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.
Click to reveal patch notes
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.
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 in the Beta Discussion forum.
BUG FIXES
A full list of documented game and service bugs can be found in our Known Issues 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.
In addition to this, more balance changes have been revealed, too:
Quote from "Blizzard Entertainment"
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.
Click to reveal patch notes
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.
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.
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.
If Vortex is simply an insta-kill, does it hang around for ages on the battlefield still?
Seems really pointless though. If they're going for high HP units, usually they're going to mass them, so just killing 1 (or 2 if you have 200 energy) won't do much.
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.
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.
I have to say that now they're at least trying with those balance changes, even if the game is still full of WC3/MOBA abilities. Editor additions are kinda underwhelming.
I do stuff and thingies... Try widening and reducing the number of small nooks and crannies to correct the problem.
According to someone on teamliquid.net, the carrier has been changed.
Apparently, you can switch targets from leash range now which wasn't possible before. So this is a step into the direction StarCraft Broodwar's Carrier mechanics.
Husky has a video showing all the protoss changes, including the vortex which starts around 5:50 in the video. It just makes a small unit-sized vortex that sucks the unit in and then disappears.
Ultraviolet shouted: How about you all send me your minerals instead of washing them into the gambling void? I'm saving up for a new name color and/or glow
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