First of all, I would like to thank johnny123 on TL, for posting these videos in the other HotS Thread The reason I'm basically summarizing these interviews and posting them in a new thread, is because discussion regarding these videos was instantly buried in the other thread, and there is some pretty amazing new info that I believe everyone should hear.
I'm just going to quickly summarize what happens in each video, but I highly recommend you watch these videos.
Goes into detail about the reasoning behind no lan, as well as some features the new resume from replay feature has in store, as well as talks as to when to expect to see the HotS beta. Apparently if I heard correctly, you can resume the game 10 seconds before a disconnect or crash, as well as allow the A.I to take control of the other player in the replay and imitate their actions.
This could allow you to have someone perform a rush, and then allow the A.I to play it out again from a replay so you can practice against defending the rush. Sounds very cool and exciting! Obviously this will not be 1:1 as there is no way A.I can say micro like MKP, but this sounds like it has a lot of potential. I guess Blizzard does have the technology after all
He also talks about how there are some things that are in Heart of the Swarm that we haven't seen yet, such as new variants of the Nydus Worm, and example being that there is a new Nydus Worm that spits out creep, thus allowing you to spread your creep across the map tactically.
Basically Dustin Browder discusess the new units, and what role he hopes they will fill for each respective race. The Widow Mine in particular, the team is having issues balancing the unit in regards to the cost of it. The unit is very powerful and pricing it accordingly is proving to be a difficult task. They don't want it to be too expensive so terran players don't make them, however they don't want them to be too cheap either. David Kim http://www.g4tv.com/videos/59213/starcraft-2-heart-of-the-swarm-new-units-explained-by-david-kim/
David Kim goes over the reasoning behind the design decisions for the new units for heart of the swarm. He also discusses how Terran is being changed, so they can sit back and macro a powerful army via Mech, like how Zerg and Protoss players currently are in WoL. David also discusses how Global Rank and ladder will play out in HotS Sam Didier http://www.g4tv.com/videos/59212/starcraft-2-heart-of-the-swarm-new-units-gameplay-preview-with-sam-didier/
Talks about his role as art director for Blizzard, and how he looks forward to working on Legacy of the Void Expansion artwork. Basically he says there will be some new units in the campaign that we will see that were cut out from multiplayer, due to balancing issues and other reasons.
My favorite thing of all, is simply the resume from replay feature. That is going to be simply amazing, especially for progamers who want to refine and perfect the build orders and defense against cheese, rushes and large macro games.
.....does he know spider mines were free in brood war? try balancing them another way, or better yet make the hellion faster with moving shot and give it to that unit, or the reaper.
On June 15 2012 06:06 0neder wrote: .....does he know spider mines were free in brood war? try balancing them another way, or better yet make the hellion faster with moving shot and give it to that unit, or the reaper.
Keep in mind Spider Mines never attacked air, nor had a detonation time of 10 seconds.
I don't really like the idea of giving it to the Reaper because it doesn't go well with Mech, and I definitely don't like the idea of making the Hellion a Wannabe Vulture. If any unit should have this as an ability, it should be a new unit that regenerates it's stock overtime.
On June 15 2012 06:06 0neder wrote: .....does he know spider mines were free in brood war? try balancing them another way, or better yet make the hellion faster with moving shot and give it to that unit, or the reaper.
See that's the thing. Widow Mines now cost supply, and as DB was saying they want supply to be moved all over the map, so players stray away from large death balls. They would likely have to increase the cost of the hellion in that case as the widow mine hits both air and ground with splash damage.
It should be interesting to see what pros will be able to do with the unit during the beta.
Thanks for the post, i hadn't seen the Sigaty interview and it was definitely one of the most interesting one on HOTS edit: The david kim interview is depressing though.. the thought process behind the new units is so poor .
Hey guys so a problem I have with the old Hots mine was that, if its so effective at dealing with harass, then the enemy might not even harass at all, right? Instead they would invest more into a deathball, if the enemy can defend harass easier with the mine than previously without the mine. They got rid of that now we have the widow mine, but the question is...
do the other races have improved harass and counterattacks etc.? Zerg viper+hydra/anyotherzergunit fast-aggressive-non-deathball style in lategame might require you to get mines, and still be scary
Otherwise it seems you just have more efficient defense with the widow mines, and the enemy has actually less incentive to split their army up. Well I guess the defending player has supply split up more so his army is smaller, but it might not work if viper+zerg proves to not be good enough at harassing and forcing widow mines and defense. Also a thing I don't like about it is that yes, mines take supply and take army supply away, but it just doesn't feel like splitting tanks up. It's so much more fun splitting your tanks up, actual army units, not mines, which feel like mechanisms that take supply.
also thanks for compiling these interviews, i didn't see many of these
If they're already talking about the mine being "too powerful" i see no hope for this expansion. Terran barely gets anything in HOTS, the mine being basically the one good thing Terran does get overall.
On June 15 2012 06:27 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: Hey guys so a problem I have with the old Hots mine was that, if its so effective at dealing with harass, then the enemy might not even harass at all, right? Instead they would invest more into a deathball, if the enemy can defend harass easier with the mine than previously without the mine. They got rid of that now we have the widow mine, but the question is...
do the other races have improved harass and counterattacks etc.? Zerg viper+hydra/anyotherzergunit fast-aggressive-non-deathball style in lategame might require you to get mines, and still be scary
Otherwise it seems you just have more efficient defense with the widow mines, and the enemy has actually less incentive to split their army up. Well I guess the defending player has supply split up more so his army is smaller, but it might not work if viper+zerg proves to not be good enough at harassing and forcing widow mines and defense. Also a thing I don't like about it is that yes, mines take supply and take army supply away, but it just doesn't feel like splitting tanks up. It's so much more fun splitting your tanks up, actual army units, not mines, which feel like mechanisms that take supply.
also thanks for compiling these interviews, i didn't see many of these
Protoss has the oracle, which allows them to stop mining for 30 seconds iirc, unless you destroy their entomb field. I agree, and have the same concern you have with the widow mining, that being that it costs supply.
The reason I like Terran so much is because of the high level of micro and positioning involved in all 3 match ups. For me, the widow mine is completely RNG. Yes you can position them however you want and they can attack both air and ground, but you never know what you're going to kill, and the 10 second timer gives your opponent plenty of time to remove the unit that has the mine on it to be removed from the army clump.
At least in broodwar you knew you would kill something the majority of the time with the spider mine, and it was instant(kinda)
It's going to be pretty fun to use in TvT and TvP though. Still, we have no idea how these units will work under the hands of the pros.
On June 15 2012 06:38 avilo wrote: If they're already talking about the mine being "too powerful" i see no hope for this expansion. Terran barely gets anything in HOTS, the mine being basically the one good thing Terran does get overall.
That's the spirit! Cool that you already see no hope for this expansion if something might happen which you have no idea how it plays out.
I enjoyed the part about pathing and that is makes AOEs really hard to balance. Also, making insane units and then bringing them into balance is also a great way to make sure the units are designed well.
Why is Chris Sigaty a large part about the LAN and then when will HOTS come out. The rest of it is superb, and you probably could have gone farther if you didn't dig up a dead horse's grave when they generate the same old answers.
This could allow you to have someone perform a rush, and then allow the A.I to play it out again from a replay so you can practice against defending the rush. Sounds very cool and exciting!
This imo is the most important thing... not even practice partners can do exactly the same thing. Would be awesome if implemented.
EPT
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