As we mentioned last week, our main focus this week was redesigning the Widow Mine and replacing the Oracles Phase Shield ability. We made quite a few changes to these units that well get to in the paragraphs below, but first we wanted to talk about a few Mothership Core changes. We heard your concerns regarding last weeks changes and have made a few additional Mothership Core tuning passes to help make it a stronger defensive option while using Purify but slightly weaker offensively. Thanks again for all the feedback on the Mothership Core; now lets dig into the Phase Shield and Widow Mine changes.
The Phase Shield ability is great against Fungal Growth, but because its used in such limited circumstances, its not all that appealing in most games. As it stands, the Oracle is a harassment caster that only goes for the enemy mineral line, but we thought it would be fun to add a secondary harassment ability thats not aimed at the mineral line which harasses opponents in a brand new way. The Oracles new ability, Void Siphon, allows it to harvest minerals by attacking enemy structures. Were hoping that this change will open the door for some new harassment options to complement those already in Starcraft II.
For the Widow Mine, we wanted to make a few updates to achieve the following goals:
Make the Widow Mine into an actual cloaked threat.
Make the Widow Mine into a powerful piece that players can revolve strategies around.
Make the Widow Mine into a unit opponents fear, forcing them to react accordingly when Terran players bring them out.
In order to go further in this direction, were trying a version of the Widow Mine that doesnt self-destruct to attack. The updated Widow Mine will be used much in the same way as it is now, but the main difference is that instead of blowing up it shoots a missile, remains cloaked, and rebuilds another missile for later use. Because Widow Mines no longer self-destruct, opponents will have to react accordingly when theyre in play. After the changes, this unit is very different from any unit weve had in the past, so we fully anticipate that it will need a lot of testing.
Please remember that the numbers are not final and may require multiple tuning passes. While we want to try to push these new designs as much as we can, the new roles are not set in stone, so we encourage you to spend as much time as you can testing out the new changes and give us your feedback. We hope to work towards creating exciting new units and abilities for every race in Heart of the Swarm!
is there a development team or just monkeys with typewriters? I remember trying to think up "parody abilities" before but the real ones are just way better at it.
Banshee / Widow Mine transitioning to Battlecruiser / Raven vs Zerg. I think just that should give you an idea of how ridiculous the new widow mines are.
This change is really completely stupid. It's like they just pulled it out of their ass. If they had no ideas, they should just ask the pro gamers for input. Aspects of the mines that need to be changed (but in doing so make them boring): 1. Reduce single target damage, 160 with splash of 40 means when massed you can take out most unit compositions easily 2. Prevent them from hitting air, it makes it too hard to actually use a detector to clean them out if the detector gets killed 3. Longer burrow time: as shown in the game above, enemy can't really do much when you march 25 mines into their base and burrow them
The widow "mines" are definitely OP... like.. No question about it... it's quite astonishing to see Blizzard make a unit that is, without a doubt, OP.. i don't think that has happened before.
The widow "mines" are definitely OP... like.. No question about it... it's quite astonishing to see Blizzard make a unit that is, without a doubt, OP.. i don't think that has happened before.
I do stuff and thingies... Try widening and reducing the number of small nooks and crannies to correct the problem.
I would try to lower the single target damage of the widow mine's rocket drastically and reduce the radius for the invisible unit acquiring to make it easier for flying detectors to help killing them. With their short burrow/activation time they can just catch every detector coming closer. I guess their amount of splash damage is reasonable to kill multiple lings with 1 rocket.
edit: Also, I dislike air splash... to strong vs Mutas.
Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Oct 6 2012, 11:58 pm by Ahli.
Easy fix for that weird new widow mine (other than just make it a spider mine) is to make the rocket not automatic. You have to manually fire the rocket.
Red classic.
"In short, their absurdities are so extreme that it is painful even to quote them."
Actually a large part of the problem here is that they're insisting on making the player individually build widow mines. This means they have to be fairly powerful as standalone units, otherwise no one builds them.
The real solution here is just to do what they did with spider mines - have them as a limited ability from some other unit. That way they don't need to be as powerful. Of course Blizzard will never do that because they seem insistent on not re-creating BW units (eg swarm guardian instead of lurker) even if they're the most appropriate solution to the problem at hand.
Actually a large part of the problem here is that they're insisting on making the player individually build widow mines. This means they have to be fairly powerful as standalone units, otherwise no one builds them.
The real solution here is just to do what they did with spider mines - have them as a limited ability from some other unit. That way they don't need to be as powerful. Of course Blizzard will never do that because they seem insistent on not re-creating BW units (eg swarm guardian instead of lurker) even if they're the most appropriate solution to the problem at hand.
Totally agree.
I usually just want to punch people like prongo that shit on blizzard for the sake of it, but I'm really starting to think they've lost their minds.
Blizzard right now is simply too bound to their whole "e-sport" and "professional gaming" ball o' wax to have any creative freedom.
They have pretty much failed to put any real new mechanics apart from cliff-jumping/walking and having players click for better macro (Queen/Reactor/Nexus/warpgate). Honestly, the latter is boring and not fun. They're just too bogged down to create any new mechanics...
It is sad to see such a prominent game laid to waste by greediness and ignorance. SCI was legendary, and SCII is an utter disgrace in comparison to its predecessor. I'm really just sad... I've raged before, but at this point, I'm really just sad to see this franchise jump the shark...
The real solution here is just to do what they did with spider mines - have them as a limited ability from some other unit. That way they don't need to be as powerful. Of course Blizzard will never do that because they seem insistent on not re-creating BW units (eg swarm guardian instead of lurker) even if they're the most appropriate solution to the problem at hand.
The Swarm Host has the move but don't attack/burrow but attack function that the Lurker has. The attack itself is different, but the main unit remains the same - its role has simply changed. Or is that what you meant by Swarm Guardian? That's a different strain of Zerg that is available alongside the Lurker in the Galaxy Editor. I definitely feel that the Lurker would feel better but I'm not sure if that's really the best place to criticise the multiplayer at this stage; there are far more glaringly-bad portions like the Widow Mine and the Mothership Core.
The Swarm Host has the move but don't attack/burrow but attack function that the Lurker has. The attack itself is different, but the main unit remains the same - its role has simply changed.
That's my point. Blizzard ended up creating something that is pretty much identical to the Lurker, but don't dare call it a lurker because that would be too much like BW.
That's why they won't just replace widow mines with spider mines, although they clearly should, because they think they need to create something 'new' that isn't BW.
Blizzard seems to be going from bad to worse in their design decisions.
