As many of you probably saw, one of the revelations that came out of BlizzCon this morning were some of the new units that will be available in the multiplayer portion of Heart of the Swarm, the upcoming StarCraft II expansion that's focusing on the Zerg.
I was able to sit down with Tony Hsu, a game producer for Heart of the Swarm. He was able to tell me quite a bit about the new units and some of the changes that will be coming to the multiplayer in this expansion.
Sad news Protoss fans -- the iconic Carriers, as well as the Motherships, are being cut from Heart of the Swarm. As Tony told me, and as anyone who plays online often knows, these two units simply weren't used very much. The Mothership was too high up in the tech tree and too expensive to really be viable, and Carriers were generally ditched in favor of Void Rays and other Protoss flying units. The good news is their removals are making way for a new Protoss capital ship: the Tempest.
The Tempest will hopefully eliminate one of the Protoss' current weaknesses -- dealing with large amounts of air units. Protoss players are probably painfully familiar with seeing huge swarms of mutalisks coming at them and being unable to do much to defend, so the large area-of-effect air attack the Tempest is packing may make that fight a bit more even.
Another new Protoss unit, and by far the one I'm most interested in, is the Replicant. The Replicant has the ability to permanently transform into any non-massive unit on the map, as long as you have sight on it. Not only do you take on all the properties of the unit you're replicating, but you also gain all of their technology and abilities. As Tony told me, that means that (at least in its current form) if you replicate an SCV, you can use it to build a command center, and then start controlling and training more SCVs. The cost to build Replicants is very high, so you won't be able to mass them up and go crazy, but it sounds like even one might be enough to give you a huge advantage in battle.
The final new Protoss unit revealed is the Oracle, which is another flying unit that mostly focuses on support. The Orcale has a range of abilities, including one that locks down a mineral field to prevent it from being harvested, one that lets you inspect an enemy building to see what's currently being built and researched, and the ability to phase out both friendly and hostile buildings, temporarily removing them entirely and preventing them from functioning or taking damage.
Over on the Zerg side, Overseers are getting the axe. To replace some of their functionality, the Zerg now have a new air unit called the Viper. An air supporter with no actual attack, the Viper has some unique abilities that are pretty different than what you've seen in StarCraft before. The Viper can shoot out a Blinding Cloud, which reduces the range of all units stuck inside the cloud to one. Being harassed by a bunch of marines? Drop a cloud on them, and they can't shoot anything unless it's standing directly in front of them. The Viper also has an ability called Abduct, which lets him grab a unit with a tentacle and pull it towards him. Tony explained a variety of ways this could be used: pulling your own units out of combat to protect them, pulling enemy units out of range of friendlies, or even using the Viper to move your own units over obstacles, like cliffs or boulders.
The Zerg are also lacking in siege ability, so they're getting the Swarm Host. The Swarm Host is slow and defenseless, but it can burrow. And once it's burrowed, it starts spawning a stream of melee units, Locusts, that Tony explained as currently being about as strong as a Zealot. One or two Swarm Hosts aren't hard to deal with, but if you manage to burrow a whole bunch right outside an enemy's base, they'll soon find themselves overwhelmed by Locusts.
The Terrans aren't losing any units, and are seeing a number of current units get some hefty upgrades. The Hellion can now be upgraded into a Battle Hellion, a slower-moving, stronger version of the Hellion that makes them viable in mid- to late-game. Tony explained that they were looking to improve units that would be built for a specific purpose in the early game, but then ended up completely ignored as they became useless.
The Thor is also getting a massive upgrade -- literally. It's even bigger than it was before. You can only have one out at a time, but it's even stronger and more powerful than its previous incarnation. As a tradeoff, it no longer can attack air units, but with regular attacks that already deal serious damage and a new, massive area-of-effect ground attack, the Thor will be a serious force to be reckoned with.
The Terrans are getting a couple brand new units, as well. The Warhound is a small walking mech that functions similarly to the old, now-replaced Thor. It can't shoot anti-air missiles as far as the old Thor could, but its increased speed and maneuverability appear to make up for it. The Terrans can also build Shredders, which can't attack while moving, but once set stationary channel area-effect damage to both grounded and flying units. If any friendly units wander into its range, however, it temporarily shuts off so as not to damage them. You won't want to deploy them in the middle of a large battle.
These are the major units that were revealed so far today. Other units are slated to receive a number of tweaks, both in their stats and in the way some of their abilities function, but this is the big stuff. If change scares you, or if you're not planning on grabbing Heart of the Swarm, the Wings of Liberty ladder will still be available. If, like me, you're going to jump right into Heart of the Swarm as soon as it launches, there's a lot of information here to consider as you start preparing your new strategies.
GLHF.
Contest:
6:15 PM on 10.21.2011 | 
On a completely different note, I kind of wish that Blizzard would stop its incessant patching of SC2. They should really be following the idea of patching that's generally applied to fighting games--don't patch things unless they really, REALLY need patching.
For some odd reason or another, Blizzard is constantly--and I mean CONSTANTLY--fiddling around with the game. It's a bit irritating. Instead of the letting the game develop and evolve based on its own maturation of the metagame (from competitive play and all that) they think it's a great idea to constantly patch the game.
And they're patching little things (like viking flower with patrol tricks and mineral boosting or premature zealot charging) that don't really need to be patched in the first place.
If Blizzard wants to change things that really need changing, be my guest. Immortal range? That probably needed to be changed to break the constant PvP 4WG cycle that the community was locked into. Upgraded shields on Warp Prisms? That makes sense too, given that the unit had almost no visibility in competitive play since the cost/opportunity cost of the unit wasn't worth its while given the amount of risk involved in losing it.
But other patches in response to whining players (omg, infestors are op so lets nerf neural and fungal) or simply because they feel like patching are doing nothing but constantly upsetting the evolution of the metagame. Every time they patch, metagame development is reset--not necessarily back to zero, but it slows down the growth of what the metagame might potentially become. *sigh*
On the flip side, I wish fighting games would patch the game as often as Blizzard patches StarCraft. Just because it "stints" metagame evolution doesn't mean it's a bad thing at all. It simply means that the players have to adapt to the constantly changing world they're playing in. This, in turn, forces them to never rely on one tactic (ramp blocking) because who knows what patch might be coming down the pipe that forces them to change their game plan.
The general reason why patching is discouraged in fighting games is that when people are faced with a tactic that is particularly obnoxious, it forces people to actually be creative in overcoming the said tactic. The entire point of a fighting game to win, and if that obnoxious tactic is such a huge obstacle, it forcibly generates bouts of creativity. Players have to think of equally obnoxious tactics or think of different ways to overcome that said tactic.
I'm going to throw a Melee analogy at you, just because that's the game I'm most comfortable with--back during the late development of the Smash Melee metagame, people started to scream that Ice Climbers were OP. ICs had this infinite grab tactic, which was pretty problematic since 1) it was very easy to grab in the game, 2) it required almost no technical skill to pull off, and 3) once you grabbed, it was basically a free stock/life. It was, in short, one of those pretty obnoxious tactics.
What was the end result of having that tactic exist on the development of the metagame? Well, since there was no patch available, the only way to solve this IC infinite grab problem was: don't get grabbed. Hilariously simple, I know--but effective. So the existence of this tactic forced players to focus on playing a ranging game. Instead of blindly throwing out attacks (like Falco with his ridiculous in your face drillshine pressure), it forced people to develop keepaway ranging skills. Constantly stay just slightly out of range so you don't get grabbed, but stay close enough so that the IC feels pressure, and you have time to attack. It was pretty tricky for characters that didn't have shines and long range (read: Falcon), but here's the thing: it forced players to develop a skill that wasn't readily apparent in the majority of players.
And THAT'S the thing that Blizzard is messing up. BF Hellions were ridiculous. And I mean, RIDICULOUS--and this is coming from a Terran player. Let just a few in your base, and if you don't have a contingent of concussive shelled marauders, or a large contingent of marines, or at least a sieged tank or two, then you will, without a doubt, end up losing some SCVs. Quite possibly a lot. In the latter days of BF hellion usage in GSL games or MLG games in TvT matches, it usually came down to "if you lost fewer SCVs to BF hellions, then you win."
Imagine if BF hellions weren't patched. What would players have to end up doing? They would probably have to develop their minimap skills. Use stationary marines/scvs, float buildings to stop BFH drops, or use creative depot positioning to stop BFH run-bys. It would also force players to develop better micro skills. You have to split marines pretty damn effectively to stop BFH splash damage. It would also force players to multitask quite a bit more, as you would constantly have to bounce back and force between your base and other locations if you're getting attacked to stop BFH drops/run-bys.
Basically, if BFH didn't get nerfed, if would force the player to learn all these different skills, or die.
Now, look at what Blizzard did. Instead of letting players deal with BFH on their own--by developing their own skills, or creating tactics that could deal with BFH--they remove the problem entirely. Gone is the impetus for learning skills or specialized counter builds. There's no need since that problem doesn't exist anymore.
And that's my problem with Blizzard. Rather than encouraging player and metagame development, they're stunting it by arbitrarily removing these obstacles that would traditionally foster creativity and growth out of necessity.
Also, we have the people behind Company of Heroes doing balance here. They're NOT balancing the game so whiners stop whining. They're doing it to keep the game as balanced as possible, and they're doing a terrific job at it. Name one RTS with so different races that is as balanced as Starcraft 2.
Just because your strat isn't viable anymore after one patch it doesn't mean the dev team hates you, it just means that the metagame is moving somewhere else and that you need to adapt to it.
As a Protoss player, this article hits my weak spot. I was thinking today about ways to make the Carriers viable in ladder game (something in the lines of giving them a temporary shield boost that absorbs a percentage of damage on the main ship at the cost of burning half of their max shield) and I've seen a growing interest on the Mothership as a viable harass method on late game... Well, I just hope the new units are good enough.
Some of what you're saying makes me curious. You're talking about how "you'll always have a chance against better players because you're all learning how to play with each new patch, and the game keeps fresh and fun for everyone."
The way I'm interpreting that is Blizzard is creating an artificially level playing field where everyone is equal since everyone is forced to "relearn" the game in a sense so everyone stands a fighting chance. Obviously I'm interpreting your statement in rather extreme light, but as extreme as it is, there's still some truth to it.
When Blizzard creates an artificially level playing field like this, is this a good thing, or bad thing? And why? *is genuinely curious to hear your opinion*
I think your analysis is spot on. Yes, Blizzard does want to apply constant patches to keep the game "fresh" and "fun." This brings up an interesting observation: who the heck is Blizzard's intended audience here, and who are they REALLY trying to cater to?
I think it might be an unfortunate case where, in order to make as much money as possible, they're trying to cater to everyone--including Korean pros as well as newbies. Not that there's anything wrong with that, per se. It's just that it's a half-assed approach that results in less than stellar outcomes for the competitive community as a whole.
If you really asked many members of the competitive SC2 community--I mean, mature adult players instead of people like Idra that sometimes devolve into mindless ranting and/or racebashing--they'll probably be fine with leaving the game as is most of the time. Sure, Nestea would probably get a bit irritated if his drones were constantly roasted by BF hellions all day long. And I'm sure Huk wouldn't mind if you reduced the range of neural so it can't control your colossi half a screen away. But if you asked them to live with that stuff? They would simply deal with it. They'd learn to get around it, they'd figure out how to combat it.
But enter the newbie crowd. Blizzard has to cater to these players, or else they'll lose a significant part of a potential market. Tons of newbies will delve into SC2, but if they're constantly confronted by BF hellion silliness, or face fungals that can rape entire groups of clustered marines, then they won't play anymore. And those newbies will be very vocal in their displeasure about the game, and it'll affect future sales. End result, less money for Blizzard.
So Blizzard is straddling this very precarious tightrope where they're trying to cater to the needs of two divergent gaming groups. Again, I'm not saying that there's anything specifically WRONG with what they're doing, but catering to the needs of newbies will occasionally (and invariably) shaft the members of the competitive community. *shrugs*
What happened to their creativity? Also they should get better writers, the story was awful for the terrans. *thinks of ending, shudders*