I'm 3 missions away from finishing HotS. What is LotV like?

Campaign Discussion
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Hello guys. I’m only about 2 or 3 missions away from finishing Heart of the Swarm for the first time. I loved Wings of Liberty and I think it was decent story-wise, it followed pretty well after Broodwar. Though there are a few things I’d have preferred to be different, such as the shapeshifter’s name. “Narud”, LOL, seriously Blizzard? Couldn’t you think of a better, suitable name for the dude disguising as the Xel’Naga creature? I mean, Samir Duran is thousands of times better for a black dude. Plus, in Brood War his character was mysterious, you can hardly determine who Samir Duran is in BW until you play the secret mission with Zeratul where you explore a scientific terran facility.

The feeling of the Zerg in SC2 is great. And story is also good, I love it. I really really liked the cinematics with Kerrigan. It gives a nice “movie” feel to the game. One thing I don’t particularly feel like it would have been necessary in HotS is how Blizzard kind of forced the title of “Hero” upon Kerrigan. In SC1 we never see her refered to as a “Hero”. Also, why on Earth would they make Kerrigan get revived again at the Hatchery upon dying? She dies, restart the game. Period. Or load a savegame. I thought this was StarCraft, not Warcraft 3 where you have altars to revive Heros. Isn’t this game supposed to be more on the realistic side than… fantastic? Don’t get me wrong, WC3 is awesome. I just think the reviving thing is somewhat unnecessary in SC.

What should I expect from Legacy of the Void? Is it good story-wise? My anticipation is high, I suspect some further conflicts between Zeratul and the protoss worshippers of Amon? Also, does it have a good gameplay? I’ve heard mixed opinions on it. Some of them positive, others quite negative to be honest, though I don’t want my experience to be influenced on those opinions.

No spoilers please. Thank you :slight_smile:

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Hey, welcome to The Forum.

So… LotV without spoilers.

What I said back in GD in terms of gameplay. There are some missions where you control hero units, but they are VERY, VERY mortal. They are still hero units, so they’re far from easy to kill, but they are not your permanent get out of jail free card like Kerrigan with Kinetic Blast, Chain Reaction, Mend and Spawn Leviathan.

LotV is composed of 3 parts - Prologue, Main Story and Epilogue. Prologue and Epilogue are comparatively quite short with each being 3 missions. The main body has 19 missions, so that makes 25 missions overall.

Traveling between missions is a nice compromise between HotS and WoL.

Expect… what to expect without spoilers…

I’ll talk a bit about Prologue and main campaign.

There is a conflict with Amon, which is not surprising. There are some surprising allies. There is a loss, I’d say there is more loss than in both previous campaigns. There is a change for Protoss, lot of it, compared to their past.

The fantasy of leading powerful aliens whose greatest disadvantage is having low numbers which they make up for with great firepower is executed well.

In terms of story, you should clear your head and have no expectations, so you’re not influenced by others. Just know that there is a stark difference in reception of separate parts of the LotV story. I can say that I liked many aspects and new characters were introduced quite well.

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Also, keep us posted.

It’s interesting for us to see mind and thoughts of a player who is playing campaign right now.

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A lot of the missions are pretty much just “kill 4-5 targets”.

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Thanks for the replies. I loved the SC1 story and I actually started playing SC2 fairly recently. About a year or two ago I finished Wings of Liberty, for the first time as well. I did it on Brutal and I gotta say it had the hardest difficulty in any game I’ve ever played. It took me a good couple of days to do the last mission in WoL. SC2 experts don’t judge me, lol. :smiley:

I love HotS as well. And it got me so hyped to know the story as I played. HotS feels way easier than WoL on Brutal. I wonder what will happen in the end with the relationship between Jim and Kerrigan.

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In terms of story, I liked it because it explains a lot about and concludes the ZelNaga/Amon story pretty well (by the end of the epilogue). My only complaint is a minor one: large chunks of the Protoss dialogue. First, there’s a lot of Protoss technology/science jargon that can be somewhat tiring and sometimes confusing. Second, due to their self-important, overly righteous mindset, there’s a constant barrage of pompous tones and attitudes. ‘We will be victorious!!’ ‘We are Protoss!!’ ‘We are the Firstborn!!’ etc, etc, etc. Add the jargon and the pompous attitude together and I did find myself a little tired of listening to them on occasion. Not all the time, just here and there.

Gameplay wise, the missions are a good addition of unique objectives to the previous games. Some more than others, but still new enough to keep me interested. The analog to Kerrigan in Lotv is the Spear of Adun which provides a selection of special abilities during missions. It’s a cool mechanic that, like Kerrigan, can make the most difficult objectives easier if used strategically.

There is one thing that stands out for me personally with Lotv. In Wol and Hots, I eventually found single a combination of upgrades/research and mutations/evolutions that allowed me to play from start to finish without every having to change them. In other words, for both games I could pick from the various options and never have to change them from mission to mission. (I’m not sure if I’m explaining that very well.) In Lotv, I haven’t been able to do that. I’ve had to customize units and Spear of Adun abilities specifically for many of the missions. That has added a new dimension to the game that didn’t exist (for me) with the first two.

In terms of difficulty, I’d put Lotv’s Brutal in between Wol and Hots. The Spear of Adun makes things easier, but it isn’t as mega OP as Kerrigan.

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Jim and Raynor eventually band together to form a treetrunk-armed alcoholic freedom fighter but that happened before WoL…

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Sorry, it was a typo, lol :joy:. I meant to say Jim and Kerrigan. But still funny response, haha, thanks.

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Oh that is addressed too!

It did confuse some players because it’s presented a bit ambiguously. But with a particular interpretation, it made sense to me. (If that seems worded strangely, it’s because I’m trying my best to conceal the details. :slight_smile: )

I was devastated when ‘it’ happened! But that’s just me. Others may not have the same favorites as I do. :wink:

Ditto!

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Destroying stuff… works for you am I right?

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Right, but I am not a fan of the “defeat 4 or 5 units/buildings” and “defend yourself” missions when they are all there is.

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There’s plenty of missions that aren’t defeat specific units/buildings or defend yourself. For Auir, Growing Shadow, Brothers in Arms and the dungeon crawlers, to mention a few.

What are other objective styles that you would have liked to see?

For me, having objectives besides build up and destroy bases is what set SC2 apart from SC1.

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I think we should stop that discussion for now. Wouldn’t want to spoil gameplay mechanics to the Original Poster now, would we? If you really want to discuss this we have a designated off-topic point called Blizzard Abridged, where every and all kind of stuff get discussed there.

Also, but Nova Covert Ops. Easily one of the best campaign there is!

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All character units are referred to as “Hero” units, it’s simply a term.

Kerrigan is the player-character and thus protagonist of “Heart of the Swarm,” and she’s actually an anti-hero.

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I don’t think he meant gameplay.

And I think it’s better to leave Kerrigan discussions with this fellow for the time when he will have campaign finished.

That’s the first time I used this grammar tense in real environment. Is it correct?

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Can’t judge the rest but that caught my eye

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Well. That’s awkward.

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I think you just forgot the “the,” otherwise it seems fine to me.

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Eh. My eternal disadvantage of having mother tongue without articles.

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It’s the one with the Protoss. That makes it the best.

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