EPTWOW
This game is SHINY. The livestreams do not do justice to the level of detail in-game. It was like playing a different game from what I had been watching, and anyone who has been remarking about the (lack of) clarity of graphics needs to see to believe. Units are beautifully animated, and contrast clearly with the surrounding graphics.
That said, units do clump up such that it is virtually impossible to select one particular unit from the bunch. It makes it much easier to select everything at once, and you can still ctrl click by unit types, but it's a little weird seeing a maxed army squeezed together so tightly. It doesn't really make sense from what behavioral sciences have taught us about personal space and comfort: these marines are intimately close. When you stack on top of this a thor and some medivacs, it looks awkward and only benefits gameplay in certain situations - one psi storm will wreck everything.
I only played a handful of TvP, so my focus was primarily on learning and adapting what I was seeing most on the streams: fast MULE and marine/marauder. I didn't opt for a larger push, and I didn't get any medivacs. I chose to follow up with a fast expansion and an engineering bay if I thought anything fishy might be going on (void ray rushes are so stupid).
At first I didn't realize that many of the hotkeys from Broodwar had changed (marine changed from M to A), and for related reasons my build was waaay behind what I had set out to do. With the proper optimizations I could have been rolling out with maybe twice as many units. The reactor lets you produce double of your basic unit, but you want to get it early on to get the greatest benefit.
Despite my numerous blunders, I was usually able to secure my expansion with this build. Immortals were instrumental in shutting down my weak push, but I never got the impression that they were particularly overpowered - only that if I had been macroing better in combination of microing my infantry better I would have been in better shape.
Once I had my fast expansion up (often around when my opponent was taking his Nexus, depending on his opening), I really wasn't sure what to do. In one game, I massed infantry (too many marauders, it's hard to stop building them) and was demolished by colossi. In another, I added tanks to my infantry and was demolished by air. In yet another, I massed thor and nothing but thor, and I was demolished by zealots. The mothership was a pain also, because I hadn't given thought to preparing a Raven for my push, so I was forced to rely on scans (which are few in number if you MULE regularly).
I didn't build any ghosts or air units besides medivacs. My push was focused on numbers over tech, and my attack was timed roughly for when my opponent's 3rd was coming online. My army died every time, but it felt like an honest Broodwar game where a late 6fac meets 2base arbiter. My strategy was to fast-expand, build a ton of ground units, and then a-click (as this was the general critique about the "dumbing down" of SC2, so I had to test it). This strategy did not work against an opponent that responded by massing and teching off of 2 bases before taking a 3rd.
I can now genuinely say that SC2 is not "dumbed down" in the least. People complain that units move too quickly and are too mobile. Actually, units move at a frustratingly normal speed, and map terrain does play a role in combat. The overall pace of combat is rather quick, your units die very quickly and engaging in a bad position or at a bad timing is very unforgiving. There is certainly more than enough to handle to make multitasking and apm no less important than it was in Broodwar.
There aren't any particular units or abilities in the Terran arsenal that appear useless to me. The calldown supply ability (which I believe is underused) was very useful in practice. Bases mine out pretty quickly in SC2, especially if you're using MULEs. Even when I wasn't supply stuck, the only time I felt pressed for minerals was when I was trying to squeeze out more units (a) in the very early game, and (b) when I was massing for my push.
People say SC2 is more vespene-heavy, and I agree that it is a limiting factor considering that you will be gathering an obscene amount of minerals in a short time. Nevertheless, I was able to get a lot of stuff up and running with only 1 geyser by trying to target my spending toward just setting up a fast expansion. It wasn't until my expansion was up and I wanted factories pumping thors that going to 4 gas was appropriate. I really think there is a lot of potential for deep builds that make subtle adjustments in when they take extra vespene and how they time and exchange tech labs / reactors. If you love delicate/prepared build orders then you will love SC2.
And a few things that I didn't like so much:
- Unit-wise: Thors die so quickly, it's unnatural given their appearance. Vikings don't appear particularly cost effective, and Terran in general doesn't appear to have a great mobile anti-air (and anti-colossus) unit (comparable to a cloaked wraith's focus fire, or a valkyrie's splash damage). The Thor is the new GtA unit, but it's nowhere as cost effective as a goliath. Should we just keep making marines?
- Units lag before executing your orders. You cannot control your infantry with the same precision as in BW.
- Infinite unit selection is handy but the stacking makes it difficult to micro your units and leaves them vulnerable to splash. This is simply a crutch feature, but it cannot replace good army control (at least for Terran).
- The maps suck. Ones like Scrap Station and Desert Oasis have an extremely exposed natural, which makes an FE ridiculously inefficient if not risky. I don't know why Blizzard sucks at making maps. I think Lost Temple is the best "standard" map, but there is so much room for improvement.
- No camera hotkeys(?). This has to be fixed in an upcoming patch, no excuses, or SC2 will be extremely frustrating to play.
- I miss spider mines, some randomizing element that could potentially do outrageous damage. That said, it better suites the Zergs in the form of burrowed banelings.
Bottom line though, SC2 >> BW once some of the unit imbalances are worked out and the usability is brought back up to par. Strategically and mechanically SC2 will outdo BW, and is a more than worthy successor of the Starcraft legacy.
