Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hey there - this Kevin Johnson,
the Community Manager for StarCraft II at Blizzard Entertainment,
back with you again to walk through more
features coming soon in Heart of the Swarm.
If you happened to miss last week's video covering
Social Features you'll definitely want to check it out.
We'll provide a link to that video at the conclusion of this one.
In this week's video, we'd like to spend some time
covering features designed to make StarCraft II
a bit more approachable for players coming into the game
for the first time, while also offering a few improvements
to the multiplayer experience veteran players
have come to know and love.
Let's take a look.
The path for growth as a StarCraft II player
begins in the Matchmaking menu.
We have organized this interface to be as
approachable as possible for new players,
presenting a framework for skill growth
as you move through the menu from left to right.
The first stop for a new player will be
our freshly added Training mode.
In Training, you will be able to hone the basic skills
involved in amassing an army for each of the three races in the game.
As you play against an A.I. opponent, the game will offer small,
reachable goals for the player to strive for and practice.
Focus on achieving each of these goals and
you should be successful in defeating your enemy.
You will be able to choose from one of three stages
in this mode that will govern the options
available to you while building your army.
Stage One pares everything back to focus
on basic ground units and runs at the “Normal” game speed.
Build your base, generate a healthy economy, and defeat your enemy.
Stage Two will add more advanced ground units and up the game speed to “Fast.”
You will dive even deeper into the systems surrounding production and
upgrading your new ground units. In Stage Three,
the game will unlock all of the available multiplayer units for your race,
including air, and will play at the “Faster” game speed.
Once you have mastered the practice options available in Training mode,
you now possess the basic knowledge required to defeat an opponent in StarCraft II.
As the next step in your skill progression, you should consider moving on
to our newly added Versus A.I. mode to test and hone your ability.
The options in this mode are simple:
choose to play solo against the A.I.,
or with friends in 2v2 or 3v3 match ups.
What also makes this mode unique from general A.I. matches
found in Wings of Liberty is that we designed it
to intelligently pair you with difficulty settings
that align with your ability.
You will no longer need to guess what difficulty
you should be playing against.
When you first access this mode,
you will be asked to play a set of three placement matches.
Based on your performance in those matches,
the game will pair you with an A.I. difficulty that is appropriate for you.
Continue to play and hone your skills in this mode and
you will begin to access the more challenging difficulty settings.
There are numerous tiers of difficulty to the game,
so there will be plenty of opportunities to take on a larger challenge.
Use the Versus A.I. to improve your ability with the game
in preparation for competition against other players,
or simply enjoy the steady competitive challenge of playing multiplayer
against an equally matched computer-driven opponent.
Once you're ready to dip your toe into competition
against fellow human opponents, you can take a look at
the next menu option available in Matchmaking: Unranked play.
For those of you who played in Wings of Liberty,
we received a ton of feedback from players asking for
the ability to play competitively without worrying about how their
performance would affect their official ladder ranking.
Well, we have brought that feature to Heart of the Swarm with Unranked play.
You can benefit from finding great games using our excellent matchmaking system,
without having to worry about being ranked on a ladder.
If you have actually played Ranked games prior to accessing Unranked,
the game will use your rating in the Ranked ladder
as a starting point for Unranked, however the two will then begin
to adjust separately based on your respective performance in each mode.
Now you can finally start practicing with
that other race you've always wanted to pick up,
or simply enjoy practicing against opponents without
the pressure of feeling like you're being graded on your performance.
Of course, taking the far right position in the
Matchmaking menu is your access to Ranked play.
This is the traditional multiplayer experience that
players are accustomed to from Wings of Liberty.
Playing in Ranked mode will allow you to be placed
on the official Battle.net ladder and within a league
appropriate to your ability.
When you feel like you have practiced the game
enough that you are ready to see just how good your skills
compare with the rest of the world – this is your place.
Keep in mind – that if you ever wanted to arrange a
competitive game with friends or even run a small tournament,
you can still find Custom Games by way of
the menu option located on the home screen.
Lastly, we also want to talk about our new Leveling system.
Every time you play a game, be it against the A.I. in training or
versus mode, a custom game, or Unranked and Ranked ladder matches
you will earn experience points for the race that you are playing.
Each race is capped at 30 levels, and your current cumulative level total,
across all races, is displayed in the bottom left-hand corner of your portrait.
That means you will hit the level cap of 90 if you've managed
to max out all the experience available in each of the races.
All along the journey from level 1 to 30,
you will earn rewards for your respective race upon
completing various levels. These can be anything from the
traditional portrait images you may be familiar with from Wings of Liberty,
to decals that will display on buildings in game.
We are even offering new skins for your units,
and even dance animations that you can use
to celebrate your victory over opponents.
We look forward to hearing what the community thinks about
this new experience system and plan to make additions and
improvements throughout the future life of StarCraft II.
That pretty much covers everything we wanted to discuss regarding
accessibility and training improvements coming in Heart of the Swarm.
The game launches on March 12th of this year, so mark your calendars!
We'll be back with you again next week to take a look at
features designed to improve the experience surrounding
multiplayer games and esports.
Talk to you soon!