StartCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm Info

[chaos5061]

Here are a few more notes about Group functionality in the beta:

• Group names must be 2-32 characters long, and will be case sensitive, allowing spaces, numbers, periods, apostrophes, and commas.
• Group names must adhere to standard name policies.
• Characters can be in a maximum of 20 Groups.
• Characters can only own a maximum of 2 Groups at a time.

Currently, Clans and Groups are similar in functionality, so we anticipate that some people will use them interchangeably at first. Moving forward, our development focus on the Clans feature will be to add more competitive features, whereas Groups will remain geared around casual social interactions. We encourage you to keep these things in mind when creating a Group or Clan. How you choose to use these features will be completely up to you!
Like other new features being tested in the beta, Groups is a work in progress. It’s hot off the presses and we’re looking to polish it up, so please take some time to test it and share your feedback.

[chaos5061]

Was just reading through forums this morning and realized we didn't communicate our general direction for the major balance patch before the holidays.

Terran

1. Redesign Thor ability/Raven seeker missile

2. Push early game Reaper a bit more

3. Hellbats better against melee units, not necessarily better vs. Ranged.

4. We'd really like to see more Medivac usage like we saw in Wings for a time in the past. Currently thinking on a cooldown based speed booster ability.

5. Buff Bio in the late game - with the addition of new units in HotS, we feel Bio in the late game is a bit weak.

6. Buff mech in general - we'd like to maybe test combining the vehicle and air upgrades at the armory.

Zerg

1. Hydralisk movement speed upgrade to Lair

2. Mutalisk buff to speed and/or acceleration

3. Ultralisk changed to be good vs. all ground

4. Nerf Infestor quite heavily

5. Make it easier to unburrow and reposition Swarm Hosts

Protoss


1. Redesign Voidray - we're currently thinking of having the player choose when to activate the charge up ability.

2. Oracle - pulsar beam would now overlap too much with the new Voidray, so we'd like to change the Oracle to be more of a worker harasser.

3. Buff DTs not necessarily for the DT rush case, but to have DTs more often in the late game.

4. Nerf Vortex - we don't like how all or nothing this ability is in Wings, and with new unit adds, we feel we can remove or phase out this ability.

5. Fix Tempests to not counter all late tech Zerg. We currently don't like how Zerg can't go Tier 3 units if Tempests are in play.

6. Make Voidray + Phoenix + Oracle combo a viable strat overall.

These are our current thoughts for each of the races. And please remember none of these changes are final. Our hope is to move into the more fine tuning stages if this major patch turns out well.

[chaos5061]

To accompany the deployment of Heart of the Swarm Beta patch 2.0.2, we’ve compiled a list of all of the balance changes made to the beta since our previous update.

Terran

• Medivac
  • New ability: Emergency Thrusters
    • Speed boost that increases movement speed and acceleration to 4.25 for 8 seconds. 20 second cooldown.
  • The Medivac’s Caduceus Reactor upgrade at the Starport Tech Lab:
    • Health restored per second from 9 to 15.
    • Energy cost reduced from 3 health per 1 energy to 5 health per 1 energy.
    • Cost increased from 100/100 and 80 seconds to 150/150 and 110 seconds.
• Reaper
  • Base speed increased from 2.95 to 3.375
  • Upgraded speed increased from 3.84 to 4.25.
• Widow Mine
  • No longer hits cloaked units.
  • New upgrade: Drilling Claws
    • Decreases burrow time from 3 to 1 second.
    • Requires Tech Lab and Armory. Costs 150/150, 110 second research time.
• Thor
  • 250mm Strike Cannons has been removed.
  • The Thor can now switch between two modes: High-Impact Payload and Explosive Payload. The mode shift takes 4 seconds.
  • When in High-Impact Payload mode, the Thor switches to a different anti-air gun (250mm Punisher Cannons) that has 10 range and deals 24 flat damage.
  • Thor radius, inner radius, and separation radius increased from 0.8215 to 1.
• Raven
  • Seeker Missile has been redesigned:
    • Can now fire from 10 range.
    • Missile comes out and stays immobile in front of the Raven for 3 seconds while charging up, then rapidly moves (it’s not dodgeable at this point) and explodes at the target for 300 single target damage.
    • Targeted unit lights up red when targeted. If the unit moves 13 range out of where the Seeker Missile is, the Missile fizzles.
• Hellbat
  • Splash damage radius increased from 90 to 110.
• Armory
  • The Armory now only has one weapon and one armor upgrade for both air and ground upgrades for both Factory and Starport units.

[chaos5061]

Protoss

• Mothership
  • Recall now functions as it does with the Mothership Core.
  • Vortex now kills a single target.
  • Vortex does not affect massive units.
• Mothership Core is no longer massive.
• Oracle
  • Pulsar Beam
    • Now called “Activate Pulsar Beam” and “Deactivate Pulsar Beam”.
    • When activated, the Oracle’s Pulsar Beam is enabled.
    • Weapon deals 15+10 light.
    • Weapon period changed to 0.86, down from 1.
    • Weapon range reduced to 4.
    • Energy drain is now 4 per second.
  • Build time increased to 50, up from 35.
• Phoenix
  • Range increased from 4 to 5. Upgrade still grants +2 range.
• Dark Shrine cost is now 100/100, down from 100/250.
• Tempest
  • Now requires Fleet Beacon.
  • Attacks with two weapons. The primary weapon, Kinetic Overload, hits air units and remains unchanged. The secondary weapon, Resonance Coil, hits ground units, and does not deal bonus damage to massive units.
  • Build time is now 60, down from 75.
• Void Ray
  • Prismatic Beam:
    • No longer charges up.
    • Weapon period decreased from 0.6 to 0.5.
    • No longer does passive +massive damage.
  • Prismatic Alignment (new ability) increases damage to armored units by 6 for 20 seconds, with a 1 minute cooldown. This does not scale with upgrades.

[chaos5061]

Zerg

• Hydralisk speed upgrade now requires Lair tech.
• Mutalisk
  • Speed increased from 3.75 to 4. Acceleration stays at 3.5.
• Swarm Host health increased from 120 to 160.
• Infestor
  • Fungal Growth:
    • Is now a projectile.
    • Speed of the projectile is 10.
    • Range down to 8.
  • Infested Terrans no longer gain weapon and armor upgrades.
  • Infested Terran egg health down to 70.
• Ultralisk
  • Burrow Charge has been removed.
  • Damage changed from 15+20 armored to 35 flat damage.
• Viper health increased from 120 to 150.

[chaos5061]

I expect complaints of Medivac OP as soon as this change goes live.

[chaos5061]

General
• Mac Connectivity Issue
With Beta Patch 2 there is a serious Mac specific bug that will prevent users from properly downloading information off of Battle.net and may prevent some players from logging in to the beta service. Mac users that do manage to log in will not be able to download new map data properly which will prevent them from participating in Matchmaking, download new Arcade maps, or gain access to Custom Game maps that they have not already downloaded. Updates on the status of this issue can be found on this thread.
• The Region button appears on the login screen.
This is only a cosmetic issue as the beta client is hard wired to only log into the beta environment regardless of the selection chosen via the region button. Additionally localhost appears in the Select Regions dialog and over your name when you attempt to log in. We are working towards a solution.

Gameplay
• The Mothership Core will display an animation pop if it casts Photon Overcharge while under the effects of Envision.
We are currently investigating this issue.
• Seeker Missile's launch sound continues to play well after arming or fizzling.
We are currently investigating this issue.
• The Medivac Emergency Thrusters ability is using a placeholder icon.
We are currently investigating this issue.
• The resource icons on Left 2 Die are not visible in game.
We are currently investigating this issue.
• Destructible Ice appears as a solid green square in the info panel.
We are currently investigating this issue.
• The Collapsible Terran Cooling Tower appears as a solid green square in the info panel.
We are currently investigating this issue.
• The Terran Collapsible Cooling Tower has no death sound associated with it.
We are currently investigating this issue.
• Destructible Ice has no sound associated with it.
We are currently investigating this issue.
• Zealots will not charge buildings or sieged tanks.
We are currently investigating this issue.
• Canceling a Zerg building you have added to a control group before it finishes will add the resulting drone to the control group.
We believe we have identified the cause of this issue and are working towards a solution.
• Time Warp lingers for longer than intended as it dissipates.
This graphical issue is currently being investigated.

Battle.net
• The group categories list is incomplete.
We are aware of this issue and are working on a providing a more accurate category listing.
• The back button on your recent opponent's profile is not functional, providing no way to return to the score summary screen.
We believe we have identified the cause of this issue and are working towards a solution.
• Creating a custom game with Play Offline mode checked can cause an error.
We are currently investigating the cause of this issue and are working towards a solution.
• Game screen flashes briefly behind the loading screen for a melee games on some resolutions.
We believe we have identified the cause of this issue and are working towards a solution.
• Accepting a clan invitation during a match will not add you to the clan and may result in errors when the match is over.
We have identified the cause of this issue and will have a solution in a future update.
• Entering a game while the Create Clan window is open will cause the Create button in the Create Clan window to break.
We believe we have identified the cause of this issue and are working towards a solution.
• Chat channels are not creating additional instances.
We are investigating the cause of this issue but in the mean time have increased the player maximum per channel.
•The results screen after some matches can load forever.
We are currently investigating the cause of this issue and are working towards a solution.

Hotkeys
• There are a variety of issues that occur when binding grid layout hotkeys to non-standard keyboards.
We are currently investigating the cause of this issue and are working towards a solution.

[chaos5061]

Patch 2 Resolved Issues:
• It is possible to exploit Pulsar Beam when the Oracle is low on energy.
• Users can issue commands to their units while the game is paused.
• The Barracks has a Kills counter on its Info Panel.
• The game client interprets the Control+Shift+Left Mouse Button macro as Forward Mouse Button.
• Widow Mine attacks can be manually controlled.
• The animation for the Oracle's Revelation ability appears to "pop" when used.
• The Reaper ability Battlefield Awareness is using the wrong icon.
• Attacking an Oracle as it is warped in will cause error messages to be displayed.
• Collapsible Rock Debris will "pop" when it spawns.
• There is an animation "pop" when an Oracle dies.
• Time Warp is displaying a graphical oddity along its edge.
• Photon Overcharge does not have a sound.
• Placeholder spheres are displayed as units move through water.
• When units die they do not fully "settle" while they disappear.
• The icon for Air Weapons Level 1 does not update properly on Void Rays and on the Mothership Core.
• Decloak is missing from the command card of Ghosts when cloaked and decloaked Ghosts are in the same selection group.
• The Oracle's attack beam is not consistently sized at all angles.
• The clan invite notice will display to players that are in a game.
• Typing in "All" chat while partied in a 2v2, 3v3, or 4v4 match will display as "Unknown".
• Nexuses created after the game starts use the Akilae Tribe decal regardless of what decal the player has chosen.
• Some racial level reward decals are not displaying in game.
• No matter what zerg decal is chosen, The Brood is always displayed in game.
• The APM value reported on the Score Screen does not match the APM value reported during a match.
• The Random icon for Team 1 on the map loading screen can be incorrect.
• Mousing over a player's name in the Members tab of the clan window causes their status icons to disappear.
• Mousing over a member's name in the members list causes the highlight to fade instead of intensify.
• The clan chat member counter text is faded and difficult to read.
• Screen names on the Load Screen can be cut off at certain aspect ratios.
• Units whose morphs include an intermediate transition cocoon cannot have their Cancel command remapped to a new hotkey.
• There is a typo in the French version of the client when mousing over the menu button.
• There is a typo in the Korean version of the client in the tooltip for Point Defense Drone.
• Path nodes are listed twice in the Add Node menu in the Galaxy Editor.
• Errors are sometimes generated when attempting to publish mod data in the beta.

[chaos5061]

StarCraft II Heart of the Swarm Beta Patch 2.0.2

This update to the beta test includes a number of new systems, Editor updates, and changes to the look and feel of the game interface.
There are still several features and improvements coming to Heart of the Swarm, and this is not a final pre-release patch. Please read the full patch notes and related articles to learn all about what’s available in the beta test.
GENERAL

• Groups
  • Players who wish to associate casually and in larger numbers than Clans can now create and join Groups, with a designated chat channel, a News tab where stories can be posted, an Info tab where officers can post a brief description of the Group, and a Members roster. For more information on Groups, check out our first look at the feature.
• Unranked Play*
  • On the Multiplayer screen, players can now select Unranked Play to engage in matchmaking with the ranking system suspended.
• Players Near Me*
  • Recognizes other StarCraft II games running on the player’s network, making it easier to chat, play, and make friends with nearby players.
• AI Communication
  • Players can now issue orders to AI partners.
  • This is a preliminary implementation of this feature, and we will be adding to it over the coming weeks. Please keep an eye on our Heart of the Swarm Beta Discussion forum for further updates.
• The StarCraft II Arcade is now available in the Heart of the Swarm Beta.
• Leveling
  • The number of levels for each race has been increased from 20 to 30, for a total of 90 attainable levels per character.
  • The overall XP required to reach max-level has been increased.
  • All XP previously earned has been reset to zero. Thanks for your continuing feedback, and please keep it coming!

USER INTERFACE

• Maps that appear in the Custom Games section now include all of the same Game Info pages as the maps available in the Arcade (Overview, How to Play, Patch Notes, Reviews).
• In-Game UI Polish
  • Decal art has been updated to appear brighter and more visible.*
  • New Victory/Loss sequences now play at the end of a game.
• New options added to aid newer players in the Options > Controls menu*
  • Team Colored Life Bar
  • Always Show Worker Status
  • Simple Command Card
  • Show Current Order Indicator
  • Select All Larvae
  • Display Experience Points
  • Enable Enemy Unit Selection
• The Help section has been revised and updated.

GRAPHICS

• Physics updates
  • New ragdoll physics deaths have been added on many units.
  • Physics effects have been polished on many existing units.
  • Performance has been improved.
  • Physics-triggered sounds have been added.

[chaos5061]

EDITOR

• Many new features, updates, and improvements to the StarCraft II Editor have been made throughout the beta test. Please see our Comprehensive Editor Updates List in the Beta Discussion forum.

BALANCE

• A new set of balance changes have been included with the release of Patch 2.0.2. For more info, please visit our Balance Update thread(Posted in our thread here earlier.) in the Beta Discussion forum.

BUG FIXES

• A full list of documented game and service bugs can be found in our Known Issues (Posted in our thread here earlier.) sticky in the Beta Bug Report forum.

*Indicates a change that was implemented during beta patch 2.0.1, but has not yet been noted.

[chaos5061]

Here are the changes, additions, and updates to the StarCraft II Editor in the Heart of the Swarm Beta so far.

• Preload Info dialog for defining game data, asset files, and banks to be preloaded in-game. Available from Map/Mod menus in all modules.
• Added color preferences for text preview display.
• Renamed Arcade Info dialog to Battle.net Info. This info is now available for non-arcade maps as well.
• New SC2Interface files:
  • Mods can now optionally be saved as SC2Interface files as long as they don’t have any data which affects gameplay.
  • Mod gameplay/interface status can be checked using the Mod > Mod Status window.
• Export Locales and Import Locales commands available under Map/Mod > Locales sub-menu. These can be used to export and import localized text to and from text files.
• Dependency dialog includes a display of the full dependency chain resulting from the requested dependencies. Dependency reference checking and validation now accounts for the full chain properly in all cases.
• Dependency dialog no longer allows Multi mods to be used in conjunction with Story mods. These are designed to be mutually exclusive and could cause a variety of problems in game when combined.
• Added toolbar button size preference.
• AI Module
  • Attack Wave Graphs window available from Data menu, for visualizing attack wave cost/supplies vs time.
• Cutscene Module
  • Added Cutscene Frames. Cutscene frames are dialog items you can play a cutscene in.
  • New Properties Added:
    • Animation Element:
      • Right-Aligned: Animations can now specify that they always end at the end of the block.
      • Weight: The blend value for this animation block.
    • Director Node:
      • Reverb: The reverb to set while playing back the cutscene.
      • Auto Destroy on End: When disabled, the cutscene will not be destroyed when it ends, but instead it will pause on the final frame.
    • Sound Node:
      • Non-Seeking: If enabled, causes the sound to not change its current time when the current time jumps.
      • Speaker Mix: You can now set and animate the speaker mix values.
    • Fade Node - Priority: Allows you to specify the priority level of a fade when multiple scenes attempt to control fade.
  • Terrain is now automatically imported when starting the Cutscene Module.
  • Active Light Nodes will now search for a light suffixed with "_Low" if graphics options are set to Medium or Low.
  • New icons added for all node types!
  • Added "Time Follows Edits" mode under the edit menu that causes the timeline cursor to always follow the edited block.
  • Sound Improvements:
    • Added Sound Group Nodes: These folder-like nodes allow you to add sound nodes to them then set properties for all sounds inside the group at once.
    • Volume and pitch properties are now treated as multipliers instead of absolute values.
    • Setting sound index to -1 now causes it to pick a new variation each time it plays.
    • Sounds now properly fade out after their blocks end
    • Sounds can now specify Active Shots.
  • Value changes that represent less than 0.1% of a difference no longer create new keys in auto key mode.
  • You can now add multiple cutscene filters when playing back a cutscene.
  • Cutscenes are now played back in Replays.

[chaos5061]

• Data Module
  • Added the Data Navigator Window. This new window visualizes how objects are linked to one another.
  • Each tab in the Data Editor now remembers its own view mode.
  • Model Preview Panes now animate with the model's default animation, making effects easier to identify.
  • New data types: Herd, Herd Node
  • User Type fields defining user links can optionally specify a required user type
  • Added Select in Palette command.
  • Added F2 support for renaming objects.
  • “Show Advanced Values” is now “Show Basic Field Labels”. Instead of hiding advanced fields, it adds “(Basic)” to the name of basic fields and sorts them to the top.
  • Fixed size arrays are now edited as one control for each array entry rather than using a list-based UI.
  • “Show Default Values” is now “Sort Fields By Source”. Instead of hiding default values, it will sort values in the order: Active Document, User Mod, Blizzard Mod, Core Mod.
  • Added field hint tooltips to dropdowns for enum type fields.
  • Structure sub-fields now properly display composite field hint tooltips.
  • Many new field hints added for Abilities, Actors, Effects, and Units.
• Overview Manager
  • Jump To Instances command in context menu for jumping from function definition to corresponding calls.
  • Show Global Links Only option in View menu for seeing global trigger elements directly in the Used By links.
• Terrain Module
  • Diamond region shape
  • Diagonal Selection option in Tools menu for selecting objects and terrain along the diagonal grid
  • View option for displaying normal/upgraded creep, under View > Show Terrain > Show Creep Upgraded
  • Units marked as Initially Hidden will use an alpha fade effect in the editor display
  • Palette existing objects lists now include a Group filter and column, and context menus for Add To Group and Remove From Group
  • Water palette now includes a Height slider for adjusting the height of the current water template
  • No Fly Zones now have three color states: Normal (no overlap), Overlap (hard radii overlap), and Warning (only soft radii overlap). For best pathing performance, avoid the Warning state.
  • Foliage density maximum reduced to 2.0 per cell. Anything larger than this significantly impacts game performance.
  • Added "Force Occlusion Hide" to placed doodads, which forces doodads to be transparent if units are behind it.
• Trigger Module
  • Preview button for previewing sounds directly from parameter dialog
  • View history navigation, including Back and Forward commands, available from View > History sub-menu
  • Explorer view for seeing global elements referenced by the currently selected element, available under View > Show Explorer
  • Smart group display, which opens a second group only when an element is explicitly viewed via double-click or View Selection command. Toggled under View > Show Groups.
  • Libraries defined in the active document are now shown in the Triggers list rather than the Libraries list. The Libraries list will only contain read-only dependency libraries.
  • Elements can now be dragged and dropped from one library to another. This will include updating all usage of those elements in the active document.
  • View option for setting default input focus on search fields vs lists, available under View > View Options > Default focus On Search Fields.

[chaos5061]

From Twitter:
We are experiencing a server instability with the beta that we will not be able to solve tonight. Servers will be down till the morning.

[chaos5061]

Hey everyone,

We will be bringing the beta down this afternoon to make the following balance changes. Thanks again for all the great feedback you've provided while testing Heart of the Swarm. We hope to see you testing these changes and sharing your input soon!

Terran

• Medivac
• Caduceus Reactor
  • The Medivac’s healing beam now changes color once the Caduceus Reactor upgrade is complete.

• Widow Mine
• Unburrowed Widow Mine attack priority decreased to 19, down from 20.
• Burrowed Widow Mine attack priority remains unchanged.

• Armory
• Vehicle and Ship Weapon upgrades are once again separate.
• Vehicle and Ship Plating upgrades are still combined.

Protoss

• Oracle
• Pulsar Beam
  • Pulsar Beam activation now costs 25 energy.
  • While active, Pulsar Beam now drains 2 energy per second, down from 4.

• Tempest
• Kinetic Overload weapon damage vs. Massive increased from 30 to 50.

• Dark Shrine
• Dark shrine cost increased from 100/100 to 150/150.

Zerg

• Mutalisk
• New passive ability: Mutalisk Regeneration
  • Mutalisk health regeneration rate increased from .2734 to 1.

[chaos5061]

Mike Morhaime Interviews
PCGamesN, GamerHub, and TeamLiquid had the chance to talk to Mike Morhaime at BWC about Starcraft 2 and eSports. If you are interested in interviews with Rob Pardo, there is a nice interview from a few months ago that I didn't summarize.

General

• The mainstream media publications don't accept or report on major gaming tournaments, but they talk about tennis and golf, even though everyone doesn't watch them. Having Starcraft reported in a similar way would help to legitimize the sport. People who watch eSports see the top players as being at a similar level as pro athletes.
• After Heart of the Swarm is released, focus can shift to preparing Blizzard All-Stars for beta.
• Blizzard reads many of the fansite forums, and sometimes the discussion is better on some of these other sites. The site that the feedback is on isn't important, only the feedback itself.
• There are no plans to make Diablo 3 an eSport, as it wasn't designed for it and not every game has to be one. WoW wasn't designed as an eSport either, but some of the parts of the game work well in the eSports environment.
• Warcraft 3 was pirated a lot in China, but it ended up raising awareness of the game and helped out later when World of Warcraft was launched.
• Challenge modes may have some possibilities as far as improving or expanding upon WoW esports events. WoW as an eSport is not a main focus of the WoW team, as there are many more things that are higher priority.
• There have been several other MMOs that went free to play, but none of that has had a big impact on WoW. Blizzard still thinks WoW provides a really good value for the price, better than most forms of entertainment, including the free to play games.

Heart of the Swarm

• Testing Heart of the Swarm in such a public way is the only way to make sure that players have a chance to understand and adapt to changes being made.
• Starcraft 2 can be intimidating to start for players that aren't interested in playing highly competitively. Heart of the Swarm tries to address part of this by adding a training mode that allows you to play against a progressively harder AI and get basic gameplay tips. Unranked matchmaking should also help in this regard.
• The new Heart of the Swarm units are being added to fill gaps in the races, similar to what was done in the original Starcraft.
• The new resume from replay feature will allow tournaments to pick up properly again after disruption and players to practice different scenarios using another player's replay or without having to play a full game.
• Heart of the Swarm has a nice campaign that is important to furthering the story, but it also has great gameplay that will be the reason people are still playing it for a long time.

Starcraft 2

• Mike Morhaime is currently Bronze and trying hard for Silver.
• SC2 has a lot of value for the price, especially compared to some of the "free to play" games.
• There is a lot of potential for SC2 growth in China as more and more people are able to afford broadband and gaming.
• The feedback from players in China on the Mists of Pandaria expansion has been great.
• One of the pleasant surprises at BWC is how well the non-Koreans did in competition.
• Blizzard is going to take more of a leadership role in organizing and scheduling the tournaments. Right now there is so much going on that it is hard to follow and there is no clear story like you find in other sports.
• It would be nice if everyone offered a reasonable quality stream of tournaments for free, as it would lower the barrier for people that are curious about SC2 but not willing to pay yet.
• When asked about adding things like premium portraits, he said that the current model is viable and the current focus is on making a great expansion.