Blazinghand Profile Blog Joined December 2010 United States 25130 Posts Last Edited: 2012-08-17 20:30:52 #1

HotS: Trust Your Feelings







Sc2 is a game with 3 different races. I know that seems a bit obvious, but that's how I'd like things to start out. I think Blizzard is screwing up the HotS design, and I don't think it really has anything to do with balance or whatever. I think it's because Blizzard doesn't know what races are in WoL. I'm not going to talk about whether units are good or bad (because I'm confident they'll all be good) or whether or not the game will be fun to play (because I'm sure it will be). I'm going to talk about the way I FEEL about the units, and how some of them don't FEEL like they belong.







Terran



When I saw the Terran additions I was immediately glad. First off, the Widow Mine is the shit. That unit is gonna be fucking hilarious. Battle Hellion and Warhound both looked like awesome units that will make mech play more viable. The more I see them used, though, and the more I think about it, the more I think these units are bad. I don't mean bad in the sense of unuseful, for they will certainly be useful units, I mean bad in the sense of evil, or destructive, to the nature of Terran. The race feels and plays a certain way and these two units do not belong.



Terran as a race is based off several concepts, but just in terms of combat units, Terran has a few strengths: the ability to tech quickly, the ability to use mobile mineral armies supported by gas units (bio with medivacs, for example), the ability to use drops to do lots of small engagements, and in all of its matchups, tactical space control/artillery. If we focus on the micro aspects here, we're talking about basically two philosophies in the terran army: Kiting and Artillery. Most terran units are designed for kiting-- Hellions, Marines, Marauders. Those that aren't are either support units, rarely-used T3 units, or are Artillery units (Tanks, Vikings, Thor AA).



I'll start by talking about Kiting. Being the race without a melee unit (unless you're bitbybit huehuehuehue) Terran almost universally needs to kite, or benefits from kiting, in every engagement. Terran's main mineral sinks, the Hellion, Marauder, and Marine, all have short attack animations, high speed (with stim), and decent-sized cooldowns between attacks. The marine has short attack cooldown, but like no animation at all, so it balances out: they all benefit hugely from kiting, either towards the enemy, or away from the enemy. There are of course zerg and protoss units for which this is the case (Roach, Stalker, etc) but for Terran every mineral dump is a kiting machine. Terran rarely stands and fights with a mineral-based army unless he has to support slower units, and it's one of the really cool things about Terran. I kinda think of Terran marines as like hardened



Those Terran units that aren't kiting units tend to be Artillery. In TvZ and TvT, Tanks add an element of positional play since they have the best range. In ALL the matchups, Vikings with their enormous range are hugely important. Terran's whole thing is making people sad they're poking-- punishing people for engaging part-way then pulling back. Obviously a Viking is more mobile than a tank, but if you see battles between Vikings and BL/Corruptors or Collossi or other Vikings, it's clear that a Viking's whole "thing" is range. It's SO HILARIOUS when an army accidentally stumbles into range of Tanks and it's like "oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck we gotta engage, we're taking damage" or even better "omg no run" and stuff. That's SO Terran. Whether it's Collossi being sad about Vikings or Banelings regretting the existence of the Arclite Cannon, those moments are exactly what make Terran Terran.



So we've got Artillery and Kiting units, and between the two of them they define Terran. This is why I get a bit nervous when I hear things like the Warhound and Battle Hellion added in. The Battle Hellion is an effective unit, but it is decidedly un-Terran in the way it's used. The same goes for a warhound. If we're talking about a primary combat unit (as opposed to a support unit like a Thor or a Ghost) it needs to either kite or be an artillery piece if it wants to be Terran. In fact, Terran in WoL was almost ruined by the Thor's strong ground attack via early game rushes and the like. This wasn't a problem because it was imbalanced-- the problem is that it wasn't TERRAN.



So, Widow Mine is definitely terran-ey. It's not an artillery piece per se, but you set it up and it controls space kind of like one. The Battle Hellion, though, is like literally a Hellion with the Terran subtracted out of it. Warhound is like a Marauder with the Terran subtracted out of it. You know what I want to see? I want to see the Warhound have War Mode where it extends out little legs and then gets an AA attack and has its rockets guys. I want it to be a scary ass semi-mobile turret and general shit wrecker. I want to see the Battle Hellion actually be just like a regular Hellion that can, I dunno, lay down a mine or snare an enemy or something. It's gotta do SOMETHING cool. In fact, maybe just get rid of the Battle Hellion and make the hellion have an alternate melee attack that's like the Battle hellions' attack, but with an even LONGER cooldown so you have to kite EVEN MORE for it to be good. I want to see shit exploding and running all over the place, or I want to see ridiculous ranged awesomeness. It has to either Kite or be Artillery or it's not Terran, not Terran at all.







Protoss



I think a better job was done with Protoss, sort of. The Oracle feels pretty protoss-ey. It's got that cloak, which is Protoss, and it's got some harass stuff, which I guess is okay. It'll be a nice addition to the deathball for sure. The Tempest, though, does not feel at all like WoL Protoss. If anything, a slow-moving long-ranged unit should be a Terran unit! That being said, the Tempest's design is awesome, it's just not Protoss. I'm gonna talk about what I think Protoss is so I can explain why Tempest should be different.



Protoss units typically strike me as very capable of retreating (via blinks, cliffwalking, recall, and the like) and also as pieces in a puzzle that works together. If you've ever played MtG, Protoss units are like that Sorcery called Coalition Victory. "A perfect machine can be made out of imperfect parts." Almost every Protoss unit is really bad alone, with a few exceptions (stalkers can blink away from bad situations). They don't have the huge range of tanks, or even the raw speed or strength of Terran or Zerg units... in fact, they seem kind of weak in direct combat. Together, though, the army is strong, and if it's not direct combat, the army is HILARIOUS.



Protoss' T1.5 unit is by far the weakest of them (Roach, Stalker, and Marauder) but is the fastest before upgrades, has blink, and can hit air. Furthermore, Protoss has a T1.5 CASTER unit, the Sentry, and it costs more Gas than Minerals. This is huge, and I think this is one of the defining features of Protoss: you can mine all this gas and put it into Sentries, a unit that makes your other units stronger. You get casters right away and they're super important to your engagements and unit preservation. It's brilliant and it gives you the FEELING of a dying race where all the best and greatest warriors come together to combine their various talents. Like, who else gets a T1.5 caster. Terran? Hell naw. Zerg? PSSSSSH the Queen doesn't count, get out. Protoss is elegant and glorious and the early Sentry is awesome.



The other feeling I get from Protoss is the trickiness and mobility it gets, not from speed (though it has phoenixes and Warp Prisms) but from warpins and other hilarious strats. Warpins are the shit. People might say they're broken or bad for the game or whatever, but I personally think Warpgate is awesome. When I see someone defend a 1-1-1 by warping in zealots outside their base from a high-ground pylon and flanking, I'm just like "omg that's awesome" and IT IS DAMN AWESOME. God it's awesome. Protoss harass, like zealot warpins, DT drops/walkbys, and Phoenix harass, is just SO FUNNY. It's by far the most annoying of any of the harasses, and it really just gets down to one of the cores of Protoss which is inducing true rage in your opponent.



If I were going to make a new Protoss unit, it'd be called the Warp Templar, and it'd have a infinite-range blink (with like a 2 minute cooldown or needing energy or something) that could only be turned on in a powerfield and would let it blink to a power field. It'd have like the DPS of a stalker, but inverted-- more vs light, less vs armored, and it wouldn't be able to hit air. This unit would be so damn protoss-ey! It'd be annoying as hell, you'd blink it around and harass, and yeah it wouldn't be great in a straight-up fight but it'd be cool. It'd also fit in well with Power Field as protoss space control and proxy pylons being awesome as hell.



So overall the Oracle feels Protoss-ey since it's an annoying unit and needs support, and Cloak is a Protoss-ey ability for sure. The Tempest does not. It is an artillery piece and having a big range and being immobile is what Terran is all about, not Protoss. A Protoss air unit should be a beast, of course, but honestly even like a Carrier with Hardened Shields or something would be more awesome than this thing. Mothership core is very Protoss, the recall thing seems like something Protoss should have. I kind of think just bringing back the Arbiter would be better, but hey, what are you gonna do.







Zerg



Next we come to Zerg. Zerg is actually a really fun race, and probably one of the ones that people understand the most easily. Zerg units are fast, you can make a lot of them, and they're just insane and awesome and cool. Hordes of banelings and zerglings and flocks of mutalisks... yes, it's truly a well-defined race. The T3 units are super awesome battle tanks of the sky or ridiculous blitzkrieging Ultralisks. The Brood Lord represents not just an artillery piece, but a uniquely ZERG artillery piece, since instead of shooting acid or whatever it shoots out EVEN MORE damn units. Infestors can spawn little units or help the swarm get to melee, and Creep is probably the best possible sort of space control mechanic you could give to a race like Zerg.



I think the upcoming changes for Zerg are mostly good, but don't really add much. Blizz played it safe, and I get it, you don't want to screw up the Zerg expansion, but come on guys. Well, first off much props for ultralisk burrow charge. I personally would have just given the ultralisks zergling-walking (much like how colossi have unit-walking) because seeing ultralisks crawl over zerglings to punch stuff would have been aweseome, but I get how burrow charge is also awesome. Hydralisk speed, while it won't be a game changer up at hive tech, is much needed. Hydralisks are too damn slow to be real zerg units, and this fixes them and makes them cool again, even if it's never used.



The Viper kind of seems to me like the Infestor but in the air. I have no real comments on this unit, the hook thing is definitely zergey since it's an anti-hero spell (so to speak), it punishes other races for being different than zerg, for having 3-4 support units like collosi rather than being a horde. The Reverse Swarm is cool, kinda seems similar to fungal in terms of "let your dudes get into melee" so I feel like there's a bit of overlap with the Infestor, but in terms of how it feels, the Viper is a great zerg unit. Totally Zerg-like.



Then we come to the Swarm Host. The Swarm Host... well, it's definitely at least partly a zerg-ey unit, since it burrows, which is zerg-ey, and it makes units, which is also zerg-ey, but it's a bit on the slow side. Yes, the BL is slow, but I let it have that because it's a Hive unit, it has an excuse. If Zerg wants to have a slow space control unit, like a Lurker or whatever, doing it via making units seems kinda dumb. What would be MORE awesome would be for the Swarm Host to be this massive melee beast, like something between a zergling and a ultraalisk (imagine a melee roach, but a bit better), but then when you kill it BAM a bunch of broodlings explode out of its corpse! Oh shit Terran player, now the horde is even hordier! Suddenly you have an awesome super zergey unit.



Now if you want to keep it as a slow space control unit, that's fine, but the things it spawns seem so slow and lame... when a Broodlord spawns a broodling, it FLINGS that shit, and the broodling is a super fast super crazy motherfucker who doesn't stop until his timed life runs out of you're crying for mommy. I want to see the Swarm Host FLINGING units, swarming crazy shit. I want to feel AFRAID of it, in the same way a Broodlord viscerally scares me. Come on guys, make the Swarm host AWESOME. It has so much potential.







Emotions



Humans are not machines. We are slaves to our emotions, and what we think is secondary to what we feel. I know Blizz will make a balanced and fun game, but I want it to feel good too. I want to cower and curse every time I step in range of Terran's ridiculous artillery and get annoyed at his kiting. I want Protoss units to be all up in my business being invisible or quick or whatever, then teleport away just as I show up. I want him to flank me with warpins. I want Zerg to be scary as crap by being quick and hordelike, and I want to constantly be doing battle with his attempts to paint the map with creep and pour broodlings on my face.



HotS will be okay without the feel of the races, but I want more than just okay. I want to experience the game at a more visceral level than just moving units. I want distinction and definition for the races, like there was in WoL, and to a greater extent, BW.



I want to feel.









Sc2 is a game with 3 different races. I know that seems a bit obvious, but that's how I'd like things to start out. I think Blizzard is screwing up the HotS design, and I don't think it really has anything to do with balance or whatever. I think it's because Blizzard doesn't know what races are in WoL. I'm not going to talk about whether units are good or bad (because I'm confident they'll all be good) or whether or not the game will be fun to play (because I'm sure it will be). I'm going to talk about the way I FEEL about the units, and how some of them don't FEEL like they belong.When I saw the Terran additions I was immediately glad. First off, the Widow Mine is the shit. That unit is gonna be fucking hilarious. Battle Hellion and Warhound both looked like awesome units that will make mech play more viable. The more I see them used, though, and the more I think about it, the more I think these units are bad. I don't mean bad in the sense of unuseful, for they will certainly be useful units, I mean bad in the sense of evil, or destructive, to the nature of Terran. The race feels and plays a certain way and these two units do not belong.Terran as a race is based off several concepts, but just in terms of combat units, Terran has a few strengths: the ability to tech quickly, the ability to use mobile mineral armies supported by gas units (bio with medivacs, for example), the ability to use drops to do lots of small engagements, and in all of its matchups, tactical space control/artillery. If we focus on the micro aspects here, we're talking about basically two philosophies in the terran army: Kiting and Artillery. Most terran units are designed for kiting-- Hellions, Marines, Marauders. Those that aren't are either support units, rarely-used T3 units, or are Artillery units (Tanks, Vikings, Thor AA).I'll start by talking about Kiting. Being the race without a melee unit (unless you're bitbybit huehuehuehue) Terran almost universally needs to kite, or benefits from kiting, in every engagement. Terran's main mineral sinks, the Hellion, Marauder, and Marine, all have short attack animations, high speed (with stim), and decent-sized cooldowns between attacks. The marine has short attack cooldown, but like no animation at all, so it balances out: they all benefit hugely from kiting, either towards the enemy, or away from the enemy. There are of course zerg and protoss units for which this is the case (Roach, Stalker, etc) but for Terran every mineral dump is a kiting machine. Terran rarely stands and fights with a mineral-based army unless he has to support slower units, and it's one of the really cool things about Terran. I kinda think of Terran marines as like hardened guerrilla warriors who are constantly on the move in combat, and the idea of a hammer/anvil army with artillery and running elements, really are what Terran MEANS to me.Those Terran units that aren't kiting units tend to be Artillery. In TvZ and TvT, Tanks add an element of positional play since they have the best range. In ALL the matchups, Vikings with their enormous range are hugely important. Terran's whole thing is making people sad they're poking-- punishing people for engaging part-way then pulling back. Obviously a Viking is more mobile than a tank, but if you see battles between Vikings and BL/Corruptors or Collossi or other Vikings, it's clear that a Viking's whole "thing" is range. It's SO HILARIOUS when an army accidentally stumbles into range of Tanks and it's like "oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck we gotta engage, we're taking damage" or even better "omg no run" and stuff. That's SO Terran. Whether it's Collossi being sad about Vikings or Banelings regretting the existence of the Arclite Cannon, those moments are exactly what make Terran Terran.So we've got Artillery and Kiting units, and between the two of them they define Terran. This is why I get a bit nervous when I hear things like the Warhound and Battle Hellion added in. The Battle Hellion is an effective unit, but it is decidedlyin the way it's used. The same goes for a warhound. If we're talking about a primary combat unit (as opposed to a support unit like a Thor or a Ghost) it needs to either kite or be an artillery piece if it wants to be Terran. In fact, Terran in WoL was almost ruined by the Thor's strong ground attack via early game rushes and the like. This wasn't a problem because it was imbalanced-- the problem is that it wasn't TERRAN.So, Widow Mine is definitely terran-ey. It's not an artillery piece per se, but you set it up and it controls space kind of like one. The Battle Hellion, though, is like literally a Hellion with the Terran subtracted out of it. Warhound is like a Marauder with the Terran subtracted out of it. You know what I want to see? I want to see the Warhound have War Mode where it extends out little legs and then gets an AA attack and has its rockets guys. I want it to be a scary ass semi-mobile turret and general shit wrecker. I want to see the Battle Hellion actually be just like a regular Hellion that can, I dunno, lay down a mine or snare an enemy or something. It's gotta do SOMETHING cool. In fact, maybe just get rid of the Battle Hellion and make the hellion have an alternate melee attack that's like the Battle hellions' attack, but with an even LONGER cooldown so you have to kite EVEN MORE for it to be good. I want to see shit exploding and running all over the place, or I want to see ridiculous ranged awesomeness. It has to either Kite or be Artillery or it's not Terran, not Terran at all.I think a better job was done with Protoss, sort of. The Oracle feels pretty protoss-ey. It's got that cloak, which is Protoss, and it's got some harass stuff, which I guess is okay. It'll be a nice addition to the deathball for sure. The Tempest, though, does not feel at all like WoL Protoss. If anything, a slow-moving long-ranged unit should be a Terran unit! That being said, the Tempest's design is awesome, it's just not Protoss. I'm gonna talk about what I think Protoss is so I can explain why Tempest should be different.Protoss units typically strike me as very capable of retreating (via blinks, cliffwalking, recall, and the like) and also as pieces in a puzzle that works together. If you've ever played MtG, Protoss units are like that Sorcery called Coalition Victory. "A perfect machine can be made out of imperfect parts." Almost every Protoss unit is really bad alone, with a few exceptions (stalkers can blink away from bad situations). They don't have the huge range of tanks, or even the raw speed or strength of Terran or Zerg units... in fact, they seem kind of weak in direct combat. Together, though, the army is strong, and if it's not direct combat, the army is HILARIOUS.Protoss' T1.5 unit is by far the weakest of them (Roach, Stalker, and Marauder) but is the fastest before upgrades, has blink, and can hit air. Furthermore, Protoss has a T1.5 CASTER unit, the Sentry, and it costs more Gas than Minerals. This is huge, and I think this is one of the defining features of Protoss: you can mine all this gas and put it into Sentries, a unit that makes your other units stronger. You get casters right away and they're super important to your engagements and unit preservation. It's brilliant and it gives you the FEELING of a dying race where all the best and greatest warriors come together to combine their various talents. Like, who else gets a T1.5 caster. Terran? Hell naw. Zerg? PSSSSSH the Queen doesn't count, get out. Protoss is elegant and glorious and the early Sentry is awesome.The other feeling I get from Protoss is the trickiness and mobility it gets, not from speed (though it has phoenixes and Warp Prisms) but from warpins and other hilarious strats. Warpins are the shit. People might say they're broken or bad for the game or whatever, but I personally think Warpgate is awesome. When I see someone defend a 1-1-1 by warping in zealots outside their base from a high-ground pylon and flanking, I'm just like "omg that's awesome" and IT IS DAMN AWESOME. God it's awesome. Protoss harass, like zealot warpins, DT drops/walkbys, and Phoenix harass, is just SO FUNNY. It's by far the most annoying of any of the harasses, and it really just gets down to one of the cores of Protoss which is inducing true rage in your opponent.If I were going to make a new Protoss unit, it'd be called the Warp Templar, and it'd have a infinite-range blink (with like a 2 minute cooldown or needing energy or something) that could only be turned on in a powerfield and would let it blink to a power field. It'd have like the DPS of a stalker, but inverted-- more vs light, less vs armored, and it wouldn't be able to hit air. This unit would be so damn protoss-ey! It'd be annoying as hell, you'd blink it around and harass, and yeah it wouldn't be great in a straight-up fight but it'd be. It'd also fit in well with Power Field as protoss space control and proxy pylons being awesome as hell.So overall the Oracle feels Protoss-ey since it's an annoying unit and needs support, and Cloak is a Protoss-ey ability for sure. The Tempest does not. It is an artillery piece and having a big range and being immobile is what Terran is all about, not Protoss. A Protoss air unit should be a beast, of course, but honestly even like a Carrier with Hardened Shields or something would be more awesome than this thing. Mothership core is very Protoss, the recall thing seems like something Protoss should have. I kind of think just bringing back the Arbiter would be better, but hey, what are you gonna do.Next we come to Zerg. Zerg is actually a really fun race, and probably one of the ones that people understand the most easily. Zerg units are fast, you can make a lot of them, and they're just insane and awesome and cool. Hordes of banelings and zerglings and flocks of mutalisks... yes, it's truly a well-defined race. The T3 units are super awesome battle tanks of the sky or ridiculous blitzkrieging Ultralisks. The Brood Lord represents not just an artillery piece, but a uniquely ZERG artillery piece, since instead of shooting acid or whatever it shoots out EVEN MORE damn units. Infestors can spawn little units or help the swarm get to melee, and Creep is probably the best possible sort of space control mechanic you could give to a race like Zerg.I think the upcoming changes for Zerg are mostly good, but don't really add much. Blizz played it safe, and I get it, you don't want to screw up the Zerg expansion, but come on guys. Well, first off much props for ultralisk burrow charge. I personally would have just given the ultralisks zergling-walking (much like how colossi have unit-walking) because seeing ultralisks crawl over zerglings to punch stuff would have been aweseome, but I get how burrow charge is also awesome. Hydralisk speed, while it won't be a game changer up at hive tech, is much needed. Hydralisks are too damn slow to be real zerg units, and this fixes them and makes them cool again, even if it's never used.The Viper kind of seems to me like the Infestor but in the air. I have no real comments on this unit, the hook thing is definitely zergey since it's an anti-hero spell (so to speak), it punishes other races for being different than zerg, for having 3-4 support units like collosi rather than being a horde. The Reverse Swarm is cool, kinda seems similar to fungal in terms of "let your dudes get into melee" so I feel like there's a bit of overlap with the Infestor, but in terms of how it feels, the Viper is a great zerg unit. Totally Zerg-like.Then we come to the Swarm Host. The Swarm Host... well, it's definitely at least partly a zerg-ey unit, since it burrows, which is zerg-ey, and it makes units, which is also zerg-ey, but it's a bit on the slow side. Yes, the BL is slow, but I let it have that because it's a Hive unit, it has an excuse. If Zerg wants to have a slow space control unit, like a Lurker or whatever, doing it via making units seems kinda dumb. What would be MORE awesome would be for the Swarm Host to be this massive melee beast, like something between a zergling and a ultraalisk (imagine a melee roach, but a bit better), but then when you kill it BAM a bunch of broodlings explode out of its corpse! Oh shit Terran player, now the horde is even hordier! Suddenly you have an awesome super zergey unit.Now if you want to keep it as a slow space control unit, that's fine, but the things it spawns seem so slow and lame... when a Broodlord spawns a broodling, it FLINGS that shit, and the broodling is a super fast super crazy motherfucker who doesn't stop until his timed life runs out of you're crying for mommy. I want to see the Swarm Host FLINGING units, swarming crazy shit. I want to feel AFRAID of it, in the same way a Broodlord viscerally scares me. Come on guys, make the Swarm host AWESOME. It has so much potential.Humans are not machines. We are slaves to our emotions, and what we think is secondary to what we. I know Blizz will make a balanced and fun game, but I want it togood too. I want to cower and curse every time I step in range of Terran's ridiculous artillery and get annoyed at his kiting. I want Protoss units to be all up in my business being invisible or quick or whatever, then teleport away just as I show up. I want him to flank me with warpins. I want Zerg to be scary as crap by being quick and hordelike, and I want to constantly be doing battle with his attempts to paint the map with creep and pour broodlings on my face.HotS will be okay without the feel of the races, but I want more than just okay. I want to experience the game at a more visceral level than just moving units. I want distinction and definition for the races, like there was in WoL, and to a greater extent, BW.I want to When you stare into the iCCup, the iCCup stares back.