologue missions now lol

 

[Syf]

Also some really encouraging things posted from the SC2 devs/pros meetup thing going on: http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/3de853/post_day_1_thoughts_on_the_sc2_summit/

 

[Blackage]

Looks like the pre-order will be available soon

http://i.imgur.com/ggiZfdA.jpg

Physical CE screwed over again. Gotta wait until release for prequel campaign unless I double dip heh.

 

[SmartWaffles]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1080019
Pre-order is up!
Updating OT.

 

[Mr Swine]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1080019
Pre-order is up!
Updating OT.

Bought it! And I love how Zeratul sounds in the mini campaign, much better than in Wol and Hots

 

[Lethe82]

I will be pre-ordering.

The latest balance update is all around really good imo!

General

Siege tanks and Immortals will now track the nearest enemy while moving.
Added mini-map icons for destructible rocks and destructible towers.
Made improvements when controlling a large number of air units.
Protoss

Disruptor
Cost reduced to 100/200.
Supply reduced to 3.
Purification Nova
Range reduced to 1.5.
After Purification Nova ends, the Disruptor is invulnerable for 3 seconds.
Speed when invulnerable increased to 4.25.
Can be picked up by Warp Prism during Purification Nova, canceling its effect.
Terran

Vehicle and ship armor upgrades have been combined.
Ghost
New Ability: Steady Targeting.
Deals 170 damage after channeling for 3 seconds.
Can be interrupted if Ghost is attacked.
Costs 50 energy.
Liberator
Anti-Ground Mode no longer has to be researched; now only requires an Armory.
Switching back to Anti-Air mode duration reduced to 2 seconds.
Increased Anti-Ground range by 1.
Fixed issue allowing Liberators to fire into multiple AG zones.
Raven
Auto turret
Damage increased to 16.
Duration decreased to 10 seconds.
Seeker missile cost increased to 125.
Durable materials upgrade removed.
New Upgrade: Explosive Shrapnel Shells.
Increases damage of Seeker Missile and Auto Turret by 30%.
Zerg

Ravager
Range increased to 6.

Also some really encouraging things posted from the SC2 devs/pros meetup thing going on: http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/3de853/post_day_1_thoughts_on_the_sc2_summit/

This all but confirms that Blizzard will be doing some sort of F2P post Lotv, I wouldn't be surprised if semi frequent single player and co-op campaigns are the minimum of what is being planed. REALLY encouraging.

I kinda liked not having ranked enabled. This is a beta, not a full release. I don't see why people are so eager to get so competitive with LotV just yet. Maybe it's just so that they can be matched against opponents of their level, which I understand.

Well unranked still gives you an MMR of sorts it's just very wide and resets between session (if I remember correctly) . I think that ranked play is very important to truely balance the game at high and low levels and you'll still be able to play unranked.

 

[phoenixyz]

Liberator is being buffed? Wat?

 

[Syf]

DK posted that they've been talking specifically about Protoss topics - warp gate, force field, gateway unit strength. There will be an update post next week talking specifically about Protoss in LotV addressing these things. I hope they're going to try some large changes.

 

[Lethe82]

DK posted that they've been talking specifically about Protoss topics - warp gate, force field, gateway unit strength. There will be an update post next week talking specifically about Protoss in LotV addressing these things. I hope they're going to try some large changes.

Community Feedback Update - July 17

For this week’s update, we wanted to talk to you guys about the big topics that came up during the recent community summit event. The event began with Mike welcoming everyone, and before we get into specific topics, we wanted to relay something he said—that the goal of StarCraft II is not necessarily about making the most widely played game out there, but it is to make the best game that we can. The designers on our team thought this was a really simple yet super clear way to describe our main goal with StarCraft II as we continue to work on Legacy of the Void—make plans for the future of StarCraft II beyond that—and wanted to share with everyone. Now, on to some of the event highlights from our point of view!

Overall Summit Thoughts
The community summit was an awesome event for many reasons:
Many of the big topics that were on our minds were also on yours, so it was reassuring to feel aligned with pros, casters, influencers, and the general community on what’s important around the world. That said, we can always do better and will keep challenging ourselves here.
Though we discuss regional issues often, it was a good opportunity for the Korea crowd to hear viewpoints from the non-Korea side, and vice versa. It was also a great opportunity to have some of the core members of our game team interact, helping us get a better view of the big picture.
The summit provided a valuable chance to get into more details on and have a more of a discussion than is possible in forum posts and on message boards, which can move slowly and can sometimes come across as one-side. We definitely want this type of back-and-forth interaction, but due to us mostly communicating in text, that’s always a challenge.
Having everyone experience more clearly that there are always opposing sides and multiple viewpoints on topics. This is sometime our team is exposed to a lot due to the nature of our job, but it was cool to have an even bigger crowd of people see that things that are supposedly set in stone and things that are viewed as “everyone agrees with X” or “everyone knows this is how it is” aren’t necessarily so clear cut.
We are so grateful that this group of people was willing to take the time to visit in-person and share their feedback on our direction. Many of them traveled a great distance, and every single one of them contributed to our thinking in a meaningful way—we sincerely appreciate it.
Finally, it was just fun to be around so many people from all around the world who love StarCraft II as much as we do.

As our community team also pointed out, there will be more of these events in the future with a wider range of pros, casters, influencers, and members of the community, and we’re definitely looking forward to them as well.

Game Difficulty Discussion
As many of us on the team expected, this proved to be a tough topic. We knew going in there would be clear disagreements, as we’ve been seeing in many places—including individual pro feedback—that the majority of the Korean community disagrees with our goals for Void, while many outside of Korea strongly agree with our direction.

As many of you already know, these are the main goals that our team has for Legacy of the Void:
More action, less down time.
More micro on both sides in engagements.
New ways to show off skill.
Make the game more difficult for pros.
Make the game more approachable to regular players through new features such as Archon Mode and Allied Commanders.

This was easily the biggest topic for the members of the Korean community at this event, and after many discussions with lots of different groups of people, we came out of the conversation with some new angles to potentially approach what we’re doing: Instead of just making the game more difficult for pros across the board, we wanted to also take some passes at exactly where we want the game to be more difficult and where we want to make the game easier. With this line of thought, and when discussing specific areas of focus, we came out with some key takeaways:

Approaching Void’s difficulty isn’t as simple as just saying things like “every unit add and change needs to make the game easier” or “every unit add has to have clear micro/hardcore add to make the game way more difficult to master.” It really depends on a case-by-case basis.
For example: New Terran/Zerg units are a bit easier to use than Protoss because Protoss is currently the slightly easier race to master.

We will explore internally if there are areas of the game require a lot of skill, but don’t show off well, and consider whether these can be simplified.
For example: Creep tumor spreading well is super-easy to spot and notice as the opponent playing against it. However, with spawn larva, it’s very difficult to know if a player is doing well.

Even if we make LotV X% easier, due to the nature of StarCraft II, it will never be the most instantly accessible or easy-to-master game out there. Our focus should be on making sure new players have the necessarily tools and steps they need to become part of the community. Going more into detail:
While a new player might not think the SC2 1v1 experience appears inherently accessible, its rich complexity is a part of what makes it so intriguing—and ultimately engaging.
We can do a better job making the transition for brand-new players easier. For example, I’m completely new to RTSs or SC2. In Void, maybe the flow for getting me into 1v1 looks something like this: Play the campaign; move on to Allied Commanders; try out Training Mode; play some team games with my favorite ally from Allied commanders; try out Archon Mode; and then try 1v1.
We’re not saying that everyone interested in playing SC2 needs to eventually move into 1v1—obviously, we anticipate some Void players will be drawn solely to Allied Commanders, while others will live in team games for years, and that’s great. However, we can make it easier for those interested in every part of SC2 to make the leap from the most accessible part to the most hardcore part—by making it happen in smaller steps.

While we know there aren’t really any solutions in this update, we thought it’d be valuable to share some of the topics we’ll be looking into in more detail in the future. These are challenging issues to address, and we don’t expect any of these big topics to have an easy or quick fix. But we’ll be taking the time, resources, and analysis necessary to really dig into the details around these areas, and your focused, and specific feedback will be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your support, and hopefully you found our perspective on the summit valuable.

We’ve also talked a lot about various popular Protoss topics such as Force Fields, Warp Gates, and Gateway unit strength, but this post has already gone on too long—so we’ll leave that for next week’s update.

In our next update, we’ll be discussing the Protoss in Legacy of the Void more in-depth, so stay tuned!

.

 

[AdventureRacing]

I find the popularity of archon mode kind of interesting. It has essentially been in the arcade since the early days of SC2 and essentially no one played it. Though i guess it sums up the one of the big problems with SC2 and the arcade in the first place. This awesome mode for playing the game has been there all along but no one used it because of the awful arcade system. Blizzard should have been pushing things like that years ago. I myself have been trying to get people to play it for a long time with little success.

Also going F2P at some point after LOTV is just too late. I mean the game needs it to have any chance to survive long time particularly as an esport but it needed to happen earlier.

Overall i'm kind of liking what i'm reading in terms of where they want to take the game. Having said that i feel like a lot of it we've heard before and i still don't think they will make the huge changes necessary to bring the game to where it should be.

No doubt though if i ever go back to actually having some free time i'll end up playing a lot of this game.

 

[Won]

Everything about LotV seems to fall into the "too little, too late" category. Like all this should have happened before the Wings of Liberty beta.

 

[Lethe82]

Eh I disagree, sure it won't be as big as League or whatnot, but the impact of the types of changes they are hinting at will be huge for the game. SCII will likely be bigger post LotV than it has ever been post WoL.

Since one of the areas they are focusing on quite rightly is looking at what should be hard and what should be easy:

Automated control groups: I think control groups in general could use some work. Be it automated army control group generation, or also automating elements like control group subdivision for armies and production based on unit/structure hierarchy. Control groups are needlessly difficult and hard to manage in SCII. They sort of started it with the select army button, but being able to have automatic control group generation and control group subdivision would help out a lot. How you want the control groups generated could be managed through settings.You could also have an easy way to split units off from automatically being a part of the main army control groups or whatnot, for drops and things like that.

Revamped Training: Training not only gives you challenges that help you learn how to control the units etc, but actually prepares you for how multiplayer is actually played

Improved select-able 'AI Strategies': Their techniques will actually allow them to replicate the openings of strategies used in real competitive play and are frequently updated.

 

[Syf]

And if you read Lycan's comments from the private SC2 summit Blizzard held last week, they were told that the SC2 team is larger now than it was in WoL and will continue to be that big post-launch as they have a lot of unannounced stuff in the works to continue supporting the game. I think there's good reason for optimism right now.

 

[Lethe82]

ALSO CAN WE PLEASE GET THE OPTION FOR A PRODUCTION PROGRESS BAR ON THE BUILDING ICONS OF A PRODUCTION CONTROL GROUP?

 

[Lethe82]

JaKaTaK's thoughts from the Blizzard Summit

Starcraft 2 - Legacy of the Void - Aggro Skytoss vs 1 Base Overlord Zergling Drop Allin

 

[Lethe82]

Some pretty good responses by Blizzard about Protoss including how they are looking to nerf offensive warp gating and make it more strategic as well as a pretty good idea from bringing back micro with charge zealots

Blizzards Protoss update
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/18300015133

Last time we made a community update, we talked about what was discussed at our event at the Blizzard campus. We’d like to follow that up with a look at the state of Protoss in Legacy of the Void, which were not only big topics at the event, but also big topics within our community as a whole.

Feedback in general
We’re grateful to see so much passion from the community around balance topics – even when opinions are varied, this level of engagement is truly positive. Something we touched on previously is that we strive to locate and improve specific parts of the game that aren’t working well without taking away from the good parts. We understand that it’s tempting sometimes to just make extreme statements that only look at a part of a system, but what makes the process of improving StarCraft II difficult is trying to look at a system from all possible angles. Our goal isn’t to scrap main systems in the game or to throw away fun elements just because there’s a possible alternative path.

Putting this into context for this week’s topic, we see a lot of broad statements thrown around when it comes to Protoss. Saying things like “Protoss needs a complete redesign from scratch” while focusing only on the few negatives and ignoring the positives make it a difficult topic to discuss at times. We’d like to work together towards locating what the good parts are as well as the specific areas that need improvement so that we don’t throw away the core and fun parts of the race while trying to improve.

Disruptor
We agree that the new version of the Disruptor has a main issue. The issue being that because they’re invulnerable when engaging and retreating it almost feels like it’s a given to be able to save the Disruptor. Obviously, this is the opposite of what we want. We want the moments of saving and reusing Disruptors to be a cool moment, not something that’s almost always guaranteed. One suggestion we thought was good was instead of the Disruptor being invulnerable after the damage is dealt, it has the speed buff so that there is potential for good positioning play on both sides after the shot goes off. We will definitely try this out, and also try to brainstorm and playtest different ideas in order to get this unit in a good place.

Force Fields
Force Fields are something we’re definitely working on as seen from the beta. This can be a difficult topic because there are some very passionate sides regarding their place in StarCraft II. As with any aspect of StarCraft II, we hope that everyone analyzes how new changes to existing abilities or mechanics affect the game rather than stick to set beliefs.

We had some good discussion this topic with the members that participated in last week’s summit. While some players initially had strong opinions on this topic, others pointed out cool counter micro to Force Fields. Not only to negate their effect but ways that both Terran and Zerg could use the Force Fields against the Protoss. This included loading up units into Medivacs and unloading them on the other side, or Roach burrow-move micro to the other side. This highlighted the fact that some statements made about Force Fields just aren’t true.

However, even with some of these counter moves available, the majority of us agreed that Zerg could use more tools against Force Fields in Legacy of the Void, and that Ravagers could be a good tool if we balance it correctly. Not only that, as we see in other matchups, having siege range support also helps deal with Force Fields a lot, and the tier 2 siege-range Lurker change could be a good change vs. Force Fields as well.

If these two additions in the matchup aren’t enough, or if there are other specific scenarios where a change against Force Fields might be necessary, we can explore them on a case by case basis.

Warp Gates
This was another one of those topics where we saw a lot of the voices represented at the Summit. One main point we agreed on is that offensive warp-in is an area that can be improved. We also agreed that the current change might not be the best, and we could explore more in this area.

When going into deeper discussions, it was clear to us that Warp Gates have many interesting factors that shouldn’t be dismissed. It’s such an interesting mechanic and a core part of the Protoss identity - the ability to reinforce defenses quickly on a race that doesn’t have high mobility. Additionally, when we looked at the asymmetry of how each of the three races produce core units we felt it was another strong point for Warp Gates being more good than bad.

The main takeaway here was that we can explore potential changes to nerf the offensive warp-in case. Internally, we’re currently exploring two ideas on this front:

Pylon power is separated from warp-in power. Pylon power will just serve to power buildings, and Warp Gates will provide power to be able to warp units in near them. Warp Prisms in this scenario will provide Warp-in power.

In this scenario, in order to do an offensive all-in early, Protoss will need to construct a Pylon and a Warp Gate in order to do an all-in.

In later stages of the game, players can still use Warp Prisms for warp-in harassment, or to support armies. We believe keeping warp-in strong in this case is good because players will have to commit tech to be able to pull something like this off. And it’ll also be more easily scoutable by the opponent compared to Pylons being hidden in various locations.

Pylon power is separated from warp-in Power. Pylons would need to be upgraded to have warp-in power. Warp Prisms in this scenario will provide both types of power.
In this scenario, we’re thinking something like: Costs 100 to upgrade, upgraded Pylons have the same health as normal Pylons, upgrading gives 8 extra supply, time to upgrade takes a very long time, and upgraded Pylons provide both Pylon power and warp-in power.
Similar general idea as what’s mentioned above, but this change would be more tunable.

If we decide to nerf offensive Warp-ins, we’ll likely explore additional changes in this general area. Please keep in mind nothing is really set here, and we’ll be doing some heavy investigation on this front both in terms of new idea generation and internal playtesting.

Gateway Unit Strength
Some feedback we’ve seen in the area echoes a general belief that because you can warp-in anywhere, Gateways units aren’t very good. We felt this line of thought goes against the spirit of StarCraft as a strategy-based game.
It’s becoming more and more common even in Heart of the Swarm that mostly Stalkers are forming main armies. This suggests to us that perhaps the cost might be appropriate for the strength and utility of the unit.

It’s very common to see small groups of Zealots harass and deal high or even game ending damage. Compare this to other races core units - How often do we see Zerglings doing this? Not as often. Which is why we’re also trying out changes to buff Zergling harassment in Legacy of the Void. That isn’t to say that Gateway units are the strongest out of the three races. Gateway unit strength is part of the reason why we’ve added another core unit to the Gateway in Void that is very powerful.

We’d like to share a scenario that someone mentioned during the summit that we found interesting. Imagine if Warp Gates were removed. Could we just buff Zealot/Stalker health by 5% to 10% and the game will be balanced still? The answers from almost everyone was that Protoss would be way too strong. And we agree, because both of those units are core units that are used in mass so a buff to these could more easily be game breaking compared to a slight buff to end game units which are used in smaller numbers.

This isn’t to say that the current strength of the Gateway is at its max potential nor are we trying to say that we’re opposed to changes to Gateway units. For example, the new Adept is a powerful Gateway unit that was recently added. And even without Warp Gates removed, Zealots also got a speed buff after the Charge upgrade currently in the beta. The main thing we’d like to point out is Warp Gates being in the game isn’t only related to how strong or weak Warp Gate units are. Just because the Warp Gate is nerfed, it doesn’t mean Gateway units have to be buffed and just because Warp Gates aren’t nerfed, it also doesn’t mean we can buff or add to the Gateway strength.

Zealot’s role vs. Adept’s role
We agree with you in terms of Adept overshadowing the Zealot in some situations. We feel that if we’re going to add a core unit to the Gateway, we have to take away somewhat from the role of another core unit. We currently have two core units on the Protoss: Zealot and the Stalker. Because we believe Stalkers are a more interesting unit, we believe the Adept taking some of the Zealot’s role away is the better direction.

With that said, we also agree with you guys that it’s possible the speed upgrade on the Zealot might not have been the best direction. Because the Adept’s role is heavily focused on early game harassment, and tanking damage in combat, we wonder if we can do something different for the Zealot. For example, what if we added the initial burst damage Zealots deal after charging to an enemy? Something like this might be cool for a few different reasons:
Adept is about the added meat shield, Zealots are about the added damage.
Zealots would clearly be better in the mid/late game Warp Prism harassment case, while the two main advantages of the Adept would still be intact.
It has the type of micro that a lot have been asking for: More positioning and movement-based, rather than ability-click based.

Thank you again for taking the time to read our thoughts on this and as always, please continue to share your feedback and concerns with us as we work to make Legacy of the Void, the best game it can be!
Edited by Arkitas on 7/22/2015 4:22 PM PDT

Also a follow up covering more topics counter point sort of thing

This is in response to David Kim's "Community Feedback Update - July 22nd" -- read that if you haven't already: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/18300015133

It read very much as a response to players who complain about Protoss, rather than players who play Protoss. Naturally, as a Protoss player this disappointed me even though those topics did need to be discussed as well. I don't want to come off as too negative because David Kim's post was a good discussion of some important topics, but also felt like he entirely avoided a number of topics from both Protoss players and players complaining about Protoss.

This is a very reserved description of my reaction It felt like this: Protoss has been widely acknowledged as significantly weaker than the other two races since the start of the LotV beta to the point they've been considered the butt of a joke in their own expansion. In his post, David Kim mentions:

Nerfing Warp Gate
Nerfing Force Fields
"Gateway units aren't too weak"
"Disruptors are too easy to save" (ie, we'll nerf them too)

ut this kind of emotional posting really isn't helpful to Blizzard.

The SC2 team has been doing a great job of responding to community discussions, so instead of being dramatic I figured I ought to simply write a post giving feedback on the areas I felt David Kim missed and there is a high chance they'll talk of them next week instead.

These are my thoughts as a Diamond-League Protoss and admittedly I've been playing as much HotS as LotV lately, so take them for what they are. I hope I do a good job of representing Protoss player's thoughts, and I hope the feedback is helpful to the Blizzard SC2 team.

Mothership Core & Photon Overcharge

This topic was avoided by Davie. A lot of players have complained about this as being a shining example of bad Protoss design, often being grouped with Warp Gates, Force Fields, and Colossus as the quaternary of bad Protoss design. If complaints have lessened in recent times it's only because players have found ways to work around the impact of it, not because design is any better. It's not the biggest issue for me, but these are the complaints with the unit as I understand them:

1. Photon Overcharge is a very boring ability with little-to-no counter-play and no skill in it's use. A good player Overcharging is identical to a bad player doing it.

2. Unlike other forms of defense, it's a non-choice and requires little committal. If a Zerg sees a big attack coming and decide to build Spine Crawlers, this is a big reactive investment of minerals. If a Terran builds a Planetary Fortress, this is a very costly committal and cost-benefit trade over getting an Orbital. On the contrast, Protoss players always get a MSC (relatively low cost) and its no cost-benefit trade over Chronoboost.

3. People disagree that using "Hero Units" is a good design choice for SC2, period.

4. Clutch for weak Gateway units. If David Kim's assertion that Gateway units aren't actually weak is true, why do Protoss Players have to rely on Overcharge?


Colossus

Colossus are easily on par with Forcefields\WG it terms of how loudly the community has complained. Blizzard's solution for now has been to nerf them into a corner and let them gather dust. Well, face it -- they're still in the game with the same design flaws as before. If this is Blizzards final solution, while the other races might not care it will leave a lot of Protoss players really pissed off. If the SC2 team didn't think it was necessary to comment on Colossus for this reason, please reconsider: It's not a satisfactory solution.

It feels like we've been cheated out of a new unit

This is very much tied to the above point. With the Colossus quasi-removed, it feels like like the Disruptor is not a new unit, it's just a replacement of the Colossus. They do the exact same thing, built out of the exact same production facility.

It's not just about the principle of the matter, there are genuinely areas of the Protoss race that feel lacking and in need of a new unit.

An example of this is how the Protoss race relies entirely on using Phoenix to counter Mutalisks, if anything more so than in HotS due to more bases -- and now Vipers shut down Phoenix hard and Corruptors are more useful after they've been used to shut down Phoenix.

Comments on /r/allthingsprotoss summarize feelings well: http://tinyurl.com/qh9v4rf

 

[phoenixyz]

As a Protoss player you can just shake your head in amazement at the first post. E.g. a group of 16 Speedlings can just as easily kill a mineral line in a run-by as a 4 Zealot Warpin. And I don't see players walling in their bases against Protoss so that groups of Zealots can't storm into the base.

 

[Lethe82]

Zerglings are complete trash against killing SCV if you mineral walk SCVs to your other base.