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Mazerunner posted:they fed off the psionic energy released upon their prey's death That is so Warhammer.
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Jan 22, 2024 20:40
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Mazerunner posted:they fed off the psionic energy released upon their prey's death that implies that the Protoss need the Zerg for nourishment, what happens if the Zerg are all wiped out
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Jan 22, 2024 20:49
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Kith posted:I think there's value in the story showcasing how brutally selfish and stupid Kerrigan's mindset is. It really drives home the point that she doesn't give a poo poo about the consequences and that there's no redeeming factor at play, she's just... like that. I could agree with this in principal if I didn't know where this story was going to ultimately end up
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Jan 22, 2024 20:49
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GrandTheftAutism posted:that implies that the Protoss need the Zerg for nourishment, what happens if the Zerg are all wiped out Still plenty of terrans.
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Jan 23, 2024 09:49
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I feel like this thread seems a little torn on whether the problem with Kerrigan is that she's too monstrous or the problem is that she's not monstrous enough, but upon reflection I think that actually points to the problem with her: she's not a turn-your-brain-off mustache-twirler but she's too shallow to work as a compelling anti-villain so we're left with kind of... nothing.
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Jan 23, 2024 16:09
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I think part of it is that what the writer's tried to go for can't mesh with the overall story. They want to do this big grey vs grey story of revenge where ooooooooooo both sides are monsters, but at the same time Kerrigan is the chosen one destined to save the universe so they can't go too evil with her or else the audience would rather have the ultimate evil win than let her save the day and be a big hero. So you end up with a Kerrigan that does horrible poo poo but the story just sorta forgets about it five minutes after it happens.
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Jan 23, 2024 16:27
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Blizzard keeps trying to write compelling MORALLY GREY characters and keeps failing.
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Jan 23, 2024 16:30
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Kerrigan being a spiteful hypocrite, slaughtering innocent colonists while claiming that they don't care about zerg lives (that's she's ordering to their deaths in droves) is not, in isolation, bad writing. That's a perfectly valid thing for a character to be. But we're still only, what, two missions out from having a big emotional* scene where she weeps about her boyfriend being captured and sinks into the tempations of the dark side? It's something Brood War Kerrigan would have done, but this campaign is trying to be about how she's evolved from that, and it just falls apart. I don't know if this is Blizzard trying to eat their cake and have it to when it comes to Kerrigan being a villainous hero, or if they just didn't know how to make the morally-complex cake they're aiming for. *an attempt was made
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Jan 23, 2024 16:30
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I feel like this story's biggest misstep is asserting that the Queen of Blades was effectively a separate entity, because it means that Kerrigan's growth can't really interact with the part of her life that Starcraft 1 most emphasized. In another story you could probably play on the idea that Kerrigan discovered just how empty and unsatisfying being the queen bitch of the universe was and decided that she wanted something more. It would even tie into her nihilism in Wings pretty well, if she was just in despair from having accomplished everything she wanted and found that it didn't make her happy. Then Jim gives her a cause to fight for that she finds fulfilling. But such a story would mean wrestling with Kerrigan's past actions and culpability, and really isn't it so much simpler to just say it was all CORRUPTION and not really her fault because what's a little genocide between heroes at the end of the day? I don't blame for Blizzard backing away from a story that they probably couldn't tell in a satisfying way, but that's just a question of trading one issue for another.
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Jan 23, 2024 16:36
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Cythereal posted:I feel like this story's biggest misstep is asserting that the Queen of Blades was effectively a separate entity. Agree. It added nothing to the story and was simply another case of IT WAS CORRUPTION ALL ALONG trope. Everything Kerrigan did and everything she will do in future missions would work just as well (or better) without "Kerrigan=/=Queen of Blades" assumption.
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Jan 23, 2024 17:40
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It’d be like abruptly declaring that Berserk’s Femto is a totally different person from Griffith and always has been, rather than just being the horrific yet natural culmination of Griffith’s ambition and circumstances.
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Jan 23, 2024 17:50
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Imagine Star Wars, but instead of dying Darth Vader suddenly turns back to pre-ROTS Anakin and people just forgive him everything because he was corrupted by Palpatine.
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Jan 23, 2024 17:54
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Szarrukin posted:Imagine Star Wars, but instead of dying Darth Vader suddenly turns back to pre-ROTS Anakin and people just forgive him everything because he was corrupted by Palpatine. And then he goes on to continue to genocide
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Jan 23, 2024 17:57
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Szarrukin posted:Agree. It added nothing to the story and was simply another case of IT WAS CORRUPTION ALL ALONG trope. Everything Kerrigan did and everything she will do in future missions would work just as well (or better) without "Kerrigan=/=Queen of Blades" assumption. It felt like it COULD have gone somewhere in that first mission on the ground. Kerrigan's fear about using the Zerg and how easily she slips back into ruthlessly ending her enemies when its not really necessary is portrayed as a legitimate internal conflict in that mission. She's afraid and disgusted when she orders the Zerg to kill all the Dominion troops to the last man when she didn't need to, and the obvious implication is that she doesn't WANT to be the Queen of Blades, is glad that she remembers nothing of that time and can distance herself from it, and fears that if she's in contact with the Zerg she'll return to that. But that conflict isn't paid forward when she makes the decision to embrace the Swarm to get Arcturus in that cutscene. Storytelling logic suggests there should either be hesitation on her part, an effort to be KERRIGAN rather than THE QUEEN OF BLADES in how she operates the swarm, or that there should be some sort of pathos and lamentation for what she's doing because she's willingly walked into the persona she feared and is doing things she didn't want to do. I'll say it again: this game has an identity crisis. It wants to be a good old fashioned Rip and Tear Zerg Rampage just like the old Zerg campaigns, but it also wants to be this dark, meditative revenge fantasy, but it ALSO wants Kerrigans hands to be as clean as possible and seem justified in the things she does, but it ALSO wants to be about both the Zerg Swarm and Kerrigan shifting their ethos in a more protagonistic direction because of the larger metaplot related to the Xel'Naga. It can't be all those things! They don't work together!
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Jan 23, 2024 18:03
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Honest to god, can you imagine if they'd had the balls to write a conversation between Kerrigan and Abathur about what Zerglings feel.
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Jan 23, 2024 18:17
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BisbyWorl posted:I think part of it is that what the writer's tried to go for can't mesh with the overall story. There is a third option, in that they can just go "lol prophecy can be wrong or misinterpreted, and we could engineer a solution to the problem that doesn't involve spoilering a hated mass murderer." Most people aren't brave enough to do that and outright let prophecy be wrong though. It typically raises the question of why put stock in prophecy at all. But there's really only one prophecy in StarCraft, based on interpreting writings from a long dead progenitor species. So there's no real loss if it is all bullshit.
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Jan 23, 2024 18:23
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Warmachine posted:There is a third option, in that they can just go "lol prophecy can be wrong or misinterpreted, and we could engineer a solution to the problem that doesn't involve spoilering a hated mass murderer." I don't necessarily think the instinct to make The Zerg Are On The Side Of Good Now a major plot point in Starcraft 2 was a completely wrong-headed one, and a prophecy is a relatively simple and workable method to force the characters to swallow it. Everybody loves the Zerg, they're the real mascots of the franchise. Kerrigan is the obvious focal point for that rather than some totally new character who takes her down. She's both beloved despite her evil and tragic since her transformation wasn't her choice. Execution arguments aside, getting Jim Raynor to move past his desire to kill Kerrigan and choose to save her instead wasn't the worst starting point for the story of Kerrigan finding some measure of redemption, since it could be the start of a sort of cycle of forgiveness to replace the cycle of revenge that could have easily carried forward into the Protoss storyline. That's why making HotS a revenge story is such a bizarre choice.
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Jan 23, 2024 18:33
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Warmachine posted:There is a third option, in that they can just go "lol prophecy can be wrong or misinterpreted, and we could engineer a solution to the problem that doesn't involve spoilering a hated mass murderer." Most places where I've seen Prophecy be "wrong" instead have it come true in a way that goes against the original interpretation. Though there is the occasional setting where people end up outright defying prophecy, though. But even then, sometimes defying that prophecy ends up being part of a different prophecy that contradicted the other prophecy. Only one I can remember offhand that outright breaks the prophecy without any other known prophecies being mentioned at any point is a very old flash animation with some very heavy DBZ vibes.
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Jan 23, 2024 18:38
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BlazetheInferno posted:Most places where I've seen Prophecy be "wrong" instead have it come true in a way that goes against the original interpretation. A big part of why I put this forth was that I watched a video on prophecy as a narrative device recently, which left me wondering--given how prophecy is so often loving wrong IRL despite people just as often staking hilarious bets on it being right--why we don't play with that more in fiction. Like "hey guys maybe we don't need to defer to a genocidal madwoman just because some dusty carvings from a long-dead species say we do. Maybe we can fix this ourselves now that we know it is coming."
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Jan 23, 2024 18:49
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If a prophecy in a story doesn't come true in any respect then it raises the question of how the prophecy came about and why anyone cared in the first place. Given that prophecy generally just exists as a lazy shortcut to have heroes know what the villain is doing or make them do things they otherwise wouldn't think of, writers using it don't usually want to deal with that poo poo. Prophecies are just magic, or gods giving revelations, so they can't be truly wrong, end of discussion. Anything else and it's good enough to not be a prophecy plot in the first place. Closest thing to a subversion I can recall off the top of my head is the Lego Movie, where the guy who originally made the prophecy eventually admits he just made it up. And then it had happened anyway, because inspiring someone to actually rise up and become the hero was the whole point. But that only works because being The Lego Movie lets you set the expectation that the old mystic guy can conjure prophecies because, hell, why not?
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Jan 23, 2024 18:50
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JohnKilltrane posted:I feel like this thread seems a little torn on whether the problem with Kerrigan is that she's too monstrous or the problem is that she's not monstrous enough, but upon reflection I think that actually points to the problem with her: she's not a turn-your-brain-off mustache-twirler but she's too shallow to work as a compelling anti-villain so we're left with kind of... nothing. They needed to pick a bit and commit to it. They are not competent enough writers to make this half-and-half thing feel satisfying.
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Jan 23, 2024 18:53
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Tenebrais posted:If a prophecy in a story doesn't come true in any respect then it raises the question of how the prophecy came about and why anyone cared in the first place. Given that prophecy generally just exists as a lazy shortcut to have heroes know what the villain is doing or make them do things they otherwise wouldn't think of, writers using it don't usually want to deal with that poo poo. Prophecies are just magic, or gods giving revelations, so they can't be truly wrong, end of discussion. Anything else and it's good enough to not be a prophecy plot in the first place. The message is that the prophecy only has as much power or magic to it as the people who believe it give it. In this case it would exactly be there telegraphing with the villain is doing, and giving the audience the expectation that the story is going to position the characters to fulfil it as written. The subversion comes when Jim, Artanis, etc look at what it says, say that this is some bullshit, and look for a means to defeat the as-of-yet-unnamed Dark Voice and the Hybrids by a method of their own choosing. Maybe they build a SUPER psi-disruptor to break the Dark Voice's command over the Zerg? Or use the fact that there is some quintessentially Zerg DNA in all Zerg creatures to create some kind of bioweapon against them. Or they just figure out where the Dark Voice is and shoot him in the face. It can be as creative as the writer wants it to be, with the point of showing that "Kerrigan Must Survive" was not actually true. It would actually go pretty neatly with some of the Xel'Naga aren't infallible hints that the story and lore drop.
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Jan 23, 2024 18:59
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I don't think any character in Starcraft has ever been that concerned about the preservation of life, innocent or otherwise. the closest thing we have to a moral compass, Jim Raynor, sticks with Mengsk through two genocides and only turns on him when his girlfriend is killed, and is more than happy to beat up protoss in order to take their artifacts for money it's Warcraft in Space, not Peacecraft in Space. you can't have a murder taboo in an RTS. Lasarra is a big dork who picked a fight and lost; so it goes
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Jan 23, 2024 19:20
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Honestly, this internally inconsistent Kerrigan feels pretty good to me? Like, there's really no-one good in the starcraft universe, basically every main character is just some incredibly powerful bastard doing insane war crimes because they think they're right and the ends justify the means - Jim did it, Kerrigan is doing it, and Artanis will do it. On a macro level, every faction is wrong and evil, but really the only distinction that matters is protagonist vs antagonist - right now we're in Kerrigan's pov so we're doing the things she does, but I think SC2 works best if you don't take the implicit assumption that we're playing the hero. It's the Saturday morning cartoon version of that, because it's a sci-fi game about tanks and essence and psychic aliens, but that's still the best frame to view it in. And because it's a silly cartoon story, at some point the real evil will arrive and threaten to kill thousands of people and everyone will patch up their differences and defeat it with the power of friendship, at which point Kerrigan will truly become the galactic hero of prophecy.
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Jan 23, 2024 19:25
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Lt. Danger posted:it's Warcraft in Space, not Peacecraft in Space. you can't have a murder taboo in an RTS. Lasarra is a big dork who picked a fight and lost; so it goes And if that's what Kerrigan said then, as most of us have made clear, that'd be fine. But she tries to moralize about it, like there's some equivalence in Zerg dying to Protoss dying when the Zerg have consistently been the aggressors. When we're supposed to accept that Kerrigan ever has a moral crisis in the midst of this like has happened already. But we already know you have the most uncritical smooth-brained takes on poorly-written stories here anyway.
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Jan 23, 2024 19:30
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disposablewords posted:They needed to pick a bit and commit to it. They are not competent enough writers to make this half-and-half thing feel satisfying. Deformed Church posted:Honestly, this internally inconsistent Kerrigan feels pretty good to me? Like, there's really no-one good in the starcraft universe, basically every main character is just some incredibly powerful bastard doing insane war crimes because they think they're right and the ends justify the means - Jim did it, Kerrigan is doing it, and Artanis will do it. On a macro level, every faction is wrong and evil, but really the only distinction that matters is protagonist vs antagonist - right now we're in Kerrigan's pov so we're doing the things she does, but I think SC2 works best if you don't take the implicit assumption that we're playing the hero. It's the Saturday morning cartoon version of that, because it's a sci-fi game about tanks and essence and psychic aliens, but that's still the best frame to view it in.
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Jan 23, 2024 19:32
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Warmachine posted:
This is just now pointing to the revision of who the Xel'Naga are that SC2 does. So far the game kinda treats them like the gods the Protoss once believed them to be, with their prophesies and mystic artifacts saving the day. In SC1 they were clearly just arrogant fuckups with really good technology and everyone alive in the setting's present has to deal with the consequences of their mistakes.
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Jan 23, 2024 19:43
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Tenebrais posted:If a prophecy in a story doesn't come true in any respect then it raises the question of how the prophecy came about and why anyone cared in the first place. I mean... a hell of a lot of prophecies in the real world have not come true except by the most "squint and turn your head and maybe hit yourself in the face with a hammer a bit"-perspective, but some people still believe prophecies. About Bitcoin, about the end of the world, etc. As for how a prophecy came about... well... maybe it was to someone's benefit if a prophecy was believed, if people attempted to fulfill it, avert it or feared its consequences. Joe Abercrombie plays with it pretty well in one of his trilogies, the Age of Madness, where someone realizes that once they're believed as a seer, they can gently caress with people's expectations through "prophecies." That the important thing, even if you do see things, is what you tell others you see. For instance, if someone believes their victory in some battle is destined, they'll rush into it without taking every precaution, or refuse to retreat even if they're badly pressed. So if your plans desperately need Kerrigan alive... you could attempt to plant a fake prophecy in some way stating that she's important for other people's plans or survival, then they'll do the hard work of protecting her for you, and also not try to kill her. Put it inside a mystic rock, carve it into an ancient ruin, just have someone who looks like a spooky seer spread it. Sacrifice had some fun with that, too.
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Jan 23, 2024 19:56
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disposablewords posted:But we already know you have the most uncritical smooth-brained takes on poorly-written stories here anyway. sorry about your dead protoss colony
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Jan 23, 2024 20:02
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Your arguments are "hurf durf who cares about the story" when clearly the devs did, and people thus engage it on the level they offered it. So you're just a condescending prick.Lt. Danger posted:whole lotta slave morality itt Also this is still you and you are still invited to gently caress right off.
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Jan 23, 2024 20:06
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Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is a war game
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Jan 23, 2024 20:08
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the kerrigan presented to us is not a compelling character i would personally prefer for her to instead be a compelling character
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Jan 23, 2024 20:56
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Hwurmp posted:Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is a war game Fight with units, not with words.
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Jan 23, 2024 21:04
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disposablewords posted:Your arguments are "hurf durf who cares about the story" when clearly the devs did, and people thus engage it on the level they offered it. So you're just a condescending prick. for the avoidance of doubt, this is a joke about Kerrigan's Nietzchean "master morality", where there is no ethics, only the will to act I don't think that's a fair description of my position but they're just video game opinions so ok
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Jan 23, 2024 21:14
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Lt. Danger posted:for the avoidance of doubt, this is a joke about Kerrigan's Nietzchean "master morality", where there is no ethics, only the will to act Then you're bad at making jokes because it sounds like the entirety of everything else you say.
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Jan 23, 2024 21:31
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Hwurmp posted:Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is a war game  silentsnack posted:A shaky or indecisive character is an entirely separate thing though, the issue here is inconsistent themes and direction. Like the writers tried to give everything maximum gravitas at all times, while constantly changing their minds on what kind of story they're writing. It's this, 100%. I see all kinds of potential in just what HotS has already put on the table, the problem is they're struggling to pick a lane with it.
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Jan 23, 2024 21:34
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Honestly, I think that, if we have a prophecy that Kerrigan is gonna save the galaxy, then they should have kept her evil. Imagine a version of Starcraft 2 where Kerrigan is just unambiguously evil and out for revenge, and everyone in the know about the prophecy has to work around her, limiting the damage she causes without being able to actually stop her. Let the moment where she force chokes Valerian be about the fact that she knows she's required to stop the apocalypse, so what is anyone really going to do to stop her from killing Mengsk, or saving Jim, or whatever the hell she wants. That could have been a fun direction for the story to go.
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Jan 23, 2024 23:52
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Unit Spotlight: Zergling Overview:
Evolution Pool Upgrades:  Hardened Carapace
Effectively +20 life per 50 minerals, this gives a decent boost to survivability and increases the number of Zerglings that'll reach the enemy. It's still worse than the other two choices here. Also, I haven't mentioned this yet, but Heart (and the prologue campaign for Legacy) is weird in that Brutal difficulty applies a hidden modifier that increases all damage your units take by 25%, so this has even less use if you're playing on that.  Adrenal Overload
Yeah just casually double their attack speed forever as soon as you get out of the tutorial, no big deal. Early on it might be worth taking one of the other upgrades to increase the number of Zerglings can actually attack, but once Raptors are available this is pretty much locked in.  Metabolic Boost
In combat, both this and Carapace have the same overall effect: reducing the number of Zerglings that die before they can get a hit in. Out of combat, Carapace does nothing while this lets Zerglings loving zoom across the map for rapid reinforcement or to stall a surprise attack wave before the rest of your army can make it over. Evolutions Raptor  Assimilation of karak essence, many benefits. Can enhance quadriceps of zergling, mutate wing function. Would allow zergling to vault thorugh air, climb up and down cliffs, leap at foes from distance. Minor side effect: amplified aggression. Likely to improve damage output. Acceptable.  Cliff Jumper
 Aggressive
Swarmling  Examination of feral sequences, completed. Random variations of Zz'gesh dune-runner core reduced complexity. Gestation period almost nonexistent. Simple sequences allow production of three swarmlings from single cocoon. Dorsal protrusion of dune-runner has resurfaced. Prominent. Will examine later.  Rapid Gestation
I've also heard that they're good if you're planning on spamming Banelings. Field Manual Artwork 
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Jan 24, 2024 04:19
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So am I reading it right that the +2 damage upgrade from being a Raptor is essentially a +30% damage increase? That's pretty big, especially when the increased mobility also lets you "safely" pick the +50% attack speed, at which point you're getting pretty close to doubled damage output.
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Jan 24, 2024 04:26
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BisbyWorl posted:
is this factoring in some other upgrade that i forgot about or is the math bad
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