I’m replaying the Starcraft Campaigns and I just finished the WoL campaign, now on to HotS and I have to say a lot of the really cool abilities you see the AI zerg doing that I would’ve really liked to have in HotS are just ignored…
Being able to drop down pods of zerg & tumors, bursting nydus worms out of the ground to ambush and surround my enemies, infesting terran structures and units…
It’s especially frustrating when your AI allies are doing it but you can’t, the closest you get to that is the lamest ultimate for Kerrigan calling down a bunch of primal zerg and a couple of scripted mission things.
I’m also gonna be trying to play the HotS campaign without using Kerrigan as much as I can, cause I feel like micromanaging Kerrigan detracts so much from the interesting aspects of playing zerg, since she’s such a powerhouse, sniping key units and soloing whole armies.
The first few missions were a slog with only lings & queens and I made the mistake of choosing Char as my first destination (lings and banes only so much fuuun /s) but I feel like going forwards it’ll be a lot more fun, especially to focus on microing infestors & (whatever the flying defilers are called) instead of Kerrigan.
Yeah, I just finished the HotS campaign today and all the really fun, powerful lategame units, somewhat ironically, come right at the end of the campaign before you can really mess around with them, while in WoL you get a full set of 3 (2 is you do the nydus mission instead) missions to flex with all of your toys and you get a decently sized roster before Char anyway.
I can’t really express wholely how intensely disappointing the HotS campaign is on a replay, even trying to make my own fun with it it’s such a drag, no really cool units or powers to play with, no nydus, no drop pods, only one brood war unit… The absolute worst dialogue & story Blizzard has ever produced.
Of all the things they could’ve added to the campaign you get aberrations. Why aberrations?? The mutations are neat but none of them really change any of the units exceptionally, just makes them better at what they do in one way or another and in a lot of cases one mutation is just clearly better than the other and a lot of the 3 interchangeable adaptations on the units feel like you’re just getting half of a unit, like how you can’t have both speedlings & cracklings, only one or the other.
I honestly wish it could be done over, done right, really embrace the fun and fantasy of playing zerg like the AI gets to play them in the other two campaigns, Nydus eruptions, Overlord drops, Scourge, Queens, Drop Pods, proper infestation, a kerrigan who’s queen b*tch (really blizzard? Can’t have pg13 forums?) of the universe instead of Jimmy’s Highschool Sweetheart.
Also the Viper play didn’t work out, air units just feel flat out not an option in HotS, there’s so much AA in the AI Terran’s roster and their missile turrets all have splash, pretty much just use Mutas on Zerus and vs Toss and never again.
Oh and shout-out to General Warfield who has a full Terran arsenal but still lost Charr to nothing but lings & banes.
I too was disappointed with the lack of Nydus Worms in the Campaign, though you do get Drop Pods via a Kerrigan ability.
Air units were also not a priority, and Blizzard Entertainment seemed to be focusing more on swarming with ground forces. Using Zerglings and Banelings with Roach and/or Hydralisk support though, the Campaign did feel “Zergy” to me.
I was also luke warm on Aberrations, though I get they were trying to put in a mid-tier “tanky” unit as they didn’t want to add the Ultralisk in that early, and yes, the Adaptations were “meh” for the most part.
General Warfield lost to more than just Zerglings and Banelings. He lost out to Kerrigan herself, as well as Scourge.
Actually, that’s not true. They only get AoE turrets on some missions, though I can’t remember which is which. Pretty sure there’s even one of the last 3 Korhal missions where they have weak missile turrets.
I don’t count the drop pods ability kerrigan has because it only drops primal zerg on a timed life and on a big cooldown.
When I say drop pods I mean how the AI keeps getting to use them, dropping tumors and reinforcements, actual reinforcements, on to the field to help push forwards.
the point was warfield was doing pest control and kerrigan came to organize the stragglers and re-activate the char defenses, inactive nests of banelings and scourges
I’m fairly certain it’s based both on difficulty & what maps you’re playing.
The AI gets a lot more and more dangerous units the higher up the difficulty you go, especially the Terrans (for instance their bunkers get upgraded and they have science vessels when you play above normal difficulty)
Well, yes but I almost only ever played on Brutal aside from mastery achievement on the third level. And I know that despite that they still don’t always have all the upgrades for their stuff.
If I have any disappointments with all the campaigns it’s that there’s not a period of time at the end where you have several missions with everything unlocked, once you do unlock the last stuff, the campaign is over, and nearly every mission is just based around using whatever your newest unlock is they gave you for the mission so it really doesn’t matter what upgrades or mutations you did to your older units since you’re not going to build any of them anyway.
