Upcoming Changes to Co-op Missions

Even though co-op missions are a fairly recent addition to StarCraft II, we’ve gotta say: you guys have been playing a TON of them!

We’re excited to see you all having so much fun in this mode and we’d like to express our thanks again for your helpful feedback. Having the continued support of the community has been a big help to us in improving this new gameplay mode along with the rest of the game.

Today, we’d like to preview some upcoming changes we have in mind. As always, we appreciate your feedback, so please let us know what you think once you’ve taken them for a spin!

Changes to Enemy AI

One of our goals is to increase the replayability of co-op missions and make each game feel very different. As such, we’ve made changes designed to make enemy AI feel more diverse.

While the AI previously had subtle variations in unit compositions, it didn’t have as much of an impact on gameplay as we had hoped. With the new update, the AI will employ a greater variety of units with a focus on building lots of big units, fast units, or air units. Each is designed to warrant a different response from players.

For instance, you could encounter a Roach/Hydra army or a Mutalisk/Zergling army when facing a zerg opponent. Or you might face an Adept/Reaver or aerial protoss build when facing a protoss opponent.

Regardless of the exact scenario, you’ll need to recognize what the AI is building by looking at the attack waves it sends early on if you want to win. Depending what comes at you, you might even want to specialize your army to counter what the AI is sending. Coordinating with your ally will also give you a huge advantage.

Along with this change, the AI will be using a huge variety of units that haven’t shown up in co-op missions before like Reavers, Disruptors, and Ravagers, so Brutal difficulty matches might be even more challenging depending on the unit types you face.

Based on our testing so far, we feel this has a huge positive impact on gameplay. However, we’re still making adjustments, so we’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback after you’ve tested your wits against the updated AI in the game itself!

Changes to Commander and Unit Balance

We’ve heard a ton of feedback from you guys and checked the stats from the games you’ve been playing in order to evaluate win rates and balance for each commander. While they’re pretty close, some commanders were underperforming a bit, so we made changes to help them out.

Below is a quick summary of the changes. For more specific details on these, be sure to check out our upcoming co-op patch notes.

• Raynor’s overall theme is about training up a bunch of infantry units “real quick like” and supporting them with some powerful mechanical units. To better support this idea and help him perform similar to other commanders, we’re increasing the speed of Rapid Recruitment (formerly Infantry Specialist) and allowing it to affect mechanical units. At the same time, we’re also decreasing the cost of Factory and Starport mech units, making changes to Improved Stim, and improving the survivability of Medics, all of which should help your infantry last longer against the enemy.

• While Kerrigan is doing pretty well, she’s also underperforming a bit. To help her out, we’re buffing her survivability and skills so she can get started with macro sooner and survive longer while you build up your army. To do this, we’re buffing her life steal ability Mutating Carapace and changing her Level 3 talent to double the damage on both Leaping Strike and and Psionic Shift. We’re also greatly improving her skills Immobilization Wave and Assimilation Aura. Finally, we’ve reduced Kerrigan’s initial birth time, and allowed the Hydralisk’s Frenzy to be autocast.

• Last but not least, Vorazun has seen a few adjustments. Dark Archon units which have been Mind Controlled now take supply, and there’s an increased energy cost to do so. With this change, Mind Control will still be fun and powerful to use, but you’ll need to be more strategic about when you use it. You can cast this ability regardless of your supply status, and you can still go over 200 supply.

Last Thoughts

The above covers the main changes you’ll be seeing in Co-op Missions, and you’ll be able to dive into the full details in the upcoming patch notes.

As a final note, we’ve also added new decals for achievements in co-op missions! These are:

• Terran Decal Reward – Earned by reaching level 5 with Raynor or Swann
• Zerg Decal Reward – Earned by reaching level 5 with Kerrigan or Zagara
• Protoss Decal Reward – Earned by reaching level 5 with Artanis, Vorazun or Karax.

Thanks for reading, and we look forward to hearing your thoughts!