EPT As much fun as playing with AI allies has historically been in StarCraft II, they’ve always been a bit of a wild card. They tend to have their own hidden agendas and an inherently cold, lifeless disregard for the desires of their human teammates. AI Communication addresses this by making AI allies not only more communicative about what they’re up to, but also open to receiving orders and build requests directly from you.
The current implementation in Heart of the Swarm Beta is an early, sneak-peek look at this feature that we wanted to get into players’ hands for their input. While you are playing, please keep in mind that some aspects of AI Communication, including art for the UI, have yet to be finalized. However, the core functionality is complete and ready to play.
The first differences you’ll notice when setting up an AI ally are the changes we’ve made to AI player slots in the game lobby. Previously, only the Very Easy setting in the difficulty dropdown menu was available. With yesterday’s beta patch, we added Easy and Medium settings to the difficulty dropdown so that you can get a better feel for the new AI Communication features.
Next, we’ve added a build order dropdown to AI player slots which allows you to choose a basic opening build for each of your allies. Once the game starts, the AI will pick a build matching the opening type you’ve selected. If you are playing with an AI ally, you will also be able to pick opening and late game build suggestions via the in game AI Communication UI. For now, we only want to test the lower difficulties, which have access to just a few basic builds. In the future, we’re planning to have a total of 10 AI difficulty settings. The higher difficulties will have access to a much wider variety of build orders, including strategies that are popular in the current metagame.
Note that, by default, your AI allies will be autonomous. If you’re fine with letting them do their own artificially intelligent things, you can play as you always have without giving them any additional direction.
Furthermore, AI allies will now report their statuses and call out specific races or unit types they've encountered on the map using both minimap pings and audio cues. This information will provide a previously-unseen glimpse into what the AI is doing, as well as critical details on what they find across the map during the course of your games with them.
Additionally, your AI allies can now follow specific orders you issue to them at targeted points on the map. Orders can be given to individual AI allies, or to all AI allies at once using the new AI Communication controls built directly into the StarCraft II Command Card UI. In order to access the controls, all you need to do is click the new AI Communication button found on the lower right portion of the screen. To make issuing orders even more convenient, AI controls are also accessible from a new set of hotkey shortcuts. Once issued, orders are reflected on the map with new beacon models which indicate both the AI ally’s team color, as well as the order currently issued to that point on the map.
The orders currently available are as follows:
Attack/Defend
Scout
Detect
Expand
AI Communication adds a whole new layer of interaction to games with AI allies. We’re excited to get people testing and providing feedback on it in this very early state. Please check out the feature in the Beta by creating games with at least one AI ally and report back to this thread with your feedback. GLHF!!
The current implementation in Heart of the Swarm Beta is an early, sneak-peek look at this feature that we wanted to get into players’ hands for their input. While you are playing, please keep in mind that some aspects of AI Communication, including art for the UI, have yet to be finalized. However, the core functionality is complete and ready to play.
The first differences you’ll notice when setting up an AI ally are the changes we’ve made to AI player slots in the game lobby. Previously, only the Very Easy setting in the difficulty dropdown menu was available. With yesterday’s beta patch, we added Easy and Medium settings to the difficulty dropdown so that you can get a better feel for the new AI Communication features.
Next, we’ve added a build order dropdown to AI player slots which allows you to choose a basic opening build for each of your allies. Once the game starts, the AI will pick a build matching the opening type you’ve selected. If you are playing with an AI ally, you will also be able to pick opening and late game build suggestions via the in game AI Communication UI. For now, we only want to test the lower difficulties, which have access to just a few basic builds. In the future, we’re planning to have a total of 10 AI difficulty settings. The higher difficulties will have access to a much wider variety of build orders, including strategies that are popular in the current metagame.
Note that, by default, your AI allies will be autonomous. If you’re fine with letting them do their own artificially intelligent things, you can play as you always have without giving them any additional direction.
Furthermore, AI allies will now report their statuses and call out specific races or unit types they've encountered on the map using both minimap pings and audio cues. This information will provide a previously-unseen glimpse into what the AI is doing, as well as critical details on what they find across the map during the course of your games with them.
Additionally, your AI allies can now follow specific orders you issue to them at targeted points on the map. Orders can be given to individual AI allies, or to all AI allies at once using the new AI Communication controls built directly into the StarCraft II Command Card UI. In order to access the controls, all you need to do is click the new AI Communication button found on the lower right portion of the screen. To make issuing orders even more convenient, AI controls are also accessible from a new set of hotkey shortcuts. Once issued, orders are reflected on the map with new beacon models which indicate both the AI ally’s team color, as well as the order currently issued to that point on the map.
The orders currently available are as follows:
Attack/Defend
Scout
Detect
Expand
AI Communication adds a whole new layer of interaction to games with AI allies. We’re excited to get people testing and providing feedback on it in this very early state. Please check out the feature in the Beta by creating games with at least one AI ally and report back to this thread with your feedback. GLHF!!
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/7350165030
That awesome feature was come from Red Alert 3, where you able to control AI and give it orders like atack that location or hold position. When I had Zerg AI ally, it was voiceovered by Kerrigan herself! Sounds epic and sadly, that Zergs still have Overlord portrait and that Queen voice instead Kerrigan's voice and Izsha/QoB portrait for buildings.
