StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void

[firefossil]

Starcraft does have an advantage in that there isn't another in its genre, a big budget, highly marketed RTS strategy title.

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One's genre being driven to extinction is not an advantage. I'm pretty sure that big budget pure RTS games are dying out, being displaced by subgenres or hybrids like MOBAs or Tower Defense or other things that were, ironically enough, originated as RTS Custom Games. The existence of MMORPGs like WoW or class-based shooters like TF2 do them no favors, as they also draw elements of strategy in real time as well.

 

[pheonix89]

The issue with Amon IMO is that they set him up as this unknowable monster, then had him start giving cliche villain speeches. This never works. It's possible to set someone up as an unknowable monster then show their POV and motives and not have it suck, but it's very hard. And if you want it to work it needs to be something not generic.

 

[Ivar]

I begin to understand how it feels to people who like the ending of Mass Effect 3. For the epilogue I like, I like most of the story. I just do not like the fact that it's all so short. And judging by the negative reaction I'm in the minority here.

On the other hand, I generally was among the people who liked the story even with Wings of Liberty.

In general, the game would have benefited if it had more content. The game feels too short. Too fast in terms of history. This is probably a problem.

I do not know why Blizzard so hard pressed to return to Aiur if everybody and their dog knew that all this only the first mission. It was actually a bit silly.

I like the characters of of the company, I like Artanis. Amon, unfortunately really flat as a pancake. Other characters from the other side is much better.

As I said, my problem with the story is not an abrupt change of the plot (The struggle for power against the fight against ancient evil), and because it was clear from the Wings of Liberty where it goes. Plus it was still hints in the first part. This does not mean though that it was a well-crafted story fighting against an ancient evil. But the fact that the latter company is trying to cram too many things in too short passages.

And yes, I like the ending, I do not mean that I believe that it is well done. If it is well done, then people would not complain on this matter so much.

 

[serra2]

Yeah, not going to talk about the story as a whole, but as for villains.
Kerrigan from Wings of Liberty was great as an antagonist, and terrifying when you see her show up in the missions.
Mengsk was a son of a bitch, and him getting ganked at the end was an awesome payoff for all the jackass bullshit he has done up to this point.
Amon, on the other hand, is just so... nothing. Like, I don't hate him, I don't like him, he makes the game less good when he is around. He wants to be Sargaras and the Old Gods from WoW, except those guys are actually scary and can back up their words with actions. He just pops in, gives a spooky cryptic nonsense speech, then pops away.

 

[Ralson]

Kerrigan from Wings of Liberty was great as an antagonist, and terrifying when you see her show up in the missions.
Mengsk was a son of a bitch, and him getting ganked at the end was an awesome payoff for all the jackass bullshit he has done up to this point.

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Raynor showing up to save Kerrigan is the opposite of payoff.

Well, I don't really have much issue with giant monsters being strong and capable, but an Archon is like... when I was a kid I read the StarCraft manual and the Archon was described as basically being a ball of focused rage that could bend the fabric of reality. It feels like the kind of thing that would need at least two or three ultras to take down.

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Power underwhelming.

 

[Doctor Akemi]

I thought about it and I do get your complaints but there is ONE thing Starcraft 2 did better than original starcraft 1- and that is showing us the culture/society of 3 races- Terran,Zerg and Protoss. not taking account of extra material like novels just from the games alone we know almost NOTHING about how Terran, Zerg, Protoss society works apart from factions that we player engage in. In Starcraft 2 however we can see the different mindset of 3 differnt races and how different they are in their mindset. I like playing starcraft 2 campaign because we can actually get into the complex society of Starcraft universe.

 

[Sir Bill]

In that regard, I preferred the sort of culture we saw from the SC1 Zerg.

Admittedly, Zerg culture was limited to the Overmind and his Cerebrates and eventually a couple infested humans, but seeing the Overmind go from some vague bug menace to "Awaken my child, and embrace the glory that is your birthright!" was pretty neat. Having him as a psuedo-hivemind who seems to actually care about his subordinate minds was a lot more interesting than the Zerg culture of the sequels.

The Overmind/Cerebrate dynamic was neat, and maybe it was just the style of the Overmind and Miss Queen Bitch of the Universe, but I preferred the relative lack of zerg "culture" to all the talk about vision or essence.

 

[Ivar]

Raynor showing up to save Kerrigan is the opposite of payoff.

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I understand your point (Raynor comes from the desire for revenge, for the Phoenix, to the love and forgiveness of Sarah). But you chose a strange image to support this argument. Nothing is a contradiction in these quotations of Raynor. At the beginning of Wings of Liberty, he wants to Sarah died that day on Tarsonis. This is a completely normal reaction. Because then he would not see his loved one becomes a horrible monster that kills his friend.

Talking about how Raynor, saves Sarah at the end of Heart of the Swarm. It was a needed scene. As well as the need for the presence of both Sarah and Jim's at death of Arcturus. Like everything in the scene except all this foolishness with the artifacts from which Raynor must save Sarah. Really a lot of things would have been better than this.

For example, Arcturus built level "Fuck Ze WORLD" and smirking preparing to press the button while Sarah goes to him. He says that his death will cause an explosion that would destroy Sarah and Avgustograd. Then he presses the button and nothing happens. Arcturus loses everything and just in shock. In door comes Jim, who said that he was a little busy disarming the bomb.

It is not so difficult. And yes, the question of how Jim learned of the bomb is not so important. But we can say that this information was in that part of the data that they have been stolen while on Korhal.

 

[Xexilf]

Having just almost finished Legacy of the Void... (still stuck on the last mission, well only tried once so far. Maybe its just my play style, but that managed to pack everything that is annoying in strategy games in one package. I think ill do it on causal..)

Anyway, im probably in the minority here that i loved heart of the swarm, story and gameplay. As for legacy now...

Storywise, im... disappointed. Where to start..

Overall it fells unconnected. Most planets are just one or two missions long, jumping around endlessly. Also, do 80% of missions have to be either "protect this thing" or "destroy those X things". I felt it was a downgrade to WoL and HotS.

Characters are mostly ok. I didnt like the tel'darim guy very much, but i can recognize a well-ish made character. So lets get to the stinker..

AMON: For me, it was trying to different things here, and bungling up both. Before this, Amon was this inconcivable dark god, with motives and powers beyond our understanding. Cosmic horror vibe and such. This could have worked.
In legacy, we get some more characterization. He wants to end all life to end suffering, cliche but ok. He also hates the Xel'Naga and what they made, ok. Hes himself emotionally broken... Most of these could have worked if well done. Except it was horribly done.

Which means all they managed was to ruin the cosmic horror Amon from before, but not to give him good characterization or motive, just stupid. They sorta tried for both, and horribly failed at both.

Xel'Naga: It was obvious theyd get retconned again, but i dont really like what was made of them. But thats one point where i think i may be biased, so id like to hear other opinions.

Kerrigan: Having liked her in HotS im in the minority here, but im just.... Fuck you metzen. So, shes the big hope, but we barely see her, and when we do its underwhelming. I know this was the protoss time to shine, but a bit more appearances from her please. And the ending... ugh... Ok, i havent seen the last bit yet, but from what i saw... Any kerrigan i know, original human, queen of blades, primal, whatever... she should have just gone fuck you towards the big guy, probably. Instead now she suddenly thinks she has to sacrifice herself, because of what she did, which she apparently wasnt responsible for, and didnt care before. Good job in making her even more incoherent..
And Xel'Naga kerrigan.. without knowing how it ends, the actual unit felt somewhat underwhelming for what its supposed to be. I want my primal queen back, she certainly felt more like a one woman army.

 

[Ivar]

In that regard, I preferred the sort of culture we saw from the SC1 Zerg.

Admittedly, Zerg culture was limited to the Overmind and his Cerebrates and eventually a couple infested humans, but seeing the Overmind go from some vague bug menace to "Awaken my child, and embrace the glory that is your birthright!" was pretty neat. Having him as a psuedo-hivemind who seems to actually care about his subordinate minds was a lot more interesting than the Zerg culture of the sequels.

The Overmind/Cerebrate dynamic was neat, and maybe it was just the style of the Overmind and Miss Queen Bitch of the Universe, but I preferred the relative lack of zerg "culture" to all the talk about vision or essence.

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This culture died along with the Overmind. Unfortunately . I loved this strange paternal-divine relationship of Overmind and its Cerebrates .

What has been done is interesting, but be developed too casual, a primordial the zerg and the zerg Swarm, under Kerrigan. I liked the primordial Zerg, I like the way they look, but different from the Zerg Hive. Well, I liked all of the NPC. Yes, even Zagara.

Overall it fells unconnected. Most planets are just one or two missions long, jumping around endlessly. Also, do 80% of missions have to be either "protect this thing" or "destroy those X things". I felt it was a downgrade to WoL and HotS.

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It! In Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm This works because events were not as extensive and important. The Wings are lonely forays and attacks on important targets of the enemy. The Heart of the Swarm is again mostly short events that do not cover a lot of time. Plus, each planet has three missions instead of two.

And this company has such extensive events. to which spent two whole damn mission ...

 

[Sucal]

Honestly?

As much as I HATE the way that Blizzard did the story, this really feels like a story that could have done with a fourth chapter/campaign. There are the Three campaigns that show each of the races struggle together and slowly deal with their personal problems. The Protoss rebuild themselves after the suprise attack on their home, the Humans/Zerg overthrow Mengsk, Kerrigan deals with her issues.

Have the final mission of the protoss campaign be what happened on Aiur. Then have the fourth campaign be the allied races taking the fight to Amon and his forces directly. Kerrigan and Raynor lead a thrust to destroy the crystal. Dark Templars come in and play shadow games with the Mobieus Foundation. They can't figure out a way of getting close to him with troops, so use some technobabble in combination with say the combined psonic might of the High Templar/Kerrigan/Ghosts to force him into a physical form and suppress his powers enough so a Levithan can eat him (setting the stage for the final battle, as he rampages closer and closer to those that holding him there, even as the allies desperately land/teleport units on board to try and kill him.

I suspect it would have been a lot more coherent if they wrote the damn story in one go and didn't do this multiple expansion packs crap.

 

[Xexilf]

***

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This.
Having the finale in a tacked on plot tumor consisting of three missions wasnt the way to go.


Anyway, now having completed the campaign...
Well..

First, one more nonsense add-on for amons character. He tries fishing for sympathy, with how he was turned Xel'Naga against his will... um... another plot point about him that comes from nowhere, goes nowhere, and makes no sense. Yay. Unless he was desperate and trying to bullshit you, but that dosent work when he still dosent stop trying to kill you.

We get more discussion about the Xel'Nagas cycle, not that that makes any more sense now, or we know what it actually is for that matter.... Given how Xel'Naga are at times different things, sector, galaxy, and universe are interchangable, as are thousands, millions, and billions of years... i know sci-fi often has no sense of scale, but this is ridiculous.


And Kerrigan. To my suprise, i was not necessarily disappointed any further, but thats mainly because i have no idea WTF happend. Like, did she die, is she god-ish, or what exactly? What does she do, except meet raynor again (are they both dead, or can she just re-incarnate as she wants or... what is a xel'naga anyway, and is she one?
Shes probably supposed to be responsible for that life returning to some planets... but she didnt contact anyone except raynor, or maybe she cant? Again, no version of her strikes me as going non-intervention should she wind up with godlike power. So... ???

And thats just Kerrigan, the others...

Leaving something open is well and good, but this is just "we ran out of time to write an ending", or maybe "we bungled the story up so we have no idea now, just throw out some slides with vague words"...

So ends SC2. Not with a bang, but a whimper.
Come on Blizzard.

My personal feelings on the whole:

Story: HotS > WoL > LotV
Gameplay: Hots > WoL > LotV
The second mainly because Kerrigan as the unit. An actual protagonist whos worth something in the field. Maybe that distracts from the strategy stuff, but it makes you feel more... not sure how to word this)

Characters:
Main: HotS = WoL > LotV
Side: LotV = WoL > Hots

 

[Doctor Akemi]

sooo... anyone doing Co-op missions? How is it?

 

[ganonso]

Playing through the game I feel inclined to ask fellow campaign players.

What's the most ridiculous thing you have encoutered so far in the storyline? The biggest plothole?

In the end what's the most idiotic thing Amon did? (I can already nominate some in that category)

 

[Karuadin]

sooo... anyone doing Co-op missions? How is it?

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I'm having a blast as Zagara. I actually like the high turnover rate of suicide units she encourages, although High Templar on Hard are my Banelings' bane. Only at level 8 so haven't tried Brutal, which will probably be Brutal.

I also liked the change of pace Swann gives with the Drakken Laser and the focus entirely on a Factory army with minor Starport backup.

 

[Doctor Akemi]

I'm having a blast as Zagara. I actually like the high turnover rate of suicide units she encourages, although High Templar on Hard are my Banelings' bane. Only at level 8 so haven't tried Brutal, which will probably be Brutal.

I also liked the change of pace Swann gives with the Drakken Laser and the focus entirely on a Factory army with minor Starport backup.

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I am just playing all of them before focusing on one of them... might chose Artanis and Swann...

 

[Xexilf]

In the end what's the most idiotic thing Amon did?

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-Betraying his truly loyal followers, or at least allowing a situation where they could find out about it.

-Not deciding how he wanted to approach the heroes. He swings wildly between gloating, threatening, claiming to be in the right, declaring that things are inevitable, trying to sound like a good guy, and in the end even fishing for sympathy. If hed stuck to anything coherent, maybe hed gotten something across.

-Getting started with his exterminate everything project everywhere at once, when he was far from secure, allowing his critical assets to be picked apart in detail. A bit of patience with your universal triumph?

 

[Cosar]

sooo... anyone doing Co-op missions? How is it?

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Just finished one, and I'm not sure if it's just because it was on casual, but it was hilarilously easy. Largely because the other player had vorazun, and the train mission didn't really have much detection....

Dark Templar OP.

Also, for anyone still reading the thread who doesn't have LoV, you do get Raynor, Kerrigan, and Artanis automatically.

 

[Doctor Akemi]

In that regard, I preferred the sort of culture we saw from the SC1 Zerg.

Admittedly, Zerg culture was limited to the Overmind and his Cerebrates and eventually a couple infested humans, but seeing the Overmind go from some vague bug menace to "Awaken my child, and embrace the glory that is your birthright!" was pretty neat. Having him as a psuedo-hivemind who seems to actually care about his subordinate minds was a lot more interesting than the Zerg culture of the sequels.

The Overmind/Cerebrate dynamic was neat, and maybe it was just the style of the Overmind and Miss Queen Bitch of the Universe, but I preferred the relative lack of zerg "culture" to all the talk about vision or essence.

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BUT that sort would NEVER have worked once Kerrigan became Queen of Blades-Cerebrates were too loyal to a fault and they would constantly create an Overmind to be a threat to her control of the swarn. And plus in heart of the swarn she wanted more "free thinking" adviser to add concept of "vision" to the swarn.

 

[Stofsk]

at this point I just want someone to port the SC1 and Brood War campaigns into the SC2 engine

 

[Ivar]

at this point I just want someone to port the SC1 and Brood War campaigns into the SC2 engine

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Starcraft Mass Recall

 

[pheonix89]

This is the first RTS or 4x with campaigns i've played in a while that HASN'T had me wanting someone to port the old campaigns up to the newest setup. Partly because there hasn't been that much change, partly because of shitty design choices.

I mean, the Terran and Zerg campaigns gave you access to pretty much every unit the faction had ever had. Here? You've got a tiny unit roster at one time in comparison - sure you can switch between, but you can't field High Templar and Dark Archons at the same time and you can't field Tempests and Carriers at once (do you get Tempests at ALL?). And as best I can tell you don't get Scouts at all, and they've already got two sets of visual assets for the things in game (Auir colors and Tal'darim colors).

And, of course, there's several cases where I'd like to be able to field the various versions together. The alternate Sentries are nice but I'm not giving up the closest thing I've got to healing for anything. Not that much of a fan of Immortals since hardened shield seems to have vanished in campaign, but the Dark Templar (fuckoff powerful single target special attack that can hit air) and Taldarim (aoe missile spam) versions go together well. Then there's the Void Ray variants - standard is fuck that guy with a side of not needing to move as much to target the next guy once it gets going, Tal'darim version is a hordebuster (the Tal'darim are GOOD at that). A few upgrades are just plain lame though - the Purifier Zealot and Aiur DT just respawn at base after death once every 60 seconds. That's really fucking nice on a high-end unit. On your mook and on a unit that never gets hit if you're doing shit right not so much.

Also, Dark Archons are fucking terrible in campaign. They are completely useless vs hybrids (a caster with no spells that work) and on some maps they can do pretty much bupkiss - on the first Tal'darim mission all those void shadows are immune, so all they can do is steal the occasional Tal'darim heavy. Nice if you can time it to steal a carrier or tempest, otherwise shit.

Oh, and did I mention the first three ship upgrades are all no-brainers? Set one - lets see, pylon drop, temporary structure overcharge or pylon drop + 4 basic units. Option three is pretty much a nobrainer. Set two - orbital barrage, stasis field (that doesn't work well on hybrids and bosses) or much much better orbital beam spam. Again, option three is the obvious pick. Set three - give the Nexus a gun (not sure on RoF or range, firepower is Photon cannon grade), automated refineries, or warping from Robotics facility/Stargate. I'm sorry, why would I pick anything other than saving 150 minerals/3 supply per refinery? Ever?

Set four is the first to require some thought. Mass Recall is fucking handy in campaign - RTBing the core of your doomball with overshields really gives you more freedom to act. The second power (can't recall the name) is just the mass recall overshield with triple the cooldown, but usable when your are on the offensive. The third is Fenix pulling a dynamic entry - starts as a second orbital strike, then he breaks people for 30 seconds, and has a shield recharge power. Gonna need to try this one out.

And, just to finish this rant I'll note that I haven't seen NPC faction Protoss using their faction version of various units, only the generic ones, and that in the mission you first get a unit you're stuck with the generic version, not the origin faction special version. IE, the first Shakuras mission, the one that's basically all Dark Templars all the time, you have GENERIC ones, without either the self-rez of Auir faction ones or the Teleport-shank move of the Nezarim.

 

[Daraken]

A few upgrades are just plain lame though - the Purifier Zealot and Aiur DT just respawn at base after death once every 60 seconds. That's really fucking nice on a high-end unit. On your mook and on a unit that never gets hit if you're doing shit right not so much.

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FYI, while that's true for the DT, the Purifier Zealot revives on the field. Which is pretty nice! Speaking of unit variants though, how does the Adept play? It seems interesting, but I've always rathered have a Stalker or Dragoon.

 

[Ivar]

My thoughts about the characters. Side characters and Artanis written in the range from decent to very good. I like the personal arc of each character, I like how the story treats protoss purifiers. Alarak I liked he is a very good character hell, he was able to give some depth to tal'darim.

Amon actually written at all. It seems that he was there purely as background scenery for personal arc of Keeper of the Khala. I do not know how you can write so bad villain. Frank Horrigan more charisma than in Amon. And Frank have little lines of dialogue.

This addition changes the Protoss culture very much, and I feel that the direction that was given in the treatment of these changes very well. But few, too little is said. Need more.

FYI, while that's true for the DT, the Purifier Zealot revives on the field. Which is pretty nice! Speaking of unit variants though, how does the Adept play? It seems interesting, but I've always rathered have a Stalker or Dragoon.

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Purifier fanatics is not only respawn. They also mechanical units means that special ability spear Adun heals them, as well as the Carriers drone repairers. Plus fanatics die a heck of a lot, the resurrection is very useful for such units. Not so much for the Dark Templar.

And yes I never tried Adept .

And, of course, there's several cases where I'd like to be able to field the various versions together. The alternate Sentries are nice but I'm not giving up the closest thing I've got to healing for anything.

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As for me, I love accelerating Sentries. They are incredibly helpful in every assembly of the army, even if it is completely air army. I actually have not tried other options.

Also, Dark Archons are fucking terrible in campaign. They are completely useless vs hybrids (a caster with no spells that work) and on some maps they can do pretty much bupkiss - on the first Tal'darim mission all those void shadows are immune, so all they can do is steal the occasional Tal'darim heavy. Nice if you can time it to steal a carrier or tempest, otherwise shit.

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I am outraged by the fact that now they can not take control of Ultralisks. What does that mean anyway? Why it was necessary to limit the control of reason right? Indeed, in the Heart of the Swarm was a mind control that lets you control all opponents.

 

[pheonix89]

@Ivar
They can't control Ultralisks? You did test that on Ultralisks that aren't from the Terrazine mists in that one vs Taldarim mission, right? Because everything from those is flatout immune. I know they can't control Hybrids, but that makes perfect sense - those are Amon's custom mooks. But not being able to control Ultralisks when you can grab Tempests is silly.

Please tell me the carrier repair drones can repair structures too (I haven't gotten quite that far yet). The way the campaign AI's infinite waves only need to get a single hit past the shields to do irreparable damage is a pain in the ass. Yeah, you can build new ones, but that takes time, resources, and probably means also adding more shield batteries. And speaking of those, they aren't nearly as useful as they look. Because they frequently can't recharge to full between attacks, which means that just because attack one didn't get past the sheilds and the shields are at full by attack two doesn't mean that second attack won't tear through.

Did anyone notice that Artanis seemed to get a massive boost after the whole thing with Zeratul freeing him from Amon's control? He went from constantly being seen as kind of a joke in terms of personal power and respect to being able to hang with Primal Kerrigan in a fight, which is kind of insane seeing as the list of people able to tangle with her in a fair fight previously was Zeratul and Narud. Add in that scene after the last stand where Artanis is starting to lose vs Amon's mooks, Zeratul starts talking, and then Artanis dishes out a curbstomp and I'm pretty sure Zeratul did something substantially more than just freeing him from Amon.

And some impressions of various campaign missions:

The Last Stand: This is just In Utter Darkness minus the epicness and with lame unit selection. That, and needing to press a button after reaching the minimum time limit.

Temple of Unification: Seize and hold X isn't something SC does much at all, especially while letting you retake it.

Brothers in Arms: Yeah, it's a gimmick reach X map. It's at least entertaining what with the whole cover your allies during the disruption bit. Would be utterly trivial to beat if you had air units with AtG attacks. Just fly straight down the middle and break the enemy base during the disruption.

Harbinger of Oblivion: Wow, if this was supposed to show off the campaign High Templar it failed utterly. Their ability to actually shoot isn't much of a boost because it makes the AI more likely to fire on them before they cast, and they still can't take a hit. The ACTUAL campaign upgrade (Psy Storms heal shields) isn't a thing for them in this level. I built precisely none after the first three.

The Infinite Cycle: Back to HotS style one two man army. And way to make Kerrigan look even more OP. She's been fighting hybrids solo for days and all she needs is a quick breather to be back to nigh-unstoppable death machine level? Wow. And she actually brought a decent moveset from HotS.

Steps of the Rite: First mission you can have Dark Archons and 90% of the enemies are immune to them. WTF Blizzard?