StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void

[Fordel]

Yea, SC2 is absolutely leaps and bounds easier to play. There's no real question about it.


My biggest issue with SC2 is I have never seen a competitive game be so utterly predictable. When was the last time you saw someone 'comeback' from any kind of substantial deficit? When was the last time there was truly a honest to goodness base race? 99 out of 100 SC2 games come down to one fight and only one fight and that one fight isn't terribly interesting and once it is over everyone knows who won and lost. I'm a big fan of fighting your games out to the bitter end and I fucking haaate the early GG, but SC2 has really and truly devolved into a boring pile of predictable shit.

The worst part is that one fight is usually predictable too, at least for the viewers and casters. The fight will have been decided minutes in advance to the way decisions cascade in pro-level play.

[Malakili]

I agree for the most part.  There are definitely games that are decided by being all over the map, but much less so than in Brood War.  The ease of controlling large armies in this game has made it a much more viable strategy.

The game is still fun to play.  The fact that you can recognize a loss before the real loss condition is met (lose all buildings) doesn't actually bother me.  As an "eSport" it has several problems though.  For people who are very casual viewers, it isn't very obvious what's going on a lot of the time.  For experienced players, as you say, the decisive moments in the game are often not when the game is "won" on screen, and having full information let's you have a good sense of who's winning. Also, when I am watching, say, DOTA 2 I watch the players and what they are doing - the action.  When I am watching Starcraft 2 I am almost always watching the supply counts, army size, worker counts, basically anything BUT the action to get a feel for what is actually going on in the game. 

[Soulflame]

Ah man, HuskyStarcraft stopped putting up videos about six months ago.  A shame, I enjoy his commentating.

Apparently he put out a cookbook recently.   

[K9]

I enjoyed the gameplay in the WoL campaign, but HoTS took too long to come out, as did this. There's no reason why the development cycles for this sort of content need to be this long, other companies manage to be far more agile, and that's killing Blizzard.

I think it's telling that I've seen literally zero promotion for this game, either online or in the real world. Whereas Fallout 4 is all over billboards and TV, and everywhere online. When the first game came out there was a LOT more fanfare.

[Malakili]

Yeah, 5+ years for two expansions is really too much.  I think that there is a good chance that this is the last major Starcraft release we ever see. 

[slog]

I enjoyed the gameplay in the WoL campaign, but HoTS took too long to come out, as did this. There's no reason why the development cycles for this sort of content need to be this long, other companies manage to be far more agile, and that's killing Blizzard.

I think it's telling that I've seen literally zero promotion for this game, either online or in the real world. Whereas Fallout 4 is all over billboards and TV, and everywhere online. When the first game came out there was a LOT more fanfare.

The only excitement in the beta was the removal of macro mechanics.  The they changed their Minds.

[Sir T]

So, today is release day. Yes you can play it without the other games. The have a pack of the 3 for 20 bucks more than the game only which to be honest is somewhat tempting me. They also have a "Digital delux" pack for your 20 dollars that includes a couple of skins and BONUS STUFF FOR OTHER EXCITING BLIZZARD TITLES!!!

[Maledict]

I enjoyed the gameplay in the WoL campaign, but HoTS took too long to come out, as did this. There's no reason why the development cycles for this sort of content need to be this long, other companies manage to be far more agile, and that's killing Blizzard.

I think it's telling that I've seen literally zero promotion for this game, either online or in the real world. Whereas Fallout 4 is all over billboards and TV, and everywhere online. When the first game came out there was a LOT more fanfare.

The only excitement in the beta was the removal of macro mechanics.  The they changed their Minds.

for some reason, for starcraft 2 they have consistently done the opposite of their mantra with every other Blizzard game, and listened to the pro's instead of more casual players.

And I think it shows - starcraft 2 is definitely the lesser of the three big franchises now. The complexity in Brood Wars arose out of the game, it wasn't artifically imposed like they keep trying in SC2. When they did the preview of all the new units it was just depressing, because every unit was "an opportunity for skilled micro play to show". That's not what made Brood War great, and it's not how to get the masses playing an RTS. The macro mechanics in particular are simply obnoxious, pointless micro for the sake of micro.

[Fordel]

Brood War was an accident in terms of it's compelling gameplay and balance. A combination of engine quirks, clever player made maps and a few lucky hits balance wise made BW what it was (actual vanilla SC without BW was an awful game in its own right in regards to multiplayer).

Blizzard has yet to come close to recreating anything on par with BW in terms of competitive play. War3 never hit the mark, WoW is a disaster in terms of competitive pvp, we have a entire thread mocking Hearthstone's competitive play. We'll see if HotS and Overwatch can manage anything, but nothing I've seen of those make me think compelling and dynamic.

[Sir T]

So I bought the full game 3 game package because I'll probably play their campaigns out of curiosity at some point.

And I paid through Battlenet via paypal and Blizzard confidently told me that "starter edition restrictions will be lifted once payment has been processed, which may take up to 72 hours."

So I'll have to wait up to 3 days to play the game I paid for today, unless I want to play the first 5 missions of the Terran campaign and other starter edition restrictions. I've never seen that with any online purchase I've made. I could have gone to the local Ganestop and picked up a copy and played it when I got home.

My online experience has been "Fuck you, Blizzard." 

[SurfD]

So I bought the full game 3 game package because I'll probably play their campaigns out of curiosity at some point.

And I paid through Battlenet via paypal and Blizzard confidently told me that "starter edition restrictions will be lifted once payment has been processed, which may take up to 72 hours."

So I'll have to wait up to 3 days to play the game I paid for today, unless I want to play the first 5 missions of the Terran campaign and other starter edition restrictions. I've never seen that with any online purchase I've made. I could have gone to the local Ganestop and picked up a copy and played it when I got home.

My online experience has been "Fuck you, Blizzard." 

Given how shady and wierd people can be with paypal transactions, I quite honestly dont blame them.   Don't want to wiat for Blizzard to verify that you acctually paid for your shit, and arent going to try to yank the money back somehow after unlocking the game? Then pay with a proper creditcard.

[Setanta]

This is a fair point. To me the core of RTS as a genre is Command and Conquer, Warcraft, Starcraft, etc.  It may be very old, but it's still the kind of gameplay I want.  By comparison the Total War series is almost an entirely different genre in my mind.  

For me, Total Annihilation and its expansions and downloadable units shone over C&C and I think Dune should be in that core too.

I was devastated at the mess Planetary Annihilation became, it's like the looked at TA and decided that they could do it better - and made it shit.

[Malakili]

Brood War was an accident in terms of it's compelling gameplay and balance. A combination of engine quirks, clever player made maps and a few lucky hits balance wise made BW what it was (actual vanilla SC without BW was an awful game in its own right in regards to multiplayer).

Yeah, this is very true.  Brood War was accidentally great.  It also lucked out that it coincided with the rise of PC Bang culture in Korea. 

I think unit pathing is probably the big one.  The unit pathing in Starcraft 2 is so good that it actually makes units a lot harder to balance because they are so efficient.  Siege Tanks in Brood War were such a key part of the meta game and worked in part because of the bad pathing of other units.  Their damage was also off the charts high, but their AI was stupid enough to shoot at the same targets, so that also made them not TOO efficient.  It let to micro both in trying to bait shots and micro trying to control tanks not to waste volleys.  In Starcraft 2 pathing is way better to it's much easier to get on top of Siege Tanks without units bumbling into each other, but the tank AI is also much better and will choose different targets than the Siege Tank next to it.  On the surface that actually sounds good, but the ramifications for that kind of thing are widespread in SC2.

[Fordel]

Yep absolutely, a lot of right place and right time things went into BW's popularity.


I remember being SO hyped up for SC2 and the first few tournaments that came with the open beta/initial release were great... but they were great because no one knew how to play the game and every match someone figured out something new. A new build order, a new tactic, a new use for a unit etc. SC2 today (and the previous like, 2+ years) is a solved game. Solved the way ticktacktoe is solved. The only barrier now is execution and frankly tuning in to see which korean has spent the most time perfecting their precision is not compelling enough.

It's the same thing gameplay wise, for the overwhelming majority of the playerbase the best way to 'improve' or win is to just perfect one single build order to perfection. It's better to be perfect at one shitty catch all plan then to try and execute a good plan sloppily. It's not until you reach that tip top percentile that decision making actually matters and even then with how the game plays out you make like, 2 or 3 important decisions and have to wait 10-15 minutes to see if they were the right ones, with no hope of correcting them half way through.

It's a immensely frustrating and unsatisfying experience.



Even the single player is spoiled by the steaming pile of Metzen left on it's doorstep.


（╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

[Malakili]

Yep absolutely, a lot of right place and right time things went into BW's popularity.


I remember being SO hyped up for SC2 and the first few tournaments that came with the open beta/initial release were great... but they were great because no one knew how to play the game and every match someone figured out something new. A new build order, a new tactic, a new use for a unit etc. SC2 today (and the previous like, 2+ years) is a solved game. Solved the way ticktacktoe is solved. The only barrier now is execution and frankly tuning in to see which korean has spent the most time perfecting their precision is not compelling enough.

I will say that Proleague's format is actually still quite good.  The fact that they have much more interesting and varied (and in fact not really "balanced", but they don't have to be in that format) maps is a huge deal. As is the fact that they know the map and the opponent a week in advance, which means all kinds of specialized strategies can be devised and practiced to aim at particular maps or particular opponents.  Unfortunately, it's also on in the middle of the night.

You still get some formulaic games, to be sure, but what they are doing goes a long way to capturing at least some of the Brood War magic.  The normal tournament format that we saw at western tournaments like MLG (when they did starcraft), ESL, etc, don't really allow for any of that.  It rewards just grinding 1000 games on the map pool and essentially preparing as best you can to compete in what you probably rightly call a solved meta game. 

[Malakili]

The storyline in this is hilariously bad.  HILARIOUSLY.

[Sir T]

Yup.

Also its been said before, but I was shocked that its basically the exact same game as Starcraft, only 3D. Uh, Supreme Commander evolved from Total Annihilation, guys. Homeworld 2 was different to Homeworld. Why could Blizzard not actually change up their game?

[Ironwood]

The storyline in this is hilariously bad.  HILARIOUSLY.

I am not shocked.

[Fordel]

Yup.

Also its been said before, but I was shocked that its basically the exact same game as Starcraft, only 3D. Uh, Supreme Commander evolved from Total Annihilation, guys. Homeworld 2 was different to Homeworld. Why could Blizzard not actually change up their game?

Metzen's self insert fan fiction needs to be told to the world, duh.

[jakonovski]

Oh god I just realized that Raynor is Metzen.

[Merusk]

Yup.

Also its been said before, but I was shocked that its basically the exact same game as Starcraft, only 3D. Uh, Supreme Commander evolved from Total Annihilation, guys. Homeworld 2 was different to Homeworld. Why could Blizzard not actually change up their game?

Because Competitive Starcraft is a thing. They wanted to update the game without gutting that aspect of it.  The fact that SC:2 plays exactly like SC1 was a feature and 100% intended.

[Fordel]

Of course at the competitive level, it really doesn't actually play like SC1 either. 

[Merusk]

Yeah they failed pretty heavily for multiple reasons. Improved pathing and AI that was mentioned here being one of them. It was the goal, however.

[Phildo]

Glad I wasn't the only one to think the story was terrible.  Wow, was this bad.  Level design and mission variety weren't that great, either.

[Fordel]

Oh god I just realized that Raynor is Metzen.

Also in case it wasn't obvious, he is also Green Jesus (Thrall).

I'm not sure who he is supposed to be in Diablo, I don't really play that game to know either way.

There's like an 80% chance he is Hanzo in Overwatch, either him or the cowboy man.

[Merusk]

He didn't have a part in Diablo because that came out of a different studio. I think he's looking to take on the role of Tyrael, though. Tyrael's the only guy who's got a chance at living on now that they've killed Decard Cain.

"Metzened" story http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4211013929
"How to write like Chris Metzen in 10 steps" http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4211604821

[Paelos]

He's a fanfic writer who has naked pictures of somebody at Blizzard. I'm convinced of it.

[Fordel]

Nah, he's just buddies with whoever runs Blizzard.

WAY Back when during War1/2, when it became they wouldn't be able to use the Warhammer license but still had like, a complete game they needed to sell, one of the Dev's was like 'Hey my buddy can draw pretty good, I'm sure he can pull some story out of his ass'.

Since the games sold ten jillion copies and they all got rich or whatever, why change anything?

[Sophismata]

This is a fair point. To me the core of RTS as a genre is Command and Conquer, Warcraft, Starcraft, etc.  It may be very old, but it's still the kind of gameplay I want.  By comparison the Total War series is almost an entirely different genre in my mind.  

For me, Total Annihilation and its expansions and downloadable units shone over C&C and I think Dune should be in that core too.

I was devastated at the mess Planetary Annihilation became, it's like the looked at TA and decided that they could do it better - and made it shit.

What happened with Planetary Annihilation? I loved TA, the only reason I didn't get around to playing PA was because it wouldn't run on my computer.

[Sophismata]

Brood War was an accident in terms of it's compelling gameplay and balance. A combination of engine quirks, clever player made maps and a few lucky hits balance wise made BW what it was (actual vanilla SC without BW was an awful game in its own right in regards to multiplayer).

Blizzard has yet to come close to recreating anything on par with BW in terms of competitive play. War3 never hit the mark, WoW is a disaster in terms of competitive pvp, we have a entire thread mocking Hearthstone's competitive play. We'll see if HotS and Overwatch can manage anything, but nothing I've seen of those make me think compelling and dynamic.

HotS so far is very good competitively. Due to the game's strategic bent, it sacrifices the tight tactical and mechanical execution of DotA or HoN but has a much deeper strategic layer and generally much stronger game pacing as a result.

Sadly this means there's less room for outstanding individual playmakers, but that's ok given the broader focus on strategy and shot calling.

[Fordel]

HotS is also super new still. Check the 8-ball in a year and see if it's the same answer.

[Phildo]

Heart of the Swarm has been out for over two years, that ain't super new.

[Rasix]

Wrong HotS.

[Maledict]

He didn't have a part in Diablo because that came out of a different studio. I think he's looking to take on the role of Tyrael, though. Tyrael's the only guy who's got a chance at living on now that they've killed Decard Cain.

"Metzened" story http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4211013929
"How to write like Chris Metzen in 10 steps" http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4211604821

Really disagree with the first post. Richard Knaak is a fucking terrible writer to start with - all the stuff about the Nephalim, or Ronin in Warcraft, came from him and was pure garbage from start to finish. Yes, D3s story was bad but it was never going to be great once they decided that ridiculous fan fiction crap was actually canon. Why the hell Blizzard so dramatically failed to understand what gothic horror was is still beyond me. It's as if they don't have a single person in the company able to critically look at their lore and world building anymore.

[Merusk]

They don't, because that guy is Metzen.
 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Metzen

His title is "Senior Vice President of Story and Franchise Development." He guides or signs off on everything. When's the last time you had a guy with that ego and that fancy a title listen to criticism of underlings.

Now I agree that the nephalim stuff was drek, but they could have salvaged it rather than turned it up to 11 and run. But that never was going to happen with this creative pipeline.