Starcraft 2 Melee is GOOD, is it memorable?

[B~E]

I really feel for what you're saying in the OP.

My two cents:

For me, the main determining factor in making a match memorable was playing against evenly skilled opponents. This seems more difficult to achieve in SCII because skill disparities are magnified by the various elements that make this game geared toward being more competitive (the emphase on micro perhapes).

But I am noticing that patches are solving this issue through lots of fine tunning, so I'm not that worried about the end result.

[DemolitionSquid]

StarCraft 1 was good.
Starcraft 2 is... beta.

*rimshot!*

[Triceron]

Mass unit selection is something I'm still very uncomfortable with. It seems to lead to massive armies being bunched together all the time, even at high-level play. Makes it a bit too much like Command and Conquer for me.

I find it less the problem of MBS and more the problem of there being units that hit crit-mass very easily.

Controlling large armies isn't really a flaw of gameplay. You could control 350 zerglings in one control group and it wouldn't be able to get through my siegetank/bunker line. The fact that you can mass produce a sturdy unit like the roach, however, which forces the opponent to make anti-armor counters (which are prone to Muta switch) and makes it difficult to balance out.

The Rock-Paper-Scissors structure and ease of mass unit production is what I think makes MBS 'broken'.

[flak4321]

StarCraft 1 was good.
Starcraft 2 is... beta.

*rimshot!*

Demo's in form today!

I find it less the problem of MBS and more the problem of there being units that hit crit-mass very easily.

Controlling large armies isn't really a flaw of gameplay. You could control 350 zerglings in one control group and it wouldn't be able to get through my siegetank/bunker line. The fact that you can mass produce a sturdy unit like the roach, however, which forces the opponent to make anti-armor counters (which are prone to Muta switch) and makes it difficult to balance out.

The Rock-Paper-Scissors structure and ease of mass unit production is what I think makes MBS 'broken'.

By critical mass are you referring to units that have niches or points where an additional X unit makes no difference given Y enemy units, or am I misreading? The rock-paper-scissors analogy is very good. Can you elaborate on the critical mass? I'd like to comment, but I want to be sure I understand first.

[Hamshank]

Beta or not is missing the point. The core parts of the game are already finished. All that's happening is minor tweaks.

[Triceron]

Demo's in form today!



By critical mass are you referring to units that have niches or points where an additional X unit makes no difference given Y enemy units, or am I misreading? The rock-paper-scissors analogy is very good. Can you elaborate on the critical mass? I'd like to comment, but I want to be sure I understand first.

Critical mass is the number of units you need to reach maximum effectiveness. eg. 3 colossus to 1-shot roaches, any less and you would be wasting time firing extra volleys.

In SC, for units like a Toss going Carrier rush, having only 3-4 carriers wouldn't really be very effective to attack with; but once you get ~ 6-8 carriers (whatever the number was) it becomes very difficult to stop with conventional AA.

[Asfastasican]

Mass unit selection is something I'm still very uncomfortable with. It seems to lead to massive armies being bunched together all the time, even at high-level play. Makes it a bit too much like Command and Conquer for me.

I'm with you on that. I'm sure I'll still play this game for at least 6 months though.

If I want a bit of RTS gameplay with a dash of fun, I'll stick to MOBA's. But if i want to have fun challenging myself by pushing the envelope, I'll log on SC2.

You should try C&C the first decade and apply the unofficial fan-made patch for it and play a few of those old school games. You'll remember some things you love then some thing you hate rather quickly. I can't really say the same thing for SC2, because it's damn good all around.

[Hamshank]

I agree, I was going to add it in my first post but decided against it.

Unlimited selection isn't a good thing imo

[protoswarrior]

I think i disagree with the mutiple sel function being bad...

It is a good tool that is being misused imo right now. Just because you can select 200/200 under 1 hotkey doesn't mean that you should!

I think that people are just too new right now to have the BW -like control on units. I know for myself that microing is getting better as I am able to have 2 groups or 3 groups of units. I still have to tweak my hotkeys to accomodate more.

But, the function itself doesn't make it bad - it's the players' usage of it, mostly...

[Dragoonx]

I agree with protosswarrior. I hardly make use of tabbing through groups. I like to hotkey my units by type/role depending on my tactic at hand.