Starcraft II Production News

[Triceron]

The old system got even more complicated when it came to calculating armor alongside the percentage modifiers from damage types. Here, it's simple addition/subtraction.

[Hunter_I]

Disagree.
in SC1 there were 3 types of damage: normal, concussive and explosive
and 3 type of units, large, medium and small
That's 9 possible permutations. And zealot with damage upgrade was sure to kill an unupgraded ling in 2 hits.

And, we cold know why the mass Goons is good versus battlecroisers, and bad vs lings
Now, this reminds me of the WC3 horror: urmored, light, armored, siege, piercing, normal, chaos ec etc etc.

I sure hope I'm wrong and it will be easier, because the last thing I want while managing the battle is to think of all kind of damage modifiers.

[limE]

Now, this reminds me of the WC3 horror: urmored, light, armored, siege, piercing, normal, chaos ec etc etc.

Im not sure if i understood what you ment, but the system in WC3 was actually not hard at all after playing it a while

[Nicol Bolas]

And zealot with damage upgrade was sure to kill an unupgraded ling in 2 hits.

Way to kneecap your argument.

Why should a Zealot that does 16 normal damage with +1 upgrade kill a unit that has 35 Hp in 2 hits? This makes no sense! 16 + 1 = 17. 17 * 2 = 34. 34 < 35, so the Zergling should clearly still have 1 Hp left.

Now, if the Zealot did 8x2 damage (which of course it actually does, and in SC2, the UI actually admits to), then it makes sense. It's a double attack. With the +1, it is (8 + 1) x2 = 18. 18 * 2 = 36. 36 > 35, so dead Zergling.

Do you see the point? The SC1 system was stupid, both for hiding damage modifiers behind meaningless terms, and for not showing the player vital statistics about their units. Nothing in SC1 will tell you that the Zealot does 8x2 damage, thus making +1 attack equal to +2, while also making +1 armor on the opponent twice as strong.

Now, this reminds me of the WC3 horror: urmored, light, armored, siege, piercing, normal, chaos ec etc etc.

I don't play WarCraft 3. But I don't see how "siege" and "piercing" could possibly be considered unit attributes. So I'm guessing those are attack attributes. That is, a unit does "piercing" damage, the way a SC1 unit does "explosive" damage or whatever. And what "piercing" means towards certain armor types is defined somewhere.

That is not what SC2 has. It's just unit attributes and damage bonuses. You have to look up somewhere to find out what "piercing" means. Whereas +4 vs. Armored means exactly that: if it shoots an armored unit, it deals 4 extra damage to that unit.

It ain't rocket science. No looking up a table to find out what "piercing" or "concussion" means. Just look at the unit attacking and the unit being attacked. It's all there in the StarCraft II UI.

[Norfindel]

Disagree.
in SC1 there were 3 types of damage: normal, concussive and explosive
and 3 type of units, large, medium and small
That's 9 possible permutations. And zealot with damage upgrade was sure to kill an unupgraded ling in 2 hits.

And, we cold know why the mass Goons is good versus battlecroisers, and bad vs lings
Now, this reminds me of the WC3 horror: urmored, light, armored, siege, piercing, normal, chaos ec etc etc.

I sure hope I'm wrong and it will be easier, because the last thing I want while managing the battle is to think of all kind of damage modifiers.

I don't think it looks much more difficult. If a unit has a high % of his attack as a bonus vs some kind of armor type, it's good vs that kind of armor type.

Most units have obvious modifiers, also, except Psionic, which seems to be assigned a little randomly. Zerg units could also be a little more difficult to guess, but at the end, it's the same to remember what's the Hydralisk modifier, than what was the BW unit size.

A unit can have multiple modifiers, but most of the time they're very intuitive, and it can add variety to the game.

In BW there was also *hidden* Biological, Mechanical, and Robotic modifiers (but those 3 were applied only to spells, not standard attacks. You had to remember them the same, however). And Shields were also different to everything else.

The new system also allows to fine-tune balance perfectly, instead of tying it to fixed % modifiers.

.

[RamiZ]

Disagree.
in SC1 there were 3 types of damage: normal, concussive and explosive
and 3 type of units, large, medium and small
That's 9 possible permutations. And zealot with damage upgrade was sure to kill an unupgraded ling in 2 hits.

And, we cold know why the mass Goons is good versus battlecroisers, and bad vs lings
Now, this reminds me of the WC3 horror: urmored, light, armored, siege, piercing, normal, chaos ec etc etc.

I sure hope I'm wrong and it will be easier, because the last thing I want while managing the battle is to think of all kind of damage modifiers.

Look at Nicol's post, he explained clearly why SC1 system was stupid. And now you don't have reductions, just damage bonuses, which is great and simple. And unlike in SC1, the UI does say it what "counters" what, so it is pretty good. And btw, as Norfindel said, you also had Biological, Mechanical and Robotic in SC1, but hidden. So that makes SC1 system much much worse then SC2 system.

[Hunter_I]

All right, all right. I stand corrected.
Let's see how it really works out, when we get the beta (those who get it) and the release.