14 DAY TRIAL // Blizzard Entertainment is getting ready to conclude the epic saga that was Starcraft 2, a three-part real-time strategy game that is synonymous with eSports.
The upcoming Legacy of the Void expansion will deliver the conclusion to the single-player campaign, seeing the Terran, Zerg and Protoss races meeting their makers, the Xel'naga, in the thrilling closure of the hostilities that began back in 1998 with the original Starcraft.
But most important of all, the expansion is coming with some serious changes to the way the game is played, including the final batch of units that each race will be able to use against the opposition.
Being a beta and all, everything is subject to change, but this is likely the face of Starcraft 2 moving forward, the definitive arsenal that the three factions will employ on the field of battle.
Everyone who loves Starcraft 2 wants the game to be the best it can be, and Blizzard is trying really hard to please everyone.
There's a new kid in town
There are a total of five new units joining the fray for now, two for Zerg and Protoss and one for Terran, with Blizzard still working on a potential Barracks unit for the Terran.
The Zerg are seeing Starcraft: Brood War's Lurker make a comeback, in a slightly different shape, but having the same functionality: a ranged area-of-effect attacker that shoots spines in a line and can only fire while burrowed, which also gives it invisibility unless there's a detector nearby.
The Ravager is the Zerg's second addition, a solid ranged attacker that can also fire a deadly artillery volley that is easy to dodge but can wreak havoc on an unsuspecting opponent.
The Lurker has to be evolved from a Hydralisk, after building the appropriate structure, while the Ravager can be evolved from the Roach without any additional hassle.
The Protoss are getting what many players saw as a disappointing addition lore-wise, the Disruptor, a ball-like object from the Robotics Facility (requiring the Robotics Bay) that has no regular attack but that can be instead supercharged in order to become invulnerable, move faster, and deliver a devastating explosion that can single-handedly wipe out all low-tier units around it.
The second addition to the Protoss arsenal is the Adept, a low-tier ranged ground unit from the Gateway designed to enable players to harass more efficiently in the early game.
Its unique ability to send out an invulnerable illusion and then teleport to its location after a set interval means that enemies have to divide their defenders in order to cover two locations at once, and that players can also successfully chase a kiting target with the hasty illusion.
The final new unit is the Cyclone, a mid-tier Terran Factory unit with great mobility, range and damage. The Cyclone has the ability to lock on to a target and then fire missiles at it while moving, enabling it to chase or run away very efficiently, and to deal damage from afar without risking taking any damage in turn.
Teaching an old dog new tricks
In addition to all the new units, Blizzard Entertainment has also delivered a series of tweaks to how the old units work, with the apparent intention to encourage and facilitate harassment, to push players to expand more, and to enable a faster start.
The starting worker count has been increased to 12 for all races, but there are fewer overall minerals and less gas at the starting location.
First up, the Zerg Corruptor now has a channeled ability that can deal great damage to structures, and the Viper can severely damage air units that are clumped together. The Swarm Host now has to manually spawn Locusts, with a 60-second cooldown, but they can fly and have their duration increased.
Roaches can move while burrowed without the need to research an upgrade first, upgraded Zerglings attack faster, and Ultralisk gain more armor from their upgrade.
The Terran Medivac dropship can now pick up Tanks while in Siege Mode, Battlecruisers can teleport across the map after a short channeling time, greatly increasing their mobility, and Marauders have their damage spread across two attacks instead of one.
The Raven's Point Defense Drone has to be used more strategically, as its duration has been cut to just 20 seconds, and Missile Turrets can be built without having to first construct an Engineering Bay.
The Protoss are also receiving a number of tweaks, the most interesting of which is the greatly increased radius to the Warp Prism's pick-up range, enabling more efficient retreats during drops, and more annoying harassment.
The Immortal lost its passive shield, gaining an active ability that projects a damage shield around it for 2 seconds instead. The Carrier is now built faster and can launch its Interceptors to fight at a target area, which essentially means that it's less vulnerable now.
The Oracle has a cheaper ability that exposes cloaked and burrowed units for a minute, and a brand new one, Stasis Trap, that puts enemy units in stasis for 30 seconds when triggered. However, it doesn't last very long, so you have to use it strategically if you want to make the most out of it.
The Tempest lost its great damage boost against massive units but gained a new ability, dealing a huge amount of damage over a duration of over one minute to a single target. The ability is pretty weird, but it forces an opponent to do something with the targeted unit before it is lost, and it can even trigger an assault.
But not this old dog
Although I started playing Starcraft 2 at the very start of its beta, my interest gradually waned, and I stopped playing altogether by the time the Heart of the Swarm expansion was out.
It's just too difficult and stressful, especially when you don't have enough time to put into it. Back in the day, when I was playing Starcraft: Brood War, I had plenty of time to iterate on builds and refine them, and the necessary APM to have multiple bases running while keeping an eye on my army.
Jumping back into the game during the Legacy of the Void beta managed to rekindle some of that old flame, the excitement and challenge of mastering its delicate macro vs. micro balance, the constant need to scout and adapt to what your enemy is doing, to keep your eyes open for danger, to try and take your opponent by surprise.
I have yet to see a real-time strategy game that is as rich and satisfying as Starcraft 2, and I truly regret not having the necessary time and patience required to become good at it again. However, I found that I get the same sense of enjoyment after pulling off a difficult win, and the same urge to go back and watch the replay to see what my game is lacking after a defeat.
The new bag of tricks makes the game even more complex, but also much more exciting. The increase in starting worker count is one of the things I found the worst to adapt to. I just have it ingrained in me that within the first five minutes there's almost nothing going on aside from scouting and building workers, and now you can expand at the one minute mark, which is pretty crazy.
One of the most challenging aspects of the game is getting your dexterity up to the point where no time is wasted, where you can manage your economy and your army at the same time. Managing your army, of course, requires a lot of your attention, especially due to the fact that the outcome of battles is often decided by the optimal use of activated abilities and proper movement, aka micro.
It's a very involved and tense experience that no other strategy game has managed to emulate yet, and during the beta, things are made much worse by the fact that the entire playbook has just gone out the window.
By worse, of course, I mean exciting, because you never know what to expect, and there is no shortage of players trying out new ideas. In short, Legacy of the Void does exactly what a new expansion should.
The old strategies don't really work anymore, especially since now the early part of the game is completely different, and there are so many new things that you can do.
Ravagers give Zerg an edge when it comes to fighting static enemies and base defenses, and require that you dodge their corrosive bile artillery when fighting against them. The projectiles are not a threat in itself when you're fighting out in the open, as it's pretty difficult to land a hit, but the mere fact that the enemy is dodging them instead of firing on you is enough to give them an advantage.
If you thought that a surprise drop in your mineral line was bad before, Legacy of the Void will completely alter your perspective on what bad means. Roaches can burrow their way from base to base even faster.
A stealthy drop of four Ravagers can clean up an entire worker line without actually having to sit there and deal the damage. By the time the artillery shots drop, they're already on their way to the next target.
Now that a Medivac can pick up a tank while it's in Siege Mode, you will hate them even more, especially when a dexterous opponent keeps popping them in and out of your mineral lines for a shot or two.
Two Disruptors can safely clear out all your workers in the 4 seconds it takes for their charged attack to go off, and they will be gone before you are able to react in any way due to the huge pick-up range of the Prisms.
Two Disruptors can also take out your entire army when sneaking up on you from behind, and the fact that they're invulnerable while charging makes them seem impossible to win against. I can't even count the how many times I lost my Hydra and Ravager swarm to two or three deathballs without even realizing what hit me.
Sure, they're pretty expensive and vulnerable, but at 150 damage each, there's just so much ground they can cover. They address the Protoss' mobility issues, as you can defend your base while your army is out sightseeing, and the mere sight of them can make an enemy run for the hills.
The adept is also a pretty versatile unit. It's pretty slow, but its illusion is not, and if your scouting attempt is met with a walled-off ramp, you can send it right through. And since it only takes the Adept two shots to kill a worker, it makes for some great early game harassment.
The good and the bad
That pretty much means that the skill ceiling is even higher now, which is great news for everyone who enjoys watching the pros doing what they do best. It is, however, not all that good for people actually playing the game.
I lost a copious number of times while playing the beta, mainly because of how rusty I am. But I gradually got into the right rhythm once again, able to issue orders faster and faster, to micromanage my army, and everything else.
My long lapse also translated into a lot of timing issues, and into a ton of trial and error while I was getting used to how the game works once again. I eventually started to put up a fight, but not for long, because I met my old nemesis.
When I quit playing Starcraft 2, the main reason was that I wasn't getting any better at it, and that it had become simply too demanding. I wanted something to enjoy in my spare time, something to do where I can unwind, not something that gets me even more tired than I already was.
I find myself lacking the necessary time, and more importantly, the necessary will, to go through the grind again. Watching the pros go at it is still fun, but I don't find myself wanting to jump in as much as I used to.
I love Starcraft, but I don't think I'll ever play it as much as I used to. However, I can definitely appreciate where the people at Blizzard are going with it. The company has always been good at stretching the lifetime of its games through its almost godly design, balance and polish skills, and Legacy of the Void so far seems to push the bar even higher.
It also makes it even more difficult for a new player to get in. The game has always been difficult, and now it's more competitive than it ever was. Being this early in the beta, I only found a handful of players as lowly as myself, so it's been a harrowing experience.
It's also been a reminder of how tedious I felt the game had become back in the day, when I used to be much better than I currently am. I never liked micro, my games were usually won mainly through macro, containment, and drops, rather than full-on assaults, and now I just feel overwhelmed.
I skipped Warcraft 3's multiplayer precisely due to the fact that it required a ton of fiddling around with units, which is also part of the Starcraft 2 menu. However, I do like the push towards more macro-oriented games.
With fewer resources at your starting locations and a stronger economy from the get-go, I can definitely say I enjoy it more than the one-on-one back and forth of the first five minutes in the vanilla. You simply have to expand more or you're going to be running out of resources, and plopping down new bases has always been more fun for me than the actual fighting.
The fact that you can't turtle on two bases anymore and then roll out with a big army and steamroll over your opponent is good news for me, as I like overall map control and timid engagements much more than all-in battles.
The matchmaking system has been pretty good at trying to find players who aren't always twice as fast as I am so far, and I hope that things will start getting less hectic once more players are in and I can actually find someone I can beat.
It's too early to tell how well Legacy of the Void will cater to bad players like myself, mainly due to the fact that there aren't that many people in the beta yet. I'll definitely stick around, but right now I need a break to lick all my wounds.
One thing is for certain though, it's one of Blizzard's last bastions of hardcore gameplay. It's a game where you play to crush your opponent using skill and numbers, in stark opposition to the much more accessible recent efforts, Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm.
Starcraft 2 itself is like a more accessible version of Starcraft, but there are plenty of new things added to keep the tension and skill requirement up, including activated abilities that are basically an autoattack, just to make the game more challenging.
Although I used to love this five years ago, today it's hard for me to get in the mood for putting in the necessary time to play the game really well.
As it stands, I still have some doubts regarding the implications of some of the changes, most notably the decreased effectiveness of early scouting and harassment. With players essentially now starting with three bases, making an early underpowered clash somewhat inconsequential due to the increased economic output, and with tech changes being more swift than ever, Blizzard needs to pay close attention to the community involved in the beta.
Players might be tempted to play as I used to, cautiously amassing big armies, afraid that the first serious confrontation could end the game, and attempting to get the most resource output possible before heading in to fight, in order to be able to quickly replace the units lost.
For the time being, I have to keep practicing in order to get my game off the ground. I know I'm no longer at the point where I can test new things out myself, but I'm trying to get to the level where at least I can see whether my fears about the general direction the game is going into are valid or not.
