[Dox]

Gamespot conducted an interview with Dustin Browder a few days ago with regards to Heart of the Swarm:

+ [Interview] +

GSA: What's the main theme of the Campaign mode if you have to sum it up in one word?

DB: Fury. Revenge. Hatred. Kerrigan has been grievously wronged by the universe. Arcturus Mengsk has betrayed her, left her behind, and taken by the Zerg to become a murderer of billions. After the events in Wings of Liberty, she now has some of her free will back, and she's pissed. That's going to be one of the challenges for the character. Does she succumb to that rage completely and be destroyed by it? Or does she transcend in any way?

GSA: Will we see a more sympathetic side to this tale?

DB: Definitely. We're going to beat up on the poor girl really badly in the story. Raynor had it easy in Wings of Liberty. Kerrigan has experienced a lot of losses and destruction, and she's going to be enraged by all that's taken from her.

GSA: What was your team's inspiration in doing a DOTA-style take on StarCraft II's Campaign mode?

DB: We had to. Raynor's made of flesh and blood. If he gets shot on the chin with a Yamato cannon, he's dead. And there's no logical, rational way to come back from that. You could make up a story where he teleports at the last minute, but come on: He's dog meat in that circumstance. We've all seen that Kerrigan is the queen goddess of the Zerg. She's capable of dying and returning; players have seen that several times in Wings of Liberty. Not putting Kerrigan [in that gameplay spotlight a la DOTA] is like not having Superman in a Superman game. People will be like "What, are you kidding me?" She can blow up Thors with her mind and smash a battle cruiser fleet with sheer power.

We figured that she had to be on the map, and she had to be a weapon of war you can employ. She had to be something that you could put at the forefront of the army and cut enemies into ribbons.

GSA: With the level on the snow-heavy Kaldir being shown on the first time on the StarCraft II engine, what else can players expect in terms of new stages and hazards?

DB: We're doing everything we can to bring players into the weird exotic places in the StarCraft II universe. We're definitely not going to bring Kerrigan over to farm areas like Raynor was in back in Wings of Liberty. I don't know where we're all going to be yet, but we're working really hard on [figuring out locations for Kerrigan's revenge trip]. [We're brainstorming to ourselves] "Can we go to strange exotic gas giants? Can we go to the frozen and hot worlds? Can we go to the forbidden areas where the Zergs were first formed? Can we go to that top secret Dominion labs?"

GSA: What are your thoughts on the latest StarCraft II balances?

DB: It's going well for us. I don't know if the fans agree with that.

GSA: What are the most common complaints?

DB: There's currently a concern with the Zerg Infestor's power fungal growth. I still hear a lot of complaints about the Zerg still not being strong enough, as well as Terrans still being too flexible. The latter's the most persistent one for the longest time. That's almost a design flaw not a balance flaw. We just have too many good units in that race. It's hard to cut units in that race and say, "I know you have a lot of good units, but we're killing two because [your race] is too good." (laughs) That's not going to work. And it's not fun to go, "Hey, you know that unit that was fun and useful? Well, we ruined it, so now your race is balanced." That feels terrible too. Those are some of the hot areas I've heard.

We've fixed a lot of that. The other complaint we're coming back to that was frustrating was the four gate rush in Protoss vs. Protoss. We've done some fixes and it was great. Within the first three days, everyone stopped doing it and it was like, "Arrgh, Blizzard nerfed it! Don't do it anymore." We were like, "We don't think it was that bad." Sure enough, a week later the community was fine with it. PVP was still not as diverse as we wanted it to be; so we'd like to fix that. We're still studying this stuff. Things change so rapidly. We had multiple times now where we've gone and put out a patch. The patch goes through quality assurance and through localization so that it releases throughout multiple regions at the same time.

It's a lengthy process from deciding which balances we want to do to the point where it got live in the community. We've done nerfs to the bunkers and the rushes are no longer in the game by the time the patch goes live. We're like, "Do we need this? Eh…alright, let's just put in what we thought was good at the time and just go with it." The dynamics change so quickly that sometimes it's hard for us to keep up. The fans are still learning so much from the game and figuring out what works. I don't know how much balanced the game is six months from now to a year, but our internal members that checked the win/loss percentage in all regions are very positive except for Grandmaster Korea, which shows an advantage to Terran.

However, we've heard from Korean pro gamers and casual players that this is more of a cultural issue than anything else. Part of the factor is that Terrans do the easiest early-game rushes and they're the most defendable against them too; Koreans do the most rushing when compared to the rest of the world. But I don't know; it could all be lies. It could be, "Oh, it's broken, but [the dev team] did not know that yet." The Europeans, the Americans, and the Chinese haven't figured it out yet.

On the plus side, specifically in the e-sports scene, the win-losses are pretty good in all tournaments. We've seen lots of champions for different races. We've seen Terran, Protoss, and Zerg players win in America, Europe, Korea, Southeast Asia, and China; that's good diversity. If suddenly we get a month of Zerg wins every match, it would be a total disaster. Keep your fingers crossed; things have been going real well for us.

GSA: The official SC2 forums stated that there will be a Heart of the Swarm multiplayer beta coming out. What else can you add on that Wings of Liberty's multiplayer has covered last year?

DB: Well, it's tough. The Terrans have enough stuff already, thus it becomes a guessing game to know what to do for them. We have to be careful about what new units we can add to the game. At the end of the day, we still have to add in cool s***. [Players] are giving us their money; we have to give them something cool.

There are some easy things we can do and there are some hard things. If we study the game, for example, you would say that the corruptor is lame. Don't get us wrong; they're useful. If there are a lot of colossi, you need corruptors. If there are dark templars, you need overseers. They have a battle function for a situation, but what new battle strategies and tactics do they add in the game? Compare the two to the mutalisks; a player can raid, harass. They can get board control; they can decimate opponents without antiair. Party, right? Having those guys around changes the match. Corruptors? Meh. You build colossi, I build corruptors; end of story.

There are some units we can upgrade wholesale or remove and replace with something better. That's one easy way to give better gameplay without giving so many options you don't know what's going on while also not compromising balance. There may be other places we can legitimately add. For instance, the Protoss don't really have a great way to raid. To a point; they can kind of raid with Phoenixes with anti-gravs and they can cheese with void rays, but that's not really fun. But we can add in a legitimate Protoss raider that gives a player new strategies.

There are a few places (not very many) where we can do new roles for races that are missing roles. There are definitely units that can die in the fire so that we can replace them with something cool. We're looking to upgrade some units and add a few, but we need to keep the unit list down because we don't know how big it's going to be [at this point in time].

GSA: How about applying the expansion concept of Brood Wars in terms of multiplayer?

DB: In that expansion, we added two or three per race. I don't know what we'll do ultimately. We may add one per race plus tweaks, or we may do two on some, maybe three. Not all races will be given equal treatment; the Terrans are really, really good and it's really hard to do more with them. While the other races currently have an equal opportunity to beat them (except for Korean Grandmasters), Terrans are still more flexible and we don't want to add that.

GSA: How about new additions for Battle.net?

DB: We'd love to [do shoutcasting features]. Right now, there's arcade where we overhaul our custom game interface to make it easier for players to search for custom mods, as well as filter searches so that it'll display the most popular, the most-played ones and new ones off the assembly line. This would lead to a quality-based mod ecosystem, right? The current interface just shows off the most-played ones all the time, so we wanted to shake that up a bit. We'll also have to add in the ability for users to share and sell their custom games to other users.

GSA: Borrowing an example from SSFIV: AE, are there any plans to add in an option to track pro players from the replays they contributed online?

DB: That would be cool. We don't know if we'll have that or not though. The Battle.net team has been doing a lot of live server updates and a ton of stuff since Wings of Liberty was shipped like the Grandmasters league; more content patches than we did for WarCraft III, we might add. We're not nearly as efficient as the World of WarCraft guys [due to team numbers differences], but we're way more efficient than before.

GSA: How many people are working on Heart of the Swarm?

DB: The total number of people who worked eight hours on StarCraft is over 150, but the number of core guys who are working on the user interface and game content is about 70.

GSA: Any past units from the first StarCraft to make a comeback? (*cough*Lurkers*cough)

DB: There's a chance[laughs]. We're not ashamed of putting [the Lurkers] back in. I'm sure they're pretty high on the community request list. They are pretty mighty, since they offer two things to the overall Zerg strategy: the ability to attack while cloaked and the ability to push into a tier-two building. We may have different solutions other than the Lurker, but we're still working on it.

GSA: With a total of 20 missions for the Story mode campaign, how many hours do you think the single-player campaign will take?

DB: We don't know. We just make the missions as cool as they can be, then worry about the number of hours one mission would hit later. For most users, I would guess about 20 hours or maybe less.

GSA: How about the price point? What about the rumors of Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void costing the same as Wings of Liberty?

DB: I don't know what the price point is, but we always charge what we think the game is worth. So, if Wings of Liberty had 30 missions and Heart of the Swarm has 20, then that will probably amount to less money [on the consumer's part]. Because we're offering less, players will expect less than Wings of Liberty. It also depends on what the competition is charging, alongside other variables [in terms of expansions]. The plan is not for all three to be the same price; there was never a secret plan by either us or Activision.

GSA: What about cameos and appearances of characters from part one and Brood Wars?

DB: We don't want to spoil anything, but we're obviously big fans of the lore. We'll definitely bring back the characters from part one and Brood Wars. Samir Duran? Maybe, but you can expect the obvious major players like Raynor and Mengsk.

GSA: Here's a hypothetical one: When the StarCraft II trilogy is all said and done, would Blizzard be looking back and reforming the pieces of StarCraft: Ghost?

DB: It's a possibility. I don't want to lead [people] on; no one's working on it. But that would be really fun and cool, and we've also talked to the team about it from time to time to see that project finished.

GSA: Finally, could you cap off with a release window for Heart of the Swarm?

DB: We don't know; almost really not this year. If we come to a point where we release [Diablo III and Heart of the Swarm] almost around the same time period, then that would be a tough one. I mean, that never almost happens with us, right? It's not something we're sweating about. The two missions we've showed off [in May] are polished, but they're really not done. We've got lots of missions done to a pretty good level but not like the [aforementioned ones]. We're pretty far along in development.

[TAXanT]

....Lurkers :/

[iMSystem]

Nice interview! Can't wait

[Bugalugs McScruffin]

We may just possibly get Lurkers.

Also, just from the way he talked, it seemed like even the dev team didn't really understand how flexible Terrans were going to be compared with Protoss and Zerg. I also like the idea that they're not just going to add three new units per race per expansion and just be done with it. Add what needs to be added and remove or change what needs it.

Quick question for everyone. What unit would you be happy to see go if it was replaced with a unit that was useful in more situations? Any ideas what you would want it to be replaced with?

[Primex]

Originally Posted by Bugalugs McScruffin

We may just possibly get Lurkers.

Also, just from the way he talked, it seemed like even the dev team didn't really understand how flexible Terrans were going to be compared with Protoss and Zerg. I also like the idea that they're not just going to add three new units per race per expansion and just be done with it. Add what needs to be added and remove or change what needs it.

Quick question for everyone. What unit would you be happy to see go if it was replaced with a unit that was useful in more situations? Any ideas what you would want it to be replaced with?

Maybe Terran can go back to having drop ships and medics seperated :PP

[Dox]

Originally Posted by Bugalugs McScruffin

Also, just from the way he talked, it seemed like even the dev team didn't really understand how flexible Terrans were going to be compared with Protoss and Zerg.

This is the case with all Blizzard RTS to be honest. They design a fairly open-ended balance scheme, throw it into the hands of the players and sit back and watch what unfolds. 90% of the strategies that have surfaced and evolved since beta never could have been anticipated.

It's always been one of the secret ingredients to Blizzard games - they players take what's on the table and make it into something dynamic, even when the developers never saw it coming. Love it.

In response to the post/subject above, I honestly think a few tweaks and active abilities would give the less-popular units the attention they're lacking and increase the skill ceiling at the same time. By no means am I suggesting that these should actually happen, but some examples:

Thermal Lance
* Research Cost reduced to 100/100.
* No longer a passive ability.
* When active, Thermal Lance increases Colossi Range by 3, for 15 seconds.
* 30 second cooldown.


Warp Prism
* Phasing Mode duration reduced to 1 second.
* Gravitic Drive research time reduced to 50 seconds.


Gravatic Drive
* Warp Prism acceleration increases whilst moving, to a maximum speed of 4.0. If the Warp Prism stops moving, the effect wears off.


Corruption
* Reduces target armor by 1 for 15 seconds.
* Stacks up to 3 times on a single target (to a minimum of 0).
* Grants the player vision of the target for the full duration.
* Also effects structures.


Contaminate
* Removed from the Overseer.
* Now a Corruptor ability.
* Range increased to 6.
* Disabling structures also prevents them from attacking for 10 seconds.
* 30 second cooldown.


250mm Strike Cannon
* Increases the Range of the Thor's Ground Attack by 3, for 15 seconds.
* Increases the Damage of the Thor's Air Attack by 3, for 15 seconds.
* 30 second cooldown.


Some random justification
* Thermal Lance: Currently the deathball paradigm pretty much revolves around throwing down some forcefields and making sure your Colossi don't get focused down. In it's current design, Thermal Lance doesn't require much input from the player. They're a safe unit to have, due to their range, so the Colossi rarely find themselves in compromising positions. This would enforce a little more ownership on the player to control their Colossi during battles.

* Warp Prism: Faster Warp-In's would encourage multi-tasking during big battles. (ie. Protoss version of MMA drop play.) Also aligned the research duration with the time it takes to build a Warp Prism, so that you could have it ready when your first Warp Prism pops. This would open the door to more dynamic Robotic play. Currently, it's a given that you'll always get an Observer as soon as your Robo is finished. But in this circumstance, you might want to delay the Observer and go for a harass-based play with a Warp Prism.

* Gravatic Drive: Pretty straightforward. As long as you keep the Prism moving, you can outrun pretty much any unit in the game. This would make for some very entertaining early-game Protoss play, especially when they start moving Colossi around.

* Corruption: Reducing the armor of units and buildings gives the Corruptor more utility against a lot of core units in each matchup. It means they have a purpose once the Colossi are dead. It means you can bring 1 or 2 Corruptors along with your flock of Mutalisks to make your harassment that much more powerful against structures. They're the kind of unit you'd want to bring a few of to every fight. Now as for the "granting vision" part, this also means that you could cast it on a Tech Lab and see what is currently researching. Is it Stim? Is it Combat shield? Or maybe cast it repeatedly on enemy structures/units to know exactly where your opponent is at all times, like the Queen Parasite in Brood War.

* Contaminate: Once again, bring these guys along with your Mutalisks and you'll have no trouble clearing out a batch of Missile Turrets. And it means you can also engage a Planetary Fortress with ground units. So this forces quite a bit of decision making on the Zerg player. Once your spire finishes, you've got 800/800 saved up. What do you spend it on? Currently, the answer to that question is 8 Mutalisks. But with this sort of dynamic, perhaps the answer is to create less Mutalisks and compliment them with a Corruptor or two.

* Strike Cannon: The biggest issue with the Thor, is that it's often trapped behind the rest of your (fast, mobile) infantry force, doing nothing but wasting supply. We've lately seen this unit reduced to nothing more than a Meat Shield for absorbing damage so that our Marines may live. So by providing it with a temporary range increase, this allows the Thor to pick off units like Siege Tanks, Colossi or Infestors in critical situations. Increasing the range of the air attack makes no sense however, so it receives a damage bonus instead. This effectively doubles the anti-air damage of an un-upgraded Thor for the duration.

Quick Comments

TAhackdZ:

I like your suggestions for the Corruptor/Overseer

[Maynarde]

Originally Posted by Bugalugs McScruffin

We may just possibly get Lurkers.

Also, just from the way he talked, it seemed like even the dev team didn't really understand how flexible Terrans were going to be compared with Protoss and Zerg. I also like the idea that they're not just going to add three new units per race per expansion and just be done with it. Add what needs to be added and remove or change what needs it.

Quick question for everyone. What unit would you be happy to see go if it was replaced with a unit that was useful in more situations? Any ideas what you would want it to be replaced with?

I actually wouldn't mind seeing the Broodlord replaced with the Lurker And possibly having the leviathan from single player as an end game unit like a Zerg mothership. Now THAT would be interesting... :P

[SkyBreaker]

That was a good read, definitely looking forward to HoTS

[r0cKy]

nothing wrong with a lurker in the mix

[Next_rim]

Quick question for everyone. What unit would you be happy to see go if it was replaced with a unit that was useful in more situations?

Imho, blizz to-do list should be as follows:

1) 250mm cannons reworked
2) Warp prism reworked
3) Mothership reworked
4) Any unused or niche unit reworked, like phoenix, corruptor, changeling, viking, overseer.
5) Tweak forcefields
6) Tweak nydus
7) fix PvP
8) fix mules

There are also some cool things that not all races have. For example:

1) Mindcontrol - only zerg. BW was only protoss, but it's overall a cool mechanics, I think every1 should have one.
2) Cloaked attack - banshee/ghost/DT(mommaship), zerg - nothing. BW had lurker.
3) AoE spell - fungal/storm/hunter missiles/nuke. Missiles being the worst, need buff imo. Nuke is underrated, and should be used more.
4) Manaburn - emp/feedback, nothing for zerg again)
5) Single expensive high damage spell - yamato, 250 mm cannons, snipe, nuke - all on terrans . P and Z have none
6) Reliable harass unit - muta/hellion/banshee, P has none.
7) Disable - fungal/mommaship toilet (sort of)/forcefields(sort of), T has none. In BW, there was freeze, blind (sort of) and none for Z.
8) Big badass expensive all-purpose a-move unit - BC/Carrier, zerg has none (funny, never had one in sc:bw)
9) Suicide units - now only zerg has banelings. BW had spider mines for T, scarabs for P and scourge with infested terrans for Z.
10) Race-related spell - BW had more interesting spells, like irradiate, plague, queen CC and EMP. You could only use it vs a particular race, which was damn cool. SC2 only has emp.
11) Defensive spell - BW had heal and matrix for T, illusion and mass cloak for P, and swarm for Z. sc2 defensive spells are much more narrow. Still got heal on medivacs and mass cloak on mothership, and PDD for raven, which are all very situational, except for heal. Guardian shields is somewhat ineffective vs most ranged units.
12) Attacking expiring summons - turrets for T, infested marines for Z, none for P. Illusions don't do damage, so don't count. In BW, only Z had queen broodlings.
13) Static debuffs - corruptors and marauders are only ones who have it. BW had defilers and queen virus.
14) Castable buffs - only stim comes to mind. BW was also very poor on buffs.

[Insidious]

Originally Posted by Next_rim

Imho, blizz to-do list should be as follows:

There are also some cool things that not all races have. For example:

1) Mindcontrol - only zerg. BW was only protoss, but it's overall a cool mechanics, I think every1 should have one.
2) Cloaked attack - banshee/ghost/DT(mommaship), zerg - nothing. BW had lurker.
3) AoE spell - fungal/storm/hunter missiles/nuke. Missiles being the worst, need buff imo. Nuke is underrated, and should be used more.
4) Manaburn - emp/feedback, nothing for zerg again)
5) Single expensive high damage spell - yamato, 250 mm cannons, snipe, nuke - all on terrans . P and Z have none
6) Reliable harass unit - muta/hellion/banshee, P has none.
7) Disable - fungal/mommaship toilet (sort of)/forcefields(sort of), T has none. In BW, there was freeze, blind (sort of) and none for Z.
8) Big badass expensive all-purpose a-move unit - BC/Carrier, zerg has none (funny, never had one in sc:bw)
9) Suicide units - now only zerg has banelings. BW had spider mines for T, scarabs for P and scourge with infested terrans for Z.
10) Race-related spell - BW had more interesting spells, like irradiate, plague, queen CC and EMP. You could only use it vs a particular race, which was damn cool. SC2 only has emp.
11) Defensive spell - BW had heal and matrix for T, illusion and mass cloak for P, and swarm for Z. sc2 defensive spells are much more narrow. Still got heal on medivacs and mass cloak on mothership, and PDD for raven, which are all very situational, except for heal. Guardian shields is somewhat ineffective vs most ranged units.
12) Attacking expiring summons - turrets for T, infested marines for Z, none for P. Illusions don't do damage, so don't count. In BW, only Z had queen broodlings.
13) Static debuffs - corruptors and marauders are only ones who have it. BW had defilers and queen virus.
14) Castable buffs - only stim comes to mind. BW was also very poor on buffs.

Hmmm Rim i'm not sure i like this althought a lot of these would be cool.. I think what makes Sc2 so cool and so popular is that every race is different and quite balanced (besides Terran being OP and protoss the most underpowered ) ahah jokes.. anyway if every race had the same abilities what would be the point of having 3 races Sc2 would become Age of empire God Forbid!! so i like the idea of having different units and different abilites for all races.. It forces the player to play to his races strengths while defending against the other races strengths.. this implements a lot more sratergy and tactics instead of two players A moving each other to death...

also I play protoss but i think zerg needs a better way to wall of because ZvZ's are terrible to watch.. and protoss needs a better way to harass.

[TAXanT]

Tweak nydus and forcefields, how?

[Makra]

I'm not sure I understand their take on terran balance...

What do they mean terran is so flexible? I understand that terran has a huge variety of openers for every matchup, but late game it seems like terran is the least flexible (having just bio or mech as viable unit compositions)

[Next_rim]

XanT,

I should've rather said "tweak sentries". I'd prefer to have sentry be able to forcefield at the same rate, but when EMP'ed, to have it mana enough to cast an illusion. That way protoss has a choice - to retreat and wait for forcefields, or continue battle and absorb damage with dummies. I also don't like how protoss almost never uses other abilities, because you need all the mana for forcefields.

Situation right now is when sentry gets emp'ed in the face, it's 100% useless, and protoss almost never use illusion or guardian shield, because they save mana for forcefields.

To make this work, I'd make a sentry with much bigger manapool, and proportionally increase forcefield manacost. That way other spells become relatively cheaper and more accessible with less opportunity cost, and sentry doesn't become a wasted 100 gas when emp-ed.

As for nydus, it should be zerg version of warp-in. I would really love to see nydus pop behind lines and reinforcing during combat, but it takes too long to build, and with SC dynamic combat, effectively useless as such.

[Sola]

I don't really mind if they don't add another unit to Zerg, I'm kinda happy with what I have to use. But I wouldn't like anything to be taken out.

The one thing I am hoping is that they make overlord speed an upgrade made available at hatchery tech but only after the spawning pool is done. I like the idea of giving Zerg the early choice of whether to get overlord speed first or ling speed, as both are essential ways to scout, we are a very reactionary race, so it'd be cool to see this implemented further.

Also the sounds the Nydus makes, omg. Please make it lower, if you can get one in the base and he's not paying attention usually the screaming Nydus Worm will do the trick in drawing everyone's attention :/ lol

[ROOT`iaguz]

The only changes I can imagine for Terran would be fixing Seeker missile so it doesn't suck on balls and MAYBE doing something a little bit nice for the reaper (not really though, this unit is limited but it has a purpose and it fulfills it well). Also something that's actually good that lets us fight at the Broodlord/infestor stage of the game. I'm ok if some of our early game flexibility gets stomped on like Blue flame requiring Starport tech or something weird like that, as long as I'm not punished for wanting to play the longer game vs Zerg I'm down with that.

[Next_rim]

Maynarde,

Broodlord is here to stay, it's the zerg equivalent of siege unit. Lurker is a cloaked attacker, as they said in the interview. Two completely different roles.

[Makra]

I'd like to see a zerg equivalent of BCs and Carriers, perhaps the leviathan. Maybe morph them out of 3 corrupters, giving them a transition to anti ground once there's no air units left?

[porkchop]

i believe that the lurker should make a come back, and give it like 7 or 8 range, and yes to separating the medic from the drop ship, that would change the game alot,, i think it will lessen terran's ability harass and defend aswell,, i also love the idea of a protoss harassing unit, similiar to the mutalisk, maybe make the phoenix shoot land units? like scounts in BW, and for GOD's sake give the HT's amulet back,,


i still think the best tweek of all would be if they bring back the medic and just give the drop ship a single function

Quick Comments

NvRossi:

you need a slap upside your head

[Dox]

Originally Posted by porkchop

i believe that the lurker should make a come back, and give it like 7 or 8 range, and yes to separating the medic from the drop ship, that would change the game alot,, i think it will lessen terran's ability harass and defend aswell,, i also love the idea of a protoss harassing unit, similiar to the mutalisk, maybe make the phoenix shoot land units? like scounts in BW, and for GOD's sake give the HT's amulet back,,


i still think the best tweek of all would be if they bring back the medic and just give the drop ship a single function

Dear god, ewwww!