StarCraft II Beta

[K9]

Build in base is probably the most depressing way to loose I think.

[Malakili]

Build in base is probably the most depressing way to loose I think.

Its stuff like this that turns me away from SC multiplayer actually, just because I can't log on and guartentee I'm actually going to have a game I consider "good."  "L2P, L2Scout" etc etc be damned, there are just way too many games that end real quick in a fashion that just isn't really enjoyable for me.  Thats why I've preferred something like DoW2 actually.  What you give up of course is that the early game is much more limited compared to the options you have in SC, but the trade off that you get many more games that go to the "late game" is worth it in my opinion.

[Rendakor]

Been spending some time with custom maps. Here's my report:
*snip*

Thanks for this. I spent way more time playing custom games in both the original SC and WC3 than the actual multiplayer. I hope I get some time to try these out before the beta ends. That's this Monday, right?

[Rasix]

Build in base is probably the most depressing way to loose I think.

It's not even a good game if you win.  There's a lot I could have done to beat it.  I now know that I'll need to be checking for that cheese every time, which is going to cut into my scouting since the base area is just so fucking big on Steppes.  Even if you do spot it, he's going to get that pylon up before you can do anything about it.  Maybe the forge too.  You can't really skip the wall off as a Terran on that map because the rush distance is just so short and direct.

It's just lame.  Happened right after a good game too, where a guy saw that I had a lot of marines and did a huge roach push that caught me off guard.  I had my SCVs killing off roaches.    Ended up coming back and winning mainly because the guy got over confident and didn't expand. Guy should have gone mutas to exploit my shift to marauders and instead went hydras.. *splat*.

edit: hah.  He seven pooled me too! And he did expand after all, just really late.

[Fordel]

Lord I suck at zerg, I don't even grasp the basic mechanics. I suck at Protoss too, but I at least have an idea of how it works, I just make shitty decisions currently.


With Zerg though...

"Why do I have 1500 Minerals?"
"Why don't I have ANY Minerals?"
"I have 5 expansions, but I seem to only be mining from 1 of them..."
"Why do his zealots outnumber my zerglings?"


The Whole Larva/Hatch thing just breaks my mind. The only games I've won as zerg, are the ones where I scout my opponent, see he hasn't made any units other then SCV's or whatever and send my six zerglings in, followed by more zerglings until he rage quits. If the game lasts longer then like, 10 minutes, I'm screwed. I won't know what to build, or how to build it, or how to keep it reinforced properly.


Stupid Fat Zerg!

[Ironwood]

Can someone explain the matching system ?

It looks in your own skilled ladder and if it doesn't find anyone, it expands the search to the retard pool, yeah ?

Make something other than marines you stupid fuck.  You had marines against battlecruisers, 3 starports, 6k and no fucking vikings anywhere.  No, it's ok, I'll just sit here and get RAPED.

[K9]

Lord I suck at zerg, I don't even grasp the basic mechanics. I suck at Protoss too, but I at least have an idea of how it works, I just make shitty decisions currently.


With Zerg though...

"Why do I have 1500 Minerals?"
"Why don't I have ANY Minerals?"
"I have 5 expansions, but I seem to only be mining from 1 of them..."
"Why do his zealots outnumber my zerglings?"


The Whole Larva/Hatch thing just breaks my mind. The only games I've won as zerg, are the ones where I scout my opponent, see he hasn't made any units other then SCV's or whatever and send my six zerglings in, followed by more zerglings until he rage quits. If the game lasts longer then like, 10 minutes, I'm screwed. I won't know what to build, or how to build it, or how to keep it reinforced properly.


Stupid Fat Zerg!

Zerg take some getting used to, but I think they're the most fun to be honest. Aside from 6-zerling rushes, wins as Zerg feel more satisfying than wins where you just pummel someone with Void Rays or Marauders.

The hardest thing about zergling is managing drones and your base. Getting in the habit of vomiting your queen just takes habituation. The thing that requires thought is remembering to replace drones you convert into buildings. After that just focus on spreading creep from creep tumors and keeping pressure on your opponent. Zerg's main strength is their mobility, so you want to be all over the map. Don't turtle!

The nice thing is that there doesn't seem to be a cap on the number of larvae you can have vomited up at a hatch. So you can produce quite large numbers quickly. Mid-game, if you fight an enemy army to a standstill as zerg you can be back up in their face quicker than they can be back up in yours. But all this does take getting used to.

Can someone explain the matching system ?

It looks in your own skilled ladder and if it doesn't find anyone, it expands the search to the retard pool, yeah ?

Make something other than marines you stupid fuck.  You had marines against battlecruisers, 3 starports, 6k and no fucking vikings anywhere.  No, it's ok, I'll just sit here and get RAPED.

It baffles me too; I think it's just that down here at the low end there are just some genuinely terrible players. Also, you might be getting placement matches.

[Ironwood]

Hatchery sits at 3 larvae until you put a queen in there.  At this stage, I've yet to find a hard cap.  She seems able just to keep producing them.  Not that I've tried - More Hydras pls.

[K9]

Banshee harass is pretty fun.

[Malakili]

Seems like lots of people disgruntled with Bnet 2.0.  I know lots of people think Husky is annoying, but I think this video basically summarizes it pretty nicely.  A few tangents that can be skipped.   Also, kittens.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-r_uCaFxg8&playnext_from=TL&videos=HJq7LQQdRSk&feature=sub

[Trippy]

B.Net has always sucked. It's no shock the latest version sucks too.

[Rasix]

His 2 major issues I don't care about.  I dislike how unworkable the current friend system is and how the GUI taxes my comp worse than an actual 1v1.

[Musashi]

That guy couldn't possibly be a bigger twat.  I don't care about anything he said.  No lan?  So?  What the fuck is the difference between having a lan party and logging into B.net?  I guess you can't play this game multi-player in places without the internet.  Which is, like, the Himalayas.  Boo Hoo.  No chat rooms?  So?  The only thing I've ever used a B.net chat room for is to type 'penis' in between 1 and when the game started.

[trias_e]

I agree with him entirely.  Bnet 2.0 is total shit.  It does absolutely nothing useful except matchmaking, which Warcraft 3 did perfectly fine in Bnet 1.0.

[Musashi]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought B.net 2.0 was supposed to introduce cross-platform functionality - ala Steam.  In addition to matchmaking, what else do you want it to do?

OR

I think this outcry is an overreaction.

[Margalis]

It's pretty bad.

Adding friends is retarded and the interface is terrible. It's so unintuitive to do anything, nothing is where you think it would be and the whole thing is a big mess. Plus it has basically zero functionality. It's also super buggy when it comes to things like party management. I got it to hard lock by adding myself as a fiend - lol.

Doing very simple things like creating a custom game is a chore. And again it has so little functionality there's no reason for it to be so obscure.

[Ingmar]

Wow, I haven't really had any trouble with it. 

[Margalis]

How often do you form parties?

So often I'll be in a party and on my screen 2 people aren't showing up and on someone else's they are, or the party gets screwed up and we have to break up and re-form it.

[Fordel]

The biggest issue (out side of the actual bugs and shitty performance) atm is the friends list. I'm hoping this was just them forcing people to use the Real ID system for testing in the Beta or something.

[Malakili]

Well he says pretty much at the beginning that for those who just want to log in and play random games, its fine, which is probably the huge majority of people here.  But I can see how the long time Starcraft fan base that takes things a little more seriously would want functionality like chats, and the ability to create named/passworded private games.  Frankly, I don't even know if I'll be buying the game anyway, I've been going back and forth on it for months, but it does seem that Bnet 2.0 isn't really much of a step up from Bnet 1.0, and you would expect more.

[Rasix]

Ohohoho.  Made a protoss cannon pusher ragequit.   Yes, I found that first pylon.  Yes, cannons on the low ground outside my base are going to die really fast against those siege tanks I just built (he lost a lot of stuff on the low ground to marauders too).  I'm not sure why the guy didn't just abandon the attempt and go straight after I scouted the pylon and beat down his probe.

In silver right now, I only seem to lose to cheese or other Terrans running odd marine/tank only builds.  I need to scout that shit better and find an appropriate counter. Beating quite a few higher ranked golds. Heh.

[Mosesandstick]

Between bnet and what I've heard about custom games, I'm pretty sure I'm going to wait on this purchase, which is surprising as SC2 is the first game I've tried to play 'seriously' and enjoyed.

[K9]

The BNet interface is horribly sluggish; I just assumed they used the same people who built the armoury website, since that runs at the speed of a lead balloon too.

[Ironwood]

I have since found that in addition to matching ME with retards at a much lower level, the service will match higher players with, er, ME.

I felt awful, since I was thrust into a 2v2 where I was utterly unprepared for the level of skill on display.  Watching the replay just made my jaw drop.  He used burrowed banelings at the choke and took out my entire force while my ally cursed and cursed.

Actually, my ally (though skilled as fuck) had that ignorance that annoys me;  he clearly assumed I was in his league and didn't bother to talk.  At all.

GO RUSH at the start is not a strategy.  It's a call to disaster.

It was a good game though. Sometimes you get beat so fucking hard all you can do is say gg and mean it.  Well played.

[K9]

Same here, I just got matched against three gold players. One of whom managed to make me quit out of boredom, the others gave me good fight. Fucking hell though, a terran turtles half the map on Lost Temple and just sits there while using a back of battlecruisers to snipe overlords? He never made a push on my but just sat keeping me hemmed in until I got bored.

Zerg have zero counters for battlecruisers, its depressing.

[Ironwood]

A mix of Hydras and Corrupters will do the job.  It allows you to morph the corrupters for the big push.

Upgraded Hydras appear to be our answer to everything.

 

[Ironwood]

Just on another related note :  I've noticed that the higher level players of Zerg have managed to master the art of the multiple hatcheries.  It's frightening. 

Now, I'm not talking about building units; that's fairly straightforward.  I'm talking about the actual logistical challenge of building and maintaining them.  They seem to know exactly how much they'll need to put down a hatch and have a queen out asap making shitloads of drones.  Once they're up, the units just pour from them like the wrath of God.  One of the chaps I played against had four up and running to my two and had more Mutalisks than Jesus*.  Despite being a weakass unit, he could chop and change and harrass the fuck out of me till I just died from sheer frustration.

For me, I can setup one fairly quickly, but getting that Queen, gas harvesting and proper drones in place takes me ages.  Usually the hatchery sits there with one drone till I can dedicate time to nourish it.

Playing Zerg seems to be the biggest challenge - especially since our defenses are further divided into land and air and, frankly, suck.


*There's a little known passage in the 2nd Letter to the Corinthians that tells us that Jesus had a fuckload of Mutalisks.  Strange but True**



**Not true.

[Malakili]

Just on another related note :  I've noticed that the higher level players of Zerg have managed to master the art of the multiple hatcheries.  It's frightening. 

Well, I'm certainly not a higher level zerg player, but I did play zerg when I was playing in the beta before switching to random, and zerg is my best race by far.  Zerg are all about map control, many expansions, and such.  You should always have 1-2 more expansions than your opponent, and if you are going for a macro heavy build I've even see zerg players get their natural expansion BEFORE their spawning pool on a 4 player map.    Some things to remember:

1) Never stop building drones, if you over saturate one base, it doesn't matter, when you put down a new hatchery, ferry over the extras and your income will go through the roof.

2) Zerg can do ungodly timing attacks because the nature of spawn larvae.  You can pump out a dozen of the unit you just finished the tech for if you have the larvae and resources in the time it would take another race to build 1 unit.  Use this to your advantage.

3)Use your Zerglings in the early game to your advantage to get map control early in the game.  They are cheap, and relatively effective.  They dominate the very early game because you can produce so many of them.

4) Build a queen AS SOON as your spawning pool finishes, and have one queen per hatchery.  You can sometimes get away with less, but its far more micro intensive.

5) Use creep tumor with your queens and spread the creep around the map.  This is super important but I feel like a lot of zerg players just spread it around their base(s).  It only costs energy one time and then you can just keep it going all over the map.  Your units build faster on the creep, so its very worth it.

[K9]

I'm in the same boat as Ironwood, I can manage one or two at high efficiency, after that my mind begins to melt. That said, for all the frustration, Zerg are probably still the race I find most fun to play.

On the protoss front, 4 gate robo is a pretty fun build.

Terran remain dull dull dull

[Malakili]

I'm in the same boat as Ironwood, I can manage one or two at high efficiency, after that my mind begins to melt. That said, for all the frustration, Zerg are probably still the race I find most fun to play.

On the protoss front, 4 gate robo is a pretty fun build.

Terran remain dull dull dull

Yeah, it is a lot more difficult than it used to be now that they nerfed using spawn larvae through the interface and now you actually have to go back to each of your bases to do it.  One of the stupidest things I've seen Blizzard do honestly.  In a game designed to seemingly lessen the micro intensity from the first game and make it more accessible, they removed a feature that made it far more feasible for people of average APM.  Then again, like I said in my last post, I don't actually play anymore, because I feel like blizzard has no idea what their multiplayer game is supposed to be like.  I'll probably by it for the single player when it comes out, but the multiplayer just isn't very fun to me.

  I have FAR more fun watching SC2 than I do playing SC2 and thanks to the fact that there are plenty of people casting games, I can get my SC2 fix without the frustrating of actually having to play.

[Rasix]

Tried a few games as Protoss.  Pretty fun when you've played quite a few.  

Both times though, I got six pooled. Second time I held it off (with my probes) and the guy relented into a roach build.  Where he tried too.. micro roaches against my stalkers.    Then I was able to get up 4 gateways and a 3 robos. The resulting heavy stalker/colossi (with some zealots/immortal/sentry thrown in) push evaporated his entire army and bases in seconds.    

Protoss might be a bit better for my lack of micro'ing skill.  Warp gate is such a wonderful mechanic.wsclickwsclickwsclickwsclickwsclickwsclickwsclickwsclickwsclickwsclick So is chrono-boosting.   I might keep playing these guys for a bit, athough I imagine not being able to force-field worth a darn could limit me.

[Ironwood]

An Ally who built 10 Warp Gates and then sat with 5k in the bank.

I don't think he quite understood that to be worth it, you're required to CLICK the Warp Gate.

He'd have done better with Gateways.  I only understood this after watching the replay.  I kept asking, 'Where's the units' but only when we were being massacred and noticed his 10 Warp Gates did I wonder....

[K9]

Protoss might be a bit better for my lack of micro'ing skill.  Warp gate is such a wonderful mechanic.wsclickwsclickwsclickwsclickwsclickwsclickwsclickwsclickwsclickwsclick So is chrono-boosting.   I might keep playing these guys for a bit, athough I imagine not being able to force-field worth a darn could limit me.

Yeah, I like that too. I'm getting better with forcefields, a lot of their function comes from planning to use them in advance. They're the same mechanic as warp gates, you just need to place them right. Try to arrange fights on ramps to get the hang of it. It also means that a couple of sentries can hold higher ground by blocking a choke. It's an incredibly powerful ability, and so satisfying when you manage to chop an enemy army in half and take it apart.

Is beta finished now?

[Rasix]

I thought I saw somewhere that we get another week.

[Rendakor]

That guy couldn't possibly be a bigger twat.  I don't care about anything he said.  No lan?  So?  What the fuck is the difference between having a lan party and logging into B.net?  I guess you can't play this game multi-player in places without the internet.  Which is, like, the Himalayas.  Boo Hoo.  No chat rooms?  So?  The only thing I've ever used a B.net chat room for is to type 'penis' in between 1 and when the game started.

Actually the chat rooms you're referring to (the ones before each game starts) are still in; the chat rooms outside of the game lobbies are gone, however. That kinda sucks; my friends and I all had a custom channel we hung out to form games and shit in SC and WC3. I guess now we can make parties and do that? Can parties chat with one another?

The lack of LAN bothers me too a little, because even though my friends and I all have high speed internet it has been known to disconnect from time to time.