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So here are some random thoughts I've had from playing SC2 at Blizzcon.
- Marines are really fucking strong. I played a game against PsyonicReaver and his 4 marines killed 2 zealots and 1 dragoon. Marines are stronger and have a lot quicker firing rate and are easier to micro, equating to some really imbalance early game.
- Probes are the strongest workers IMO... it is easier to micro probes and they fire faster + range , making them the strongest worker.
- Zerg is REALLY weak early game vs rushes (ZvP) if they don't get lings fast. Worker micro doesn't work the same as in SC1. For example, in SC1 if you stack workers and go through the unit you can disrupt it and attack without losing workers.. this doesn't quite work in SC2. I.E, Yellow was able to kill about 4-5-6 drones with 1 zealot and 1 probe just because drones blow and the zerg went FE.
- Fast expand is probably not as viable in SC2 as it has become in SC1 just because micro works in such a way that early game you really need units, even static defense (cannons / sunkens) are very weak in comparison to SC1.
- Storm has a smaller radius, doesn't last as long - but is much more powerful.
- Stalkers are REALLY strong if you have a group of about 12-15 with blink, holy fuck.
- Assimilators/Gas things randomly stop working, so you have to micro probes and shit so you can mine mins / gas effectively throughout the game.
- Multiple Building Select has been tweaked ... for example if you hotkey 5 gateways and want to make 5 zealots you need to press (Z+Z+Z+Z+Z) instead of just clicking "Z". I guess in this way they wanted to make you feel more like you are macroing. It took a few games to actually figure this out and adjust - but macro is still a lot easier.
- Computer AI is actually pretty decent - I played a TvT against computer on hardest difficulty and it was actually pretty decent. It ended up with 6 bases at the end of the game (about 30 min game) and beat me.
- Unit AI is better than in SC1.. for example, units auto swarm (I.E if you attack with zerglings they will automatically go to surround opponents units)
- You can't hotkey locations in SC2 (unless it is a different button in this game). In SC1 you can Shift + F2/F3 etc on a location and have it hotkeyed. This is particularly useful late game if you have 10-15 gateways or whatever and lots of units and can't hotkey all your gates, you just hotkey the location and hit F2 then spam. In SC2, you can't do that. Although I suppose it is mitigated by being able to hotkey 15 gateways at once.
- Space bar still centers the screen, which is good.
- I also noticed that upgrades research a LOT faster (at least for protoss).
- Mutalisks kinda suck because they don't stack and you can't use patrol trick to make them imbalance
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Overall Analysis and Thoughts about the Game
SC2 was REALLY fun to play. I think that if you approach SC2 from a non competitive standpoint and are playing because you love gaming/starcraft then you will thoroughly enjoy the game. It has beautiful graphics, the AI is clever enough that the learning curve is not too steep because micro is essentially done for you at times (Zergling auto-surround, etc) and you can just have a lot of fun playing the game and fooling around with abilities and shit.
From a competitive standpoint I think the game has a LOOOOOOOONG way to go before it can be close to what BW has been. Watching SC2 competitively was not nearly as exciting as watching BW games, and playing competitive SC2 games wasn't nearly as stressful / demanding as playing a competitive BW game is.
Also a problem I had with the game is that they need to rework the color schemes. It is really difficult to see zerg units on creep, and also it really gets hard to differentiate your own units. For example, zealots and templars end up looking really similar if they are clumped together; same thing with the terran melee units.
I would say that I really like SC2, but it is far from being ready as a competitive game to replace BW. I hope that Blizzard is patient and keeps working on it and doesn't release it any time soon.
2 more years until we get a perfect product I'd say!
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Thank u for sharing ur toughts! I tried to follow everything trough the stream but those 1231231231245 commercials and repetitive videos drove me crazy.
Btw as for ur last sentence:DO u think that sc2 will be released in 2 years? Or ur saying the game actually need at least 2 years plus patching and feedback from players to be able stand up as a competitive game?
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Northern Ireland22212 Posts
4 marines > 2 zeals and a goon?! Do they still have the same prices?
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woot, that sucks, but it's still alpha, i hope in 1 year we will get a ready product 
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is awesome32278 Posts
Seems like they need to increase collision size a little for micro purposes and for distinguishing units more in clumps : ]
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One thing that has always worried me is the color scheme and not being able to tell the difference between certain units such as HTs and Zeals as mentioned above, i really hope they come up with something to fix that.
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i hope its 6 months max it gets released.
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United States13896 Posts
On October 12 2008 19:47 Highways wrote:
i hope its 6 months minimum till it gets released.
that's better.
I'm willing to wait as long as it takes to make this a competitive game, if reports are that it has ways to go, then i say take your time blizzard.
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Please stop the X are imba comments, you played it for the most 2 days, no one on planet earth is in position to make a good balance review off 2 days of gameplay. Commenting on how new units and mechanics work are very helpful, but balance comments just degrades the quality of the post 
And are you sure there is no more position hotkeys? Did you look the help options, maybe it's a different key?
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South Africa4316 Posts
From a competitive standpoint I think the game has a LOOOOOOOONG way to go before it can be close to what BW has been. Watching SC2 competitively was not nearly as exciting as watching BW games, and playing competitive SC2 games wasn't nearly as stressful / demanding as playing a competitive BW game is.
I spoke to Plexa yesterday and he said the same thing, but I just can't help feeling it's because you guys don't know SC2 well enough yet (obviously I haven't played it at all). The fun part of watching SC is the strategies involved in it. When you watch Flash vs ForGG, every small detail tells you something: "oh, he only has two scvs on gas, not three", "wow, he went dual factory then starport, not factory then dual starport" etc. In SC2 you don't have that, you just watch people building units and attacking each other. Once you get to know the game better, this might change.
The same goes for the game not being as tense. At blizzcon, no-one is really taking the game seriously and there's no feeling of equal levels of skill or whatever. Once you play online against people who are your same skill level, and you know that if you fuck up the new gas mechanic, or if you micro a group of stalkers badly you could lose the game, things might get tenser.
As I've said though, I obviously haven't played the game so I can't really say, but I just know that on the surface, SC is no more enthralling than any other RTS. Ask some non-competitive gamers what their favourite RTS is, and chances are you'll get as many Red Alerts and Age of Empires as SCs. What makes SC a better game is that it has so much depth to it, and that the more you play it and understand it, the more fun it becomes. Hopefully SC2 is the same. Only time will tell.
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I disagree, game looks so dull and inacurate.
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i think the only brood war aspect it have is:
every action is very important , every second you arent doing anything your oponent might be using to crush you.
as saw in Yellow vs Sonkie...
but i dont know, didnt played the game =/
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This gas randomly stops working thing is a bug right?
i mean seriously?
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Not randomly - it's 300 x 10 with cooldown inbetween or something
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On October 12 2008 21:16 PobTheCad wrote:
This gas randomly stops working thing is a bug right?
i mean seriously? Xeris is wrong, it's not a random thing.
Every 300 gas the thing stops working and recharges. Once it goes back online then you have another 300 etc
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On October 12 2008 18:41 Xeris wrote:
- Zerg is REALLY weak early game vs rushes (ZvP) if they don't get lings fast. Worker micro doesn't work the same as in SC1. For example, in SC1 if you stack workers and go through the unit you can disrupt it and attack without losing workers.. this doesn't quite work in SC2. I.E, Yellow was able to kill about 4-5-6 drones with 1 zealot and 1 probe just because drones blow and the zerg went FE.
- Fast expand is probably not as viable in SC2 as it has become in SC1 just because micro works in such a way that early game you really need units, even static defense (cannons / sunkens) are very weak in comparison to SC1.
I think some of that may be due to map imbalance, (from what I saw) the starting places were very close to each other.
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If i was lead designed, i would purposely create lots of glitches and tricks that only very skilled players could pull off
(reaver scarabs, mineral glitching, drilling workers etc)
as well as muta micro and patrol tricks etc.
they dont seem to realise that they need to add other dimensions to the game that you cant learn straight away. i know its new and there may be many tricks unrealised as of yet. But itl really retract from the game if things like this arnt introduced
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Northern Ireland22212 Posts
They're not glitches, they're "features" 
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South Africa4316 Posts
On October 12 2008 21:49 Zuries wrote:
they dont seem to realise that they need to add other dimensions to the game that you cant learn straight away. i know its new and there may be many tricks unrealised as of yet. But itl really retract from the game if things like this arnt introduced
I don't know if the necessarily need to be glitches, I think just normal skills might also serve that purpose. For instance, psistorms aren't glitches, you get people who can psistorm better than others. Since lots of units have skills, maximising the use of these skills might be something worth learning.
The best example I can think of this is dota. There are almost no commonly used glitches, and controlling your hero is pure micro, yet you can notice the difference between different quality players easily. So it doesn't necessarily need to be a difficult manuever to do a skill, other stuff like when to use the skill, skill placement etc. can make a big difference. With that said, a few skills that aren't just one click away would be nice, like storm for instance. With the smaller radius you'll need to throw your storms damn well. Skills like that where there's a real difference between using the skill and using it well would be nice.
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EPT
