SCII: HOTS... Whos excited??

Wonder why it took so long to come out with an expansion pack. I know it doesn't matter as games like this have absurd shelf lives. But still seems like it took forever. I thought that when they said expansion packs it meant every year or so. This is beyond Blizzard time.
 
CryingGod said:
Watched a few streams of the first 4-5 levels, the storyline seems to be absolute shit, and so cliche.

Glad I didn't buy this.
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Seriously, imo, whoever buys this strictly for the campaign is just retarded. Its all about the multiplayer. Multiplayer is what put starcraft on the map. Your decision buying process should be to ask yourself do you want multiplayer first and think of the campaign as a side bonus. And how is this really different from most games now days?
 
SC's strong point has always been its story.

South Korea's obsession with SC mp through it up there, but they also push mp to a level that is kinda pushing it for a lot of people.
 
cageymaru said:
Wonder why it took so long to come out with an expansion pack. I know it doesn't matter as games like this have absurd shelf lives. But still seems like it took forever. I thought that when they said expansion packs it meant every year or so. This is beyond Blizzard time.
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Thats because these are legitimate expansions. Unlike the DLC you see nowdays.
 
Rdzona said:
Seriously, imo, whoever buys this strictly for the campaign is just retarded. Its all about the multiplayer. Multiplayer is what put starcraft on the map. Your decision buying process should be to ask yourself do you want multiplayer first and think of the campaign as a side bonus. And how is this really different from most games now days?
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I guess I am "retarded" then, I hate multiplayer, very much enjoy the campaign.

Looking forward to playing tonight.
 
I'll buy it...I mostly buy it for the SP anyway. I do love to watch MLG matches with buddies though, lot of fun. I hope Zerg isn't as dominant in this release.
 
Rdzona said:
Seriously, imo, whoever buys this strictly for the campaign is just retarded. Its all about the multiplayer. Multiplayer is what put starcraft on the map. Your decision buying process should be to ask yourself do you want multiplayer first and think of the campaign as a side bonus. And how is this really different from most games now days?
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This is a really strange thing to say. Basically you are trying to tell people how to have fun which makes no sense.

"I like things this way, therefore everyone else must like things this way and if they do not, they must be dumb"

These are thoughts children have. Why is it so important for you to dictate what other people deem fun? You'll be much happier if you can just accept people's differences and realize that different people have different tastes, don't be so angry.
 
I really enjoyed the first campaign, don't really get why some people hated it. It had a nice variety of missions and I thought the story was fine. Hoping to similarly enjoy HOTS' campaign.

I will dip into the multiplayer as well but I definitely get a lot of enjoyment out of the single player.
 
only had time to play 1 campaign mission so far im enjoying it now im stuck @ work ;<
 
I'm enjoying the campaign so far.

Haters gonna hate, taters gonna tate. People like Rdzona can eat shit. Don't tell us how to enjoy ourselves.
 
big_aug said:
I actually bought WoL + HoTS together on sale a while back when I first got SC2. I'm not even bothering installing it again. SC2 1v1 is the most frustrating, rage inducing game I've ever played. It's bad even when you win lol
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To be fair, I don't like 1v1 either. I got master and that was it for me. I have about 100 1v1 games played and thousands of other game types played (vs. AI, custom games, team games, FFA, etc.). I also spent hundreds of hours in the star editor. I'm looking forward to the new editor as well. The new arcade system is an improvement over their initial custom game system, but it can still be better (think steam workshop?).

Honestly one of the most exciting things for me was the new AI types and the AI matchmaking... The Elite AI while still not super great is no pushover compared to the old Very Hard AI. It's a great way to play with friends who are hesitant about laddering or whose skill levels are wildly different than yours.
 
Intel_Hydralisk said:
To be fair, I don't like 1v1 either. I got master and that was it for me. I have about 100 1v1 games played and thousands of other game types played (vs. AI, custom games, team games, FFA, etc.). I also spent hundreds of hours in the star editor. I'm looking forward to the new editor as well. The new arcade system is an improvement over their initial custom game system, but it can still be better (think steam workshop?).

Honestly one of the most exciting things for me was the new AI types and the AI matchmaking... The Elite AI while still not super great is no pushover compared to the old Very Hard AI. It's a great way to play with friends who are hesitant about laddering or whose skill levels are wildly different than yours.
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Yea I played like 500 ladder matches in the last season, my first time playing, and got to gold. It started getting really tough at that point, and I started getting really pissed. I think I'm really going to focus on not worrying too much about winning or losing. I'm going to focus on some metrics to make sure I'm getting better and pretend I'm playing vs the computer.
 
TheGamerZ said:
I'm enjoying the campaign so far.

Haters gonna hate, taters gonna tate. People like Rdzona can eat shit. Don't tell us how to enjoy ourselves.
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Lol, I'm really glad you know how to use the bold tags. Can you show me? Apparently you don't understand what I was saying. I want people to like the campaign. I like the campaign. Its the people that have misconceptions about the game and then trash it solely based on the campaign. Do you understand this now or would you like to continue being a block head?
 
Tricia Helfer's voice is so hot.

Played a few missions before work (brutal, then bump the mission down for the achievements), nothing to write home about yet. However, kerrigans story has a lot of promise. I can probably predict some plot twists that's coming, but it still will be an epic ride.

There's a lot more storytelling, at least up front.

While Raynor is a story of sorrow, kerrigans is a story of guilt and vengeance. She's gone down that road before, but this time she's choosing it. The decent into darkness is no unique tale, but it will be interesting to see her conflicted the entire time
 
big_aug said:
Yea I played like 500 ladder matches in the last season, my first time playing, and got to gold. It started getting really tough at that point, and I started getting really pissed. I think I'm really going to focus on not worrying too much about winning or losing. I'm going to focus on some metrics to make sure I'm getting better and pretend I'm playing vs the computer.
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Have you tried 2s or 3s? If you're burnt out on the 1s for the time being those can still have a lot of value as far as macro/micro mechanics, just less of a strategy per se.
 
big_aug said:
Yea I played like 500 ladder matches in the last season, my first time playing, and got to gold. It started getting really tough at that point, and I started getting really pissed. I think I'm really going to focus on not worrying too much about winning or losing. I'm going to focus on some metrics to make sure I'm getting better and pretend I'm playing vs the computer.
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There's also unranked match making. The wins accrued there count for leveling up your race level as well as working towards portraits. It also uses a separate MMR (word on the street - I haven't confirmed myself or looked at any official sources) so you can mess around / experiment / try different things.
 
Rdzona said:
Seriously, imo, whoever buys this strictly for the campaign is just retarded. Its all about the multiplayer. Multiplayer is what put starcraft on the map. Your decision buying process should be to ask yourself do you want multiplayer first and think of the campaign as a side bonus. And how is this really different from most games now days?
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I don't really see the logic in paying another $40 or whatever for this over WoL if I just wanted to play MP...
 
Rdzona said:
Well then don't. That's your opinion and your choice to make. No one is twisting your arm.
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You just got done saying it was "retarded" to buy it for SP and now you're chiding me? Give me a break.
 
Damn it, why didn't anyone tell me the soundtrack was already being torrented last night.
 
MavericK96 said:
You just got done saying it was "retarded" to buy it for SP and now you're chiding me? Give me a break.
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No what I'm saying is you have to look at the WHOLE picture. If you need the justification for where the 40 bucks goes, then thats what you have to do. But to say, all I want to do is play some small percentage of the game isn't worth the 40 bucks to me. All I hear from that is QQ. Sorry, you can't have everything a la carte. The price is 40 and for that you get dot dot dot. In otherwords, for everything that is offered (and will be offered ie they periodically update the meta game and map pool), its priced just fine imo with their previous offerings as well as the rest of the market. If all you want is some small subset of the game, well then only YOU can decide if that is worth it for you!
 
Been playing WoL campaign for the third time over the past couple of week building up to the today's HotS release. I got up and left the house a little earlier than usual so I could grab a copy on the way to work. Now, for this day to end so I can get home and play!
 
Well, I just saw it for $20 on Newegg after coupon, so I bought it. I never played the SC2 single player. Maybe now is the time?
 
people dont buy this for both SP and MP?

i love ladder. and i love the story.

story comes first, ladder comes after.
 
Intel_Hydralisk said:
To be fair, I don't like 1v1 either. I got master and that was it for me. I have about 100 1v1 games played and thousands of other game types played (vs. AI, custom games, team games, FFA, etc.). I also spent hundreds of hours in the star editor. I'm looking forward to the new editor as well. The new arcade system is an improvement over their initial custom game system, but it can still be better (think steam workshop?).

Honestly one of the most exciting things for me was the new AI types and the AI matchmaking... The Elite AI while still not super great is no pushover compared to the old Very Hard AI. It's a great way to play with friends who are hesitant about laddering or whose skill levels are wildly different than yours.
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Kind of torn about this, the way I look at it. Give it awhile and gold will be the new bronze and diamond will be the new gold. Not that it matters in 1v1 anyway
 
Nocens said:
Well, I just saw it for $20 on Newegg after coupon, so I bought it. I never played the SC2 single player. Maybe now is the time?
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I'm assuming you're talking about WoL?

Sixthsense said:
Kind of torn about this, the way I look at it. Give it awhile and gold will be the new bronze and diamond will be the new gold. Not that it matters in 1v1 anyway
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Curious to why you say that?
 
They changed the distribution of bronze to gold. It used to be like 20/20/20. Now it's like 8/20/32 or something like that (8 for bronze).this was to help new players stay in a smaller pool(less variation of skill) and easier to move to silver as they step out of that newb status.
 
For those of you that SC2 MP, how well does the matching work? I love RTS games but I am terrible at RTS MP. If I started playing MP, would it really match me up with another noob or is it a guessing game and I'd get a fellow noob if I am lucky?
 
Khaos Kid said:
For those of you that SC2 MP, how well does the matching work? I love RTS games but I am terrible at RTS MP. If I started playing MP, would it really match me up with another noob or is it a guessing game and I'd get a fellow noob if I am lucky?
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It's MMR based. It tries to match based on a hidden rating. If you win, your rating goes up, if you lose your rating goes down. There's a lot of confirmation bias since this rating is a hidden one. What you see is your league and some point system. Just about everyone will have a 50% win rate (over time) unless you're one of the worst or best players.

They changed the distribution of bronze to gold. It used to be like 20/20/20. Now it's like 8/20/32 or something like that (8 for bronze).this was to help new players stay in a smaller pool(less variation of skill) and easier to move to silver as they step out of that newb status.
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I imagine the MMR stayed the same though?
 
On the other hand, people who hate the league rankings can always play straight up unranked...
 
All the change to the distribution does is move the huge range in skill to gold instead of bronze. That makes total sense. Bronze should be for people who are new and are completely terrible. I can tell you from having started in last season and making it to gold, the skill range in Bronze was crazy. There were definitely some players in Bronze who were most certainly not Bronze level players, and I'm not talking about smurfs. It's a good change for new players. Gold is definitely the league that should have a wide skill range. The distribution looks more like a bell curve now which I think is good.

I think the match making system in SC2 is REALLY good. I can't say that I was ever playing people way above or way below my skill. Some were definitely better and some were definitely worse, but it wasn't by too much. Occasionally there were a few people I absolutely dominated and a few who made me look like a Bronze leaguer. I think they do a great job with the MMR. That was my experience over about 400-500 ladder matches going from Bronze to Gold.
 
Khaos Kid said:
For those of you that SC2 MP, how well does the matching work? I love RTS games but I am terrible at RTS MP. If I started playing MP, would it really match me up with another noob or is it a guessing game and I'd get a fellow noob if I am lucky?
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The matchmaking is very good. Blizzard has been perfecting their MM algorithms for over a decade now (in both their Starcraft and Warcraft universes) and 99.9% of the population will play most of their games against relatively equal skill players.

Give it 10-20 games to sort out your rating and you should settle in at ~50% win rate, no matter how good you are.
 
Russ said:
The matchmaking is very good. Blizzard has been perfecting their MM algorithms for over a decade now (in both their Starcraft and Warcraft universes) and 99.9% of the population will play most of their games against relatively equal skill players.

Give it 10-20 games to sort out your rating and you should settle in at ~50% win rate, no matter how good you are.
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I think this can be a flaw with the matchmaking system and here is why:

Many people will play placement matches, get ranked, and then get discouraged at the lack of progress they make and then simply stop playing 1v1 and go to custom games or team games. The problem with a hidden MMR is that you don't know how good you actually are! Top Silver? Your MMR/skill level might be higher than many people in gold and you won't know it until you get randomly promoted. Gold and plat were exceedingly frustrating for me as I played a LOT of people ranked higher than me in league before I moved up. If I hadn't really been aware of the mechanics of the ranking system I would have just said "fuck this" and stopped bothering with the ladder. Actually, I truly believe that is what happens to most folks.
 
darrpara said:
I think this can be a flaw with the matchmaking system and here is why:

Many people will play placement matches, get ranked, and then get discouraged at the lack of progress they make and then simply stop playing 1v1 and go to custom games or team games. The problem with a hidden MMR is that you don't know how good you actually are! Top Silver? Your MMR/skill level might be higher than many people in gold and you won't know it until you get randomly promoted. Gold and plat were exceedingly frustrating for me as I played a LOT of people ranked higher than me in league before I moved up. If I hadn't really been aware of the mechanics of the ranking system I would have just said "fuck this" and stopped bothering with the ladder. Actually, I truly believe that is what happens to most folks.
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What happens to most folks is they hit a skill wall and don't want to get better. You don't play SC2 and get bettter. You have to PRACTICE SC2 to get better. When you stop getting promoted, you have maxed out your ability. You have to practice to give yourself room to improve. People give up because it's no longer just a game. You really have to put quality time in to improve. I know, it happened to me.

Also, what was your win rate when you played those higher league players? I bet you weren't winning most of them until, you guessed it, you got promoted.

No one who plays single player only with no ladder experience is going to go into ladder and get placed in Gold+ and be stuck. Maybe Silver, but most will be bronze. Single Player and ladder aren't comparable in any way.
 
big_aug said:
What happens to most folks is they hit a skill wall and don't want to get better. You don't play SC2 and get bettter. You have to PRACTICE SC2 to get better.

I know, it happened to me.

Also, what was your win rate when you played those higher league players? I bet you weren't winning most of them until, you guessed it, you got promoted.

No one who plays single player only with no ladder experience is going to go into ladder and get placed in Gold+. Maybe Silver, but most will be bronze. Single Player and ladder aren't comparable in any way.
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I suppose I sort of disagree with you about playing -> getting better. I never really practiced much but I did review all my replays and do more planning based on scouting but I never went into build order testers or micro trainers etc. I was winning most of my games (probably 60% against people in higher leagues). I just felt it took a much longer time to make progress upwards despite my ranking level. Looking back I would say silver and gold are the weird leagues as they exist in an odd area somewhere between competent play and badly executed cheese that catches you off guard.
 
Khaos Kid said:
For those of you that SC2 MP, how well does the matching work? I love RTS games but I am terrible at RTS MP. If I started playing MP, would it really match me up with another noob or is it a guessing game and I'd get a fellow noob if I am lucky?
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Dude I was gonna ask this same question and also throw this out there..I'd love to team up with any other [H] noobs or vets that are willing to teach to get some matches in.
 
darrpara said:
The problem with a hidden MMR is that you don't know how good you actually are!
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The problem with a non-hidden MMR is that people will stagnate. Your MMR is a really good indicator of your skill level. Most people will stagnate over time (it take a lot of effort to suddenly get much better than you've always been after your initial learning curve).

The reasoning for hidden MMR is so everyone gets something with the ever increasing hyperinflated bonus pool point system. And with every ladder reset everyone gets another "shot". All of this league / points / bonus pool stuff is insanely shallow and meaningless to anyone who actually understands MMR. Your MMR literally never resets behind the scenes (unless you go inactive for a whole season or something, never looked into that).

So for several consecutive seasons you could literally not improve at all in terms of MMR but there are artificial things that you "rewarded" to you all the time with this league / division / bonus pool system.

Personally I'd prefer to be able to just see my MMR and be done with it. If you're at the higher end of a league the system right now is incredibly discouraging since you're lumped together in a bucket with players that are just worse than you.

EDIT: Something I forgot to point out - in a typical MMR system, people don't start out at 0, you start out at some number like 1200 or 1500 for example. From there, you can actually go DOWN in rating. In a typical MMR system, the points gained/lost is zero sum. So the starting rating is your average rating (Gold for example). So if they displayed MMR, silver and bronze players will literally see their rating fall until it stagnates. This is incredibly discouraging and likely one reason Blizzard decided to hide the MMR.
 
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Khaos Kid said:
For those of you that SC2 MP, how well does the matching work? I love RTS games but I am terrible at RTS MP. If I started playing MP, would it really match me up with another noob or is it a guessing game and I'd get a fellow noob if I am lucky?
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TheToE! said:
Dude I was gonna ask this same question and also throw this out there..I'd love to team up with any other [H] noobs or vets that are willing to teach to get some matches in.
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It's pretty good actually. there is ranked and unranked and there is custom games. Unranked gives you the ability to play on ladder against other players who have opted for ranked. You can basically play with other players on ladder without hurting your record if you would happen to lose. Previously you would have to go to join a custom 1v1, 2v2 game and hope joe smoe power peon is at your skill level. Recently we also have had the option to play on other regions as well ( like how it was on old bnet WC3 days) You could basically play on another region (korea for instance) without the need to pay for another key.
 
Sixthsense said:
It's pretty good actually. there is ranked and unranked and there is custom games. Unranked gives you the ability to play on ladder against other players who have opted for ranked. You can basically play with other players on ladder without hurting your record if you would happen to lose. Previously you would have to go to join a custom 1v1, 2v2 game and hope joe smoe power peon is at your skill level. Recently we also have had the option to play on other regions as well ( like how it was on old bnet WC3 days) You could basically play on another region (korea for instance) without the need to pay for another key.
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I'll be available sometime after 9pm central, if you, Khaos Kid, and TheToE! wanna do some 2v2's. :)
 
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