It has been just over two weeks since Blizzard opened the gates to the Heart of the Swarm beta event for a select few lucky enough to hold a key, and already Blizzard have used gameplay data and feedback to turn the game upside down. Beta participants are not required to sign a non-disclosure agreement, so they have been free to share the details with the rest of us. 

Just three days after the beta began, Blizzard released a patch based on community feedback. This first patch mostly contained slight tweaks to units. A week later, Blizzard released a more significant patch that included removing the Terran Warhound, bringing back the Carrier that was previously removed, shifting unit prerequisites and making major changes to the Protoss Tempest, the Protoss Oracle, and the original Terran Reaper.

The removal of the Warhound is perhaps the most significant of the changes. Most of the balance discussion in the community revolved around this speedy factory unit designed to take down other mech units. Complaints surfaced that the goliath-like robot was too versatile and difficult to reliably counter. A YouTube video encapsulated such complaints when it demonstrated a Warhound-only army’s victory against varied armies of similar supply cost after both armies attack-moved.

The German community page MyStarCraft.de interviewed several progamers at gamescom 2012 about their experiences with Heart of the Swarm. The pros, for the most part, exhibited enthusiasm for the new units but with some notable concerns.

On the positive, players are interested in the new Oracle caster unit and its mineral line harass ability, Entomb. Protoss player  Oh “ReaL” Jin Shil and Zerg player  Artur “Nerchio” Bloch commented that the new Protoss Tempest unit has very specific functionality and are interested in how it will be used.  Nerchio, along with  Kim “viOLet” Dong Hwan and  Felipe “KiLLeR” Zuniga, agree that the Zerg Viper is great, especially noting it’s useful Abduct ability, which pulls units toward itself.

The negatives of the interviews mostly concerned balance. Zerg player  Aleksandr “Bly” Svusuyk believes that the Oracle’s Entomb was too strong and needed to be nerfed (it has since been buffed).  viOLet believes that the Zerg Swarm Host is too weak, and that the Viper’s Blinding Cloud ability has too small of a radius.  Jéremy “Feast” Vansnick commented on the Mothership Core’s ability to effectively give a Nexus unlimited Chronoboosts, along with Terran mech builds being too strong.

 Carlo “ClouD” Giannacco had the strongest opinion of all, expressing blatant disgust at Blizzard, because “they should have made the game more hard for other races, but instead they just made the game easier for Terran.”  ClouD is a Terran player himself.

The beta isn’t the first time feedback has helped to drastically change the build. An earlier playtest removed the Terran Shredder unit from the game, after the deployable AoE damage unit was used to wipe out entire mineral lines worth of workers despite the unit’s original purpose of maintaining map control.

Though the campaign is finished and the build is beyond stable, such major changes in such short a time suggest that Heart of the Swarm’s final few months in development might yet hold a number of surprises for its loyal fans.