Starcraft 2 discussion thread

[Stark]

If only terrain had a natural impact on the game and battle through speed, LOS and concealment instead of a primitive bonus applied in childish map layouts?

It's not like circling around in the low ground unseen could be tactically useful?

[Zed]

Games don't necessarily have to be realistic to be fun. I've never seen a game that is as enjoyable to watch on tv than Starcraft.

[Stark]

Then you don't play a lot of games or are partially blind. Cop-outs like 'wah games don't have to be realistic to be fun' are irrelevant because get this - they don't have to be childishly primitive to be fun either. Turns out realism/not realism is irrelevant; its what you can do and how the game is played that is important.

[Zed]

Quite. And Starcraft is played masterfully brilliantly by the Koreans, which makes it a fascinating thing to watch. As I said, I've never seen an e-sport that is as interesting to watch as Starcraft. It's mightily impressive to see the incredible micro these people display at early times in games, or the interesting strategy decisions made later on.

Now, given that you claim that realism and lack of realism is irrelevant, and the fact that apparently, an incredible amount of gamers actually enjoy it, your incessant whining about this game might just be a tad over the top. Live and let live.

[Stark]

I don't mean 'how some moron who memorised a build order plays it', I mean how the game flows and what mechanics are important. In this sense, primitive games are limited though lack of options.

After you attacked missing features due to 'realism' not being 'fun', you then say that its whining to say that realism is irrelevant? You're the one the bought it up, champ. It's not my fault you'd rather watch horrible pixels lurch around a youtube screen than HD armies fight over a huge photo-realistic map.

Actually shit, I should just put up some WiC replays to shame you. PS? WiC? Not realistic. Turns out you're just captain red herring.

[Zed]

It's a caricature to characterize high-level Starcraft play as 'executing and memorizing build orders'. At a high level of play, a build order is nothing but a starting point - the very moment that you see the enemy (which would be earlier than a minute or so into play), you have to change your moves in order to counter it - and vice versa, so will the enemy. Try looking not at some replays - which will give you little to no understanding of the game if you're not quite advanced in it -, but at some of the commentaries by (semi-)professional commentators. www.gomtv.net is a good start. You'll find that there's a lot more to Starcraft than memorizing build-orders.

[Stark]

Who cares about 'high level' play? You just bought that up as a part of your 'realism' and 'fun to watch' red herrings. None of this changes the primitive terrain, which is what people were talking about.

Amusingly games with actual terrain don't need forced bonuses, because being higher automatically provides organic benefits (hull down fire, LOS, whatever). Primitive games can't do that.

The suggestion I waste my time watching replays so I can watch replays so I can understand how to watch replays to appreciate what 1% of nobody does is frankly terrifying. How is that relevant to anything? Why did you totally ignore my correction to your idea of what 'game flow' means?

Maybe I missed something while I ducked out to watch a 'boring' WiC replay.

[CaptHawkeye]

In RUSE infantry can't really take cover either. They're easy to kill or push back but it takes an encirclement to annihilate them. Otherwise they'll just self-repair and head back to the front. Wow, look what happens when someone designs a mechanic that works. Realism/not realism had nothing to do with it.

In WiC it was important enough that units can, and most often miss most of their shots. This is a critical factor which makes terrain based tactical game play really important. Actually keeping a low silhouette for your units matters unlike health bar spam RTS games.

We bring up "line of sight" and people start talking about build menus and skilled Korean players?

[Hawkwings]

As far as I can tell, in SC2 if you're walking your units along on low ground, you can't see what on the high ground next to you...

In WiC, missing just got ridiculous sometimes. I mean, when I march my infantry up to their infantry and they stand 5 feet from each other and shoot and miss, well...

Thankfully tanks were more accurate (at least while stopped), and I was always an armor player.

[adam_grif]

Hell I play infantry all the time in RTS games. Especially when they're well designed like in WiC or RUSE. One of the reasons I didn't like Supreme Commander was the lack of "infantry" units which I felt removed a personal element from the game. A purely subjective one on my part.

I appreciate WiC infantry paticularly for taking a unique approach. Then again WiC took a unique approach to everything.

One somewhat underappreciated RTS game I played was Act of War: Direct Action. Infantry were great for cities, and it actually had some urban fighting inside buildings (albeit abstracted away), positioning on rooftops and so on. Then soldiers would sometimes be wounded and could be retrieved via medivac, or captured by the enemy to take as PoWs...

The game overall wasn't amazing, but I definitely loved some of the more unique aspects of it.

[Stofsk]

Well I just finished playing the campaign. I felt the story was a bit bog standard to be honest, didn't take any chances, and even had a nice happy ending. Other than that, the campaign structure was quite clever. I liked how you had a finite number of credits which meant you could only make a certain number of armoury/merc purchases. The science upgrades were different, you get them all, and you still have left over points to cash in. Maybe that could have been better balanced? But some of those science upgrades were fuuuuuuuuucking good. Orbital drop pods for marines? Sweet. Orbital supply depots that are insta-built? Oh christ yes. I always hated building supply depots because it always slows shit down. And increasing the space in bunkers is awesome.

I played on Hard on at least 10 missions (apparently I got that as an achievement), but some missions were just an exercise in frustration on anything other than normal. The Dig was a pain in the ass on Hard, because that stupid laser cannon would always start rotating back to firing on the doors rather than on the army of archons/immortals/giant protoss warbot thingies that were approaching my bases. (I figured out you can queue up multiple targets with it) But the most frustrating aspect to it was trying to get the achievement - using the laser to burn down a number of protoss buildings. The challenge was getting a spotter to get onto the high ground. I ended up building a massive army which tended to get massacred quite regularly to the protoss defenders.

Thanas you magnificent sonofabitch, if you clocked this game on brutal, I salute you.

[Crossroads Inc.]

one week in and Im already sick of the multi player.

I play as terrans and the first thing I find is that they are woefully underpowered... Unless they live long enough to build Thors
Basically 80% of the games I play I am either bum rushed by Zerg 5min in, or I am wiped out by mass Void ships form Protoss.
The fact that we no longer have a decent land unit that can go after air is a pain. Building Vikings requites massive resources and, unless fully upgraded, they are so easy to take down.

I really want to play a good Terran game, but unless I am playing against someone who doesn't attack in the first 10min, I usually don't have a chance.

[adam_grif]

one week in and Im already sick of the multi player.

I really want to play a good Terran game, but unless I am playing against someone who doesn't attack in the first 10min, I usually don't have a chance.

If you can't deal with rushes, or don't enjoy them, then starcraft 2 probably isn't the game for you. Stick to playing with friends or against the AI. Don't expect to be able to enter random competitive matches and say "10 mins no rush ok?"

[Dark Hellion]

Snip

Huh? Terran are easily more powerful than zerg and have a ton of options that make it so I don't get any of your complaints. Turrets are like the best AA thing in the game and marines can stim, which makes them AA beasts as well. Seriously, marines have some of the most ridiculous DPS/cost in the game and can be built by the truckloads out of a few racks with reactors. And you get basically free bunkers, have the easiest time getting money off one base because of mules and have the best dumb timing push in the game with Marine/Marauder+hellion.

What is your general build chunking look like, because it seems like you must either be cutting SCVs way to early, or screwing something up to complain about zerg rushes and random proxy void rays with Terran. Are you fast gassing or trying to upgrade too soon or something?

[Crossroads Inc.]

Its not that, its more whatever game I plan on, I don't get...

If I do ground spam and build an army of Marines and Maras, I run into Collsi and Ultralisks. If I dig in and try to rush to Thors, I get rushed right away. When things go right, they go off fine, I have owned huge armies of Zerg and Protoss ground units.
Thors will always take out a Collsi or Ultralisk. A group of upgraded marines and marauders will always take out a group of zealots or hydralisks.

Where things go wrong is just when I run into the unexpected.
Last game I was sure the Protoss were going ground because I saw no stargates, I had 40 Marines and 20 Marauders, and ran head long into a group of 7 Collsi that wiped out my whole group.

Also build tends to be

4scvs
2 farms
5 scvs
2 Gas mines
5 scvs
Barricks + Reactor
4 scvs
4 marines
2 farms
4 scvs
Second Command Center

And then I go from there

[Dark Hellion]

SCII terran has to play much more Biomech than BW terran did. Your late game "ball" should have the MMM (marine, Maruader, medivacs), you should have a half dozen or so hellions, a half dozen siege tanks and like half a dozen Vikings if you are fighting a 7 Colossi army. Terran are the kings of versatile in SCII.

How much harass do you do early game? Do you send in a few Hellions or Reapers early to hit their probe line? Terran have the best harass in SCII and you really want to use it because it allows you to run much leaner armies. Late game you have medivac drops which are great for putting the opponent out of position.

From the sound of it you currently have multiple, linear build orders, which was great in BW but doesn't work as well in SCII. In SCII you really want to have a few branching build orders that rely much more on "chunking", that is that you have certain chunks of time in which you get certain things up and running. So you have a 'harass with 2 hellion early' chunk and from what you scout with that determines what the next chunk you go into is. If you see the opponent going for a Colossi rush or immortal drop you may build a fast starport into mass viking and then when he switches you use those vikings for harassing his naturals mineral line. If a zerg has fast expanded and is going mass econ/macro you may build a bunch of banshees (3-6) for banshee harass (and sometimes steal a game) and then tech into mass thor to counter his muta/hydra push.

If you are routinely going to really late game against Protoss (7 colossi sounds like it) try going mass BC. The BC is an utter beast in this game and Protoss really can't do jack about it if you denied them observers with good turret placement and scans.

[The Yosemite Bear]

any suggestions on the first Zeratul mission?

it's the flight after the third shrine that keeps getting me...

[White Haven]

Teleport past the fallen debris so reds get stuck behind it. Other than that, just run

[Stofsk]

which part, the banelings? I used zeratul's blink to outmaneuvre them

[Thanas]

So....after having already dealt with the issue of copycats, Hawkeye shouting off his mouth about how the game is played without having actually played it etc...we get back to complaining how the game is "primitive". Can we discuss something new here or shall I split the thread?

any suggestions on the first Zeratul mission?

it's the flight after the third shrine that keeps getting me...

Use your group en masse. Always run, do not stop to fight. Blink behind each fallen debris - it will keep the enemy away for a few moments.

[The Yosemite Bear]

where's the third hatchery?

[Stofsk]

where's the third hatchery?

When you do the part with the protoss zealot army, there's a platform you can blink to with your stalkers, it's right before the final beacon.

[Stark]

So....after having already dealt with the issue of copycats, Hawkeye shouting off his mouth about how the game is played without having actually played it etc...we get back to complaining how the game is "primitive". Can we discuss something new here or shall I split the thread?

So you agree hedges for terrain is primitive then? Imagine if the ground wasn't perfectly flat.

[Thanas]

Its not that, its more whatever game I plan on, I don't get...

If I do ground spam and build an army of Marines and Maras, I run into Collsi and Ultralisks. If I dig in and try to rush to Thors, I get rushed right away. When things go right, they go off fine, I have owned huge armies of Zerg and Protoss ground units.
Thors will always take out a Collsi or Ultralisk. A group of upgraded marines and marauders will always take out a group of zealots or hydralisks.

Where things go wrong is just when I run into the unexpected.
Last game I was sure the Protoss were going ground because I saw no stargates, I had 40 Marines and 20 Marauders, and ran head long into a group of 7 Collsi that wiped out my whole group.

Also build tends to be

4scvs
2 farms

First mistake. Get only one. Invest the other in a barracks. Use the supply depot front lock.

5 scvs
2 Gas mines

Second mistake - you only need one for the first minutes. By now your barracks should be done. Now build marines (1-4) and station them besides your supply depot/barracks front seal. Do not build a reactor.

5 scvs
Barricks + Reactor
4 scvs
4 marines

You should have built the marines earlier. By now, you should have built a second refinery and a factory. That should get you 1-4 siegetanks, which will splash any ground rush with ease (NOTE: Research siege mode in the factory tech lab).

If you are routinely going to really late game against Protoss (7 colossi sounds like it) try going mass BC. The BC is an utter beast in this game and Protoss really can't do jack about it if you denied them observers with good turret placement and scans.

Or just go mass banshee. If somebody has sunk everything in colossi - say hallo to the banshee.

Well I just finished playing the campaign. I felt the story was a bit bog standard to be honest, didn't take any chances, and even had a nice happy ending. Other than that, the campaign structure was quite clever. I liked how you had a finite number of credits which meant you could only make a certain number of armoury/merc purchases. The science upgrades were different, you get them all, and you still have left over points to cash in. Maybe that could have been better balanced? But some of those science upgrades were fuuuuuuuuucking good. Orbital drop pods for marines? Sweet.

To be honest, I always went for the tech reactor. Hallo, three spaceports building six units at once.....Really, you do not even need to have a second factory anymore.

Orbital supply depots that are insta-built? Oh christ yes. I always hated building supply depots because it always slows shit down. And increasing the space in bunkers is awesome.

Agreed.

I played on Hard on at least 10 missions (apparently I got that as an achievement), but some missions were just an exercise in frustration on anything other than normal. The Dig was a pain in the ass on Hard, because that stupid laser cannon would always start rotating back to firing on the doors rather than on the army of archons/immortals/giant protoss warbot thingies that were approaching my bases. (I figured out you can queue up multiple targets with it) But the most frustrating aspect to it was trying to get the achievement - using the laser to burn down a number of protoss buildings. The challenge was getting a spotter to get onto the high ground. I ended up building a massive army which tended to get massacred quite regularly to the protoss defenders.

Heheh. You really only need the shift key to queue up kill orders. Other than that, two bunkers and four siegetanks at each entrance plus 6 vikings are enough to defend the base against anything, really.

Thanas you magnificent sonofabitch, if you clocked this game on brutal, I salute you.

Thanks. I played the first campaign on hard and didn't have any real trouble with it (except with the do not lose a building part on The Evacuation and Zero Hour). That one I had to restart.

So....after having already dealt with the issue of copycats, Hawkeye shouting off his mouth about how the game is played without having actually played it etc...we get back to complaining how the game is "primitive". Can we discuss something new here or shall I split the thread?

So you agree hedges for terrain is primitive then? Imagine if the ground wasn't perfectly flat.

Eh...what? Sure, SC terrain is primitive. That however is really not a problem, esopecially not in Single Player.

[Stark]

I think the SC2 campaign is way better than (say) the RA3 or CnC3 campaigns. Those games had really bland missions structure (assault ridiculous base, repel ridiculous assault, and sprawling mapfight with crap AI) and bugger all storytelling or scripting.