Pros React: Legacy of the Void impressions - Page 7

Seeker: Polt, how are you?

Polt: Hi, Pretty good.

Seeker: So Polt, you are here in Anaheim, the Blizzcon Grand Finals Stage. How do you feel being in this kind of environment right now?

Polt: Everyone knows that Blizzcon tournament is the best tournament for Starcraft 2 players, and, it is glorious to be here as a player.

Seeker: Now, Polt, I'm sure many fans are going to wonder what's going to happen to you for 2015. You are here living in America so still going to participate in WCS America, so a lot of the fans are wondering what is your plan, what are you going to do, what will we expect from Polt for 2015?

Polt: The year 2015 will be pretty much the same as 2014 for me. I will be staying in America for the whole year and playing in WCS America, I don't know if I need to say America or Europe, but anyways, the combined WCS, so it's basically the same.

I will participate in a lot of foreign tournaments like IEM or Dreamhack, so I think I have a lot of chance to win another trophy and show my games to my fans.

Seeker: So, Polt, I'm sure a lot of fans are curious about this, because you are actually one of the few players who got to experience LotV, you actually got into the finals of the exhibition matches with your partner SoO. So the fans want to know, I want to know, everyone wants to know how do you feel about the LotV changes, the worker changes, the mineral changes, how do you feel about these changes, are they good, are they bad?

Polt: Yeah, all of the players and David Kim talked about that a lot because David Kim and balance they wanted to hear the pro players' opinion and the pro players want to hear why they make those changes.

So, the conclusion is basically most of people think the beginning of the game is kind of boring, because if one of the players doesn't do something proxy, then basically it's the same, they just mine minerals make workers and expand; they they wanted to delete that part and jump into the next part.

And the mineral change is, there is like Protoss or Terran just defend, defend, defend, build 200 army and go out, that's not the situation the balance team wanted, so they want to change that. Since the mineral patches reduced to 1000, players need to expand more and more, that makes more engagements to happen, and possibly nothing like just making swarm hosts and defending or just making mech and defending. That's not going to happen in LotV.

Seeker: I see. Thank you very much Polt. So all 3 races we have new units and a lot of changes have occurred. Tell us, which race do you think is the strongest race, which race is the weakest race, which race do you think got the most benefit out of all these changes that occurred?

Polt: It's very difficult to say because we are not used to playing that game, it's totally new, we just played like a few games, maybe more than 10 games, but it's just not enough to get into that game.

So, but, as far as we talked about that, all of the pro players here concluded that Zerg is the strongest, Terran is pretty close to Zerg, and Protoss is so weak.

Seeker: Thank you Polt, those were some great insights on changes that occurred with LotV.

Now, those changes aren't final, but for now, you heard what Polt's opinion about the changes for LotV was. I think that LotV has potential to be an amazing game, an amazing expansion.

Now Polt, do you have some words for the fans who love you, who scream out your name every time you win a championship?

Polt: Actually, I'm really sorry, because I lost in Ro16. It was not expected to me, I think. But, I have a lot of tournaments coming up, one will be IEM San Jose, that will be great, I don't know about next year, I will have WCS America and other IEM and Dreamhack tournaments, things like that. So, I think I'm sure I'm going to win at least another championship trophy, so please keep cheering for me. everyone knows I live in America and I love American fans. Thank you.

Seeker: There you go, that was Polt, he loves his American fans and he wants you to keep cheering for him, and we will because we know he is one of the greatest Terran players out there right now. This is Seeker from Team Liquid, signing out for now.

Seeker: Hello everyone, this is Seeker from TeamLiquid and with me is none other than Evil Genius's Suppy and get this, he is going to be talking about Legacy of the Void today. So a lot of things you guys have been curious about, Suppy is going to answer them for you.

So, first things first Suppy, the worker change count: gone from 6 to 12, and the mineral number count has gone from 1500 to 1000. What does this mean for Legacy of the Void? I mean, nothings finalized yet but these are some pretty drastic changes. Is there a meta shift here, maybe some strategy changes, balance changes? What's going on - what do you think?

Suppy: I actually am very excited about the change and I'm very excited that Blizzard is trying to make big moves to spice up the game.
The economy change, in terms of changing the bases from 1500 minerals to 1000, I think is going to benefit the game a lot. It's gonna force people to expand a lot more and you can't just rely on a three base build and just turtle there. You have to make expansions. And what that's going to open up is a lot of area for harassment. It's just gonna make the game a lot more fast paced and a lot more small battles around the map. Hopefully, this is what I'm imagining. And a lot more skirmishes everywhere rather than the deathball 1A mentality.
In terms of the 12 worker count, I dunno, I think this is a pretty cool change. Of course, there is the chance that you're gonna lose a lot of strategies. For me, it's actually really good because I always die to those early cheeses so I'm happy if they start with 12 workers they can't do those as well. But I like that it starts the game out faster and it kinda reminds me of Warcraft where people start building stuff right away. I think it's a cool direction and I'm glad that Blizzard is trying out more radical changes.

Seeker: So of the three races right now, which race do you think benefited the most from Legacy of the Void and benefitied the least? And which race do you think is the strongest and which race do you think is the weakest?

Suppy: So just based off the changes from the Youtube videos, I definitely thought Zerg benefited the most and Terran benefited the least. But when I actually saw the gameplay, I switched that and thought that Terran benefited the most. I think maybe Protoss benefited the least. I was watching some of the exhibition matches and they didn't get maybe the coolest units or anything, but the units they did get seemed very strong, and the buffs to their existing units did seem to be very very powerful. I think Zerg got the coolest changes still, so I'm very happy about that. Zerg always was, I felt, the most limited race, cause we only had like 10 units, and the other races had like 12 or 13. But I think Protoss benefited the least. But overall I think every race got some really cool stuff.

Seeker: Imagine if David Kim and the Starcraft 2 design team were right in front of you. What would you tell them? Would you tell them to revert some changes or would you tell them to keep some changes or... what would you tell them if you were in charge of the direction that Legacy of the Void would be heading in?

Suppy: I'd have a lot of things. One thing I've been very big about is I'd love to change the pathing of the units so it's kinda more similar to Brood War. Not necessarily dumbing the AI down, but making it so they're not as smart and like, kinda just walking around in a circle. They'd kinda walk in a line like you'd expect from Brood War, so that makes flanking more important. Cause otherwise your units would get stuck.
Another thing is I'd really encourage them to watch LaLush's depth of SC2 Micro video from, I think, 2013. It was a while ago. They have addressed it and they said stuff like, "oh, the common audience wouldn't be able to understand this level of micro". But I really think people would. They would be able to precieve the difference in skill between someone who could really micro and control a unit and someone who couldn't. And not only that but it just makes the game feel better when your units respond to you very well.
Final thing, probably I would want them to change the moving shot, especially for the new unit, what's that car...

Seeker: HERC? Cyclone?

Suppy: No, cyclone, yeah. I think they should change that. It doesn't look like it takes much micro. They kinda just move around. It's kinda like the phoenix. Blizzard has argued that the moving shot from Brood War, people wouldn't be able to understand that or appreciate it. But I don't think people look at a phoenix being microed or look at a Cyclone being microed and be like "wow that is some amazing micro"! It would be so much cooler if it was the vulture from Brood War where you actually had to interact with it, where it was possible to make mistakes, or it was possible to juke your enemy. I think they should change the moving shot to a real moving shot. Not this watered down, easy moving shot.

Seeker: All right, thank you very much. Now, finally, please say something for your fans who are expecting big things from you. What can we see from Suppy in 2015?

Suppy: So obviously I've been back in school so I haven't been streaming or playing as much, but I'm definitely very excited, especially for Legacy of the Void. It's kinda making me want to play Starcraft a lot again, and I'm very excited for that. Especially with the coming WCS 2015 changes, I'm gonna try my best. Somebody made a Reddit thread a couple days ago, saying they miss Suppy, and that made me feel very happy. So thank you very much, I'll try to come back and give you guys good streams and stuff.

Seeker: All right, there you have it. That's Suppy. He loves his fans and he's excited for Legacy of the Void. And we may see a giant comeback from him for the year 2015. But for now, that's all. I'm Seeker from Team Liquid, signing out.