Do you like Diablo 3?

[yllamana]

HotS: the story is better, the gameplay is very similar. I think it's safe to say that if you liked Wings of Liberty then you will like Heart of the Swarm.

[madcow]

SC2 multiplayer is not as scary as everyone thinks.

I've dabbled before in wings of liberty. It's not a matter of being scary. It's a matter of it simply not being enjoyable to me. Especially at the game speed they use.

[yllamana]

The "blink and you'll miss the battles" multiplayer speed definitely hurts the experience for me. I have a lot of trouble controlling the units in any meaningful way in fights because of it.

I haven't tried HotS multiplayer yet. I have tried some games against the computer. They have a new game mode that uses a matchmaking sort of concept to put you against computer opponents of your skill level. From memory, it's a bit like their old coop vs AI system except it sets the difficulty for you. You can still play custom games against the computer if you want instead using the custom game interface. I kinda like the new thing, but the computer still doesn't seem to know how to wall, which is sort of bad for its early-game survivability (can you say "ling go"?).

I enjoy the multiplayer (or non-campaign, say) modes as the price of admission to understand the pro games well. They help me learn the units to an intuitive level that it's hard to pick up from blurry streams.

ETA: oh, and I wanted to add the new training modes and the AI matchmaking system are in Wings of Liberty after the 2.0.4 patch, so you can just check them out there if you want. I thought the training modes were really nice - three modes of increasing complexity with restrictions on what you can build and continual advice from the computer.

[Wingflier]

SC2 multiplayer is not as scary as everyone thinks.

It depends.  If you want to be in Diamond or Masters (I made it to Diamond Rank 1 in my division temporarily when WoL was released), it's very scary.  It's probably the most difficult game I've ever played.  But if you're just trying to relax in Bronze tier, then I guess it doesn't really matter how well you micro, or how many times you can click per second.

[Mánagarmr]

I'm also not a fan of the speed at which the game plays in SC2. I can see how someone competitive likes it a lot, because it adds tension. But I'm more of a grand strategist, so I prefer games such as Supreme Commander: FA, for instance.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, I like certain kinds of "losing is fun" games, but if I'm losing because I'm not thinking fast enough or clicking fast enough, I'm not having fun.

But the esports of dota-likes and sc2 and such is fascinating to me, as a spectator.

[Mánagarmr]

But the esports of dota-likes and sc2 and such is fascinating to me, as a spectator.

This absolutely!

[madcow]

So. I grabbed this mostly for single player (and maybe coop versus AI/custom games). On normal difficultly the levels really seem on the easy side. It's fun though, there's quite a few levels which are troop control without base building which I appreciated.

I was also super excited that in the campaign thy got rid if needing to inject larva, which if you're not familiar with it is a spell you have to cast on every one of your bases every 30 seconds or so if you play Zerg. It is incredibly tedious and if you don't do it you half troop production and can easily get stomped. Tangent aside. I was glad to see it gone in the campaign.

Jumped into a vs AI battle, and it was back! Y U mock me blizzard?  Guess vs AI I go back to playing as humans, its that annoying heh.

[Mick]

I had mixed feelings about them removing the inject larva from the campaign. Their reasoning was that they wanted macro not to be the focus in the campaign game, but it essentially teaches players bad habits if they later want to get into multiplayer.

[yllamana]

I kinda saw it the opposite way: that it wasn't any fun so they took it out of single player, but left it in multiplayer for some reason.

[Mick]

Macro in Starcraft is essentially a glorified version of Diner Dash. It's a time management game where you have many small tasks you need to complete as efficiently as possible. The balance between macro and micro are what contribute to the game's high skill ceiling.

Every race has a periodic macro mechanic like spawn larvae. If you removed all three of those mechanics, they would still be pretty balanced, butt he skill ceiling would be lowered across the board as a result.

[Mick]

By the way, if any of you here play and are looking for someone for a friendly match, a fun team vs AI, or someone to play a game of Starjeweled or whatever, feel free to contact me at my battle tag (Mick#1457). Just say you're from the Arcen forum so I know who you are.

[madcow]

Personally I find the inject larva to be an awful mechanic and wish MP followed the SP mechanic. Or at least let it be used as an autocastable. It's perplexing that they streamline other aspects like showing optimal worker amounts and the like but left in that in my opinion awful mechanic.

Edit: which custom maps are fun btw?

[Mick]

which custom maps are fun btw?

Nexus Wars and Desert Strike are good casual fun.

I like to put in a quick game of Starjeweled now and again.

The expansion brought me back to the game after a long hiatus, so I don't really know what the newest flavor of the months are now. Fortunately, it appears that the custom game browser is *light years* ahead of when Starcraft 2 first came out. Now it's like an app store with ratings/reviews and descriptions on things.

You could get a ton of fun out of the game and never actually touch SC2-proper.

[Diazo]

Kind of interesting that way isn't it?

How would you like some Touhou with your Starcraft?

Actually kind of amazing how powerful that engine/editor is.

D.