Idle Worker Counter

This morning, I’d like to write a short entry about the only real issue I’ve come across in HotS so far. You see, in just about every day, HotS is better than its predecessor. But there is one way in which, sadly, the game has taken a step back.

The idle worker counter.

It used to be a popup of sorts. It used to be that as soon as a worker was idle, this blue square would appear next to the minimap, along with a count of exactly how many workers were idle.

That square has now been incorporated into the UI. Most of the time, the counter is set at zero. When a worker becomes idle, the number changes.

This is bad. Terribad, because your eye no longer reacts to the appearance of said square. It’s bad because your eye specifically does not respond to the much more subtle change in the number of the counter.

In other words, it’s much, much easier to overlooked idle workers in the current build of HotS than in WoL. It’s clear from every other change made in the game that Blizzard is trying to make it more user friendly. They’re trying to make the game easier to play, and this is perhaps the one aspect of the game which has been made more difficult. It’s an easy fix, although there must be countless ways in which to fix it. I expect Blizzard to change it shortly, but you never know.