Starcraft 2 discussion thread

[Stark]

Interesting RTS games are frequently slammed by idiots for not conforming enough to the Starcraft standard - like World in Conflict (which has no bases) containing 'zero strategy' for that reason, despite the superior facing, terrain, TA, teamwork, etc. When people obviously consider build orders and rushing strategy, of COURSE World in Conflict doesn't have any!

Turns out people can't learn and just want to play the same game forever.

[Thanas]

^The one does not necessarily follow the other, unless you are talking about some hypothetial gamers out there who have not posted in this thread. I mean, if you just want to go "LOL GAMERS", more power to you, but I fail to see what this has got anything to do with the people who posted in this thread.

[Bedlam]

Can you access the secret mission once you've completed the campaign?

I missed it the first time round, replayed the mission and got it but as far as I can tell its not on the list of missions I can play. Do I have to do the whole campaign again?

[Stark]

^The one does not necessarily follow the other, unless you are talking about some hypothetial gamers out there who have not posted in this thread. I mean, if you just want to go "LOL GAMERS", more power to you, but I fail to see what this has got anything to do with the people who posted in this thread.

Oh yeah I'm certainly not talking about any of these guys. I've just never seen people get so excited about build orders and stuff.

[Thanas]

Can you access the secret mission once you've completed the campaign?

I missed it the first time round, replayed the mission and got it but as far as I can tell its not on the list of missions I can play. Do I have to do the whole campaign again?

You can just load a campaign save from the Korhal mission and then get the secret mission.

If you do not have a save you need to redo the whole campaign. I could shoot you one of my saves, however I do think they are profile specific.

^The one does not necessarily follow the other, unless you are talking about some hypothetial gamers out there who have not posted in this thread. I mean, if you just want to go "LOL GAMERS", more power to you, but I fail to see what this has got anything to do with the people who posted in this thread.

Oh yeah I'm certainly not talking about any of these guys. I've just never seen people get so excited about build orders and stuff.

Yeah, valid point. I myself do not like Multiplayer that much anymore - I mean, I got my specific responses to enemy tactics down now and I would like to improvise a bit, but sadly whenever I try to I get crushed precisely because I do not follow the standard layout of "X counters Y". And lag really makes a lot of macroing pretty much impossible.

It would be nice if there was some variation other than "crush the enemy".

[Stofsk]

Yeah I can't get excited about build orders, but they have one redeeming feature. You can just do them on autopilot for the first couple of minutes. But for me, the game really comes alive when surprising stuff happens which forces you to adapt to what your opponent is doing. EDIT: also the reverse, like pulling off a medevac drop into an opponent's base and then taking him down because his forces were fortified at his ramp.

[Bedlam]

Can you access the secret mission once you've completed the campaign?

I missed it the first time round, replayed the mission and got it but as far as I can tell its not on the list of missions I can play. Do I have to do the whole campaign again?

You can just load a campaign save from the Korhal mission and then get the secret mission.

If you do not have a save you need to redo the whole campaign. I could shoot you one of my saves, however I do think they are profile specific.

Thanks I'll try using the save

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

You know, I know that it's a thing in videogames now for all games to feature similar, brown-haired middle-aged male protagonists, but am I the only one who thinks that the resemblance, in both face and voice, between Jim Raynor's new look in SC2, and John Marston in RDR, would be uncanny if it weren't probably videogame hackery?

Also, on a purely fattynerd note, I much preferred Arcturus Mengsk's old look, even if it was just a tiny moving portrait.

[Thanas]

You know, I know that it's a thing in videogames now for all games to feature similar, brown-haired middle-aged male protagonists, but am I the only one who thinks that the resemblance, in both face and voice, between Jim Raynor's new look in SC2, and John Marston in RDR, would be uncanny if it weren't probably videogame hackery?

I think Blizzard is just recycling character models. Notice how Valerian looks a bit like Arthas when he is standing/moving?

Also, on a purely fattynerd note, I much preferred Arcturus Mengsk's old look, even if it was just a tiny moving portrait.

However, the new portrait does convey the messae of "I am hte emperor" quite nicely.

[Alferd Packer]

So I was playing against a Zerg on Scrap Station last night. First, he tried a Baneling bust on me, which didn't go so well (but managed to blow up my barracks, so I was exposed for a little while. He then switched over to baneling/zergling/hydra, but I managed to push him back a couple of times. He tried to Nydus me in the butt, but I spotted it and took it out. After his final attempt on my front door, where I had a nice mixed force anchored by several Thors, he just up and ragequit, and I have no idea why. He had map control, and for all I knew, had four expansions. It was really weird.

[CaptHawkeye]

Oh yeah I'm certainly not talking about any of these guys. I've just never seen people get so excited about build orders and stuff.

Some people like watching a game play itself?

[Spyder]

Yeah I can't get excited about build orders, but they have one redeeming feature. You can just do them on autopilot for the first couple of minutes. But for me, the game really comes alive when surprising stuff happens which forces you to adapt to what your opponent is doing. EDIT: also the reverse, like pulling off a medevac drop into an opponent's base and then taking him down because his forces were fortified at his ramp.

Or half way across the map.

When people start a match with "I'm not very good at this." My first thoughts are always ok, what kind of stunt are you going to pull? In this guy's case it was fast expand/build units out of expansion. His tactics might have actually worked had he actually spent all the extra minerals he was raking in. Dropped a couple of medivacs on his main and cut right through it. He quit before I could put the final squeeze on him.

2v2, Stofsk and myself against another Terran/Protoss team.

Probably lots of things we could have done better but fantastic game overall. Maintained map control with a massive wall of death involving carriers, thors, a mothership, tanks, maurauders, stalkers, and everything else we were in the mood to throw at them. They quit after they ran out of resources and we were knocking on their door.

Cheat!

Unremarkable (and very short) match, but the final comment from my opponent made me smile.

[Stark]

Yeah I can't get excited about build orders, but they have one redeeming feature. You can just do them on autopilot for the first couple of minutes. But for me, the game really comes alive when surprising stuff happens which forces you to adapt to what your opponent is doing. EDIT: also the reverse, like pulling off a medevac drop into an opponent's base and then taking him down because his forces were fortified at his ramp.

I don't consider that a redeeming feature. Being punished for innovating because the game is a spreadsheet = boring.

I just can't play 'regular' RTS after WiC, the game with 'no strategy'.

And jesus those videos are dead boring. 'I followed the manual only this time I tightened the screw 5 TIMES and won'. 'Rushing the poor unprepared sod won, so exciting'. I just don't understand how you can keep playing a game like this over and over.

[ArmorPierce]

I see it basically like a game off chess in real time. Chess is also has a bunch of standard moves you know? Do you hate chess for that?

[Serafina]

I see it basically like a game off chess in real time. Chess is also has a bunch of standard moves you know? Do you hate chess for that?

It's Stark. Of course he does.

Honestly, starting build orders are fine, as long as you get flexibility and more options later on.

[Stark]

I see it basically like a game off chess in real time. Chess is also has a bunch of standard moves you know? Do you hate chess for that?

How many effective openings are there in chess?

That's right; more than 5. Get your goddamn facts straight. I'll remember to think of you the next time someone rushes me with bishops and I used rooks and instantly lose.

OH WAIT.

[The Yosemite Bear]

hey, there's a go board over there, try solitare on that, or maybe take a some of my mood stabilizer meds.

[Zed]

I see it basically like a game off chess in real time. Chess is also has a bunch of standard moves you know? Do you hate chess for that?

How many effective openings are there in chess?

That's right; more than 5. Get your goddamn facts straight. I'll remember to think of you the next time someone rushes me with bishops and I used rooks and instantly lose.

OH WAIT.

There's also more than five effective openings in Starcraft and Starcraft 2.

Try strawmanning elsewhere.

[Stark]

Sigh. Try not being butthurt; your openings are determined by a spreadsheet. If you like that, great, but it's boring as fuck to me. Stofsk and Spyder can get excited about 'we rushed this guy and beat him', but that is just lame to me. Are you going to be butthurt about that, too?

I'm loving how you addressed the ludicrous comparison between chess and fucking SC2 though. Do you honestly, seriously think they're comparable?

[Stofsk]

Sorry guys but chess is in no way comparable to starcraft 2 no matter how much you might like the game. You will never ever lose a game of chess by being too slow with your reflexes, or making a bad rally point for your units, or forgetting a hotkey or not paying attention to various things. Chess is pretty much pure strategy and a good game can last well over an hour if not longer. Nothing is decided by luck or chance, but skill, while in starcraft you can be a good player that gets unlucky (timed a push wrong, expanded too early or too late, or whatever).

[Zed]

Timing a push wrong, expanding too early or too late, isn't luck. It's skill.

[Stark]

What I'm interested in is how late in the game it's feasible to respec. If you're both following your build order and aggressively scouting, how quickly do you reach the point where suddenly discovering you were wrong about what he's doing means you're fucked and can't react fast enough to counter?

[Stofsk]

Timing a push wrong, expanding too early or too late, isn't luck. It's skill.

Wrong. It's both. No one has perfect knowledge of what's going on in the map due to the fog of war, which means timing a push can coincide with luck just as easily as it can with skill. Lots of pro league players have timed a push wrong one game, then perfectly in another.

What I'm interested in is how late in the game it's feasible to respec. If you're both following your build order and aggressively scouting, how quickly do you reach the point where suddenly discovering you were wrong about what he's doing means you're fucked and can't react fast enough to counter?

That's an interesting question. Some players will focus on one particular unit combination which is pretty powerful. If you weren't prepared for it it is pretty hard to respec to something else. It depends on stuff like how many barracks/factories/etc do you have and how many resources you have coming in etc.

[Lord Revan]

So I was playing against a Zerg on Scrap Station last night. First, he tried a Baneling bust on me, which didn't go so well (but managed to blow up my barracks, so I was exposed for a little while. He then switched over to baneling/zergling/hydra, but I managed to push him back a couple of times. He tried to Nydus me in the butt, but I spotted it and took it out. After his final attempt on my front door, where I had a nice mixed force anchored by several Thors, he just up and ragequit, and I have no idea why. He had map control, and for all I knew, had four expansions. It was really weird.

I don't play anything but WoW online, but I got a feeling he was going for an "easy kill" and when he came to a conclution (right or false) that there was no "trick" or exploit he could use to defeat you easily he quit as he didn't want to (or even could) do anything but "beat the noobs", this ofc just just me guessing based on what you've told me and some experiences with the WoW community.

[CaptHawkeye]

Every time I hear a gamer go "it's teh skillz" I want to fucking laugh. Luck has way more to do with all competitive games than people like to think. You *cannot* control the situation on a game map in any way that would cripple the other players. That would defeat the purpose of competitive play. Essentially leaving luck and a basic amount of build tree/map location/gameplay formula memorization to the player. But hey, I guess people really think memorizing a build tree is "skill".