[nirvAnA]

You show them Sparklepony!

In the Heart of the Swarm leveling system, players earn experience while playing Blizzard matchmaking modes and custom games on Blizzard maps. You’ll earn XP for the race you’re playing with each unit you build or destroy. Experience is awarded at the end of the match, and accumulates as you level up from 1 to a maximum level of 20 for each race.

The Leveling system is how you will earn most portraits and decals in Heart of the Swarm. We’re creating a multitude of new images for players to collect and display. Your cumulative (Protoss+Terran+Zerg) level will also be displayed right next to your player portrait, so others will be able to easily see how far you’ve gone in mastering the races of StarCraft II.

Bringing an element that makes MMOs so addictive into Starcraft. I love it! It's going to be a good way to engage casual players and make them play the game more. Progress. There is always going to be some of it, even if you lose. I also like the special bonuses. And "Copy Profile"? I wonder what that is. I hope they bring back battle.net profiles soon.

Source

[Cyanide]

The only thing that caught my eye was "Sparklepony"

Oh, and you can see win/loss without being M/GM?

Quick Comments

sRDreaM:

Haha same

[EveSigns]

rlly hope they bring in additional skins for units. I think that could be incorporated into this systrem easily

[Sc2Clare]

hmmm... this could be fun~~

[FLuX]

Originally Posted by EveSigns

rlly hope they bring in additional skins for units. I think that could be incorporated into this systrem easily

Yeah me too, this would be a great addition. Plus you could choose to make people pay for these skins and tweak the game so multiplayer was F2P. I think a lot of people (casuals) are turned off particularly by the P2P model. But regardless of whether they change that, I still think skins would be a cool idea.

Also, I feel like posting a quote from Temp0's twitter on here:

Originally Posted by Temp0

Hai Lvl 19 Zerg here. LFG 4v4. Have Nydus Worm portrait+ YouTube Channel.(If ur under lvl 5 don't bother inviting...unless ur Terran) ^_^

[Bash]

SparklePony is best pony.


I like it, gives more of a sense of progression than "win 25 games- get shiny thing. now win 50. then 100. then 250. then a million", its pretty much just a UI change, but its a good one.

Portraits are a small reward, but in future they can always add more stuff.

[jayaiwhy]

as cool as portraits and decals are, I'd like to see skins for the races.

eg. Camo skin for Terran, metal Terran-esque skin for Zerg, different warp in animation for Protoss etc.

I have hopes for Blizzard

[Cute]

Awesome, as long as more than portraits and decals are unlocked. If it's just that, they're pretty much just slapping a bar on the existing system. Skins please!

Still hoping for more cool bnet additions though, must have faith!

[|Erasmus|]

as long as they're only on your end, don't care about skins. But it seems annoying to have to play against every one with a different kind of skinned zerg every game...

[syfCabracan]

Originally Posted by |Erasmus|

as long as they're only on your end, don't care about skins. But it seems annoying to have to play against every one with a different kind of skinned zerg every game...

Or an option to see your opponents skins or not would be fantastic.

Quick Comments

	NOM:	this
	|Erasmus|:	Yeah, just -any- way it's possible to not see them when you don't want to.

[Zanderax]

How about using your exp points to buy new skins for every unit. Would make it way crazier. And you can choose to see your skins on enemy units or the opponents or vanilla.

[TADivinity]

This is EXACTLY the type of shit Destiny is talking about.

Casuals love this shit. Hell, *I* love this shit if it is done well. Hopefully it has depth!

[Mattyb21]

First match of the day bonus? Probably enough to get me started laddering! :P It's a step in the right direction for sure

[fur]

Great idea, now clan support and better chat system please.

[Dingobloo]

No XP progression for random: suck it fence sitters!

This is a good step, I think less emphasis on winning to get portrait rewards is definitely the right direction, but if it's just portraits it's going to be really really disappointing.

Quick Comments

Stallion:

lol

[ThatGuyDoMo]

oooooooo I'm liking this so far.

Blizzard making some heads turn.

Not sure it'll be enough to convince all the chicken-little community members though :S

[Baldie]

Someone in the world somewhere won't be sleeping until they get level 20 cos being world first is da best

[FS.Kezz]

Originally Posted by Baldie

Someone in the world somewhere won't be sleeping until they get level 20 cos being world first is da best

I can imagine Athene grinding this out only to fall short by like 10 minutes because some kid in Europe took the day off school to finish it.

[AxSGRiM]

This is definitely a step in the right direction to get casual players to be more entertained with SC2. Hopefully somewhere along the track the other community features get implemented as well and maybe multiplayer gets to be for free. AFAIK, 50% of sold SC2 copies come from people who only have played single player.

[Flamga]

I think I am liking this incentive to play all races etc. I still think we should have CUSTOM colours, instead of the plain 8 we get in custom (16 with 8 players) and default for ladder. Then in game we have team colours on (green/red) and for casting we have our TRUE colours shown

Of course certain colours would be difficult but I am sure we can work around that!

[ROCCAT_Savior]

All round good idea tbh. Blizzard dun well

[Meatex]

I really hate to be the cynic here but this is just a half arsed response to calm down all the people spam tweeting / emailing etc at blizzard to save the game
Thus far its clearly just a very small change to the system that already exists
While I hope they introduce other things like different skinned units for higher level rewards they haven't mentioned anything along those lines so I assume that if people calm down and stop nagging blizzard en masse then blizzard will likely not develop skins

Quick Comments

	Maynarde:	It's not a response to calm down that stupid twitter campaign...
	ToRLuneth:	I don't it's possible to do all that in a week anyway
	Dox:	wut

[Dingobloo]

Originally Posted by FaDeMeatex

I really hate to be the cynic here but this is just a half arsed response to calm down all the people spam tweeting / emailing etc at blizzard to save the game
Thus far its clearly just a very small change to the system that already exists
While I hope they introduce other things like different skinned units for higher level rewards they haven't mentioned anything along those lines so I assume that if people calm down and stop nagging blizzard en masse then blizzard will likely not develop skins

Considering that this is already implemented in the next beta patch, and that they're releasing this information in a one-a-week drip feed, I would imagine this was all planned before everyone started getting pissed off.

I agree that it's really minimum effort by them, but it is an improvement on the current system at least, and has at least the framework to add in better rewards.

Edit:

i would have thought it was planned if it wasn't such a minor feature

They showed screenshots with levels on them a day after the drama post. For reference the arcade was shown at 2011 Blizzcon and took nearly a year to actually release, was definitely ahead of time.

Quick Comments

Meatex:

i would have thought it was planned if it wasn't such a minor feature

[Zanderax]

Originally Posted by FaDeMeatex

I really hate to be the cynic here but this is just a half arsed response to calm down all the people spam tweeting / emailing etc at blizzard to save the game
Thus far its clearly just a very small change to the system that already exists
While I hope they introduce other things like different skinned units for higher level rewards they haven't mentioned anything along those lines so I assume that if people calm down and stop nagging blizzard en masse then blizzard will likely not develop skins

This is wrong because they didn't add LAN.

[mirth]

this is a change for the good, i feel like it wont intrude on the integrity of the game, while still appealing more to casual gamers and give them a sense of purpose to play.

[yongming]

this is not going to bring back casual players. just like d3's paragon levels or monster levels. incentives are nice but it does not address why casuals dont play the game.

[FSDarkNemesis]

At least implement those Changes in Wings of Liberty. About time it gets some interface updates.

[|Erasmus|]

Originally Posted by FaDeMeate

i would have thought it was planned if it wasn't such a minor feature

What expertise do you have to say this?

Reworking the entire custom avatar thing, including all the interface updates, artwork etc. that this would need. Not exactly a trivial task.

Not arguing it's some super huge gargantuan effort, but it's painful to watch all these people on reddit/twitter and now here slamming everything blizzard does saying that everything is so trivial and not good enough when they really have no ******* clue.

Quick Comments

	Maynarde:	Thank you
	mirth:	i thought reddit was positive about this change
	ToRGreenArchon:	reddit is moany things

[Dingobloo]

Originally Posted by |Erasmus|

Not arguing it's some super huge gargantuan effort, but it's painful to watch all these people on reddit/twitter and now here slamming everything blizzard does saying that everything is so trivial and not good enough when they really have no ******* clue.

Criticism 101 is that the effort to do something isn't nearly as important as the end result. The people who are most likely to engage with a system like this won't care how difficult it was to do if the competition is offering something more substantial then portraits.

There's also another angle to this in that if they had got feedback prior to implementing a lot of this they wouldn't have had to put in some of that effort, 100 new portraits doesn't matter if the feedback coming back is that no one cares about portraits. Implementing a levelling system doesn't matter if the feedback coming back is that what people what is a currency system, not a levelling system (levelling system in other games are for slowly introducing game play elements, not for unlocking cosmetics, largely because levelling systems are accumulative, there is no opportunity cost for reaching a certain level).

If it's painful for you to read criticism about a company that you buy entertainment from then you might need to take a bit of a step back and realize that the people who implemented the system probably aren't taking it even as hard as you are. I'm not saying shit on everything, but I'll definitely defend his right to cynical and to express that opinion without being shouted down by people who feel the need to defend by proxy what is ultimately useful feedback.

[|Erasmus|]

I'm not mad that their criticising blizzard one bit. I criticise them enough myself. It's just irritating (as a software engineer myself) to have all these idiots running around going "oh our ranting and raging yesterday worked" when they announce a big change is already done and can be released the day after...

That attitude is just going to fuel even more raging because people are now believing this crap. In reality, these changes were being planned, designed, implemented and tested for at least several months. Even a trivial change (from a technical viewpoint) takes a long time to get through that kind of process in a large company.

Quick Comments

Dingobloo:

Can't fight ignorance with "shut the **** up you don't know what you're talking about" only way to do so is to educate.

[Meatex]

They likely already had all the artwork except for the extra buttons (which are probably done via code than extra artwork)
The avatars were already done ready for a system similar to that which existed in WoL
The additional work would have been purely reworking of interface and simple relabeling of already existing data

Additionally it has been more than a day since the whole SC2 is dying craze and there has been more than enough time for a company of Blizzards size to add in an extra panel to the interface
Not saying this was something that wasn't already - at the very least - thought of prior to the drama but evidence is to the contrary

For one it seems to be a simple flat rate of XP for units built and destroyed - perhaps done from a conversion of the points awarded at the end of the game
Secondly this feature isn't actually out and it won't be the first time a company has promised and even show screen shots of features that aren't finished at time of release
Thirdly if the system was anything more than now instead of wins its XP that unlocks avatars and decals I would agree with what erasmus says but this "feature" smacks of hastily developed

They even said that they have no functionality for bonus XP yet... why? because a system to assaign bonus points did not already exist in the game yet all other factors did

NOT saying that my hypothesis is THE reality but I think its more logical given the knowledge I have at my disposal (I have worked in game development and studied game development before but that is irrelevant)
I was trying to post my thoughts to counter the yay this is epic awesome and we are going to have new skins and all this other awesome stuff when all that has been announce is a change in the way avatars and decals are awarded which frankly isn't that big a deal imo,
really no need to turn thing personal erasmus

[FaMe]

Horrible incentive; too late.

[LennX]

This is a tiny step in the right direct. I'm hoping that they will continue to have more improvements to the game. WOL has set the bar very low.

[ToRMaverick]

Love it. Love Sc2. Couldnt care what blizzard impliments.... just take my money now.

[Theend]

Sc2 ...... Wc4 .....
Wc3 ..... Sc2 ......
oh wait, what game is that?

[moonbies]

Yes i do beleive this will do good things for casual gamer longegevity but more improvements need to made for the game to grow and make up lost ground

[Dox]

Replies to this thread are disappointing.