Beta, after the smoke cleared

So I am going to do a slight recap and talk about some of the positives and areas of which I feel need improvement opposed to personal/player adaption.

(Wall of text warning! Please take the proper safety precautions for your eyes beyond this point!)

So I will start off and say that I have claimed my Bro inlaws's account while he is away in Europe for the next 2 weeks. I hope to have my own account by then! Anyway, here is my analysis.

Let me discuss a hot topic that has been thrown around the beta community for some time now. The overall similarity and debatable lack of innovation with SC2. I will state my opinion and then, if others in the community have feed back, please post it.

I feel that one of the things that made Starcraft what it was is its simple-to-learn-hard-to-master concept. There were plenty of turn-based / RTS games that have come and gone through out Blizzard's reign on the RTS market. The same can be said for games like Diablo and Diablo 2. Neither of those two games emphasized on pushing the envelope in terms of contriving elements. What Blizzard has always done best with its games has been amazing execution of the basics. They take a simple bread and butter formula, and turn it into something that captures your heart for many many years.

So enter Starcraft 2..
We have all been checking website after website, and forum after forum following the games announcement. Once I heard Dustin Browder was the lead designer, I immediately checked his credentials to see what projects he had completed in the past. Without insulting the man with my past judgements on his resume, I felt very skeptical at first. After seeing the game grow over the years, and seeing his passion towards the project, I really started respecting him a lot as a Dev. It really appealed to me that Blizzard was taking their time to make this game right.

So now we enter beta...
I can see where people are frustrated with the game in terms of polish. We waited 3 years (Hell 12 to be precise) for Blizzard to really narrow out the quirks and present us with a product that would blow our minds. People have taken up arms over tons of little details that seem to have either been neglected, or half assed so to speak.

And my honest opinion to this is, yes, there are some things that really need to be fixed and quick. But I also believe that we need to fix ourselves a bit as well. We have to accept the fact that this IS Starcraft 2 and we need to let go of SC1 to grasp the good things of the sequel. There really is a lot to behold in SC2 and I have complete faith that Blizzard will adjust the flaky aspects of the game. Im sure they didn't delay the thing for this long only to release it with cheese holes and placeholder quality animations / sounds.

So in closing, give it time and let Blizzard do their thing. Many of their Beta's went through intense artistic and gameplay changes during the process of their beta testing. Lets see how the final product turns out and enjoy the ride!

All this wall of text to say "i have faith in Blizzard"? I thinked you would at least say what did you like and what not.

Actually, it's a little more than "I have faith in thee Blizzard", as he is also telling us, the players to suck it up and stop complaining about small details and focus on the major *shit that may be game-breaking (ahem - OP reapers).

Well I actually agree with Norfindel, my wife came home pissed about her work day so I had to cut it short, lol. Fail on my part. :(

But yeah, I will post more details on beta. I really do think that once SC2 is polished it will exceed most expectations.

There are very positive things and things that are lacking:

Pros-
Graphics
Presentation
Production Values
Fluidity
Metagame

Cons-
Unit Voice Acting/Soundscape
Built-In Micro Delay for a lot of units
Some Units/Abilities need fleshing out

All of which can be fixed by end of beta.

"Built-In Micro Delay for a lot of units"

wtf is this?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Wankey

"Built-In Micro Delay for a lot of units"

wtf is this?

---

Some units have delayed reactions to your clicks. It's intentional, but I feel not very beneficial.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Wankey

"Built-In Micro Delay for a lot of units"

wtf is this?

---

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is my understanding:

Some units can't be microed the way they could in the original SC. For instance, in SC you could hit and run very effectively with Vultures because they had virtually no attack animation. Hellions, on the other hand, pause briefly before attacking, meaning you can't hit and run with them in quite the same way as you could with Vultures. This makes them substantially less attractive as early game units.

I think similar issues may exist with Mutalisks and a couple other units. Basically, the game has improved graphics and attack animations in many regards, but sometimes that affects gameplay. Just requires some tweaking though, to make sure that units aren't made ineffective for competitive play simply because of their animation.

Quote:

---

For instance, in SC you could hit and run very effectively with Vultures because they had virtually no attack animation.

---

No, you could do that because of a bug in the engine. Vultures were supposed to stop to shoot like every other unit in SC1. Due to poor implementation, Vultures and certain other units could be made to fire on the move by an arcane combination of user commands.

Quote:

---

Hellions, on the other hand, pause briefly before attacking

---

And Hellions do not pause before attacking; they pause to attack. As in they stop and shoot fire, simultaneously.

Quote:

---

This makes them substantially less attractive as early game units.

---

Oh, BS. A unit that depends on an engine bug to be useful isn't a unit that should exist in the game.

Besides that, Hellions are freaking awesome. Especially after their damage upgrade.

IIRC you can move as fast as the Hellion begins attacking, and the flame will continue his path to the enemy. That's strange, but it's microable.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nicol Bolas

No, you could do that because of a bug in the engine. Vultures were supposed to stop to shoot like every other unit in SC1. Due to poor implementation, Vultures and certain other units could be made to fire on the move by an arcane combination of user commands.



And Hellions do not pause before attacking; they pause to attack. As in they stop and shoot fire, simultaneously.



Oh, BS. A unit that depends on an engine bug to be useful isn't a unit that should exist in the game.

---

Perhaps it wasn't originally intended, but this "bug in the game engine" made Vultures far more effective than they would have otherwise been, especially in the hands of a skilled player.

I would prefer that unit animations be implemented in such a way that players with more skill can use them much more effectively than a lesser skilled player. I agree that a unit shouldn't need to be microed well just to be useful, but every unit should (ideally) have the potential to be a lot more effective if microed well; an attack delay stands in the way of that by artificially preventing micro in the same way that the "engine bug" artificially allowed it in SC1.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RedPineApple

So I am going to do a slight recap and talk about some of the positives and areas of which I feel need improvement opposed to personal/player adaption.

(Wall of text warning! Please take the proper safety precautions for your eyes beyond this point!)

So I will start off and say that I have claimed my Bro inlaws's account while he is away in Europe for the next 2 weeks. I hope to have my own account by then! Anyway, here is my analysis.

Let me discuss a hot topic that has been thrown around the beta community for some time now. The overall similarity and debatable lack of innovation with SC2. I will state my opinion and then, if others in the community have feed back, please post it.

I feel that one of the things that made Starcraft what it was is its simple-to-learn-hard-to-master concept. There were plenty of turn-based / RTS games that have come and gone through out Blizzard's reign on the RTS market. The same can be said for games like Diablo and Diablo 2. Neither of those two games emphasized on pushing the envelope in terms of contriving elements. What Blizzard has always done best with its games has been amazing execution of the basics. They take a simple bread and butter formula, and turn it into something that captures your heart for many many years.

So enter Starcraft 2..
We have all been checking website after website, and forum after forum following the games announcement. Once I heard Dustin Browder was the lead designer, I immediately checked his credentials to see what projects he had completed in the past. Without insulting the man with my past judgements on his resume, I felt very skeptical at first. After seeing the game grow over the years, and seeing his passion towards the project, I really started respecting him a lot as a Dev. It really appealed to me that Blizzard was taking their time to make this game right.

So now we enter beta...
I can see where people are frustrated with the game in terms of polish. We waited 3 years (Hell 12 to be precise) for Blizzard to really narrow out the quirks and present us with a product that would blow our minds. People have taken up arms over tons of little details that seem to have either been neglected, or half assed so to speak.

And my honest opinion to this is, yes, there are some things that really need to be fixed and quick. But I also believe that we need to fix ourselves a bit as well. We have to accept the fact that this IS Starcraft 2 and we need to let go of SC1 to grasp the good things of the sequel. There really is a lot to behold in SC2 and I have complete faith that Blizzard will adjust the flaky aspects of the game. Im sure they didn't delay the thing for this long only to release it with cheese holes and placeholder quality animations / sounds.

So in closing, give it time and let Blizzard do their thing. Many of their Beta's went through intense artistic and gameplay changes during the process of their beta testing. Lets see how the final product turns out and enjoy the ride!

---

some of the unit audio and music que in's seem really half assed.

The zealots/marines had serious attitude/character in SC1. They're like...lame as shit now -_-. The voice actor/sound scape/atmosphere of the voices have gone from SC1/WC Calibre to Command and Conquer.

That's a really fucking bad thing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PosImpos

Perhaps it wasn't originally intended, but this "bug in the game engine" made Vultures far more effective than they would have otherwise been, especially in the hands of a skilled player.

---

And Hellions are REALLY freaking effective regardless of the delay. Their AoE attack and higher HP makes them quite a bit stronger than the vulture (also they don't need a speed upgrade). They can't attack on the move with the AoE attack, though, it wouldn't work.

Hellions take plenty of skill regardless. A player who moves them around and takes advantage of their speed will get a lot more out of them than somebody who doesn't. WHERE you stop and attack will also be important. That will take skill too.

Quote:

---

I would prefer that unit animations be implemented in such a way that players with more skill can use them much more effectively than a lesser skilled player.

---

You keep blaming "animations" as if that had anything to do with it. It doesn't.

There is a gameplay value for each unit that describes how long it takes them to fire, and how long after that it takes them to be able to move or act afterwards. This has nothing to do with how the unit animates (well, nothing directly). Many units can go from the tail end of their firing animation to moving virtually instantly; this causes the effect of cutting off the animation. Other units cannot. This is a gameplay issue, and thus is based on balance, not on what the unit looks like.

I would prefer that the game is implemented so that playing the game at any skill level would not require the use of arcane BS like using patrol instead of attack because it just so happens to work faster. This is how Blizzard has implemented the game.

If you can come up with some way to micro units that doesn't require arcane knowledge of the game to perform that allows more skilled players to micro better than less skilled players, fine. But Vulture micro isn't it, and neither is Muta-micro.

Besides, skill isn't about being able to micro a battle. It's about being able to do that while doing other things.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nicol Bolas

You keep blaming "animations" as if that had anything to do with it. It doesn't.

There is a gameplay value for each unit that describes how long it takes them to fire, and how long after that it takes them to be able to move or act afterwards. This has nothing to do with how the unit animates (well, nothing directly). Many units can go from the tail end of their firing animation to moving virtually instantly; this causes the effect of cutting off the animation. Other units cannot. This is a gameplay issue, and thus is based on balance, not on what the unit looks like.

I would prefer that the game is implemented so that playing the game at any skill level would not require the use of arcane BS like using patrol instead of attack because it just so happens to work faster. This is how Blizzard has implemented the game.

If you can come up with some way to micro units that doesn't require arcane knowledge of the game to perform that allows more skilled players to micro better than less skilled players, fine. But Vulture micro isn't it, and neither is Muta-micro.

Besides, skill isn't about being able to micro a battle. It's about being able to do that while doing other things.

---

The benefits of the bug exploitation should be integrated wholly into the system then. Instead of applying restrictive mobility/immobility timings and lowering the bar for impressive micro, they should loosen it up for the units that it works for. There'll be kids that can macro hard and micro like a madman. I want to see that dexterity realized to its full potential.

I thought the Vulture was used a lot largely because of spider mines?

Quote:

---

The benefits of the bug exploitation should be integrated wholly into the system then.

---

And how do you do this without requiring arcane knowledge? The only reason Vulture and Mutalisk micro was hard was because it required using arcane commands to make work. If you just make their normal movement and attack commands work like that, then anyone would be able to Muta micro.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nottoway

I thought the Vulture was used a lot largely because of spider mines?

---

Depends on the match-up.

It gave them some EXTRA use in TvP but mostly they were used for their ability to counter zealots really well.

In TvT they were used for mines, though. Pretty much universally.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nicol Bolas

And how do you do this without requiring arcane knowledge? The only reason Vulture and Mutalisk micro was hard was because it required using arcane commands to make work. If you just make their normal movement and attack commands work like that, then anyone would be able to Muta micro.

---

Strict timing inbetween attack animations to cut a portion of the lag. Vulture/Mutalisk was the pinnacle of micro intensity and I don't want to see that die.