StarCraft 2

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
607
I'm not sure if it is really that feasible. My issue lies in the fact that if I may like 1 marine a few seconds before I make a second they take up the same production icon but I'd need to recognize the number changed from 1 to 2. Since twitch is still pretty blurry even at 1080p it would be a major pain in the ass. Not saying impossible but probably not worth my time.
 

k^M

Blackwing Lair Raider
2,749
2,011
Sad to admit I agree on the campaign difficulty. Shit I remember WoL brutal's taking a few reloads/retries even with mm&m spam or any other effective cheese.

Mostly though, I miss the either/or choice missions. Bomb the tunnels and force air in the final battle, or destroy the nests and get nydus. Where were those options here? Final mission in WoL on brutal was epic crazy even with cheese, same with the protoss end of the world map getting rushed by the hybrids. I remember getting chills when all of the Protoss heroes warped in to stand together at the end of that map and died one by one.

Nothing in HotS felt even remotely like that.
 

Zaphid

Trakanon Raider
5,862
294
I think you are focusing on details instead of getting the big picture, trying it a few times and then conjuring up all the permutations nd tiny adjustments based on spawns and opponents' build. Your play is better served by learning how to get more mileage out of your drops than shaving 10 seconds off your 2/2 upgrades.
 

Seananigans

Honorary Shit-PhD
<Gold Donor>
14,360
36,529
The HotS campaign doesn't feel like an RTS. Even moreso than WoL.

Anyone who is saying it's an ok or even good campaign is someone who is just having fun playing this hybrid RPG thing they've created. Which is fine, but after ActiBlizz has torched every other classic Blizzard franchise and warped it into something new, I'm just kind of pissed that they got around to completing it with SC as well. WoL started it, but I was hoping they would have reversed some of the damage. Alas.


Oh, and FUCK, enough with the stop-start cutscene gameplay. It sucked in Diablo 3, and it sucks here. Fuck you guys, let me play a 45 minute mission and then reward me with a 5 minute cutscene of awesomeness, that's great. But play 2 minutes, cut, 3 minutes, cut, 5 minutes, cut, 1.5 minutes, cut ad nauseum can suck my dick.
 

Zaphid

Trakanon Raider
5,862
294
Yeah, the missions definitely feel like a modern FPS and they could definitely look at their pacing. RTS of old gave you plenty of times to have fun with your units while they used the same rules for most of the game, HotS feels like it's afraid people will get bored if they have to do the same thing twice. I guess it could be partially because the SP and MP are completely different games, so they could go all out on the SP, but it does really poor job of teaching you how to play. None of the missions require a specific army composition, because at worst you just need meatshields until Kerrigan cleans stuff up. Or the mission where you fly with the Hyperion, it was great, but it has nothing to do with starcraft. Either it needed to be stretched over several missions or just put it in a cutscene. It felt like a shiny distraction, not a well thought out element complimenting the game.
 

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
607
To be fair I'm only doing this because I have nothing else to do at work.

Zap do you have any replays of you losing in PvT that I can snag
 

Zaphid

Trakanon Raider
5,862
294
Not with me ATM unless SC2gears puts them into cloud automatically or something, but it was usually sloppy play or late reaction to drops, I think I played way more PvZ and PvP so far. Sloppy play as in "Time to move out!" "Oh, he ran into my natural with 12 MM, because I wasn't scouting, killed the nexus and jolly continued into my main, so F10+N" There was one particularly funny PvT on Star Station where he killed almost all my probes, so I busted his natural with immortals, got my eco back on track an got third, then found out he had 2 extra orbitals mining for a while, got a bit nervous, because I thought it was essentially over, so I completed my tech, and started killing his expansions, while he called me trash, noob and idiot. That game got me promoted to Master.
 

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
607
It looks like with speed vacs my old TvZ build from WoL is actually a bit better in HOTS. Not only speed vacs but widow mines seem to get rid of the "nervous" gap I always had when I only had 1-2 tanks out to defend ling counter attacks. Basic order:

1 Rax FE
3 Rax
2 Gas
Tech -> Stim
Fact -> Reactor
Port
Fact<=>Port
Reactor Fact (again)
CC
2 Ebay
2 Gas @ Nat

Push @ 2 medivacs + marines. Make 2 more medivacs and continue marine production. If things get ugly lift up and run away and drop somewhere. Behind the scenes add Reactors to your barracks when you start getting comfortable. Start pumping out mines and consider adding another Factory with a Reactor once you have Reactors on your Raxes. Constantly make medivacs + marines and constantly drop until it just isn't working out anymore then push the front with mines + marines.

Here are a couple replays with varying levels of execution. I'm still trying to get into the mechanics of the game so neither are perfect. Oh yeah you'll also notice I keep my marine rally at the top of my base exactly for the reason in the game where I get bane busted. I'm still playing unranked but mostly face off against Diamond players.
 

LadyVex_sl

shitlord
868
1
Yeah, Tal'Darim are now the goto guys when you need to fight protoss. Stop trying to make story look less retarded. I mean, when Mengsk announces he killed one of the main characters, I knew it was a lie because it would actually make for a good plot. That is the level of writing we are dealing with.
I don't know why this would begoodwriting, unless you mean it might take the crappiness of it and kick it up a notch because of a twist. I mean, I could see that actually happening and about a billion different spin offs that would all be better than what we got, but I don't know if that ACTUALLY had to happen for it to be better.

With that said, don't they literally say in WOL that they can't kill him because he would become a martyr? But it's ok now? Blah.
 

Zaphid

Trakanon Raider
5,862
294
I don't know why this would begoodwriting, unless you mean it might take the crappiness of it and kick it up a notch because of a twist. I mean, I could see that actually happening and about a billion different spin offs that would all be better than what we got, but I don't know if that ACTUALLY had to happen for it to be better.

With that said, don't they literally say in WOL that they can't kill him because he would become a martyr? But it's ok now? Blah.
Because nothing in HotS moves the plot forward and this would give it a much needed kick in the butt
 

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
607
Not with me ATM unless SC2gears puts them into cloud automatically or something, but it was usually sloppy play or late reaction to drops, I think I played way more PvZ and PvP so far. Sloppy play as in "Time to move out!" "Oh, he ran into my natural with 12 MM, because I wasn't scouting, killed the nexus and jolly continued into my main, so F10+N" There was one particularly funny PvT on Star Station where he killed almost all my probes, so I busted his natural with immortals, got my eco back on track an got third, then found out he had 2 extra orbitals mining for a while, got a bit nervous, because I thought it was essentially over, so I completed my tech, and started killing his expansions, while he called me trash, noob and idiot. That game got me promoted to Master.
All good I think I found a pretty decent build that is fairly safe in HOTS for TvP

10 depot @ ramp
12 rax not @ ramp
13 gas
Marine
16 depot @ ramp
(depending on scouting info: Reaper)
Reactor Rax
Fact
CC
Bunker @ ramp

From there I make a handful of mines for defense and I get a healthy marine count. Depending on what I see around the map the build varies. If it is Stargate I need to drop an ebay before 2 more raxes. If he did something like Gate Robo Nexus then I can get a port and do a mine+marine drop. But for the most part the build leads to adding 2 more raxes w/ tech labs and a port and pushing when Stim + Shield finishes with vacs.
 

Weaponsfree_sl

shitlord
342
1
You know, that's one viscous cycle. Fans bitch about every matchup being the same and stale, mapmakers make unique maps to force players to think outside the box, players bitch about having to learn new strats/builds, map makers go back to making every map a 3-base snore fest, fans bitch...
What kind of cycle?
 

Zaphid

Trakanon Raider
5,862
294
So far it seems like any build that wants to be safe needs to get aggressive, so safely sitting in your base until 8 minutes will get you demolished. Reapers, mine pushes, anything that you usually think is risky.
 
It looks like with speed vacs my old TvZ build from WoL is actually a bit better in HOTS. Not only speed vacs but widow mines seem to get rid of the "nervous" gap I always had when I only had 1-2 tanks out to defend ling counter attacks. Basic order:

1 Rax FE
3 Rax
2 Gas
Tech -> Stim
Fact -> Reactor
Port
Fact<=>Port
Reactor Fact (again)
CC
2 Ebay
2 Gas @ Nat

Push @ 2 medivacs + marines. Make 2 more medivacs and continue marine production. If things get ugly lift up and run away and drop somewhere. Behind the scenes add Reactors to your barracks when you start getting comfortable. Start pumping out mines and consider adding another Factory with a Reactor once you have Reactors on your Raxes. Constantly make medivacs + marines and constantly drop until it just isn't working out anymore then push the front with mines + marines.

Here are a couple replays with varying levels of execution. I'm still trying to get into the mechanics of the game so neither are perfect. Oh yeah you'll also notice I keep my marine rally at the top of my base exactly for the reason in the game where I get bane busted. I'm still playing unranked but mostly face off against Diamond players.
Game 1 you have like 4 scvs following another instead of mining at the start heh+
 

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
607
It happened twice that game I think. After I corrected that problem it happened again a few minutes later where I had a bad rally to just infront of the minerals lol.

My brain was thinking "WTF I should have the minerals to throw down my 3 raxes by now .... oh fuck. Oh god no."
 

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
607
So far it seems like any build that wants to be safe needs to get aggressive, so safely sitting in your base until 8 minutes will get you demolished. Reapers, mine pushes, anything that you usually think is risky.
I feel like that was true at first but I already feel the metagame is shifting away from that idea. The same RTS principals apply to HOTS that applied to WoL in that you want to be ahead economically. In HOTS it seems like you can't do the same stuff as in WoL where you can triple expand off one unit producing structure but I feel if you scout you are ahead there is no point to just arbitrarily attacking. I played a TvP yesterday where I used the same build outlined above and he did some funky stalker pressure into Oracles and I scouted he had no other bases up. So even after I parried away his opening gambit I still kept my mines at home and was keeping tabs on his bases with a reaper. I waited for my stim to finish and just a-move killed him with marine+medivac.