SC2 noob questions

Dcully

Ok so the hype for SC2 has been pretty mighty for months now,everyone and their dog seems to be looking forward to it,blizzard make great games etc etc and so on.
Forgot to mention boards.ie make a dedicated forum so it must be good :P

Seriously though folks ive played rts titles in the past and sucked terribly in MP games so much so i rarely gave them more than a game or two.
Ive seen countless SC2 videos yet im none the wiser as to what the fuss is about.
I want to be looking forward to it but i just dont see based on videos what makes it so special compared to your typical rts.
Thats not a criticism of the game but more my lack of knowledge and general experience of the series as ive never played the first SC or SC2 beta and just cant grasp why its so special from the vids atleast [obviosly videos dont offer a fair means to judge a game hence why id like to hear from beta players ]
Despite all the above im considering a purchase but would hate for it to be another rts lying idle that i never so much as finished the single player.
Probably an impossible task but if someone feels up to educating me on why SC2 is so incredibly anticipated and what im missing out on if i dont purchase then feel free to do so

gearoidof

tl;dr Blizzard make good games.
--
all opinions based on beta
A lot of hype is made about the SC MP (multiplayer), and the main reason people enjoy it is because it's exact. There's never an instance where a player loses due to the game, he loses because he was outplayed.
Personally, there's an immense level of satisfaction from this. My previous RTS was dow2, a game where my units ignored me all the bloody time.

MP is based on soft counters, i.e. whereas in some games you see that he has x and y, so you know to build Z. in SC2, you see he has x and y, so you can get away with z. i.e. if you see he has lots of marauders and siege tanks, you can get some choppers and slaughter him.
Mainly though, the main reason it's liked is that it takes such a massive amount of skill to play in it.

Anyway, a noob's reasons to play sc2.. I'm no pro, I'll be honest. But I enjoyed the ethos of the game. Everyone wants to have fun (duh), but in some games, if you're trying to improve, people will tell you improving sux, play4fun (dow2). In SC2, everyone wants to get better. They have nice shiny baubles.

The Campaign is also very good, by the by. Blizzard has better animators than Square Enix, and when they spend $100 million on it, you can bet it'll have a damn good storyline

Nody

1) It is made by Blizzard - I'd argue it is the highest quality stamp a game can have (on a company level)

2) It has three sides that are actually balanced! No other game has really managed to pull that one of properly

3) SC1 was (and still is) HUUUUUGE; there are TV channels dedicated to professional playing it in Korea ten years after release

4) Blizzard tells a good story; it sometimes has cheese and wine in it but they do tell a decent story. Many of us wants to find out what happened after SC1 since they left several things hanging (the zerg/human combo race etc.)

5) Multiplayer is skill based; there is no "IWIN" button, unit or strategy; everything has counters BUT you need to be good enough to find out what's being built and build counters accordingly

6) Multiplayer scales well; there are several different levels from Bronze to Diamond league where what you could get away with at one level you need to improve to the next

7) You can actually improve and learn; everyone playing and looking at their recordings can see a steady increase in skill at the start

8) Did I mention multiple races all having multiple potential builds meaning you can go up against the same race but never know what you'll go up against (beyond general terms)?

9) Tournaments with serious prices available (for the really skilled)

10) No turtling or tank rush strategy works; you need to be aggressive from the get go. This makes for fast pased games with out each player sitting behind the wall of doom turling and seeing who'll lose the most units first to the other player's defences. If you're not out harrassing / scouting the enemy you lose; simple as that.

Dacian

2 very good posts above this.

I'll just lower the quality a bit with my 2 yuan.

-The balance of the 3 races is excellent. You may find you hate Protoss or Terran but love playing Zerg. 3 viable sides is better than the usual 2 choices in other RTS.

-Even with 3 armies each has several styles of play. So you may go up against 3 Terran players each with a different style. This is where the skill comes in,you have to counter whatever ou see your opponent doing. Merely building the biggest units will not make you win. And conversely each faction has certain advantage/disadvantages over the other 2. EG. The Terran have an EMP ability which is deadly against Protoss units (who have big energy shields) but less useful versus the biological Zerg.

-The big strategy of SC is hard to master but gives the game depth. You MUST expand or you will die to a better economy by your opponent. So many tactics ingame are not to kill the enemy but to deny them resources to produce more units. If you are attacking you must still be able to multitask and keep an eye on your bases/economy.

- It seems as if the B.net servers will match you with players of similar skill. Hopefully this will let new players like the OP get online and try the game without being hammered into the ground by rushes in under 4 minutes. (Me too to be honest. I wasn't in the Beta but my recent Brood War matches were a bit embarrassing)

I would highly recommend you to watch some video commentaries by Day9. He is a US player who explains theory,logic and practise of the game very clearly and enjoyably. www.day9tv.blip.tv Look at the episode archives for some of his older casts which explain various techniques and race specific tactics. One of the things I like about him is that he doesn't advocate copying exactly the play of top players, he advises you to monitor what they do and why they do it. By figuring out their thought process you can take that and improve your own play.

DirkVoodoo

Yeah I remember the great attraction about the original was that you had 3 distinct races that were perfectly balanced.

Too many RTS games cop out by either cloning units, so everyone has a marine-tank-aircraft that is different only in appearance. In Starcraft, each race is not only unique in look but in playing style. The strategies for each race are not really interchangeable but no race has an unfair advantage.

Obviously rush strategies became very popular in the game, especially at the "pro" levels, though this never had much appeal to me. I used to play a lot of LAN games with friends and it was always a very tactical affair. I'm not going to say it was like a game of chess, but they were more thought out games than say C&C.

For me though it was always about the story and the universe. Few companies are able to create such fantastic universes as blizzard. Ok, so they borrow a lot from convention in either sci-fi or fantasy, but every one of their games has had memorable characters, unpredictable twists and more often than not, dark tones in the story.

I'm still hopeful Kerrigan can be saved

We will have to get some games going when it comes out, I played the Beta a few times but I prefer the units being rolled out in the campaign rather than all at once online.

Dcully

Thanks for the input guys.
Ill probably pick up a retail copy Tuesday or Wednesday, i plan to read some reviews from trusted sites beforehand.
Apparently reviews can be published Tuesday?

I just hope i can get MP games of my lowly skill level, that my number one concern.

Dustaz

Dcully wrote: »

I just hope i can get MP games of my lowly skill level, that my number one concern.

You will be able to, you play 5 placement games in mp and that puts you in the relevant division so your not playing JaeDong straight away.

I am EXACTLY like you dcully, never played a rts game seriously before, just couldnt get into them cos im pretty epicly bad at them. However, just as my annual WoW interest dip happened, i was looking for something to do and a lot of friends were playing sc2 so i gave it a look. At first i was completely and totally overwhelmed by it to the extent i needed someone on vent observing me to tell me which buttons to push. eventually i got a little better but from the minute i opened the game it was FUN and continued to be so even when i was losing horribly. Play the single player to get used to races and give the mp some time, you wont be sorry. Also, if you get the chance to hang out with a bunch of ppl and observe their games, tjats a massive help too.

Dcully

Cheers Dustaz , sounds like a plan

seraphimvc

must say i m not a super big fan of the strategy gameplay now :pac: well,i used to play with mates in clan war and STR game is defo one of my favourite game genre - what attracts me to buy SC2 on the launch day(i am going to hmv in 30mins:D) is because of the story!

cant wait to see Jim,zaratul and kerrigan in action again!!!:D

bad thing is we will need to wait zerg and protoss campaigns in the next instalment....

Drakar

Day9 www.day9tv.blip.tv looks good, but theres like 21 pages of 12 movies per page, and some are like 1hr long, thats alot of viewing now that the game's out :P

Kiith

Us noobs need to get a few games going against each other, to ease us into the MP. I'd love to play some games over the weekend against a few of you.

Dustaz

for newer players, id highly recommend the challenges in the sp part of the game.

Theyll teach you macro, hotkeys, unit counters etc. All the stuff that you need for the battle @ bronze:)

RealistSpy

Do not rush and make sure you have defences.

Overheal

I'll answer the hype question so this will really be about Starcraft 1.

What made Starcraft so amazingly successful is how it changed the mold. I think it was the first mainstream game to offer unit queues for instance. Along with a couple other tweaks and features it was comfortable to play. You could hotkey buildings to keep your lights on or have your HQ's scanner sweep handy.

The Major Factor though was just how different the factions/races where. You didnt just have Oh Look, Soviet vs. Allies: He has tanks and HE has tanks, but this tank = 2 of those tanks... THIS MEANS THEY'RE DIFFERENT!

No, these races are hugely different right down to the way that they build. Terrans are traditional RTS; Zerg require Creep to Spawn their buildings (and once destoyed other races must wait for Creep to clear before building there - this also stops Cannon-Rushing); and Protoss buildings are powered by pylons that act as supply and effectively shielding for your bases - warping in your bases also means one drone can build an entire base in about a minute with enough resources. And from there the differences just spiral off: Zerg units regenerate; Protoss units have shields; etc.

And despite these wild differences the winning factor of the game is how perfectly balanced it all is. There's no end-all unit. No battlecruiser swarm can hold up long to a handful of templar storms; no Mothership can hold up to enough Vikings; heck, no nuke can launch without considerable micro-management. And seemingly no amount of base-wipes is enough to keep a persistent player out of the game: they will rebuild.

And really its that balance that SC has always been known for and every RTS I've played since always suffers in some way, typically from a unit type being too OP and before you know it that becomes "The" strategy. And even the Zerg Rush (yes, that meme) isn't all-powerful.

I tell you what though I was frightened when I thought about them removing old units and adding new ones: no Wraiths but you want to confuse me with all these new flying machines?! But, they've lived up to the game's reputation. That balance has been preserved and if you know what you're doing it's easy to come out on top: all it boils down to is you. It won't matter if you got the Good Spot on the Map or you're up against the wrong race; it's really just a matter of wit and grit. Never get discouraged, just keep fighting; rebuild; conquer. Usually the first one to blink is the one that loses and it's not always about who loses a base First.

And you know when Starcraft was out I was a kid and I sucked at the Multiplayer; was afraid of ladder matches and always got my ass kicked. Now with a little knowhow and more bravado It's much more enjoyable and victory is definitely reachable. The new ladder system also helps to pair me up with people that suck just as badly as I do

It really is worthy of being Starcraft 2.0

SeantheMan

Can someone please explain the build order thing, or when they say it in replays.

E.g Normally goes on 16..but this time he's gone on 14

Does that mean 14 food...or 14 collectors of minerals or what ?

SeantheMan

Kiith wrote: »

Us noobs need to get a few games going against each other, to ease us into the MP. I'd love to play some games over the weekend against a few of you.

Definitely,
I've not got the game yet (gettin it friday), and not played and RTS since..eh...some C&C3 and a small bit of CoH years ago
I'm TOTAL noob ...so don't wanna be pwned, but looking forward to really trying at this game ..as I can see it will be around for the next 5-10 years.
So getting some good groundwork done will allow you to always come back and compete in some way ..rather than being a noob forever

Rape is a crime btw, so please don't

Dustaz

SeantheMan wrote: »

Can someone please explain the build order thing, or when they say it in replays.

E.g Normally goes on 16..but this time he's gone on 14

Does that mean 14 food...or 14 collectors of minerals or what ?

Yes, its 14 food (or supply).

You sometimes hear this in certain strats, like the zerg 6 pool or 10 pool etc. Which can be a little confusing as other strats such as 4 gate and 3 rax refer to the amount of buildings.

Kiith

I just watched a match from some tournamtent in the beta there....i'm seriously gonna suck at this I know they are the best out there, but bloody hell, there's a whole lot going on in the top matches.

gearoidof

with zerg, 6 pool is the amount of workers you have before getting the spawning pool, and anything less than 10 pool is a risky strat.

Overheal

it is serious fun though. tied up a whole rush of zealots with 6 lings that tried to chase them down while i killed all his probes.

Gonzovision

I find fast Zergling rush so hard to deal with. If I'm not finsihed walling off and maybe have only 1 marine a constant rush of Zerglings always seems to get me.

Overheal

use your barracks to wall off earlier. You'll have 1 Supply Depot up by that point and thats all you need as an early doorway.

Dcully

Ok soz to be a noob but what is walling off?
Still havent got brave enough to venture online , normal AI in versus mode are kicking my ass
So much to learn in this game.

Gummy Panda

Dcully wrote: »

Ok soz to be a noob but what is walling off?
Still havent got brave enough to venture online , normal AI in versus mode are kicking my ass
So much to learn in this game.

Walking off is closing the chokes to your base.

I think I have some beginner vids that might help u.

EDIT:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92Rv-s-7rNk

Dcully

Cheer mate i have this guys page bookmarked http://www.youtube.com/sc2noobschool#p/a/BCA0D02E61441D7A/0/fvQTF5IusTM
I just havent had time to study it all yet.

Forgot about total biscuit, love that guys wow podcasts.

CombatCow

Iv a noob question but not about the game itself :pac:

Is the downloadable client installation the same as what would be installed from the disk ?

Cheers,
CC

Dcully

CombatCow wrote: »

Iv a noob question but not about the game itself :pac:

Is the downloadable client installation the same as what would be installed from the disk ?

Cheers,
CC

Id imagine so, its the same client.
The launcher will update if needed but nothing more than a couple of mb id imagine if at all.

Its cheaper in the shops by the way plus you get a box and manual,registering your game with battle.net allows you to download the game at any date later on which is handy if you lose your disk etc.
So effectively you have a digital version and a boxed version if you but it in the shops.

CombatCow

Yeah thats cool, im buying it in HMV at lunchtime and I dont wanna waste any time during my break installing it, so im installing the client now :P