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Starcraft 2 Heart of the Swarm

D

Deuce

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Anybody else pick this one up? I just got it and played a bit over the weekend. The campaign is what you've come to expect from Blizzard. Very high quality, lots of fun. Dialogue is the usual cheesiness, but fun. My one complaint is the difficulty. Holy **** this game is easy. I played maybe halfway through on normal difficulty and had to start over and crank it up to brutal. They give you a souped-up version of the Zerg, each of your units can swap out one of three upgrades, like a range or damage increase, plus a permanently-chosen option of two evolution strains. Makes for a powerful army, and on top of that Kerrigan herself joins you on the missions and is hysterically overpowered. There are so many choices that let you just roll right over the enemy, you can't even pick out one or two "cheese" strategies. It's all cheese!

On normal difficulty, I didn't even need strategy. Just spammed hydralisks and attack-moved. Brutal is more of a challenge, but it's hard for any number of Terran or Protoss troops to fight against army of leaping zerglings with a 200hp magic buffer from Kerry. Or just Kerrigan by herself when she can spawn a cluster of banelings directly on top of the enemy.... which then split into smaller banelings that explode again. And I haven't even gotten far enough to get ultralisks that reincarnate.

Even the level design seems easier than before. There's one mission that is almost identical to an old Brood War mission: Protoss are trapped by Kerry's Zerg, trying to escape. Have to stop them Or Else Bad Things. Three warp thingies that Protoss shuttles try to reach. Giant, slow shuttles that broadcast their position by sharing vision and literally draw a giant arrow on your map saying THIS ONE IS GOING HERE. BETTER KILL IT. The exit points are on your side of the map, opposite the enemy bases, so they are flying into your territory.
In Brood War, you were defending three choke points at opposite ends of the map simultaneously. This split your forces and your attention. The enemy did not announce their escapes, and the escaping units weren't giant shuttles, they were Dark Templar. INVISIBLE. The enemy also didn't announce their attacks on your base, which seems really common in Heart of the Swarm. Enemy Commander will inexplicably broadcast to you their order to "ATTACK THEIR BASE, MEN!" Gee, guess I should pull my troops back and ambush the incoming guys.

MY QUEEN! A large force of zerglings is coming to our base! We should defend with all available forces!
*15 zerglings show up*

Really, Blizzard? Come on. Quit holding my hand here! This game is a ton of fun, I'm totally ok with losing and having to try again.
 
Deuce said:
Anybody else pick this one up? I just got it and played a bit over the weekend. The campaign is what you've come to expect from Blizzard. Very high quality, lots of fun. Dialogue is the usual cheesiness, but fun. My one complaint is the difficulty. Holy **** this game is easy. I played maybe halfway through on normal difficulty and had to start over and crank it up to brutal. They give you a souped-up version of the Zerg, each of your units can swap out one of three upgrades, like a range or damage increase, plus a permanently-chosen option of two evolution strains. Makes for a powerful army, and on top of that Kerrigan herself joins you on the missions and is hysterically overpowered. There are so many choices that let you just roll right over the enemy, you can't even pick out one or two "cheese" strategies. It's all cheese!

On normal difficulty, I didn't even need strategy. Just spammed hydralisks and attack-moved. Brutal is more of a challenge, but it's hard for any number of Terran or Protoss troops to fight against army of leaping zerglings with a 200hp magic buffer from Kerry. Or just Kerrigan by herself when she can spawn a cluster of banelings directly on top of the enemy.... which then split into smaller banelings that explode again. And I haven't even gotten far enough to get ultralisks that reincarnate.

Even the level design seems easier than before. There's one mission that is almost identical to an old Brood War mission: Protoss are trapped by Kerry's Zerg, trying to escape. Have to stop them Or Else Bad Things. Three warp thingies that Protoss shuttles try to reach. Giant, slow shuttles that broadcast their position by sharing vision and literally draw a giant arrow on your map saying THIS ONE IS GOING HERE. BETTER KILL IT. The exit points are on your side of the map, opposite the enemy bases, so they are flying into your territory.
In Brood War, you were defending three choke points at opposite ends of the map simultaneously. This split your forces and your attention. The enemy did not announce their escapes, and the escaping units weren't giant shuttles, they were Dark Templar. INVISIBLE. The enemy also didn't announce their attacks on your base, which seems really common in Heart of the Swarm. Enemy Commander will inexplicably broadcast to you their order to "ATTACK THEIR BASE, MEN!" Gee, guess I should pull my troops back and ambush the incoming guys.

MY QUEEN! A large force of zerglings is coming to our base! We should defend with all available forces!
*15 zerglings show up*

Really, Blizzard? Come on. Quit holding my hand here! This game is a ton of fun, I'm totally ok with losing and having to try again.
Click to expand...

Try doing the mastery achievements. Passing each level is pretty easy, but getting all the bonus objectives/achievements is more challenging.
 
Deuce said:
Anybody else pick this one up? I just got it and played a bit over the weekend. The campaign is what you've come to expect from Blizzard. Very high quality, lots of fun. Dialogue is the usual cheesiness, but fun. My one complaint is the difficulty. Holy **** this game is easy. I played maybe halfway through on normal difficulty and had to start over and crank it up to brutal. They give you a souped-up version of the Zerg, each of your units can swap out one of three upgrades, like a range or damage increase, plus a permanently-chosen option of two evolution strains. Makes for a powerful army, and on top of that Kerrigan herself joins you on the missions and is hysterically overpowered. There are so many choices that let you just roll right over the enemy, you can't even pick out one or two "cheese" strategies. It's all cheese!

On normal difficulty, I didn't even need strategy. Just spammed hydralisks and attack-moved. Brutal is more of a challenge, but it's hard for any number of Terran or Protoss troops to fight against army of leaping zerglings with a 200hp magic buffer from Kerry. Or just Kerrigan by herself when she can spawn a cluster of banelings directly on top of the enemy.... which then split into smaller banelings that explode again. And I haven't even gotten far enough to get ultralisks that reincarnate.

Even the level design seems easier than before. There's one mission that is almost identical to an old Brood War mission: Protoss are trapped by Kerry's Zerg, trying to escape. Have to stop them Or Else Bad Things. Three warp thingies that Protoss shuttles try to reach. Giant, slow shuttles that broadcast their position by sharing vision and literally draw a giant arrow on your map saying THIS ONE IS GOING HERE. BETTER KILL IT. The exit points are on your side of the map, opposite the enemy bases, so they are flying into your territory.
In Brood War, you were defending three choke points at opposite ends of the map simultaneously. This split your forces and your attention. The enemy did not announce their escapes, and the escaping units weren't giant shuttles, they were Dark Templar. INVISIBLE. The enemy also didn't announce their attacks on your base, which seems really common in Heart of the Swarm. Enemy Commander will inexplicably broadcast to you their order to "ATTACK THEIR BASE, MEN!" Gee, guess I should pull my troops back and ambush the incoming guys.

MY QUEEN! A large force of zerglings is coming to our base! We should defend with all available forces!
*15 zerglings show up*

Really, Blizzard? Come on. Quit holding my hand here! This game is a ton of fun, I'm totally ok with losing and having to try again.
Click to expand...
If you are still playing Heart of the Swarm or want to replay it, definitely try the mastery achievements. The first mission I think you're talking about, Shoot the Messenger, the achievement is to not only stop the shuttles but also destroy the 3 docking bays, or basically the majority of the protoss base, which is kinda big and spread out so it requires some multitasking. The next mission I think you're talking about, Domination, you need to destroy the zerg base in under 14 minutes, which is pretty quick, and it requires some massing up fairly quickly. I think the campaign was made to be accessible to everyone, from kids to adults, so that no one would miss out on anything, but the mastery achievements are rather challenging and require some skill, but tested to be just narrowly achievable by a decent player.
 
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