StarCraft II Beta

[Goreschach]

Yeah, nobody ever masses muta.

[Malakili]

Yeah, nobody ever masses muta.

More to the point, noone masses thors.

[Fordel]

If any Terran is able to pump out that many Thor's, they've already won 15 minutes ago.



The REAL question would be is the Thor now worth more then say just another bunch of Marines or Vikings. Is it worth dragging a couple of them along, slowing down the rest of your forces? Shit, is a Thor worth more then just bringing an SCV along to make Turrets everywhere you go? 

[Wolf]

hum...


          o Spore Crawler

                + The cost has been decreased from 100 to 75.

Nice... But the banshees got more health. I play a zerg and every single terran in platinum has learned to wall off without supplies and rush banshees. They're a bitch to deal with early on, even worse because scouting banshees is super hard and their natural counters get destroyed by helions...

Also on the gold vs platinum players - before the reset I was a solid top 10 gold player, right now I'm struggling keeping above 1000ELO in platinum. So I'd say I disagree.

If anyone on eu wants to add me: wolf.iclan

[Margalis]

The lack of Zerg anti-air in tier one seems like it could become a major balance nightmare. It really limits how good all the other air units in the game can be given that a zerg player with one or two queens has to be able to survive against them or protect their overlords.

[Wolf]

There were a glorious couple of weeks before Terrans cought up, when baneling bust would work in 95% of the games. Right after that the helion opening was really popular, and it was pretty good, you get out a couple of roaches while teching up, counter that, you bought tech up and expansion up and you have a game. And the last couple of weeks I've been getting Banshee rushed almost every time, it's super annoying. Been trying to figure out a way to ninja suicide a slow overlord to scout, but if I miss the timing I just lose an ovie and learn nothing.

Anyway, what they want you to do right now is turtle up, which I really hate :(

It's pretty awesome how quickly the meta game is evolving in beta though :)

[Megrim]

There were a glorious couple of weeks before Terrans cought up, when baneling bust would work in 95% of the games. Right after that the helion opening was really popular, and it was pretty good, you get out a couple of roaches while teching up, counter that, you bought tech up and expansion up and you have a game. And the last couple of weeks I've been getting Banshee rushed almost every time, it's super annoying. Been trying to figure out a way to ninja suicide a slow overlord to scout, but if I miss the timing I just lose an ovie and learn nothing.

Anyway, what they want you to do right now is turtle up, which I really hate :(

It's pretty awesome how quickly the meta game is evolving in beta though :)

Take fast natural and turtle while massing roaches. Get lair, research tunneling hooks. Fight off the shee harass and burrow your roach mass into his main. 99% of terrans don't build sensor towers or missile turrets.

[Wolf]

Fight off the shee harass

Just like that :)))) Roaches don't shoot up you know :)

[Lakov_Sanite]

This game is still in beta and the geek talk is already so thick you'd need a machete to cut it.

[Malakili]

This game is still in beta and the geek talk is already so thick you'd need a machete to cut it.

Why should whether or not the game is in beta factor into it?

[Fordel]

Take fast natural and turtle while massing roaches. Get lair, research tunneling hooks. Fight off the shee harass and burrow your roach mass into his main. 99% of terrans don't build sensor towers or missile turrets.

The lack of sensor towers really boggles my mind. I always build at least 1 at my main. If I have the spare gas, I'll just make a entire sensor net, it's almost like a maphack or cheat code at that point!

[Malakili]

Take fast natural and turtle while massing roaches. Get lair, research tunneling hooks. Fight off the shee harass and burrow your roach mass into his main. 99% of terrans don't build sensor towers or missile turrets.

The lack of sensor towers really boggles my mind. I always build at least 1 at my main. If I have the spare gas, I'll just make a entire sensor net, it's almost like a maphack or cheat code at that point!

I always forget I can make them as Terran.  Then again, I just started playing random since the last reset and before that had played a grand total of 1 game of terran v. very easy computer when I first got into the beta just to see everything.  But yeah, I always see the ring when I am playing as Zerg or something and think, sonnofabitch now its going to be hard to sneak in a nydus worm.

[Fordel]

That's exactly why every Terran should have at least one guarding their main, easiest protection against the damn tunnel worm.

[Megrim]

Fight off the shee harass

Just like that :)))) Roaches don't shoot up you know :)

Ok fair point, it's no that easy. But still - it's not that hard either. I'd say most of the difficulty comes from scouting it correctly, because after that queen/spore should do it. Banshees come way late, unless he does some weirdo double-gas before rax build, and even then, he is investing so much gas into the off-chance of doing enough damage that probably just building six or so reapers with +1 weapons would be more effective.

Th opening is analogous to the fast void-ray in pvz. If you over commit (or, like most zerg trained by star1 are just greedy and assume that you can get your natural for free), yes it can kill you. Actually, i'd go so far as to say that stargate openings for p are more dangerous to zerg, because he can reinforce his void-rays with phoenix and do cheesy shit like graviton beam your queens and hydra to kill them in the air.

[Wolf]

Well the big deal is that one banshee can kill one queen, even before they got extra health. I've been playing around with a build - 14 Pool, 14 Hatch, one gas, quick evo chamber and about that time sack an overlord to scout - that will be about the time he'll either have the 3rd rax building, the starport building, or some sort of addon for his factory - so I know what he does and respond correctly. The thing is that this is highly dependant on timing and sacking the overlord at the correct time. Found a friend of a friend that's playing terran, going to do some customs tonight :)

Once I figure that out, I think I'll start playing random for a bit. Get to see all match ups and learn all races before I go back to playing Zerg.

btw void ray timing is quite later than the banshee harass and you can see it from a mile, due to the quite later AA and having an overlord see everything - like getting double gas, straight tech with one gate, etc.

[Malakili]

Truth be told, this is starting to wear on me.  I'm only in Bronze division for 1v1, so maybe its a matter of skill level, but I really feel like it is rush or be rushed, and the vast majority of games I play are over, or have effectively been decided by the 10 minute mark(often by the 6 or 7 minute mark).  Try for an interesting build order and you're likely to get demolished by something very standard.   Maybe I just suck, and that is a very real possibility, but I find myself winning and losing about equal number of games, and the ones where I win its because I did something really standard and pushed early.  If I try to harass early while teching up, or something, I end up not having enough units to defend the inevitable big push that is going to come around 7 minutes into the game.  If I try to wall in as terran and tech up while defending, I get overwhelmed early.  

I play random, and that is part of the problem I guess, I still don't feel comfortable with all the matchups.  But even as I learn and get better, I feel like I'm basically tied to a small handful of strategies or I might as well just gg right from the start.


Also yes, I just did have a pretty bad losing streak where I was trying out different strategies, so part of this post is just pure frustrating coming out, and it probably isn't indicative of my overall experience in SC2, but it does seem to be going more and more in this direction.

Anyone else have an opinion on this that is in the beta?

[Lantyssa]

That's exactly why I only played cooperatively against AI in the first game.

[bhodi]

I play random, and that is part of the problem I guess, I still don't feel comfortable with all the matchups.  But even as I learn and get better, I feel like I'm basically tied to a small handful of strategies or I might as well just gg right from the start.

Also yes, I just did have a pretty bad losing streak where I was trying out different strategies, so part of this post is just pure frustrating coming out, and it probably isn't indicative of my overall experience in SC2, but it does seem to be going more and more in this direction.

Anyone else have an opinion on this that is in the beta?

Yep. Sadly, the entire early to early-mid game is basically 2-3 different builds per race. Then again, there weren't that many in SC1 either, so there isn't much difference. I'm definitely hoping they will tune up things to allow a few more interesting strategies. The recent buff to defensive structures should limit a few of the extreme rushes.

In bronze it very much is 'copy the latest strategy'. In the lower games, a backdoor/harassment works extremely well, as does rush to air, so you might want to try that.

[Wolf]

Well standart play is standart because it's incredibly solid. The more you try to be tricky, the bigger the chance you fail and the more it requires of you as a player. The original starcraft more or less has one viable "strategy" for each match up and it all boils up to execution, but as there is no "skill cap" it's a very entertaining game to spectate. It was an incredibly big deal when last season Flash (korean pro) figured out a new way to open vs. protoss, which secured him an earlier expo. The result was him dominating both star leagues. I'm going to guess starcraft 2 will move in that direction too, it's what the game is.

It's kind of hard to give you some tips as you play random, but right now only mirrors are relegated to "do this or die" and even that is chaning a bit (right now there's two viable strategies in zvz). Anyway, you should be getting longer games, maybe try to build some more static defenses and expand early if you don't want quick games. If you go for macro games, however, remember to upgrade whatever unit composition you're going to be using.

edit: just noticed something in your post. Well 10 minute is hardly a rush, a rush is if someone six pool'ed you and you have zerglings in your base at the 3 minute mark. A 13-15 minute game is a very standard game with at least one huge army battle (like 120ish control each), a 20 minute game is rare, anything above that is an "epic" game :) Especially in SC2 with the new macro mechanics, games start rolling real quick.

[Malakili]

Well standart play is standart because it's incredibly solid. The more you try to be tricky, the bigger the chance you fail and the more it requires of you as a player. The original starcraft more or less has one viable "strategy" for each match up and it all boils up to execution, but as there is no "skill cap" it's a very entertaining game to spectate. It was an incredibly big deal when last season Flash (korean pro) figured out a new way to open vs. protoss, which secured him an earlier expo. The result was him dominating both star leagues. I'm going to guess starcraft 2 will move in that direction too, it's what the game is.

It's kind of hard to give you some tips as you play random, but right now only mirrors are relegated to "do this or die" and even that is chaning a bit (right now there's two viable strategies in zvz). Anyway, you should be getting longer games, maybe try to build some more static defenses and expand early if you don't want quick games. If you go for macro games, however, remember to upgrade whatever unit composition you're going to be using.

edit: just noticed something in your post. Well 10 minute is hardly a rush, a rush is if someone six pool'ed you and you have zerglings in your base at the 3 minute mark. A 13-15 minute game is a very standard game with at least one huge army battle (like 120ish control each), a 20 minute game is rare, anything above that is an "epic" game :) Especially in SC2 with the new macro mechanics, games start rolling real quick.

I think part of it is game snese.  I have a real tough time "feeling" when its the right time to attack, not to attack, etc.  I feel like I'm just wining it all the time, and I am terrible at scouting after the early game, I just forget to do it, even when I tell myself before the game, scout scout scout, it just gets lost in my desperate attempt to keep up in terms of macro.  I feel like I don't have the "mental bandwidth" required to play these games as well I want to, when I sit down and think about it, I can think of a dozen things I could've done better in any given game, but then when I got and play again, I make the same mistakes.  Its supremely frustrating.

For example:  I was just playing a TvP.  I decided to go for MMM.  I successfully destroyed his exapansion, then went to attack his main base with 3 drop ships filled with MM.  I saw about 5 stalkers and was so worried that my medivacs were going to die before I could drop, losing everything in them, that I pulled back.  Later, I got attacked and killed (about 3 minutes later).  The guy informed me that if I had attacked right at the moment when i ALMOST did, I probably would have beaten him.    That sort of total lack of feel for what the right decision is what really gets me, because I don't seem to be improving all the much in that area.  Sure, my ability to micro and macro gets better the more I play, but I'm pretty bad at deciding what I actually need to do to win.

[Megrim]

Post replays brosef, it's the only way we can help you.

[Teugeus]

The only way you get a "feel" for when to attack is by playing more games. I had the same problem too but just persevered and noticed certain paterns as to how big an enemies army can possibly be at any point in time as long as he hasn't sneaked in a gold mineral expansion somewhere but then that's only dealt with by being aggressive and learning to meaintain map control long enough for you to expand and contain the enemy. Playing it safe is a much better way to get better then trying wild builds when your macro/micro mechanics aren't as good as you would like. Once your "mechanics" are up to par, you can start experimenting with your builds and toying with your enemy.

[Fordel]

Something about the Zerg just breaks my brain when I try to play them. Something about how all their production is centralized around the hatch/larva's, I never get a good handle on it. I just seem to go from hundreds of minerals to zero minerals to hundreds again, in these huge chunks.

[Teugeus]

I know what you mean, they really don't work for me either. The amount of larva they can spawn if you have 2 hatch + 2 queen is just too much for me to get my head round. You really need to plan ahead as to when you're going to either save up larvea for units or build drones for a stronger econ.

[Margalis]

Zerg in 2v2 is frustrating, no way to protect your base

I just played a game where my base was killed and I spent the rest of the time flying around with a single Overseer spotting enemy expansions, scouting and detecting cloaked units. We won but it was pretty silly.

[Fordel]

Sentries are awesome 

part 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwz9hh3Ch8c
part 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUJ5rsGfKNU


One or two is a nice little addition, but if you can reach a certain critical mass, it just gets ridiculous. 

[Margalis]

I just played an awesome 2v2, me Zerg and my Protoss newb random partner against coordinated double zerg. The enemy team built tons of lings, banelings and hydralisks. They kept almost taking down our base (this was Twilight Fortress, the map where you start next to your partner with one shared choke) but they couldn't quite seal the deal. I was steadily teching and they weren't. Finally they push in and my partner quits. As he's quitting about 20 of my zerglings hatch and kill the hydras that were killing his base. So to counter the huge number of banelings I switch to roaches along with ultras and start hoarding ultras. This is the first game I've played where I've even *seen* an ultra. Meanwhile I have no idea how to play as protoss so in my partner's base I queue up some immortals and some carriers. So now I have one carrier, 2 immortals, about 10 roaches and 4 or 5 ultralisks, march straight into the opponent's base and take it out while other ultralisks run around the map taking down their expansions.

This is the second game I've won well after my partner quit out. I played about the last 9 minutes 2 on 1. Very satisfying to win that way.

Thanks god they didn't go air because the one carrier was the only thing I had that could hit air at all.

[Malakili]

I'm tempted to say I'm done with this game.  I've had a love hate relationship with it every moment since installing it, and I just don't think I can take it anymore.  Its a combination of me not being very good at RTS games to begin with, the absolutely brutal learning curve, the razor slim margin for error even in lower level leagues.  I just feel totally defeated by it, then went for e-sport, and they definitely got it, I just can't handle it. 

Even when I feel like I am getting better at the game, I feel like I'm getting better slower than the rest of my competition, its just such a losing battle, and I'm only in the god damn bronze league, fuck that.  Whatever it is that one needs to play and be good at Starcraft 2, I don't have it, and I don't care enough to acquire it.   

Its a good game, Blizzard did a good job on it, i just don't think its for me.  Sad to say.

[Quinton]

I've always found there are effectively three different "games" in an RTS like this...

There's the single player campaign which can be a lot of fun if you're into that (but it's not part of beta).

There's the playing online against the crazy hardcore people which wears me down pretty fast.

There's lan play with friends or coworkers, which was how I always played, and I found more enjoyable.

[Ollie]

Whatever it is that one needs to play and be good at Starcraft 2, I don't have it, and I don't care enough to acquire it.   

If it's any consolation, I'm in the same boat. I fully acknowledge that I might as well play RTS games by rolling my face on the keyboard, so any attempt to really get into titles like SC2 will only end in frustration – especially as the will to get better is not really there.

I do enjoy watching skilful players and reading discussions on strategy though, because I can follow to an extent and recognise the genius within. Anything more involving than cheering on the sidelines and enjoyment gives way to tears.

[Margalis]

The pace of the game really is super fast and there is very little margin for error given how quickly battles go and how quickly bases die. It's very stressful. I think you have to be content to know you probably won't be among the top players and be ok with that.

[K9]

I've always found there are effectively three different "games" in an RTS like this...

There's the single player campaign which can be a lot of fun if you're into that (but it's not part of beta).

There's the playing online against the crazy hardcore people which wears me down pretty fast.

There's lan play with friends or coworkers, which was how I always played, and I found more enjoyable.

I'm in it for just 1 and 3 myself.

[Malakili]

The pace of the game really is super fast and there is very little margin for error given how quickly battles go and how quickly bases die. It's very stressful. I think you have to be content to know you probably won't be among the top players and be ok with that.

I don't mind not being among the top players, I have no illusions about being like, legitimately good, I'd just like to have an RTS for once where I can reliably get consistent, fun, evenly matched games. Sometimes I win sometimes I lose, rarely I get a long even matched back and forth game, or even a close short game for that matter.  I mean, maybe I make myself sound worse than I am, I have roughly the same amount of losses and wins at any given time, I just feel like whoever I get matched up against almost entirely determines whether I win or lose.

But like you said, its very stressful.  I don't mind stress in the "oh wow this is really close omg omg omg" type moments, but this is the kind of stress that makes me feel that twinge in my chest when I even boot up the game, knowing that if I don't play perfect (or, as well as I can, to be more exact), I might as well not play at all, and thats just not the fun kind of stress that can be equated with excitement, its the kind of stress that I get enough in real life without having to worry about it in video games.

[bhodi]

I don't mind not being among the top players, I have no illusions about being like, legitimately good, I'd just like to have an RTS for once where I can reliably get consistent, fun, evenly matched games. Sometimes I win sometimes I lose, rarely I get a long even matched back and forth game, or even a close short game for that matter.  I mean, maybe I make myself sound worse than I am, I have roughly the same amount of losses and wins at any given time, I just feel like whoever I get matched up against almost entirely determines whether I win or lose.

This is a ladder system designed well. We play together fairly well, and we are both above average players. We're also correctly placed with other above average players; Only one or two of our many games have been a stomping one way or the other, and, like you, my win/loss record is almost completely even.

I would not worry overmuch about playing against big burly men; unlike, say, LoL, you are actually paired with people of your skill level, whether you are a korean APM monster or a 65 year old arthritic grandmother with a baby on her lap.

Even in the beta, there are enough people playing that I've only gotten severely and obviously outclassed a handful of times (in 100+ games). When it goes live, The number of people will increase 10fold, many of them on the lower/less skilled area of play.

The only regret I have is that I'm unable to experiment and try new things, since I'll get steamrolled. But then again, that's what FFA and custom games are for I suppose.

[Fordel]

The SC2 devs have mentioned that they are a little worried that the Beta experience is a little like throwing someone into the shark tank and asking them to learn to swim.


The Retail game will be much more friendly to average joe, with multiple AI levels to fight against and a wider variety of non-ladder games to choose from. Hell even just being to play the game on 'normal' speed instead of whatever it currently defaults too would be a big boon for me personally.