EPTWhat are the good (fun) points of HoTs - Page 2
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awesomoecalypse
United States2235 Posts
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ysnake
Bosnia-Herzegovina261 Posts
- being a Zerg player, Zerg early and mid game (until late mid-game) is nothing different than in WoL, and they're back being "survive the initial onslaught" race, even though they said they want to make Zerg players able to harass in the early stages of the game - since the game is in beta, many changes have gone through and there are many clear imbalances that can ruin the gaming experience - Zerg match-ups are both fun and frustrating at the moment: ZvP - Skytoss viability and Oracles can put a hurt on Zerg player ZvT - Widow Mines will need to be balanced as they are currently ruining the match-up ZvZ - From being the most volatile MU, it became a Muta vs Muta war (80% of my ZvZs are this, the other 20% are ling/bling allins that I manage to defend or lose to them) | ||
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ShamW0W
160 Posts
On January 23 2013 01:54 ysnake wrote: The only three things I dislike about HOTS currently are of subjective nature: - being a Zerg player, Zerg early and mid game (until late mid-game) is nothing different than in WoL, and they're back being "survive the initial onslaught" race, even though they said they want to make Zerg players able to harass in the early stages of the game - since the game is in beta, many changes have gone through and there are many clear imbalances that can ruin the gaming experience - Zerg match-ups are both fun and frustrating at the moment: ZvP - Skytoss viability and Oracles can put a hurt on Zerg player ZvT - Widow Mines will need to be balanced as they are currently ruining the match-up ZvZ - From being the most volatile MU, it became a Muta vs Muta war (80% of my ZvZs are this, the other 20% are ling/bling allins that I manage to defend or lose to them) You should re-read the OP. :\ As far as HOTS goes I've enjoyed the viability of Ultras, especially mixed in with Vipers and a few Infestors. I keep trying to get Hydras to work in ZvP and ZvT but have still had limited success. It feels like they should be viable in HOTS so that's exciting but I keep failing with them.  | ||
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Phantom_Sky
Hong Kong512 Posts
new units initial hype play to understand current trend | ||
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Avicularia
540 Posts
This is heart of the swarm after all, and zerg didn't get a single new unit just for pure combat, to replace borring roaches and lings (or at least give another option). This game is still great, just hots is not that refreshing as I thought it would be. | ||
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summerloud
Austria1201 Posts
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shivver
United States232 Posts
I don't feel like im about to die every second like I did in WoL | ||
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frostdr
Germany42 Posts
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mandingo
25 Posts
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J.E.G.
United States389 Posts
I think terran mech needs some help on the meta game side of things. PvP has mostly been voidray wars for me so far, but sky toss isn't a very developed strategy, so i think it will get better once the pros get in and can set some examples for the rest of us. | ||
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[UoN]Sentinel
United States11320 Posts
I like the re-introduction of Stargate play as Protoss, it feels like Brood War corsair harassment but with that brand-new SC2 edge. I think with the new units the game is just a lot more dynamic overall. It's not the usual econ-cheese into deathball fights anymore. | ||
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nixi
Sweden39 Posts
1) Terran players using hellbat drops with nice individual pickup-micro like the good old days. It seems to pay off. 2) Burrow at hatch-tech. 3) Twobase swarmhost pressure against P. Try to snipe observers with hydra or queen and keeping your overseer alive while hoping not to get flanked and killed. Swarmhosts is definately my favourite unit so far. 4) Fungal a bit harder to use and easier to dodge. 5) Carrier micro and skytoss overall seems to be a big step in the right direction. 6) Vipers are fun and requires micro from both sides. | ||
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PaperPrinter
33 Posts
zvp - the msc cannon has the same affect of the widowmine and it just combats aggression so well zvz - early game burrow makes all ins a gamble since your opponent could just have a few burrowed banes at his natural ramp So yea, turtling is just too damn strong in HotS at the moment | ||
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mantequilla
Turkey781 Posts
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renaissanceMAN
United States1840 Posts
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DBS
515 Posts
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Rainling
United States456 Posts
On January 23 2013 06:35 PaperPrinter wrote: zvt - widowmines make this matchup so damn boring since its hard to be aggressive at all zvp - the msc cannon has the same affect of the widowmine and it just combats aggression so well zvz - early game burrow makes all ins a gamble since your opponent could just have a few burrowed banes at his natural ramp So yea, turtling is just too damn strong in HotS at the moment I disagree that improving defensive capabilities makes games boring. In brood war, the strength of siege tanks, reavers, lurkers, etc. gave races a strong defenders advantage. Arguably, this resulted in significantly more engagements and harassment than Starcraft 2, because if a player were to have a significant portion of their army on the map, they could still defend a counter push by their opponent's entire army. In WoL, if a significant portion of one player's units are busy attacking another player's bases, the other player can often simply counterattack and win due to the lack of units defending their opponents base. In HotS, photon overcharge, recall, swarm hosts, and widow mines increase the defensive capabilities of the respective races. I think the Starcraft 2 metagame would improve more if even more defender's advantage was added to the different races in the mid to late game. To respond to the OP, this is one of the things that could be really fun about HotS. Strong defensive units could increase the strength of drops and harassing air units and reduce the risk of losing the game after losing engagements, increasing the frequency of engagements throughout the game. I could be wrong about this, however, as the metagame hasn't developed yet. | ||
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Spyridon
United States997 Posts
First I'll go over the non-gameplay features. Unranked play is awesome. Basically all my friends used to suffer from "ladder anxiety" and had trouble playing more than a couple matches a day, and personally I think it's awesome for serious players as well, since I feel after a certain point you have to learn the other races to fully learn their vulnerabilities and timings, and if you tried that in WoL you would destroy your rank. XP is another fun feature, especially now that it was announced that you will be able to unlock unit skins in addition to portraits/decals. Also gives players more incentive to not give up and fight until the end, which is usually more fun for both players. BNet feels a bit more complete this time around compared to WoL release. Also, the fact that Browder said they are going to make more big maps, and work to include the tournament maps in to the game, is going to be awesome for the future of the game. Now on to the gameplay itself. From a Zerg perspective, things are a lot more like Brood War. Honestly, every change to Zerg is basically something that Zerg lost from Brood War. T1 burrow, Ultralisks are back to their original style, Vipers have a new version of "Dark Swarm", and a "Consume", which makes the unit feel a lot like a flying Defiler. But also has an Abduct ability, which is similar in functionality to Spawn Broodlings (snipe a single big unit) but placed in a better position since you don't have to make a unit just for that ability. Hydra speed is back, which is something they really needed. And we have a siege unit again - but it's not a Lurker for sure, Lurkers were very easy to use in comparison since they attacked constantly and did large AoE damage to hold ground even with a couple. Swarm Hosts are much harder to use in comparison - you have to spread them out and spread creep ideally for them, and protect the locusts in order for them to do damage. Their locusts actually do very big damage if they can get in range to attack, but die easily and there is a pretty long time before they attack again, another thing making them harder to use than Lurkers. The effect all these changes have on the game - mid-late game feels MUCH more like BW. We have all the options we used to have in addition to the SC2 WoL options. So while we technically did not get anything "new" (just old stuff from BW), we have a lot of new ways to use the WoL units that we didn't have before, so that's new in a way. As others have mentioned, early game isn't very different. Early game burrow is nice and probably gives us some undiscovered potential, but it's been hard for me to find a strat that works consistently. On first glance you think that 100 gas could just be moved from Ling speed to Burrow, but the biggest effect on the build order is actually that you have to use one of your hatchery slots. This makes it so you still need to have an early 2nd, and makes it harder to fit in both queens and lairs. If you hold off the lair upgrade you leave yourself vulnerable to air since you won't be able to make as many queens. So there will need to be a pretty drastically different build order in order to take advantage of this build without damaging the economy, and I haven't discovered that one yet. But it's probably possible. With that said, people are still discovering new ways to use these new units. Vipers/Hydra Speed/Ultras are pretty easy to integrate in to your existing armies. But Swarm Hosts are a different story. On one hand most units have obvious units that they are strong/weak to, even the other races siege units have obvious strength/weaknesses , but the timeout on Swarm Hosts spawns are so different to use compared to any other unit it's hard to say what units they are strong/weak against. It's almost like their functionality is more similar to a support unit, except unlike a support unit they aren't very effective with just a handful mixed with your existing army. This unit MAY need some further balancing, but considering how different they are it's hard to say. When it comes to the impressions of the other races units, Widow Mines are awesome and arent used right by most Terrans imo, they can ravage huge amounts of the common WoL ZvT units if you don't micro around them perfectly, and to counter them takes a bit of preparation. They aren't the most useful in big battles, but they are DEADLY when used in split armies and drops. I'm scared of what Terran players will be able to do once some top players start multitasking with these things. It's very hard for Zerg to handle as it forces them to multitask on the Terran players terms, and takes more micromanagement for the Zerg player than it does for the Terran. Also think of the typical Siege Tank counters - if you have mine underneath the tanks those units will take huge damage trying to take out the tank. Hellbats I surprisingly don't see as often, so I can't say as much, but they make the traditional Terran army compositions a bit harder to counter as well, you can still do it but it takes a bit more micro, which is a good thing for the game imo. Havent seen the new Reapers really so I can't say anything about that. If enemy Terrans play with traditional WoL strats ling/bling/muta is still strong vs them, but if they incorporate the new units that strat is much harder to counter. Likewise if Zerg incorporates their new upgrades Roach/Hydra with the new Vipers is now actually viable in ZvT vs their new units, but enough tanks still own Roach/Hydra pretty badly, it comes down to a micro battle if the Vipers will be able to take out enough tanks and marines to win. I actually enjoy using Roach/Hydra in ZvT quite a bit though, its a fun change of pace, just gota watch out for those tanks. Alternatively when Zergs not going Mutas, dropship play is a lot more effective for Terran, so I could imagine this fight is fun for Terrans as well. Zerg dropship play is a bit more viable/fun in this style as well. I hope the timings of the match encourage this type of play more in the future. ZvT feels a lot more dynamic so I'm pleased with that match. And I don't see any reason why some Terran players seem to be upset, when they actually use the new units they are pretty damn strong and useful. Terrans should be happier than Protoss players imo. Protoss matches do feel a bit more similar to WoL imo, except for the fact that you see a lot more air toss (probably just the current metagame since hte recent patch changes). Hydras are still the way to go, and Hosts/Corruptors seem like a pretty strong composition in this matchup since their main counter for a lot of Roaches is Tempests (best use I've seen for Hosts so far). These fights take a bit more micro than before though, and there is a little more of a sense of urgency since 200/200 Protoss is strong and Tempests are a bit harder to counter than Colossus with their range. This match still feels slightly too "hard counter" based for my taste, but again that might be because basically every Protoss player is going air right now. It could theoretically be more dynamic if all their other units were being combined better forcing Zerg to change their composition more, rather than "stick to their plan" the whole game. ZvZ was a lot more muta heavy, but is a lot more experimental this patch with roaches/burrow trying to be used more. This is basically more like BW though since Mutas were pretty common there. I'm not going to say much until things settle a bit more outside of Muta vs Muta. But mirror matches have never been the strong points of SC imo. My final opinion is I'm pretty happy with HotS. Numbers may need to be tweaked a bit for balance of course, but the fundamental roles of units seems pretty solid and a lot more BW like atm. Zergs new units may not be combative, but they gave us something we needed badly - more spells and more units that we could actively micro to turn around the battle rather than just surrounds (that's all we really needed to do with micro in WoL, other races have a lot more ways they can out-micro). Swarm Hosts may or may not need further changes (hard to say). I would love if it we got another slight change to early-mid game encouraging earlier aggression (burrow is a start but not quite enough). Maybe move Vipers or Hosts a little bit earlier in tech, or make T2 a little less upgrade-heavy (since with all the new units/upgrades it takes a little too much of investment/time that by the time you have it finish it's not really mid game anymore). Once they start using the Tournament maps a lot of the 200/200 turtling meta will ease up a bit, so that's something else great to look forward to. If they tweaked early game for Zerg at all, and buffed Hosts if necessary, HotS would be perfect from a Zerg perspective imo. | ||
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GinDo
3327 Posts
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Doominator10
United States515 Posts
VIPER! VIPER! VIPER -> UPPERCAUT I will be so happy if any fighting game fans get this one :D | ||
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