SC2 Patch 17

Maybe this breaks the flow of my Blog, but I wanted to comment a little on SC2, a game I will be playing quite avidly on release and will probably slow down my testing of the cata beta for at least a week, doing the single player campaign and all that jazz.

I am a pretty bad player at the moment, mostly I just struggle with multi-tasking O:, but I'm getting better, slowly figuring out what setup suits me. At the moment my main race is going to be Terran, I love playing Zerg occasionally as well, and absolutely despise protoss.

I won't go into too much detail as to why but Terran voices are so awesome ("THOR IS HERREEEEE") Zerg are just awesome, a very aesthetic and cool race imo. Protoss are just "urgh" they are too clean for me, I also dislike how newbie friendly Protoss is as a race compared to the other 2.

But ye, Patch 17: The patch that basically reverted half of the unintended patch changes of Patch 16 which were just for Internal Testing.

Many of the following bug fixes were intended for internal testing only, and are now being reverted.

• 250mm Strike Cannons can no longer deal damage to hidden targets.
  
• Barracks build time decreased from 65 to 60 seconds.
  
• Bunker build time decreased from 40 to 30 seconds.
  
• Canceling morphing Banelings now returns 75% of the cost like other morphing Zerg units.
  
• Hellion range reverted from 6 to 5.
  
• Reaper build time decreased from 45 to 40 seconds.
  
• Zealot build time decreased from 38 to 33 seconds.

These are the official Patch Notes. 1 other change that was reverted and unlisted was that Roaches/Infestors can now burrow under forcefields. A few comments on these changes. My guess is they thought rushes were too powerful, and wanted to test out increasing the time when rushes occur, but realised it really didn't make much difference. The Zealot change was specifically for PvZ as far as I know, where 2 gating is very powerful, I think it was fine as it punished Zerg's for fast expanding blindly instead of it being automatic, and am glad this change was reverted.

Barracks time being reduced back to 60 is also nice, since it makes Orbital Command Timings much nicer again. You might think that the Reaper and Barracks Build time nerf is a buff to Reaper Rushes, but at most it is 10 seconds quicker, that means around 3 minutes 5 seconds for a 7 rax reaper, and by that time I can have a bunker out. Especially with that lovely change to bunker timing down from 40 to 30. Maybe it makes reaper rushing even more powerful, but i dont think so personally. I think it makes defending against it easier, along with defending proxy gateways aswell, the change to 30 seconds also makes it very viable as wall-in material instead of the usual supply depots, to help further prevent baneling busts.

Hellion Range being reduced is fine, I think they increased the range to see if the hellion would respond better to chasing units so they wouldn't run away when stopping to shoot, like for example warriors charging in "wow pvp". But the effect was minor and actually made hellions a bit too strong behind a wall-in and on high ground against say Hydra pushes and ling run-bys.

The last change, albeit unlisted, that roaches/infestors can again move under forcefields imo is good. If the change to forcefield behaviour in phase 2 is permanent, they seemingly have a bigger radius than their animation shows and can make units stuck inside of them, then being able to burrow out of them is huge for zerg. Forcefields could totally shut down any roach play for Zerg vs. Protoss because of forcefields and them not being able to burrow under them. So yeh... good reverting really.

The other 2 changes are obviously just bugs and I doubt they were used for testing anything, since really terran doesnt need more detection (Turrets, scans, emp, raven) and obviously Banelings being cancelled whilst morphing in should be equal to other cancels.

Overall though, nice changes I would personally like to see some buff to lings at hive instead of adrenal glands, putting adrenal on lair tech, so that zerglings have a role in the zerg army when you get to hive, cos atm they just get in the way of broodlings/ultralisks. I just feel that lings need some role at late-game zerg which they really don't have at the moment. I would also like to see some late game role for marines aswell, since at the moment they are exceptionally weak against storm/colosii against protoss and ultras/broodlords against Zerg, and weak against tanks, B.C's vs. Terran. Meaning that Terran don't have a great mineral dump moving into the late game. Hellions are fine late game imo because they are awesome for harassment, I suppose lings are too but hellions with pre-ignighter are just so much better than ling-run bys especially combined with a dropship. But Marines just feel really weak in the bio army, personally I feel like if the enemy is allowed to tech the marine becomes useless and your barracks are mostly for ghosts/marauders late game combined with tanks/hellions or Vikings/Medivacs.

However, personally I feel like the game is balanced, not sure why some people seem to think terran mech is so OP. It is very immobile, and in the same way terrans can pop pylons throughout the map, the zerg can "easily" nydus worm around the map (yes they really really really need to remove the sound of nydus, it is totally bullshit that you can hear somebody nydusing) It's more expensive than perhaps proxy-pyloning the map but along with creep tumors they give you excellent vision of the map and allow you to get flanks off on the enemy, especially a slow moving mech army. Obviously on some maps mech is really strong (Steppes of War D:::::) but I think its mostly because all the maps are really tight with natural expanding patterns sending you towards the opponent. Once there are more diverse maps, I feel that terran mech will be far less powerful, especially TvZ.

Anyway enough of me going on about SC2 :)

31 point Talents

Kay, so the sort of "TOPIC OF THE WEEK" type thing to do with beta changes is Blizzard's decision to move from 51 point talent trees to 31 point talent trees, luckily for me actually they implemented this before my druid reached level 10 so I can test the level 10 time to learn the specialisation.

However, I thought it would be best to get my thoughts on the change out in a separate post. Personally I really like this change, the sense of specialising low level seems really awesome: there is now a massive incentive to get to level 10. It also gives direction for newer players. I remember levelling my first character, a mage, and being like: "Well I use frostbolt alot for slow, so want cast time reduction on that and fireball so i want cast time reduction on that.." and I basically ended up with some weird ass 2/7/5 build or something similar before somebody in the deadmines dungeon said I should really put all my points in 1 tree for easier levelling.

I mean, it's something that is overlooked by alot of the community, but personally this specialisation change is SOOOOOO good for the new player, clearly explains the role of each tree, locks you into that tree for 50 levels, 31 points, w/e it is.

Now, I'm not going to look at the trees individually with an analytical eye here tbh. 1) because all the trees seem pretty rough and 2) I haven't played some classes enough to be able to comment on them.

However, with this 1st pass of trees I do have some issues. My first Issue is that really "important" talents take up 2 or 3 pt talents in a 2nd tier of an opposing tree. I really don't like this because it feels like you are forced to put 8-10 points in this tree and you don't really have much freedom, something they want to advocate. Personally I would like to see popular subspec points (Improved Inner Fire, Deep Wounds) all moved to the first tier so you could get alot of freedom with those "extra 10 points".

My second Issue with these trees, aren't really to do with the trees themselves, it's to do with the feedback people give about them. Alot of the feedback is like "OMFG I JUST GOT NERFED QQQQQQQQQQQQQQ" and I'm like... what... When it comes to feedback about a class, I will never comment on the specific numbers of a damage/healing spell, unless there are certain thresholds that could improve the spell. Why don't I do this? Because commenting on a number game is foolhardy and pointless, especially in a beta. Wow you lost a talent that increases your strength by 20% O:, maybe you will be balanced without that 20% increase. Numbers are almost certainly the last iteration of any beta testing process. It is easy to go into whatever program they use for spell costs/damages they use and change a number. The importance is about design intention.

Like for example if we take the qq about Unbridled Wrath which was on the forums today, If we look at the talent itself it is like "Gives you a chance to generate an extra rage point when you deal damage with a melee weapon".

Now there are 2 ways to look at this: 1) The community way: Test it in game, find some numbers about it, and qq that the talent is useless because the numbers aren't right. Generally this leads to droned out boring debate.

2) The Testing Way: First look at the design intention of the talent, see what the talent is trying to give you, is there any synergy with other talents? etc. Then look at other talents and see if it is filling a satisfactory role, are there 2 talents basically giving you the same thing? Finally look in-game and find some numbers out for the talent, but only to see if the current talent is performing it's function or whether it needs tweaks.

In the example above: the first way leads to random posts on the forum like "I CANT BELIEVE UNBRIDLED WRATH MADE THE CUT, IT IS AN UTTERLY AWFUL TALENT" etc etc because at the moment it is 1 rage with a less than 100% chance to proc.

The second way, the way I would analyse it, says first: Ok, the general idea is to get more rage when hitting things, theres no real other talent providing this exact thing for fury, there are talents like booming voice and Intensify Rage that help Fury Rage generation through the applications of certain spells, however Unbridled wrath is unique in granting extra rage on hitting things. Secondly, this obviously has synergy with talents like Flurry and Single-minded Fury, these talents making you hit faster are of course going to increase the usefulness of Unbridled Wrath. Then I would go, look at numbers and probably be like. Well the way I would make this talent provide its functionality would be to either a) Have it 100% chance at 3/3 and grant 1/2 rage every time, or b) Continue for it to be rng and say 20% of the time but make it grant alot of rage like 10-20 or something like that. These 2 ways are wildly different but they are ways for the talent to have a purpose.

Ok, Sidetracked T_T. However, personally I love the direction these 31pt talent trees are taking. The 51 pt trees were far too big and overwhelming, especially for a newer player, most new players will only look for short term benefits, the worst cases being stuff like a priest going for improved smite early on in levelling because you use it over shadow spells. Now if you want to dps and level as a priest you get mindflay and pushback resistance immedietly as Shadow, that's so awesome.

Even me, a relatively experienced wow gamer, will almost always double check talents with some online cookie-cutter build from elitist jerks or somewhere, to make sure I am getting the right talents, because often-times they are confusing. The fact that GC has stated that the overall intention is that you can get every damage dealing ability in your specialisation then have 5-6 points to just decide what your utility will be and then 3-5 points in your sub trees is awesome. At the moment some trees are closer than others to achieving this goal, however I have faith that this will happen :).

Of course I am not sure Blizzard's definition of Utility co-incides with my own though, they might consider something like "Skirmisher" or "Heroic Fury", both basically increasing mobility rather than direct damage, as Utility talents, whereas I would consider them mandatory pve talents since less time moving->more time doing damage. I would much rather they have utility talents such as Furious Attacks (MS) and Piercing Howl (Slows) for me to choose between than Mobility talents vs. other talents, because the Mobility will always win.

Anyway, plans for today are probably to finish Durotar later, maybe I won't have time to put in the blog entry. Hopefully I will have all the screenshots and the Durotar area will be slightly less awesome than Echo Isles were and will require less video footage so I can get it done, regardless however the Troll starting area was awesome, great for new players and packed full of immersion and lore.