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//: StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm |OT| Like Riding a Bike

K

KojiKnight

Member
duckroll said:
Yeah, it was a terrible mistake on my part. I still feel all my criticisms were valid for Normal, since most people would play on that difficulty, but goddamn, Hard is the REAL Normal. Lol.
Click to expand...

Seems Blizz kinda dumbed down the whole normal experience, including making all of the achievements way easier to get. Luckily enough, the achievement server was down half the time I played so if I feel like it they are there to try again... yay.
 
J

Jinaar

Member
Shit. SC2 HOTS is patching and it sits at 22% (correction) only downloaded and has stopped. Checking online has only shown people with the same situation.

Has anyone had this issue today and resolved it somehow?
 
D

duckroll

Member
KojiKnight said:
Seems Blizz kinda dumbed down the whole normal experience, including making all of the achievements way easier to get. Luckily enough, the achievement server was down half the time I played so if I feel like it they are there to try again... yay.
Click to expand...

It's the console bug. Once you're bitten by it, all your difficulties drop one tier automatically!
 
W

Wunder

Member
KojiKnight said:
Seems Blizz kinda dumbed down the whole normal experience, including making all of the achievements way easier to get. Luckily enough, the achievement server was down half the time I played so if I feel like it they are there to try again... yay.
Click to expand...

Just do the mastery achievements if you're bothered by it
 
F

f0rk

Member
People who watched/played WoL competitively since launch - was it balance changes that made fast expansions so much more prevalent or people getting better? In the first year or so I don't remember seeing as many of them at all, especially at lower levels.
 
D

Deadman

Member
f0rk said:
People who watched/played WoL competitively since launch - was it balance changes that made fast expansions so much more prevalent or people getting better? In the first year or so I don't remember seeing as many of them at all, especially at lower levels.
Click to expand...

A combination of balance changes, map changes and player skill.

They nerfed the most extreme rushes, the maps got bigger so rushes take longer and people got better at holding them off.
 
M

mbmonk

Member
Jinaar said:
Thanks for the link! I actually shut down Bittorrent, even though it wasn't downloading or uploading and now I got to 40% downloaded, so it's moving again. The link you gave did have that suggestion to shut down applications that may conflict, so that did help. Cheers, mate!
Click to expand...

NP. I am glad you got it running again. :)
 
S

StayDead

Member
Just finished campaign.

Maybe it's my blind fanboyism, but I bloody loved every second of it and...

Stukov being in it as an infested terran was the icing on the cake. I love his character
 
V

Vodh

Junior Member
FStop7 said:
Collectors edition owners - how is the art book? Is it mostly slimy zerg or is it cool technology?
Click to expand...

I'd say about 40% is slimy (but cool) zerg, 20% is cool landscapes, 20% is cool techy terran, 10% is super cool protoss and scattered around the last 10% is 'who the fuck put it here is it even 640x480?!' and that bit is not cool. Overall, it's a great artbook and even tho it's a bit worse than WoL, I'd still say it justifies buying physical CE over digital version.
 
K

KojiKnight

Member
Wunder said:
Just do the mastery achievements if you're bothered by it
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'll just do that on campaign... oh wait :p

I'm not really big into achieves so it's not a real issue for me. Just general complaining.


I did finally beat the campaign tonight and I will say this. For me, personally, there was some magic missing. WoL I enjoyed every second of... HotS I played just to see the cutscenes, of which were marred by Sarah's VA inability to emote... seriously, I've seen fan dubbing do better yelling/angry voices.

Luckily the worst is over though, bring on the protoss campaign.... in 2-4 years!
 
W

Wunder

Member
StayDead said:
Just finished campaign.

Maybe it's my blind fanboyism, but I bloody loved every second of it and...

Stukov being in it as an infested terran was the icing on the cake. I love his character
Click to expand...

That was my favorite part too, I can coming round to the story a bit now - but still feel weirded out by it.
 
T

TheExodu5

Banned
Was getting ready to choose the zergling straing. Jumping up cliffs + leaping vs. fast 3 unit spawn...thought it would be a tough decision. And then I see the former also gets +2 damage? Well that's an easy decision...
 
A

antitrop

Member
I capped and cropped a shot of Kerrigan in pretty much the maximum detail reasonably possible, Extreme settings, downsampled from 2880x1620, with 4x MSAA and 4x SGSSAA injected through Nvidia Inspector:

kerrigan.png
Click to expand...


She needs some TressFX.
 
K

KojiKnight

Member
Stukov is cool
and I'm glad to see Brood War get a lot more nods (mentioning
Daggoth
and such) but
Stukov
just didn't feel right... he just kind of felt thrown in, almost like it was a last minute decision.

Is it bad that the part I enjoyed most was
playing as the Hyperion
?
 
W

Wunder

Member
KojiKnight said:
Stukov is cool
and I'm glad to see Brood War get a lot more nods (mentioning
Daggoth
and such) but
Stukov
just didn't feel right... he just kind of felt thrown in, almost like it was a last minute decision.

Is it bad that the part I enjoyed most was
playing as the Hyperion
?
Click to expand...

Yeah
His reveal was SUPER underplayed... I wish they did more with him. I missed the Daggoth nod though.
I also feel like they
just went crazy with the killing and killed fuckin' everyone. Warfield, Narud, Ancient One. RIP dewds
 
J

J2d

Member
Matchmaking seems slower in hots, I had to wait about five minutes for every team game today. Maybe most people play unranked but I don't see the point of that when it comes to team games =/
 
K

KojiKnight

Member
Wunder said:
Yeah
His reveal was SUPER underplayed... I wish they did more with him. I missed the Daggoth nod though.
I also feel like they
just went crazy with the killing and killed fuckin' everyone. Warfield, Narud, Ancient One. RIP dewds
Click to expand...

Daggoth
was mentioned in one of the mutation missions... I think for the lurker, but I'm not positive.

As for
killing everyone off... Most of those killed were characters from WoL so it wasn't a big thing.
More surprising to me was that despite the fact that SC2 (WoL and HotS) held your hand through absolutely every single plot point, they only heavily hinted at what we knew all along that Narud was
Duran. I was actually expecting much more of a pay off to this as well... Kerrigan had a pretty good bond with him throughout brood war, so the fact that it was never fully revealed to Kerrigan or that they had any true conversation aside from "Oh noes! Don't foil my plans!! Bad Kerrigan bad!!" was also very disappointing.
 
Moff

Moff

Member
KojiKnight said:
Daggoth
was mentioned in one of the mutation missions... I think for the lurker, but I'm not positive.

As for
killing everyone off... Most of those killed were characters from WoL so it wasn't a big thing.
More surprising to me was that despite the fact that SC2 (WoL and HotS) held your hand through absolutely every single plot point, they only heavily hinted at what we knew all along that Narud was
Duran. I was actually expecting much more of a pay off to this as well... Kerrigan had a pretty good bond with him throughout brood war, so the fact that it was never fully revealed to Kerrigan or that they had any true conversation aside from "Oh noes! Don't foil my plans!! Bad Kerrigan bad!!" was also very disappointing.
Click to expand...

does kerrigan even know that they are they same?
well maybe they are not, maybe there will be another one called undar. or ardnu.
 
Z

Zerokku

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
Not to add to the ridiculous amount of black bars, but maybe someone can help me. On the mission
Hand of Darkness
trying for the
Shattered Command
achievement and can't seem to find the second
command center
. I've destroyed one near the top by the !PLOTSPOILERS!
Hybrids
, but can't seem to find the second.

Edit: And found it. Right next to my starting position >.>
 
K

King Boo

Member
didn't get the game yet. i thought spoilers were predictable, so i read what you guys typed. the only thing that caught me off guard was
STUKOV IS BACK. I THOUGHT BLIZZARD RETCON HIM OUT OF THE STORY (like they did with aldaris, the player characters in sc1, etc). So i'm happy he's back, but sad that now i know. fortunately that's all i know, and will stop looking at spoilers.
all the other story stuff can be figured out by anyone.
 
K

KojiKnight

Member
Moff said:
does kerrigan even know that they are they same?
Click to expand...

Before the mission, all of Kerrigan's zerg friends make heavy heavy hints at it, Stukov also does all but say it directly... Would have been great too for Stukov and Narud to have some conversations... since you know, Duran utterly F*** him over many times, including leading to his death and the destruction of the earth fleet
but no no, the two don't so much as pass a single line of dialogue between them. I'm convinced
Stukov
was a super late addition and more likely than not only added to finally finish off that dangling thread.
 
F

fallagin

Member
TheExodu5 said:
Was getting ready to choose the zergling straing. Jumping up cliffs + leaping vs. fast 3 unit spawn...thought it would be a tough decision. And then I see the former also gets +2 damage? Well that's an easy decision...
Click to expand...

Oh shiett.. hmm now Im kind of regretting going spawnling. They already seem darn fast, so mixing adrenal glands in there could do some serious damage. Ill have to try that next time.

Actually master archives makes trying it out really easy. They should add that back into wol campaign.
 
J

jschreier

Member
duckroll said:
Wow, this campaign is MUCH more fun on Hard. I just did the mission where you use the creep tumors. It was actually challenging, and rewarding when I learned to play better. Yum!!! :D
Click to expand...

I beat the game on Hard and found it way too easy. :/ Gonna try Brutal next run.
 
A

antitrop

Member
jschreier said:
I beat the game on Hard and found it way too easy. :/ Gonna try Brutal next run.
Click to expand...
I'm still playing through on Hard right now, but my brother is doing a Brutal playthrough right now (he already finished on Hard) and he said it's noticeably easier than WoL Brutal.

I thought WoL Brutal was a bit too difficult in the first place, it never really felt fun. I have a fairly extensive amount of mechanical skill and it was more often frustrating and grinding than enjoyable and rewarding. It was almost like a puzzle in that there was only so many ways to tackle the mission. Deviating from the optimal strategy even just slightly would force a checkpoint reload at best. I finished it, but I didn't enjoy it.

If that has been even slightly addressed in Heart of the Swarm, I will consider it for the better.

My brother and I are both Master League, him Top 8 even, and we both agree that Brutal in Wings of Liberty was poorly balanced.

I'm finding Hard right now to be fairly enjoyable, but yes, far, far too easy. If Brutal is balanced properly in HotS I may very well enjoy it.
 
Z

Zzoram

Member
Brutal isn't very hard for most missions.

A lot of the achievements related to side missions are nearly impossible on Brutal though, so just do those achievements on Normal or Hard before or after beating the level on Brutal.
 
V

Vodh

Junior Member
As someone who bounced between Gold and Plat in WoL (but I played only for a few months after release), the campaign on Hard is pretty sweet. It's challenging enough without being completely overwhelming, especially since I like to go around the map and try to kill stuff that isn't necessary for main or side objectives.
 
J

jschreier

Member
JLeack said:
Do you main Zerg? I play as Protoss and I find Hard to be moderately challenging since I'm not used to the Zerg style.
Click to expand...

Nah, Terran. I think the problem is that Kerrigan is way too overpowered. In the final mission I took out basically an entire wing of enemies with just her and Leviathan.
 
K

Keikaku

Member
Kerrigan's ability that allows you to call down a Primal Zerg army is pretty broken. You can crush through most late game missions with those units and just a swarm of lings.
 
S

Slayerx

Member
Looks like HotS will be the first Blizzard game to avoid the meta critic user review bomb in the last 5 years even 4.5 stars on amazon lol.. I guess the initial reaction to splitting the game up and always on was directed at WoL.
 
W

Wunder

Member
Slayerx said:
Looks like HotS will be the first Blizzard game to avoid the meta critic user review bomb in the last 5 years even 4.5 stars on amazon lol.. I guess the initial reaction to splitting the game up and always on was directed at WoL.
Click to expand...

good point, they even said the expansions would be standalone I think but they changed them to be more traditional expacs but no one seemed to mind.
 
N

Neki

Member
Brutal on HoTS is much easier because of the evolutions + abilities you get. The stuff you got in WoL for upgrades were great, but not game breaking (like automated turrets on bunkers), but some of the evolutions you get make the game trival. Along with Kerrigan to tank shit and buff your units, makes it much easier.
 
P

Pooya

Member
Beat the campaign on Brutal, woo that was pretty fun, I liked it quite a bit, it's been a while since I played a RTS campaign.

But it sure wasn't worth the ~3 years wait since WoL, I sure hope LoV won't take as long, better have it out by Fall next year, don't think anybody would care about this story in another 3 years, lol.
 
B

Bizazedo

Member
So, hidden / random stuff..

If, on one of the roach evolution missions, you go left through the woods (hidden path, just click beyond it, roaches will path through), you come across a ravine with rainbow crystals everywhere and a cave overlooking it. Out of the cave comes what looks like a girl with two dogs. You cannot attack them.

Wtf was that?

And, on Zeras..

Occasionally a semi-stealthed creature shoes up. It says "Strange Creature" when you put your cursor over it. Looks like it can be attacked, but it burrows to safety.

What is that?!

Anyone else find hidden stuff?
 
C

ClovingWestbrook

Banned
ShaneB said:
Will there ever be in game viewing of live matches? I'm sure that gets asked often, but I certainly haven't following SC2 much, nor do I have any idea if Blizzard is limited to whatever framework they've put in place. Just seems silly that a stream news feed in game would just link to a webpage :(
Click to expand...

I apologize for the noobish question but does dota2 have this feature?
 
-COOLIO-

-COOLIO-

The Everyman
hellbats are really making me enjoy the game a lot more. mass zealots and zerglings were always the bane of my exsistence in wol. im just....


so...


happy :']
 
U

UnluckyKate

Member
Eu server is down ? Blizzard is saying that I can't connect to it...

I bought the game from my eu account now playing from korea (and will do so for more month) but I was fine yesterday... I'm getting afraid
 
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