[ninjafetus]

I gotta say, as much as another god's complaints about other RTS games might sound like "it's not the starcraft", the complaints here about starcraft definitely sound like "it is starcraft".

His comparison between SF2T and SSF4, or TF1 and TF2 is a good one. Yeah, they both have a lot of the same interface, units, mechanics, etc. But if you ask anybody that plays them seriously, you'll find the updates are significant to those players. The basics are the same, the way you use them and the ease with which new players can approach it is great. The ease hasn't created a low skill ceiling, either, like some people worried. There's so much going on even the best start to lose their multitasking. It's a very, very good multiplayer game.

And the single player is great! Sure I could bitch about the shallow characters or some crap, but I'm not playing it for the space opera. Every level is built around new and interesting tactical situations. They all feel significantly different. It's great. The challenge mode is fun, though not as much of the "help people learn multi" as I'd hoped. The achievements are numerous and varied. Even if you don't like getting them for e-peen, they are actually interesting challenges. There was one level where I had to keep building and holding off waves of intense rushes to my base while I took a force to clear a path to go to specific waypoints on the map. It was a decent challenge on Brutal difficulty, and I died a few times trying it. But then I see that there's an achievement called "one man army" where you can beat the level before the first rush hits with just your hero. The enemy placement, terrain, and hero abilities are placed exactly right so to form a puzzle where the right actions and path are the solution. It was totally unnecessary for Blizzard to do, but they did it anyway. And the game is FULL of stuff like that.

I mean, if you don't like RTS games in general, or you wish it was more abstract tactics and less "fighting game like" or something, well then you just won't like it. I understand (I don't like football games, for example, no matter how good they are). But if you dont' dislike the SC style, you'll find a game with so much real content and polish that it's crazy to say it's "not that good" or the "same old thing".


... then again, I'm the guy with a SC avatar. I'm probably a BIT biased.

[ninjafetus]

Hydras actually DO use their claws in SC2 when you get close enough to do a melee attack. So do roaches. Roaches cut marines in half instead of acid melting them if they're at melee range :)
Also: confirming that you can use the mission archives to play the other choices, but you do not gain the benefits of the other pass. E.g., you only get ghosts or spectres, not both. The spectres are new and awesome, I chose them the first time. But the campaign ghosts also are upgradable to have perma-cloak and extended range and sight, so combine that with the caster energy upgrade, and you've got a scary, invisible, snipe spamming, long range army in ghosts. I love how everything in story can be so overpowered because it's just against the computer <3

edit: also, anotherghost has been mentioning good resources. I would be remiss not to pimp my REAL LIFE (tm) friend out, who does commentaries
http://www.youtube.com/saharadrac

Also, teamliquid.net is amazing, but their forums can be a bit annoying with all the new players spamming "how do SC2?" posts. Their wiki is probably a better place to start if you just want info:
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Main_Page
Check out their strategy pages if you're interested in learning the competitive side. Lots of good stuff to work with there.

[ninjafetus]

It looks like it's almost the same thing as a 1 rax FE but you hold off on the gas and tech lab until the second OC is up. Interesting! I always liked macro builds in SC1, but there's so much more 1 basing in SC2... it's hard to FE sometimes :P

[ninjafetus]

The biggest thing beginners do wrong is they stop building workers. Just keep building them. Always. If you have to ask when to stop, you aren't at the level where you need to yet.
Once you get that down, you need to always be producing troops. Always. Your limiting factor should always be money, never food, never attention span. If you find yourself getting food blocked you should have been building supplies. If you find yourself with extra money you should have been making troops while (or instead of) watching the fighting. Always be producing troops. (And I don't mean queuing them up where 1 is building and 5 are waiting at all times. If you have to do this, spend the extra money on new buildings so you don't have to queue them up.)

If you can get these two things down, congratulations! You've learned the hardest part. Learning strategy and tactics is easy once you have some mechanics down. I guess since we're in SC2 now, you also need to include the macro mechanics (MULEs, spawn larva, or chrono boost) in the mechanics. Always do those too. But, yeah, mechanics are the biggest limitation. It's hard to execute strategy if the other guy always has more income and a bigger army than you. 5000 minerals in the bank won't win a fight for you. But when you can keep your production on par, THEN your maneuvers matter.

[ninjafetus]

I know this is the only thread I'm posting in. I don't care. I love this game a lot.

ON THAT NOTE, if anybody wants help learning multi, I'm glad to play games with, watch replays and give comments, give links, etc. to help. Just send me a request (ninjafetus at the google electronic mailbox tac company) or post here.

[ninjafetus]

I also love the point in the game where you know you have the wrong unit mix and are outmatched, so you have to constantly harass, backstab at his expos when he's starting to move out, drop a few troops in the back of his main, etc. just to buy you enough time to fix your unit composition. When this happens, you're fighting purely to limit a different resource—their finite attention—to the point where they can't intelligently attack. It's tense and exciting, and if you pull it off it feels GREAT.

On the other hand, there's been times where I thought I had a great unit composition and just got totally faked out by my opponent. I scanned his robotics support bay and did just want you were talking about not doing, another god. I slowed marine production, added a few more marauders to the mix, and started pumping vikings. A few minutes later, he waltzes in with a good number of immortals. OOPS. I guess he saw my scan >.<. gg.

[ninjafetus]

HOLY SHIT EPIC COMEBACK VOID RAAAYYYYSSSSSSSSSS
http://www.mediafire.com/?5x1whxa1zja87s9
(put in your documents / starcraft 2/ accounts / (numbers) / (numbers) / replays / multiplayer

edit: okay, maybe it was more epic when it was from my limited perspective initially, but it was a pretty close ending!

[ninjafetus]

Yeah, I totally had to post it because it was TEAM SB. YEAH US!

[ninjafetus]

MULEs don't give free money. They give the same minerals that patch would have given, but they give it a LOT faster. The only free money in the game is supply drop. That said, MULEs are almost always the best choice vs. supply drop. I don't keep it 100% used, though, because a good scan or two can be a lifesaver. For supplies I generally just build when 'getting close' in the very early game, have a dedicated scv for depots (finish one, start another) for midgame, and 2 dedicated + extras when necessary when mid/late game macro hits. If you get supply blocked, it's also okay to force a fight to free up some supply, as long as you're not just throwing your units away. I actually have a lot more supply trouble with zerg, since I always want to drone or macro too hard and I hate when I need to use the precious larva on lords :/

[ninjafetus]

Pat, were you doing the nydus or air version? I didn't think the nydus one was too bad on brutal, once you hit critical tank mass, but the AIR one. Fuck, that was waaaaay too hard.

[ninjafetus]

Broco, a lot of times when people turtle hard, they end up containing themselves. The better ones will turtle until just the right time, and then push out for a timing attack. The worse ones will just hope you run into their defenses and get confused if you don't. In the latter situation, just take expansions across the map, tech up, and build up your army to full supply. Then add extra production buildings so you can rebuild your army faster after any clash. Whatever you do, don't fight on their terms. Eventually, they'll have to move out because they'll realize that 2 bases to 6 is a bad situation for them long term, and then you can crush them with your economy and macro. If they leave holes in their defenses, you can also drop and kill production buildings, or harass workers, things like that. You don't want to lose your whole army, but just make them keep spending money. The longer you have map control and the economic advantage, the more you'll be ahead.

[ninjafetus]

I think you're getting overwhelmed because you're overthinking it, Broco. Every minute you have significantly more bases mining than them puts you further ahead. Get a 200/200 army and push. If you lose all your units that's okay, because they will probably lose a lot, too, and you actually have money and production buildings to replenish it. Pretty soon they won't, because they've contained themselves. Yeah, don't lose infinity zerglings to tanks, but use appropriate units.

Actually, one thing I would definitely do is make sure you have all the expos scouted while the opponent is containted/turtling. Just to make sure they don't ninja an expo under your nose.

DAMN I need to play more SC. I will get un-busy tonight and play more.

[ninjafetus]

Yeah, the levels are outstanding. The story and dialog is what's a bit generic. Although I do like (spoiler) how "Dr. Narud" is basically Samir Duran (backwards name, same facial hair) from the first game. It ties into the secret mission from Brood War and adds some context for why he would have knowledge of Xel Naga artifacts and be interested in removing Kerrigan as an enemy.

skelethulu> My friend and I have fun in 2v2 double zerging as well, and having one person mass mineral defense to protect both out FEs while giving all his gas to the other person for extra fast mutie flock. It doesn't work against good people, but it's pretty funny against lesser competition.

SPEAKING OF silly games, I find FFAs to be entertaining when I don't want to play serious multi. A lot of times you get matched up with three beginners who turtle up, leaving you the freedom to expo 2 or 3 times, build some air to keep them in their bases, and then do whatever the hell you want. I think I had a circle of 14 hatcheries in the middle of lost temple and 16 ultras all spinning in circles throughout the center a couple days ago. Then I made 87 overlords and flew them into a poor confused person's base and dropped creep everywhere. The next game I filled a person's main with 68 changelings. Why? Why not.

[ninjafetus]

Update: Starcraft 2 is still fun.

[ninjafetus]

Broco> Counters do matter, but it sounds like you had the game won and just lost it doe to lack of macro. If you have a lot of extra money, just make extra production buildings and be constantly pumping out troops. If you're winning enough in economy, you can just keep killing each other's army and you'll eventually come out ahead due to their lack of resources or comparative production rate.

Pat> I haven't run into anyone doing the 5 rax reaper against my Z yet. I'm not looking forward to it :p

ANYONE> I'm finally getting a feel for the timings of Zerg. I've been slumping since I switched to them, but I'm starting to pick back up again. Just losing a few times to stupid things (overlord snipes, droning a bit too hard, etc) really helps to clean up the bigger mistakes in my game. Now I feel like I'm getting just enough troops out to stop the pushes and save my expo, but not so much that my econ sucks. It's also working the other way, where I can see counter openings, and punish them for being greedy. It feels good. I never realized how spoiled I was with all the safe openings T has. ^^;

[ninjafetus]

[ninjafetus]

Ranking matches are hilarious. My first ranking match I built my depot and rax like normal (was playing T at the time) and, having not seen his drone scout, I sent that marine to go check out his base. With his initial 6 drones, he had made two extractors (no drones on them) and one evolution chamber. He had not made any extra drones yet. I actually felt kind of bad as my marine shot his last 3 drones to death. They just kept mining. He quit after his drones died. Oh well.

[ninjafetus]

There's a lot of cheese because it's harder for people to find a good set of builds that's safe versus all cheeses than it is for people to learn one cheese and rack up enough wins to get relatively high ranks before they hit the wall of consistently good players. As the game progresses I think those people will get weeded out naturally. It still sucks, though :p

[ninjafetus]

7 pool is actually pretty good in ZvZ, especially if you take a couple drones to make spine crawlers in their base :p

[ninjafetus]

PDD can help you (a little bit) in your Viking battles, though. It also stops missiles from turrets, I guess. I think the easiest way to use it is with banshees attacking a toss expo when the toss has no starport. Stalkers can't shoot the banshees and they definitely won't have enough sentries to help.

[ninjafetus]

If you completely outclass your opponent you can also use a lot of ravens to spell out 'lol' with turrets in their main. If you want to be a jerk, that is :p

[ninjafetus]

Back in town and once again have access to non-hotel internet. Someone play SC with me tonight!

[ninjafetus]

I have a friend from work who's starting to get into the game. He was literally starting from step zero, having played a bit of SC1 and WC3 single player. I'm playing 2v2s with him and showing him the ropes. It's kind of neat when I point out things like, "you can right click the minerals and your command center will automatically put the SCVs there so you don't have to move them individually" and he's like "WOAH thanks!"

Of course, it doesn't always work. We were playing a team of two protosses, and they were obviously teching to colossi. I'd been giving him some advice on what stuff to build, so he had a good amount of vikings. I tell him, "See those tall walking things? That's what the vikings are for. When they push, you need to kill them with the vikings so that my speedlings and hydras can kill the stalkers without instantly melting." He gets it, he's ready, and then the Protoss pushes. What does he do? He flies the vikings over, LANDS THEM, and starts to attack the colossi in fighter mode. We die >.>

You know, it makes sense. Colossi are ground units, so he thought he had to do ground attack mode! It was a good laugh though. We have a bunch of those moments along with good ones where everything works and he gets happy. His favorite strategy now is getting BCs while I harass and keep them in their base for a while. Yay copper league. ^_^

ANYWAY, I'll be on Bnet off and on today most likely. If you see me on, feel free to message for some games!

[ninjafetus]

I don't see it as that different than banning XBLA accounts for cheating achievements.