New Battle Report (10/19/2009)

On October 19 2009 17:13 Together wrote:
so SC2 is still not gonna come out anytime soon? WTF blizzard.

On October 19 2009 18:30 caldo149 wrote:
I wonder why he didn't go for a bio build though, since many people have claimed success with bio units vs protoss in SC2.

On October 19 2009 18:30 caldo149 wrote:
wow that was really intense! david kim = gosu! haha
I wonder why he didn't go for a bio build though, since many people have claimed success with bio units vs protoss in SC2.

On October 19 2009 18:00 konadora wrote:
Helion.. looks like shit.

On October 19 2009 17:55 Together wrote:
looks like we're gonna be seeing more nukes in sc2, and alot of cliff abuse,

On October 19 2009 18:00 konadora wrote:
Helion.. looks like shit.

Btw is that the Siege Tank range I saw? Is that see-able in-game or is it just a replay-only function?

On October 19 2009 17:53 axion wrote:
I seriously thought that David Kim was going to loose.

On October 19 2009 22:43 Psyonic_Reaver wrote:


But you can heal ghosts in SC1 while they are nuking. I don't see a problem here?

On October 19 2009 20:53 Manifesto7 wrote:
The game looked like a lot of fun, and very fast paced. I wasn't sure what the role of the thor was though. It just seemed to be a huge mech with guns, and while that is cool, it didn't seem to have any advantages other than being bug and beefy.

On October 20 2009 00:59 zazen wrote:
Great BR, although BR 3 was even more impressive in my opinion.

I like everything, the only think I disliked were the army battles. It really felt like just pure attack-ground.

Think of an army vs army battle in SC1 TvP and now watch TvP armies clashing in that battle report... Yea it does look like the players had to do nothing in SC2.... No mine/sieging, no shuttle bombs, positioning didn't look nearly as important, etc.

Thors look big and clumsy... are they nothing but robot ultralisks?

Imitate High Templar movement animation from SC1, now!

I'll never like the Hellion, I think. It's a Command & Conquer unit.

On October 20 2009 01:15 Manit0u wrote:
Nice game.
My thoughts:

Nukes - a bit too low cooldown. I don't mind them being re-usable more often than in BW, but not every 5 seconds...
Hellions - somehow I still think that grenade launcher > flame thrower.
Thors - they look odd when moving (especially turning) in a clump of units. Looks like they're trying to cut/move around some invisible corners.

Protoss didn't use a single Immortal
I want to see Immos so bad...

On October 20 2009 01:15 Manit0u wrote:
Nice game.
My thoughts:

Nukes - a bit too low cooldown. I don't mind them being re-usable more often than in BW, but not every 5 seconds...
Hellions - somehow I still think that grenade launcher > flame thrower.
Thors - they look odd when moving (especially turning) in a clump of units. Looks like they're trying to cut/move around some invisible corners.

Protoss didn't use a single Immortal
I want to see Immos so bad...

On October 20 2009 01:19 Infectum wrote:

I also thought thors were supposed to be made by scvs? It looked like they we just produced normally from factories.

On October 19 2009 22:06 Kennigit wrote:
Ahhh yeah this was the game they showed us at fan site summit. Really cool :D

On October 20 2009 01:40 Jenia6109 wrote:
I giggled at new cute MULE animation

On October 19 2009 22:45 Zilver wrote:


Hahaha you're kidding, right?

On October 20 2009 02:28 Jenia6109 wrote:

When they mine

On October 20 2009 02:15 Ideas wrote:
psi storm should just be called psi shock or something now. goddamn it happens so fast. HOW ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO DODGE THAT

On October 20 2009 02:14 nayumi wrote:
Double CC expansion = Flash
Vulture harass = Fantasy
Nuke = Boxer

David = all of the above

HOW THE FUCK WOULD YOU EXPECT ANYONE TO BEAT THAT?

On October 20 2009 03:33 phexac wrote:
I agree with the comment that battles seemed rather boring in the sense that it looked like 2 armies were sort of identical and just attack-moved towards each other. That, of course, could be attributed to players sucking and not building the correct units. HOWEVER, I think one of the issue is the marauder. Basically what it is is a bigger more powerful marine. It's a unit that simply did not exist in BW. There was goliath, but goliath ground damage was far inferior to tank/vulture combo, and therefore they only came into play to counter air and some minor support. It was a unit that could be used for mass production, but that was not its optimal or smart use. Now, it seems that marauder is the main terran unit, completely overshadowing marines and tanks. Then, on top of that, we have thor, which is an even bigger marauder. So what terran main army seemed to boil down to was a series of progressively bigger robots. Not very interesting.

Helion also seems like a poor substitute for the vulture because it is a far more narrow use unit. Vulture was just so versatile and had so many uses and modes of use that seeing a fast-moving firebat as its replacement is just sad.

Finally, reapers. It seems they are a product of some designer's desire for a gimmick unit. "Hey let's make a jump-pack unit that is to be used for worker raids." Such narrow unit designation is, again, not very interesting. One of the things that made BW so cool is how many various uses there were for more units. Reavers could do an awesome job harassing peons and then turn around and provide key fire support in a battle or defend an expo. Vultures can raid peons, but then turn around and support tanks with mines or contain protoss who does not have observer nearby. Reapers seemed to die so fast to everything that it looked like their use was limited solely to peon raiding. That does not make for a cool unit or cool game choices.

It is possible that the players are simply not very good and thus build boring and incorrect unit mixes, and I do hope that is the case. Otherwise, I really have an issue with the choice of units that Blizzard made for this game because it looks like their tendency for terran was taking cool unit with multiple uses and replacing them with generic straight-forward crap from C&C and other second-rate RTS games out there.

On October 20 2009 03:06 SirGlinG wrote:


I wonder about that too. Are the HT's slower than in sc1 now? that would perhaps compensate somewhat. But the storms are pretty damn epic yes!

On October 19 2009 18:00 konadora wrote:
Helion.. looks like shit.

Btw is that the Siege Tank range I saw? Is that see-able in-game or is it just a replay-only function?

On October 20 2009 02:57 Jenia6109 wrote:
I noticed that Comsat was built right after Barracks :-0

On October 20 2009 05:01 FREEloss_ca wrote:


Also, will we ever see some true late game play? Or even flying units?

On October 20 2009 05:40 Tsagacity wrote:
Wow, Kim was at 170 supply for that battle he lost during the psi storms. His army didn't look nearly that big

On October 20 2009 05:46 FREEloss_ca wrote:


I noticed that too. For 170 supply his army wasn't very big...yet it was big compared to the size of the map, if that makes sense. I'm not sure how I feel about this. WC3 sized armies will blow.

On October 19 2009 20:00 FrozenArbiter wrote:
Likes
- Hellion movement. Looks very fast and fun.

2. Planetary fortress. It really bothered me that that whole Protoss army couldn't take down 1 building in the amount of time they were attacking. I just wasn't a fan of the whole thing.

On October 20 2009 06:51 da_head wrote:
"Nuclear Lunch Detected?"

On October 20 2009 06:56 blabber wrote:

I saw a little message appear at the top left, that was all I noticed

-I haven't seen any banshees in these BRs, but they need to change it's design or scrap it completely if its still a helicopter in space.

On October 20 2009 07:05 Chuiu wrote:
I noticed a few things I haven't seen before.

1. Protoss warp in animation is pretty slick, I like it.
2. Player controlled gas ports don't show up on the minimap, they stay as white squares.
3. Unit icons in dropships don't change size like in SC.
4. Psistorm looks sick as fuck but is way too fast. I know they lowered the damage but 80 damage in like 2 seconds is way more powerful than 125 across a few seconds.

I hope they fix 2, 3 and 4. Of course 4 is a balance issue that will be dealt with during beta. So far this was definitely the best battle report.

On October 19 2009 20:00 FrozenArbiter wrote:
Very nice game.

Likes

- Hellion movement. Looks very fast and fun.

- Medivac seems to behave just like a dropship (SC) or Zeppelin (WC3), which is great. I'm glad that they mention you can dodge projectiles with them, because that probably means you can dodge them with blink as well. I wasn't overly worried about this but it's good to have confirmation.

- Nukes =) Not sure how many silos he had, or if it just builds really quick, but it seemed viable.

Dislikes

- The Thor. I thought I'd like it, but it felt a bit weird Soooo big, and it didn't really do anything interesting. I dunno, maybe I'll get used to it? I wasn't a fan of seeing the T and P armies look so similiar tho (Thors+Marauders vs Stalkers+Colossi).

- Their single player Vulture model still looks a lot cooler than the Hellion.

The Thor was always an awful idea.

On October 20 2009 07:33 bigsack wrote:
David Kim plays like Boxer with the gosu dropship micro attacks and sneaky nukings. Everything I see in this BR is that Terran is almost perfect. The only thing I wish they could do is make the Hellion able to shoot while moving for some of us that love the way the vulture attacks while moving. Terran is so freaken mobile (and that's good since that's one of their weakness in SC:BW) now and he rarely used seige tanks to push out. I'm very happy to see the new Terran race though I'll be missing the spider mines since those mines created so many unique and fun strategies.

On October 19 2009 20:06 Polyphasic wrote:
Man, TvP really isn't the same without mines.

I really wish they would keep mines in the game somehow. That way, battles would require more strategy in setup, and more strategy in attacking a terran position. Unit combos are interesting, but still seems that in SC2, most larger battles are just attack click. That's really not so fun.

Like my previous threat, SC2 needs more mobile static defense. Mobile static defense defined as:
- A unit that does more damage when not moving than when moving
- A unit that takes time to switch from its moving form to its static form.
- The unit must do splash damage. Splash damage allows for strategic positioning to allow for more damage.
- SC1 examples: mines, siege tanks, lurkers.

Mobile Static Defense allows for strategic positioning in both defensive and offensive situations. It also requires strategic ways for opponents to break the formation. That adds another layer of strategy to the game. SC2 so far has very few Mobile Static Defense, making most battles just an attack-A fest, ending very quickly.

On October 20 2009 07:35 FrozenArbiter wrote:

I sort of liked it when it was built by SCVs... the problem is it doesn't seem to actually do anything fun. It needs something that sets it apart, some kind of personality. AoE barrage and an anti-air attack just doesn't cut it :/

Oh and it's still stupid to replace the medic with the medivac Should have just kept the medic but let it heal from inside a dropship or something if they wanted flying healers. Meh.

On October 20 2009 09:04 synapse wrote:
TERRAN IMBA
NUKE IMBA

sigh, terran still looks cartoony..ish...
and you cant tell whats what when everything clusters together >.>

great game though

On October 20 2009 09:11 Zato-1 wrote:

SC medics are bad design.

First, you have marines. Marines are weak individually but quickly grow in power the more you get of them. They have this powerful ability with a huge side effect: Stimpacks. Double the movement speed and attack rate, but it costs you 10 health out of 40.

Then comes the expansion and medics. Suddenly, Stimpacks have no side effect! Well, I guess they drain a little medic energy. Medics turned an interesting gameplay decision into a useless micro task; for all intents and purposes, marines could stim automatically whenever they engage an enemy.

Why is the Medivac better? Because it comes at a later tech. Changing the rules of the game through tech is fine- Arbiters can make Zealots invisible, Defilers can reduce the damage of Dragoons and Marines to zero, and Science Vessels can kill a whole stack of mutas with a single spell (if the Zerg player fails to split them properly). Taking away the drawback of Stimpack with a higher tech research isn't bad- it's like taking away the Zealot's disadvantage of being slow when you research Charge.

The stimpack + medic combo is just silly. If you're going to apply that kind of 'drawbacks', you might as well say Defilers can only use Consume on Zerg and Protoss units, and that Carriers cannot launch interceptors unless there is an area with pylon power somewhere in the map.

On October 20 2009 07:10 kulik- wrote:

and nuke doesnt seem imba for u?

On October 20 2009 10:21 Duckvillelol wrote:
I haven't gotten to watch it yet because I'm at work - is there any comment regarding the Xel'Naga watch towers? It seems to be that they are the most important thing in all of SC2.

/sarcasm

On October 20 2009 09:00 InToTheWannaB wrote:
Looked really fun, and it was fun to watch. Thats the biggest thing i took away from it. Even if i never played BWs, SC2 is a game I'd want to play after seen the BR.



You know after watching all these BR, and reading about SC2. It has always felt like something was missing from SC2 that made it different from BWs. You just nailed it, and I dont think I've seen anyone else bring this up before you did in this thread. Nice job . Your right without those kind of units its way to much A-move/spell spaming. Not sure that makes SC2 a worse game then BWs, but it does make it different

On October 20 2009 10:57 CauthonLuck wrote:
Also, did anyone notice at how at 15:20, the protoss uses warp-in onto his own cliff.

On October 20 2009 10:57 CauthonLuck wrote:
Also, did anyone notice at how at 15:20, the protoss uses warp-in onto his own cliff.

On October 20 2009 11:10 iamho wrote:
why is blizz remaking a map thats widely acknowledged as imbalanced? they should just redo python

On October 20 2009 11:25 Tsagacity wrote:
Why wouldn't you bring it back? It probably took 5 minutes to make and is a universally recognized RTS icon for Blizzard fans.

Also, imbalance in BW does not necessarily carry over to sc2.

On October 20 2009 11:25 Tsagacity wrote:
Why wouldn't you bring it back? It probably took 5 minutes to make and is a universally recognized RTS icon for Blizzard fans.

Also, imbalance in BW does not necessarily carry over to sc2.

On October 20 2009 10:36 SearingShadow wrote:
David Kim makes the race he's playing look very fun. I really want to see him play Zerg in a 1v1 game.

On October 20 2009 12:55 ArvickHero wrote:
They need to zoom up a little with the camera to like something like BW's camera, the battles seem a bit impersonal since the camera is zoomed a little too far away

On October 20 2009 12:55 ArvickHero wrote:
They need to zoom up a little with the camera to like something like BW's camera, the battles seem a bit impersonal since the camera is zoomed a little too far away

On October 19 2009 17:31 Kazius wrote:

.. and this surprises you, after the last 43425 games they delayed by a year or so?

On October 20 2009 13:35 Monokeros wrote:


except for World of Warcraft expansions.

but we all knew that.

On October 20 2009 14:05 vRoOk wrote:
JESUS CHRSIT

David Kim won again ... wtf

IMBA

On October 20 2009 13:56 BluzMan wrote:
I just CANNOT stand the new pathfinding. Everything clumps, you cannot preserve formation, you cannot effectively keep units spread out. This makes SC2 look and feel vastly inferior to SC even though it's a new and better technology.

And meh I barely caught the difference between races. They basically build the same units with slightly varying stats and abilities. PvT was a beatuiful match-up in SC with all the positioning stuff and protoss being really more mobile than terran and now they just both build armies and clash them and I don't even see what makes PvT different from TvP. Oh yes, terran now has even more ways to go gay, but gayness is not what I think should define a race.

Most importantly, SC has always been about map control more than anything else. I have not seen a tad of this in that game. Both players just built armies at their bases and sent them to their deaths, there has been no fighting for middle, no containting, just harassment at totally random places and fighting at seemingly random places as well. Funnily enough, neither player built a single static-D, no turrets, no cannons. You usually build those when you need to control a crucial spot and buy yourself time, so it seems like either static defense is underpowered or you always do better by building units than trying to control territory and hold important chokes. And notice how terran did not really rely on his tanks in ground battles. This alone makes it look very very strange.

I don't know, maybe this looks worse than it feels when you play it, but for now SC2 unfortunately looks like "just another RTS with good single player". It doesn't look like a worthy successor for me and I hope things are to change in the future. The worst problem of this game is pathfinding, it's awful, you need to have ways of preserving formations and I really think they need to bring magic boxes back. Overall, this BR was much more disappointing than the others even though you could see it coming from the previous PvT BR. Terran has the highest range, but the slowest units in the game. When he's playing without abusing his range and just walks the map like a protoss would instead of fighting for territory you could say this game is broken. When a race defined by high range doesn't actually use it, it's a design error.

I also feel that terran pretty much entirely lost it's racial identity. It now feels more like a collection of randomly taken units that just roll over the enemy with stats like hp and damage whereas in SC terran is a slow, but certain military machine of death with impenetrable defenses. It has a certain feel, while what I've seen in SC2 just has stats.

+ Show Spoiler +

On October 20 2009 15:58 PokePill wrote:
this is how I wish the hellion moved...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JdCuoN8fHs&feature=player_embedded#t=4m50s

Some of the graphics just seem so amateurish and animations are so poor. I mean they HAVE to be placeholder right, especially the High Templars?

On October 20 2009 13:56 BluzMan wrote:
I just CANNOT stand the new pathfinding. Everything clumps, you cannot preserve formation, you cannot effectively keep units spread out. This makes SC2 look and feel vastly inferior to SC even though it's a new and better technology.

And meh I barely caught the difference between races. They basically build the same units with slightly varying stats and abilities. PvT was a beatuiful match-up in SC with all the positioning stuff and protoss being really more mobile than terran and now they just both build armies and clash them and I don't even see what makes PvT different from TvP. Oh yes, terran now has even more ways to go gay, but gayness is not what I think should define a race.

Most importantly, SC has always been about map control more than anything else. I have not seen a tad of this in that game. Both players just built armies at their bases and sent them to their deaths, there has been no fighting for middle, no containting, just harassment at totally random places and fighting at seemingly random places as well. Funnily enough, neither player built a single static-D, no turrets, no cannons. You usually build those when you need to control a crucial spot and buy yourself time, so it seems like either static defense is underpowered or you always do better by building units than trying to control territory and hold important chokes. And notice how terran did not really rely on his tanks in ground battles. This alone makes it look very very strange.

I don't know, maybe this looks worse than it feels when you play it, but for now SC2 unfortunately looks like "just another RTS with good single player". It doesn't look like a worthy successor for me and I hope things are to change in the future. The worst problem of this game is pathfinding, it's awful, you need to have ways of preserving formations and I really think they need to bring magic boxes back. Overall, this BR was much more disappointing than the others even though you could see it coming from the previous PvT BR. Terran has the highest range, but the slowest units in the game. When he's playing without abusing his range and just walks the map like a protoss would instead of fighting for territory you could say this game is broken. When a race defined by high range doesn't actually use it, it's a design error.

I also feel that terran pretty much entirely lost it's racial identity. It now feels more like a collection of randomly taken units that just roll over the enemy with stats like hp and damage whereas in SC terran is a slow, but certain military machine of death with impenetrable defenses. It has a certain feel, while what I've seen in SC2 just has stats.

+ Show Spoiler +

On October 20 2009 13:56 BluzMan wrote:
I just CANNOT stand the new pathfinding. Everything clumps, you cannot preserve formation, you cannot effectively keep units spread out. This makes SC2 look and feel vastly inferior to SC even though it's a new and better technology.

And meh I barely caught the difference between races. They basically build the same units with slightly varying stats and abilities. PvT was a beatuiful match-up in SC with all the positioning stuff and protoss being really more mobile than terran and now they just both build armies and clash them and I don't even see what makes PvT different from TvP. Oh yes, terran now has even more ways to go gay, but gayness is not what I think should define a race.

Most importantly, SC has always been about map control more than anything else. I have not seen a tad of this in that game. Both players just built armies at their bases and sent them to their deaths, there has been no fighting for middle, no containting, just harassment at totally random places and fighting at seemingly random places as well. Funnily enough, neither player built a single static-D, no turrets, no cannons. You usually build those when you need to control a crucial spot and buy yourself time, so it seems like either static defense is underpowered or you always do better by building units than trying to control territory and hold important chokes. And notice how terran did not really rely on his tanks in ground battles. This alone makes it look very very strange.

I don't know, maybe this looks worse than it feels when you play it, but for now SC2 unfortunately looks like "just another RTS with good single player". It doesn't look like a worthy successor for me and I hope things are to change in the future. The worst problem of this game is pathfinding, it's awful, you need to have ways of preserving formations and I really think they need to bring magic boxes back. Overall, this BR was much more disappointing than the others even though you could see it coming from the previous PvT BR. Terran has the highest range, but the slowest units in the game. When he's playing without abusing his range and just walks the map like a protoss would instead of fighting for territory you could say this game is broken. When a race defined by high range doesn't actually use it, it's a design error.

I also feel that terran pretty much entirely lost it's racial identity. It now feels more like a collection of randomly taken units that just roll over the enemy with stats like hp and damage whereas in SC terran is a slow, but certain military machine of death with impenetrable defenses. It has a certain feel, while what I've seen in SC2 just has stats.

+ Show Spoiler +

On October 20 2009 16:44 spkim1 wrote:


Now do this again with ZvT/ZvP plz Try and make David play zerg, see what it gives.

On October 20 2009 13:56 BluzMan wrote:
I just CANNOT stand the new pathfinding. Everything clumps, you cannot preserve formation, you cannot effectively keep units spread out. This makes SC2 look and feel vastly inferior to SC even though it's a new and better technology.

And meh I barely caught the difference between races. They basically build the same units with slightly varying stats and abilities. PvT was a beatuiful match-up in SC with all the positioning stuff and protoss being really more mobile than terran and now they just both build armies and clash them and I don't even see what makes PvT different from TvP. Oh yes, terran now has even more ways to go gay, but gayness is not what I think should define a race.

Most importantly, SC has always been about map control more than anything else. I have not seen a tad of this in that game. Both players just built armies at their bases and sent them to their deaths, there has been no fighting for middle, no containting, just harassment at totally random places and fighting at seemingly random places as well. Funnily enough, neither player built a single static-D, no turrets, no cannons. You usually build those when you need to control a crucial spot and buy yourself time, so it seems like either static defense is underpowered or you always do better by building units than trying to control territory and hold important chokes. And notice how terran did not really rely on his tanks in ground battles. This alone makes it look very very strange.

I don't know, maybe this looks worse than it feels when you play it, but for now SC2 unfortunately looks like "just another RTS with good single player". It doesn't look like a worthy successor for me and I hope things are to change in the future. The worst problem of this game is pathfinding, it's awful, you need to have ways of preserving formations and I really think they need to bring magic boxes back. Overall, this BR was much more disappointing than the others even though you could see it coming from the previous PvT BR. Terran has the highest range, but the slowest units in the game. When he's playing without abusing his range and just walks the map like a protoss would instead of fighting for territory you could say this game is broken. When a race defined by high range doesn't actually use it, it's a design error.

I also feel that terran pretty much entirely lost it's racial identity. It now feels more like a collection of randomly taken units that just roll over the enemy with stats like hp and damage whereas in SC terran is a slow, but certain military machine of death with impenetrable defenses. It has a certain feel, while what I've seen in SC2 just has stats.

+ Show Spoiler +

On October 20 2009 11:03 MuffinDude wrote:
Medivac has too much health point imo. Stalkers took forever to kill that thing.

On October 20 2009 14:05 vRoOk wrote:
JESUS CHRSIT

Medivacs take like 20 hits to kill.. wtf..

IMBA

On October 20 2009 21:37 micropede wrote:
protoss buildings don't catch on fire before blowing up anymore?

On October 20 2009 21:50 Icks wrote:
Same comments since the annoucement of the game developpement.
Group 1 say: "It's StarCraft 1 in 3D."
Group 2 say: "Remove Thor, remove Hellions. Stalkers dont deal enough damage, make them like goons. Remove mothership. Psi Storm too quick. Nuke too easy.Game too fast."

On October 20 2009 21:50 Icks wrote:
Same comments since the annoucement of the game developpement.
Group 1 say: "It's StarCraft 1 in 3D."
Group 2 say: "Remove Thor, remove Hellions. Stalkers dont deal enough damage, make them like goons. Remove mothership. Psi Storm too quick. Nuke too easy.Game too fast."
and they could add "Plz make us StarCraft 1 in 3D."

Obviously, Blizzard cant satisfy everyone.

But i'm more a "group 1" person. Just make a good game, who cares about old mechanics... The purpose is to add new ones. Ok, some of them need to be tuned, but do not ask to remove everything that is new -_-