I just started Coop, playing Raynor and just clicking the button to do another mission after the old one. I also see a “Random” button, which implies that the regular button does not generate random missions but instead goes through some established order. But it isn’t doing that, it’s doing some new missions, and some repeats of missions already completed. Plus, I hear that there’s a way to go through everything with a hero four times, or some such thing, which implies there’s a pattern to follow. So how does it work? I can’t see where to pick specific missions, and it seems to be feeding them to me randomly; how is that any different than clicking “Random” and apparently getting more points?
Coop works by using either a selected commander or the random commander option. The latter somewhat randomly selects 1 of the available commanders you have (purchased or free).
The mission itself works by selecting specific mission (next to the difficulty tab) or again random mission, which similarly randomly selects 1 of 14? 15? missions. The missions themselves are not related at all with each other. They are all akin to campaign mission maps but with adjustments.
The “four times” thing you mentioned is the newly added prestige system. All that means is each prestige (on here generally referred to as P0, original, P1, P2, and P3) has altered gameplay. P0 is the same as you would leveling any new purchased/free commander for the first time. P1 to P3 will each have an associated advantage that enhances aspects of said commander, as well as a complimentary disadvantage that reduces aspects of the same commander. Each time you get to max level of 15 on a commander, the option becomes available for you to “prestige” it. This effectively trades your 15levels for a new beginning, so you can relevel this commander either as P0, P1, P2, or P3 depending on your progression. Note that you cannot prestige into any prestige options freely, they progress via P0 ==> P1 ==> P2 ==> P3 (ie. you can jump from trading 15levels of P0 to P2 or P3, and so on.)
Hope that helps and welcome to coop mode 
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Random Mission just picks a random of the 15. It gives you a +25% XP bonus to facilitate matchmaking. Just in case I’m not misunderstanding, it also doesn’t take a Mission (aka map) and change parts of it to be random.
When you do a mission (either by explicit selection, or through the Random Mission selection), the enemy compositions are random, but that’s it. There may be some slight variations between the environment and objectives.
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Select the commander you want to play. Once you reach level 15, you can reset the level of said commander to unlock Prestige levels which changes the way the commander plays through a series of buffs and debuffs.
The order of the missions do not matter as it is non-canon. You can play any mission however many times you want in any order you want. However, some commanders are locked behind a paywall.
You work together with an ally to do objectives. Each week, there is a thing called the Mutation which adds an extra challenge and massive experience points (Only one per difficulty. When you finish a certain difficulty, you get all the points for the easier ones too. If you do brutal, you get casual, normal, hard, and brutal bonus points)
The more you level up, the more powerful your commander is. Each commander has their own unique playstyle. Zagara for instance, is very swarmy, using lots of disposable units as opposes to Nova who uses very few, expensive units. If Zagara loses her whole army, she can easily replace them to full in a matter of seconds. Nova however, it would cripple her.
Have fun with each commander till you find the ones that fit your playstyle.
Thanks, all. Still a bit confused. I see in the list of commanders a die that can be clicked for a random commander. But down toward the bottom I have three buttons in a row: Cancel, Random Mission, and Normal (which brings up a menu for changing difficulty). So that’s my continuing confusion: since when I went through my first batch of missions I’m not sure whether it did them all but is sure repeated some right of the bat, it seems like it’s always random in terms of which mission comes up. But people are saying you can do mission selection. I’m not seeing where that it. There is no select specific mission button that I can see next to the difficulty button.
Also, I just went to Raynor 15, and in the next game someone asked me why I hadn’t don’t something or other than designates Mastery, changing a font yellow or some such thing. I didn’t understand what he was saying. Something about some people wanting to show they got to Mastery, and some not. First, don’t people know by looking at the number that displays at the beginning of the game? And second, why wouldn’t open want someone to know? And third, what was that person talking about?
Finally, the prestige thing. Say you start over and do 1-15 again. Then can you switch back and forth between the two different kinds of commanders, or do you just lose whatever you did and live with your current choice?
Thanks!
The button at the bottom that says “random mission” if clicked will let you select a mission, otherwise if it’s set to random then it will choose one of the list with no care to what you’ve played before (with an xp bonus)
Not sure exactly what the person may have been talking about regarding mastery, though it is good to bear in mind that after hitting level 15 with a commander you will start gaining points that you can use (for all lvl 15 commanders you have) to improve their abilities somewhat up to mastery level 90.
Regarding prestige, choosing to do so will reset the commander’s level back to one until you level back up, regardless of which version of them you choose to use. However, you’re also free to go between the unlocked ones at any time outside a mission as well, with the commander’s level shared between them.
You’ve already listed all of the buttons available… just click on one and read a bit. You’ll see where to select. The general idea is given to you but there is no substitute for actually learning it by experimenting and experiencing.
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Random mission means 50% chance of a random mission, 50% chance of Dead of Night with an ally whose only words are, " i def"
But in all seriousness, some players prefer some maps over others, so they’ll que up for that one map. Since your doing random, it’ll either pair you with another player who picked random, or a player who picked one specific map. Thus, this can skew the “randomness” a little bit. Expect extra Void Thrashings and Dead of Nights.
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haha! I like how everyone is helping the OG poster on this thread, makes you realize how wholesome the Co-op community is compared to the ranked/competitive, or whatever they’re called, community.
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Selecting the Random Commander button doesn’t immediately “roll the die” and assign you a CO right then and there. You’ll know what you get AFTER you get queued into a game (and see your commander on the loading splash screen)
After reaching lv15 (blue font/talent levels), you get to Mastery. You can activate the next prestige (in your case, P1). You return to lv1 on the blue font/talent level. Between games, you can switch between P0 and P1
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The ladder community just wines about balance. Right now it’s Protoss, before it was Zerg. In a few patches it might be Terran or Zerg again. But it’s a constant bickering over if a race is OP or not.
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I forgot to address these others…
The button’s label will tell you what the mission is. If it’s on “Random Mission”, then it’ll be that. Seeing my previous post, you won’t know what mission you have until you’re queued into a game (and see your commander on the loading splash screen).
Click on that button, and pick a different mission from the list instead (e.g. Oblivious Express), then click OK button. The mission button will now have that label (e.g. again “Oblivious Express”)
1- Not necessarily. If you see someone’s at “blue lv4”, that CO is on lv4, not yet on mastery, but he may have one or more other COs who’s at Mastery. Also, with the Prestige system, you’ll know when the game starts since if they do have a Prestige set, you’ll see it at the bottom right of the map screen (mouseover to see the details). They have to have reached Mastery to have unlocked a prestige
Last but not least, you can go into their profile, and their main page will display their highest mastery level. Or highest Ascension level if they’re past lv90.
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Don’t think anyone mentioned it, but lot’s of good help check out:
starcraft2coop.com
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While we’re at it, nice site that focuses on the Prestiges, and has more in-depth info about that to boot…
http://sc2coop.tiddlyspot.com/
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Hi, I am playing Raynor on Random and Normal. Sometimes I get 38,500 (hard) and other times I get 31,900 (normal) points. I get that once a day I will get 48,500.
Why do I get hard points when I am on normal?
Maps where I get all the bonus points - Sometime on the same map its 31,900 and sometimes its 39,500?
Sometimes the game puts together two players that chose different difficulty levels (to avoid long wait times). When that happens
1- the actual difficulty is a mix between the two
2-the exp reward (including weekly mutation bounty exp) is the higher of the two
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It’s utterly ridiculous too; the game is balanced for top level play. Nobody who’s below like 5.5K should be concerned with or making arguments about balance, like their experiences actually matter.
I mean a good company should want casual players to have a good experience. At the same time casual players should realize balance at pro play actually affects people’s livelihoods.
There’s a balance to be struck but I think you kind of got to prioritize pro players.
The balance is the regular players, the quote unquote 68% of that distribution bell curve.
A game and its competitive scene, while requiring pros, survives on the interest of the general mass. A balance tailored for only pros will leave not just the casuals (ie. bottom 3SD portion) in the dust, but also the vast majority of the regular players. Similarly, when casuals start to mouth off their complaints in the guise of balance, the game will equally be skewed.
This is seen on the forum so very often, specifically said casuals who posts like once in a blue moon only to complain about a very normal part of coop that the majority has either experienced or is similarly suffering through. We don’t see the opposite as much, this is because speedrunners and pro ladder players are generally more focused on the gameplay than squabbling. And it is the very reason why they are the top tier… hard work pays off.
Meanwhile, what we see equally or perhaps even more frequent than said casual complains are those within the 1SD (the vast majority) who falls within the larger range of skills. Without realizing they are simply on the path to become better, they continuously complain about how a similar player whose skills is just perhaps slightly less so than their own while boasting how they carried “Soooo harrrrd” and these “scrubs need to die”. The irony is sometimes too much.
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Ok. Thanks. I keep thinking it was a bonus point received but I was doing all the bonus and then on the same map I would get different points. I guess it is random when I get 38500 vs 31900 when playing on normal.