StarCraft II Beta

[bhodi]

I random but my protoss is strongest. Zerg is weakest by far; I fall behind on the vomit and can't use two or three at once to make up the time like I can with the other races. It's all relative, of course.


Small thing trias; I think I've said it before but lings/marines/zealots do NOT counter reapers. Queen/marauder/stalker is the counter so just make sure you get that queen out and you'll be fine.

My hotkeys:

1 Ground army
2 Air/harass army
3 Casters
4 CC/Lair/Nexus
5 Barrack/Gateway/non-queen'd hatchery (useless now that you can't vomit on portraits)
6 factory/robo
7 starport/stargate

Yes, you should use them. If you haven't seen there was a really interesting interview when day9 and a TL guy visited the blizzard offices. They talked about the single player and the efforts they are making to transition people into multiplayer. Check it out:

Challenge mode is basically a set of single player UMS maps made by Blizzard and they test specific skill sets in SC2. In the current build, there are three different missions for three different difficulty levels to give us a total of nine.

Basic: Teaches you general knowledge of unit counters and army composition
Tactical Command: Send the right Terran counter units. Protect three supply depots from waves.
Path of Ascension: Send the right Protoss counter units. Protect three pylons from enemy waves.
For the Swarm: Send the right Zerg counter units. Protect three spires from enemy waves.

Advanced: Focuses on micro tips and increasing multitasking
Covert Ops: You have a small force of terran specialists (like ghosts) and you kill as many units as possible in a given time frame.
Psionic Assault: Protoss version of above with high templars and sentries, except you have no time limit. You just beat as many waves of units as you can.
Infestation: Zerg version with roaches and infestors. Destroy as much of enemy base as you came before time runs out.

Expert: Training for multiplayer
Harbinger of Death: PvT, you can only use hotkeys and have to kill as many units as possible before time runs out.
Opening Gambit: TvZ, build up a strong econ and large army while fighting off early attacks. Aim is to optimize build order.
Rush defense: TvZ/P. Learn how to fight off rushes as a Terran.

So basically, the challenge mode trains you in the fundamentals of online play - that is, macro and micro individually, the macro/micro balance, hotkeys, and early game rush/econ management.

Wolf: TLO is my hero, but the two matches I'm looking forward to are idra vs orb (ragequit / manbaby blame) and day9 vs tasteless (family feud). Day9 is so awesome, and I hope he'll analyze the replays during a D9D because the commentators are so horrible. They're blabbing looking at some army and the minimap is exploding, or they miss some crucial bit of info or are blatantly wrong so often that I'm just wanting to mouse over and move the damn screen myself while watching the HDH replays.

[Wolf]

FPS made with the starcraft map editor. The crazyness people will create with this thing...

[Rasix]

Well, I'm playing now.  Had fun in 2 lame practice matches (won v. some people that didn't know up from down).  I don't think I've played any multiplayer RTS since some AoK with friends long, long ago.  I have no chops, but at least I'm learning the hotkeys. 

Rasix.rasix

[Fordel]

FPS made with the starcraft map editor. The crazyness people will create with this thing...

Pretty much all our new PC games will in actuality be SC2 mods.

[waffel]

This game yet again proves to me that I'm not 'cut out' for RTS games. I gave it a shot, and somehow the idea of perfect build orders, queueing up and controlling multiple units, and knowing the counters to everything isn't fun. 

[Mosesandstick]

Just got placed in silver 2v2. Would've rather been in bronze  

I'm neth.nethalas. Starting to add people. How many Europeans have we got playing?

Argh, fuck getting cannon rushed.

[Wolf]

i'm eu - wolf.iclan

[Thrawn]

Just got placed in silver 2v2. Would've rather been in bronze  

Same, I finished my 2v2 matches first but almost all of my games I had either a REALLY bad opponent or two or a really strong partner that owned the game.   So I'm worried I got placed higher then I should of been.

[Teleku]

Haha, yeah, I went through my 5 1v1 games, and only lost once.  I would just keep doing the drop marine strategy, and destroy people.  Or my opponents were really bad, and would just be doing something completely retarded.  So then suddenly it placed me in silver bracket.  Keep in mind that before this, I've pretty much never played any SC (either game) online before.  

Suddenly I run into a wall of ass raping.  

[LK]

At least the threshold you cross to ass-raping is visible. Sounds like when I get to a certain level in League of Legends, whatever that is, I will not have the lube on hand for the amount of ass-rape I'll be getting.

[Rasix]

That's why it's good to be like me and get your ass kicked during the placement games.  I'm having a hard time countering terrans that go with cloaking or dropship shenanigans.   

I've pretty much mauled every zerg and protoss player I've encountered except for my first game as zerg when I didn't know how to do anything.    I'm really bad with zerg, it makes me want to stop playing random.  They're just so much different than terran/protoss.

[Teleku]

I cannot seem to win against the damn zerg.  They can just build shit so much faster.  One game I was playing against Zerg, so I basically started pumping out Marines as fast as I could (like seriously, not sure how it could have gone faster, I had double production going), with the choke point to my base sealed off.  He still managed to bring a rush of roaches at me that managed to blow through the barrier while under fire, and kill all my marines.  Then had enough left over to go maul all my SUV's.  Guess I should rush hellions or something?

Man, people are starting to get paranoid about the drop ship strategy though.  I went to go do it and one guy had spent a shit ton of money putting missile batteries all around his mineral field.

[Thrawn]

WTF I think I'm doomed, I got put in Gold 1v1 rank 65.    I haven't played more then a dozen Starcraft games in like years and never played it seriously enough to get really good at it.  Ahhhhhhh....

[trias_e]

I cannot seem to win against the damn zerg.  They can just build shit so much faster.  One game I was playing against Zerg, so I basically started pumping out Marines as fast as I could (like seriously, not sure how it could have gone faster, I had double production going), with the choke point to my base sealed off.  He still managed to bring a rush of roaches at me that managed to blow through the barrier while under fire, and kill all my marines.  Then had enough left over to go maul all my SUV's.  Guess I should rush hellions or something?

Man, people are starting to get paranoid about the drop ship strategy though.  I went to go do it and one guy had spent a shit ton of money putting missile batteries all around his mineral field.

Marauders are key against roaches.  If he's massing roaches and you're massing marines, you're pretty much screwed unless you can kite with stim.

[trias_e]

WTF I think I'm doomed, I got put in Gold 1v1 rank 65.    I haven't played more then a dozen Starcraft games in like years and never played it seriously enough to get really good at it.  Ahhhhhhh....

On the plus side, as far as I can tell the ladder ranking does a pretty good job of adjusting you.  I went like 10-2 over my first few games and was #1 in my gold division.  Then, I started going up against platinum players constantly and getting my ass handed to me.  Ended up at like 19-23.  Now, I'm back playing gold players again and I've worked it up to 37-33.

[Margalis]

I cannot seem to win against the damn zerg.  They can just build shit so much faster.  One game I was playing against Zerg, so I basically started pumping out Marines as fast as I could (like seriously, not sure how it could have gone faster, I had double production going), with the choke point to my base sealed off.  He still managed to bring a rush of roaches at me that managed to blow through the barrier while under fire, and kill all my marines. 

As was mentioned, Marauders destroy roaches and are pretty good against most things once you get concussive shells upgrade at the tech lab.

Also if by "double production" you mean 2 barracks that really isn't all that much, if you are going for a mostly infantry army I'd have 2 rax with tech labs and one rax with reactor for marines pretty early.

[Wolf]

I've got a pretty good cheese/all in TvZ. I Just go one base 4 rax pure marauder with a timing push at about the time the stim finishes. I've yet to lose with that :)

[Megrim]

Er, how does that not lose to two-hatch speedling?

[Wolf]

people hate to scout? :)

everyone's expecting some sort of helion harass, so they go roaches and skip speed :)

[fuser]

Are they still issuing friend keys to existing accounts?

[Teleku]

I've got a pretty good cheese/all in TvZ. I Just go one base 4 rax pure marauder with a timing push at about the time the stim finishes. I've yet to lose with that :)

So, you just build 4 barracks as fast as you can, then start pumping out marauder's until you get the stimpack upgrade, then go?

[Wolf]

Are they still issuing friend keys to existing accounts?

Yep. Just got two EU keys. I've hooked up all my friends, anyone interested?

Teleku - Basically yeah, it's pretty all in, you're dead if you don't make it.

[Der Helm]

Hell, I could use a key. 

[Ironwood]

Ditto.

[K9]

I'd love a key if there's still one going 

[patience]

It's not like Blizzard can forge off into new game design territory at this point with any of their properties without pissing off their fan base.

But they are pissing off their fanbase in certain ways. The changes Blizzard has made to game mechanics is akin to the changes observed when playing Super Smash Bros Brawl in comparison to Melee or Street Fighter Alpha compared to Turbo.

The level of control needed to do complex tasks has been smoothed out so lesser dexterous players can perform them just like the transition from Melee to Brawl. Also various game design flaws from SC1 were removed from SC2 and it was these flaws that created new levels of skill like you would get in Turbo unlike Alpha.

These points are relevant because these game mechanics gave a person a deeper avenue of refining their skill sets but I find it troublesome that they think even though the gap has been lowered obvious skill gaps don't exist. Otherwise we wouldn't be seeing the same group of people in the various beta tournaments (ignoring the inherent bias of certain invitationals)

[Wolf]

I'd love a key if there's still one going 

all out :( The friend thing is going around though, I'm sure more will pop up

[Malakili]

It's not like Blizzard can forge off into new game design territory at this point with any of their properties without pissing off their fan base.

But they are pissing off their fanbase in certain ways. The changes Blizzard has made to game mechanics is akin to the changes observed when playing Super Smash Bros Brawl in comparison to Melee or Street Fighter Alpha compared to Turbo.

Good analysis of this:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=121769

[Fordel]

From the article:

Do we have conclusive evidence to support this? No, not really. But somewhere in our hearts we know it to be true. We feel in our hearts, without being able to explain it, that Starcraft 2 is a game where one’s strategic choices make up for more than one’s individual skill. Somewhere all of us get the feeling that the build orders we choose are of greater importance than the way we micro. That the number of units we produce is of greater significance than the way we control them. Frankly put: that Starcraft 2 requires less skill.

Am I crazy for thinking that yes, yes your strategy should outweigh your ability to dance 6 muta's?


I understand the desire for super micro control from these top players, but sometimes I think they would be at their happiest just having 10vs10 Drone matches, the best micro'er wins it all!

[Margalis]

That piece is retarded and is just an illustration of the phenomenon where the more you like a game the more likely you are to dislike the sequel.

Starcraft 2 has some problems but "not similar enough to Starcraft" is not one of them, if anything the game is way too similar to Starcraft.

[Malakili]

From the article:

Do we have conclusive evidence to support this? No, not really. But somewhere in our hearts we know it to be true. We feel in our hearts, without being able to explain it, that Starcraft 2 is a game where one’s strategic choices make up for more than one’s individual skill. Somewhere all of us get the feeling that the build orders we choose are of greater importance than the way we micro. That the number of units we produce is of greater significance than the way we control them. Frankly put: that Starcraft 2 requires less skill.

Am I crazy for thinking that yes, yes your strategy should outweigh your ability to dance 6 muta's?


I understand the desire for super micro control from these top players, but sometimes I think they would be at their happiest just having 10vs10 Drone matches, the best micro'er wins it all!

I think the distinction that is lacking, generally, is that pro starcraft players are generally not RTS fans, they are Starcraft 1 fans.  To them, it isn't about playing a strategy game, its about playing Starcraft, and right now playing starcraft means all those micro mechanics in SC1.  Remember, its like a sport to these people, so imagine if the NBA decided they were going to release NBA 2 next season, and they were going to lower the hoop to 8 feet to make the game more playable by amateurs.  You can imagine there would probably be some backlash among the NBA players.

[patience]

From the article:


Am I crazy for thinking that yes, yes your strategy should outweigh your ability to dance 6 muta's?

So de-emphasizing the importance of tactics is a good thing in a strategy game?

Maybe it is but its a risk to change up the Starcraft style of strategy gaming and not just use these types of changes in another RTS brand.

[lamaros]

Stop being stupid.

[patience]

Instead of a pointless attack offer an objective point worth thinking about.

[Ingmar]

From the article:


Am I crazy for thinking that yes, yes your strategy should outweigh your ability to dance 6 muta's?

So de-emphasizing the importance of tactics is a good thing in a strategy game?

Maybe it is but its a risk to change up the Starcraft style of strategy gaming and not just use these types of changes in another RTS brand.

I think it can be a good thing, sure. Not every strategy game needs to have the same emphasis on every facet - in fact I would argue it is a much much better thing for gamers to have a range of styles to pick from. This one may not be your bag, but there are other choices.