Nachdem der direkt an Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void mitarbeitende Game Designer Kevin “Monk” Dong im Verlauf der vergangenen Wochen bereits umfangreiche Bluepost zu geplanten Spielbalanceänderungen für Han und Horner, Fenix und Karax in den Battle.Net Foren dieses Strategiespiels veröffentlichte, folgte vor einigen Tagen nun auch noch ein weiterer Beitrag dieser Art, der sich dieses Mal allerdings mehr mit allgemeinen Anpassungen beschäftigte und keinen bestimmten Kommandanten in den Fokus rückte. In diesem selbstverständlich auch dieses Mal wieder sehr lang gehaltenen Bluepost erklärt dieser für Blizzard Entertainment tätige Entwickler unter anderem, was für Änderungen an den einzelnen Charakteren derzeit geplant sind, was für Verbesserung der Spielqualität auf die Spieler zu kommen und warum sie sich überhaupt für diese Maßnahmen entschieden haben. Zu diesen geplanten Veränderungen gehören beispielsweise eine Verringerung der Kosten für ausgewählte Upgrades, besser formulierte Erklärungen für die Meisterschaften der Kommandanten, ein Nerf an den Sporenkrabbler der Zerg und mehrere notwendige Fehlerbehebungen. Da die von Kevin “Monk” Dong in diesem Bluepost vorgestellten Spielbalanceänderungen sowohl eine Reihe von verschiedenen Kommandanten als auch die allgemeine Funktionsweise der Koop-Missionen betreffen, kann ich an dieser Stelle eigentlich nur jedem Fan dieses kooperativen Spielmodi dazu raten, den folgenden Bluepost möglichst aufmerksam durchzulesen. Leider wird es aufgrund eines fehlenden Abschnitts für die Koop-Missionen in den deutschen Foren von Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void vermutlich auch von diesem vierten Bluepost zu den geplanten Balanceänderungen keine übersetzte Version geben. Co-op Mission Update – February 15th, 2018 Hey everyone! Over the last few updates, we’ve gone over the changes we’re planning to implement for Han & Horner, Fenix, and Karax in the next patch. Today, we’d like to go over a few more changes that we think will have significant effects on co-op as a whole. But first, let’s dive into some quality of life changes. Quality of Life Reworked building-selection priority of all co-op commanders to be more consistent. Improved the clarity of several Commander Mastery descriptions. All Overseers now have a more distinct visual indication when they enter Surveillance Mode. Swann’s Factory can now build both Hellions and Hellbats. Abathur’s Ultimate Evolutions now have tooltips that better describe their Symbiotes’ abilities. Rally points set to a Fenix suit will now persist through suit swaps and deaths. Fenix’s Purifier Conclave now displays the current number of supporting units on each hero’s icon. Fenix’s Disruptors now display a max range indicator when selected. A lot these changes were the direct result of suggestions from the community. In the future, feel free to not only suggest balance ideas, but quality of life change as well! Now, let’s move onto the juicier stuff. Spore Crawlers All Spore Crawlers, including Zagara’s, Kerrigan’s, Abathur’s, and Amon’s, have had their damage reduced from 15 (+30 vs Biological) to 15. All Spore Crawlers—both friendly and Amon’s–currently do excessive damage against Biological units, a holdover from multiplayer. This caused lots of problems for Zagara, Kerrigan, Abathur, Stukov, and especially Dehaka, all of whom often felt at an unfair disadvantage against Zerg static defense. In addition, there wasn’t a specific reason for players’ Spore Crawlers to do so well against enemy Biological units, so we’ll be removing this bonus across co-op. Upgrades Upgrades, especially armor and shield upgrades, are now more consistently costed and generally cheaper across the board. Kerrigan, Zagara, Abathur: Ground Carapace upgrade costs decreased from (150/150; 225/225; 300/300) to (100/100; 175/175; 250/250). Flyer Carapace upgrade costs decreased from (150/150; 225/225; 300/300) to (100/100; 175/175; 250/250). Artanis, Vorazun, Karax, Alarak, Fenix: Plasma Shield upgrade costs decreased from (150/150; 225/225; 300/300) to (100/100; 175/175; 250/250). Air Armor upgrade costs decreased from (150/150; 225/225; 300/300) to (100/100; 175/175; 250/250). Stukov: Infantry Armor upgrade costs decreased from (150/150; 225/225; 300/300) to (100/100; 150/150; 200/200). Dehaka: Primal Attacks upgrade costs increased from (100/100; 150/150; 200/200) to (100/100; 175/175; 250/250). Primal Carapace upgrade costs decreased from (150/150; 225/225; 300/300) to (100/100; 175/175; 250/250). In co-op, weapon upgrades are generally more efficient than armor upgrades because many of the most dangerous enemies either do spell damage (which ignores armor) or simply large amounts of regular damage. For the next patch, we looked at all the weapon and armor upgrade costs in the game and adjusted them to be more equitable across the board. While this is an overall buff for most commanders, Dehaka’s primal attack upgrades are being changed to be a bit more expensive. . . which we feel is fine, given that he’s currently perceived as one of the strongest commanders in the game. Abathur Fixed a bug where Toxic Nests were respawning on initial placement due to the Toxic Nest Damage and Respawn Chance Mastery. With this Mastery, Toxic Nests are intended to respawn only after they’ve been successfully placed. However, in the current patch, Toxic Nests have a chance to respawn even if they are destroyed before they finish building. With this interaction in mind, some resourceful Abathur players have been using a technique where they would place Toxic Nests on top of enemy units that initially spawn on the map. Using this technique on certain maps could result in three or more Ultimate Evolutions earlier than six minutes into the game, giving Abathur one of the strongest early-games in all of co-op. Since Abathur is intended to be the evolution master, and already has one of the strongest late-games in co-op, we felt this was problematic. While we considered keeping this as-is and nerfing Abathur’s power level in other ways, we eventually decided against. We feel Abathur’s power level is in a good place right now for most players. Of all the changes we considered, removing this unintended interaction was the one that most effectively solved the issue. Alarak Fixed a bug where Alarak’s Wrath of the Highlord had unlimited range. A select few creative Alarak players have been using a technique where they manually sacrificed Supplicants with their Ascendants in order to continuously reset Alarak’s cooldowns via his ability, Wrath of the Highlords. While this is an intended interaction, Alarak’s ability to reset cooldowns if the Supplicants were being sacrificed all the way on the other side of the map most definitely was not. With this change, Alarak’s Wrath of the Highlords will now have 15 range. Stukov Fixed a bug where Infested Civilians were spawning Broodlings each time they leaped. Fixed a bug where Infested Civilians would leap and have a chance to summon Volatile Infested. Stukov is often regarded as one of the stronger commanders in co-op with a special knack for mutations. Recently, however, we discovered that the Infested Civilian’s Anaerobic Enhancement upgrade had unintended interactions with both the Broodling Gestation upgrade and Volatile Infested Spawn Chance Mastery. These interactions increased the power level of Stukov’s Infested Compound, spawning more Broodlings and Volatile Infested than intended. After this fix goes into effect, we’ll be looking closely for feedback on Stukov’s subsequent power level. Going Forward We’re still working on more small changes and bug fixes for the upcoming patch, but we hope that this breakdown has provided a good overview of the major changes, as well as the thought processes behind each. We can’t wait for everyone to experience it all in action and hope that the feedback doesn’t stop flowing in after the changes go live! Kevin Dong Co-op Commander Designer (via)
