StarCraft 2

[FireBorn]

Originally Posted by Jazzrat

with the recent nerf of hydralisk to 80 hp, means you only need 1 psi storm to kill them.

I've actually heard that the hydralisk will always (or almost always) regenerate 1hp while the psystorm is hitting them, so if they're at full health they won't actually be killed by it. I saw a video where that happened to quite a few hydra's, I'm just not sure whether it always or sometimes won't kill them.

[FlareKnight]

Well useless or not the tanks were always my favourite unit and I'll find a way to make them work. Of course since I haven't actually gotten a beta key I can't really say that based on having already done it.

[felix]

Interview with Dustin Browder.

Some key points:

Is that change in overall mobility something you intentionally built into the game?

No. Our creative process on StarCraft II was very different than the creative process I've used on other RTS games I've worked on or even on WarCraft III. We didn't set out with any goals in mind, and I'm sure that this will upset the fans terribly. What we did instead was that we said, "We want to make a bunch of cool units, and we're going to make each unit as cool as we can possibly make it, and then we'll see how it all works together, and we'll tune as necessary from there." So it was never our intention specifically to do anything exactly with the races. Our goal was to make the units as interesting as possible and as different from one another as we possibly could. From there we could see how the races changed and evolved. That's definitely how it has worked out.

Sound like the description of the Roach problem: they made a overpowered unit and then overpowered everything else to compensate.

The race matchups were also a lot worse. It was very easy to have games where it was just…depending on the week, it could be that Protoss was winning every game versus Protoss losing every game. We had a lot more units in the game. We sometimes had fifteen or sixteen units on the Zerg or Protoss at any given moment before we finally got down to 14 now. Sometimes as many as 17 or 18 on the Zerg, which meant that the race matchups got very confusing. It was difficult to know what to build at any given moment, and there was lots of overlap either between the units on a single race or between the units on a race and another unit. You'd play as the Zerg with something called a Spore Beast and we'd say, "Oh my god, this is just a Banshee, isn't it?" We'd try to tune as like a really fast Banshee, and it was like, "Okay, dude, but that's still a Banshee." It hadn't fundamentally changed its role. We had some stuff that was a lot wackier, that felt more new but wasn't necessarily more fun.

I haven't seen anything in beta yet that's really…. Well, that's not true. We have a proxy Gateway rush that's been causing us a lot of trouble. It's still evolving even now. The basic strat is that you build a Pylon on low ground, outside the guy's base. Then you run inside his base and you build a Gateway next to the cliff edge so it's powered by that Pylon. So the enemy player is unable to get at the Pylon, which is the weak link in that whole setup, because the Pylon is on the low ground. Then you start building Zealots, or at some point warping in Zealots in that power field. This endless Zealot pressing, especially against a Terran player or even a Protoss player, is pretty unstoppable. [laughs] It's pretty grim. That one is one that we've been attacking for quite a while and we're about to attack it again. We're seeing it in Protoss versus Protoss games now. We've beaten it back pretty well in Protoss versus Terran, but Protoss versus Protoss is still really bad. If one Protoss player goes three Gateways, the other Protoss player needs to go three Gateways to counter or he is hosed. So we're probably going to do some changes to the build time on the upgrade for Warp Gates, just to push that a little bit later in the tech tree so that a lot of the early Warp Gate shenanigans that we're seeing in the beta get pushed back a little bit.

It's really tough, because the initial urge from a lot of guys when they see that, is "We just need to take that and move it to Fleet Beacon."

[felix]

Originally Posted by FlareKnight

Well useless or not the tanks were always my favourite unit and I'll find a way to make them work.

I've been experimenting with going the non-intuitive route. Fast expeand and just rush into marine/hellion/battlecruiser tactics. You could not win by rushing to battlecruisers in broodwar but it seems to make sense here. Hellions pumping from just one Factory with reactor and every other resource going into rax with reactor pumping tons of marines. Seems to work. I was surprised at how good they are against 16+ Corruptors too. Either Corruptors suck or marine+battlecruisers just have stupid arse dps it doesn't matter.

Some other pros:

• they dont have pathing issues like Thors
• don't shoot slower then a grandma (like Thors)
• the force is quite mobile (especially if I compliment it with medivacs later)
• they're really damn good for their cost: 550hp/3armor + nice attack
• they don't die to roaches (like thors and tanks)
• marines and hellions are cheap and quick to build
• marines are good early game, battlecruisers are decent late game, so its not a bad transition
• the tech crawl is actually pretty fast
• Terran macro mechanics focus on minerals; battlecruisers, marines and hellions fit into that

Well still working into perfecting it into a actual rush rather then just winging it but seems to be way more decent and viable then broodwar because of the new mechanics everywhere.

[felix]

Extensive use of Thor

[felix]

HDH Invitational

1st place = $1500
2nd place = $750
3rd place = $200

Read more about it here: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/HDH_Invitational (including dates and time)

ps. no live streaming is allowed

[Eisdrache]

Aside from TheLittleOne I see two others who are also on random. Maybe they are his fans?

[-Sho-]

The zerg should have kept with Mutalisk .
Well , nice videos .

[felix]

Thor rape Mutalisk.

Originally Posted by Eisdrache

Aside from TheLittleOne I see two others who are also on random. Maybe they are his fans?

No they, Nick Plott "Storm Observer" (aka Tasteless) and Sean "Day[9]" Plott, are both starcraft commentators and Broodwar veterans (and brothers). It makes sense to stick to one race when you play as pro but as a commentator you need to know all the races so obviously playing random to get a feel for everything is the only way to go.

[Archon_Wing]

No. Our creative process on StarCraft II was very different than the creative process I've used on other RTS games I've worked on or even on WarCraft III. We didn't set out with any goals in mind, and I'm sure that this will upset the fans terribly. What we did instead was that we said, "We want to make a bunch of cool units, and we're going to make each unit as cool as we can possibly make it, and then we'll see how it all works together, and we'll tune as necessary from there."

lol. Excellent plan. It feels I'm watching a bad anime.

But whatever, I need to get around to building thors.

[CrazyPerson]

Originally Posted by felix

Thor rape Mutalisk.


No they, Nick Plott "Storm Observer" (aka Tasteless) and Sean "Day[9]" Plott, are both starcraft commentators and Broodwar veterans (and brothers). It makes sense to stick to one race when you play as pro but as a commentator you need to know all the races so obviously playing random to get a feel for everything is the only way to go.

It's even better when you find out they're brothers and will be knocking each other off in the first round.

[felix]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

lol. Excellent plan. It feels I'm watching a bad anime.

It actually is a pretty good plan from a certain angle. If you try to make every unit unique you:

1. do not make a straight up copy of Broodwar (we don't want that)
2. can not possibly mess up racial diversity since every unit is unique means every race is unique by default
3. can not make boring units (roaches and marauders are fun, they just suck for balance)

I was pretty "WHAT?!!" when I first read it too. But even if it may not be the most methodical plan it is the most "can not screw it up bad lore/fun wise" plan. Also think of what would happen if it was methodical and balance oriented: ohno unit X is actually no-good, so much for that plan, okey team get ready to spend another 2 years formulating plan B. Trust me, one thing thats for certain in software development: you never get it right the first time, ever! (that's why we have versions).

Also another two things regarding the methodical approach.

Web standards follow the methodical approch and you have international organizations like W3C who spend years drafting and re-drafting and communicating with browser manufacturers, bringing in "experts" and so on. Hundreds of documents over the course of what 10years at least just for the last version and they still can't get it right!

And second, you have things like Broodwar, Diablo. They went with the same approuch and worry about other stuff later (aka expantion, patches) and that seems to have worked out pretty damn decently. Don't let Dustin "Baldie" Browder confuse you, he's referring to Warcraft in the article. Pretty sure he was working on C&C games when this other stuff was happening.

[-Sho-]

Well i mean , with the Mutalisks , he should have playing with enemy base instead of fighting thors . Thors are slow .
Anyway what is done is done , he played well with roachs .

[felix]

Back to Broodwar for a second. Some e-sport shenanigans have come to light. Apparently a lot of players were making deals with shady betting organizations and intentionally loosing the game.

Here's the last list of people under investigation (the scandal is relatively recent).
can not link as according to korean law criminal identity is protected so the sources were torn down

Myung Soo (Yarnc), Chan Soo (Luxury), Sang Ho (SangHo), Jung Woo (EffOrt), Yong Hwa (Movie), Jae Yoon (sAviOr), Taek Yong (Bisu), Byong Goo (Stork), Jae Wook (BeSt), il Jang (hero), Myung Hoon (fantasy), Heui Seung (UpMaGiC), Jae Dong (Jaedong), Sang Moon (Leta), Jong Seo (Justin), Chang Hee (go.go)

Personally don't care much for it since I'm a Boxer and Flash fan =P

[Lostdreams]

Ok, so I recently obtained a key and started playing this game. I have a question. What's the most units that can mine gas/minerals at a time? and what's the best number of workers to put on gas/mine patch.

[felix]

3 per gaiser is best. As for minerals with the current ai probably 2 per patch (note mules mine on top of other units, including themselvs -- though they will try to avoid each other somewhat). You always get a marginal benefit from placing more, the benefit is just weaker and weaker as you progress.

Also making more (over-saturating) means if you expand fast and transfer half of them you suddenly get this huge economy boost since now just saturated instantly the new patches. By transferring you also double the production of SCVs/probes/drones with out loosing efficiency or fearing over-saturation too much.

[Archon_Wing]

My macro is so bad even in this game. Played some 2v2s with a friend and mulling around silver league but I guess I was never a good sc1 player either. Nor am I a good teammate because of poor macro Even though it's arranged teams the matchmaker sometimes pits us against people who don't even work together and I can take them on by myself but other times against people that make 2x the units I can. For some reason, I haven't randomed Protoss yet. And I randomed zerg like 80% of the time.

Also, I'm not really sure what Terran should do against other Terrans. It seems that Marauders with viking support works best, but I don't really know.

PS, PDD is pretty awesome.

[felix]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

My macro is so bad even in this game.

There are few causes for bad macro.

• you try to micro too much
• you focus on teh battles
• you try to micro too much
• you try to micro too much

And of course theres the usual toilet break that gets you in.

Anyway, micro wins battles, macro wins games. You can have the worst micro ever just get your damn macro up. Just a-move armies if you have to! a lot of units actually don't need attention. BUT, if you're over obsessed with micro, then the answer is pretty straight forward: play toss and become one with sentries, momaship and high pain-in-the-arse. No really, here are two micro vs macro games for ya. The second game is as insane macro vs micro as it gets! Make a choice.

Game 1: Lauder vs Inca

Game 2: Dimaga vs HasuObs

[Archon_Wing]

Micro, what's that?

Though after watching the video, I see it's necessary to produce a lot of production buildings. It's so much easier to macro as zerg, with the queen crapping out larva all the time, and zerg doesn't seem to take much micro as such. Or maybe that's why I'm better with them.

Also creep tumors are pretty funny.

[Demongod86]

Can't you multibuilding select? If so, why not group all your buildings into one group and then spam through them every so often in battle? 4 TTTT tab CCCC for instance (4 HTs and 4 carriers XD)