What did you think of the new macro mechanics (spawn larva, proton charge, mule)?
Easiest/Best to Worst: Protoss,Zerg,Terran It is a good mechanic and fun to use. It requires timing and skill just like making more workers all the time does.
-What did you think of the macro casters (queen, obelisk, orbital command)?
Isn't this the same question as above? First couple of games I forgot to use the queen and my 9pool/speed (which I tried like 3 times) got stomped horribly vs 2 gate zeal. So it is important to say the least. The toughest decision is just when to start the macro up, with zerg it's easier because you get the defense unit but for terran or toss you need a certain amount of workers to decide when it is optimal to build the thing. And the dark pylon actually needs a regular pylon to power it so usually that required me to build a pylon near my nexus first since my first one was usually near my ramp or something. (so 300 mins and some time before it kicks in)
-Were they fun to use?
yea they were, I guess I answered this in the first one as well.
-How often did you use them?
A lot, it is important to use this as much as possible once you have it, to gain that macro edge in your game.
-What decision-making was involved with them?
Usually I played a standard BW BO then after a little harassment or early game skirmishing and more worker production and money (especially when you have more workers to benefit from proton charge) then I built the orbital command or dark obelisk. It totally felt much more important to get the +1 return on all your probes faster than to get up a faster tech/cyber core or something.
On August 27 2009 05:19 CharlieMurphy wrote: Protoss mechanic is the easiest to use (LoL). And it's also the most evident, that's why I played like 65% of the games with toss at blizzcon (out of like 30 games?).
The Mule calldown did seem a lot shittier, for the aforementioned reasons (Does the mule actually mine more per trip? I didn't really pay attention), and also that when you call it down, it takes like 3 seconds to hit the floor. Then you need to tell it to mine.
I've recently been told you can now call the mule down directly on minerals. Did you try that? I guess maybe it wasn't in that build?
yea maybe not, I don't think I was able to do that.
Calling down mules onto mineral patches worked just fine. As for MBS with buildings with different add-ons/upgrades, you can tab through them. That wasn't very convenient for marines though, which frustrated me a lot.
the proton charge was also the best because it wasn't a fixed bonus, you could use it on 1 or 100 workers, so just before u transfer to ur nat you boost them up. More larva or Mule don't have any gain obviously for something like this.
I remember specifically a PvT I played where the terran went Marine/Marauder and I did a 1 gate rush to FE. He crushed my nat before I could get my collosus out but since I had been spamming protons and workers on both bases for a few minutes he wasn't able to break in and I had enough money to finish my collosus tech and re expand elsewhere.
My highlighted experiences of SC2:
Reapers, these fuckers are amazing. They scout and move fast like pros. They sneak around anywhere. they can stim. they can throw bombs. they rape small units. The only downside is the slow tech. More than a few games I opened with the standard marine marauder wall in, but secretly I got a merc compound and upped stim and d8 chargers and made 4-8 reapers. While moving out with my decent sized Marine maurader and expanding (pushing the enemy back to their base(s) I secretly moved my unknown reaper force into their mineral line (took 4 reapers to take down a probe and they were very good at move and shoot). But before I attack the workers I throw down some D charges behind the probes (where they would run) and on the probes. Needless to say lots of them go boom as well as the defense units coming to save the day. But the stimmed reapers are too crazy for melee and just run away from most ranged units.
Baneling drops, I tried to do this in almost every game I played with zerg (which was like 5-6 games) but only managed to do it in 1. they take quite a bit of tech and macro to get a sizeable force of them. And then you still need to upg drop and speed on ur lords. But once I finally did I fucking moving dropped them in the guy's SCV line and it was Amazing. they don't do a huge amount of damage like a scarab but 6 of them still managed to get a grief stricken face of my opponent across me who was going 1 base BC.
Overseer Changelings, these are so fun to use and very very good recon. Enemy units don't automatically shoot at them and if dropped near enemy base they create a teir 1 unit? of the appropriate race (marine in my case). I loved running these around in the guy's base and I swear I saw the guy trying to micro the straying marine a few times before he realized it wasn't his and sniped it with his ghost lol.
This part is long Teamplay/Winning 3v1, during the last few hours of blizzcon I sat down after literally an hour long line this time and played some guy who wasn't fairly decent but not really that good. He was defeated 2-0 and then I stayed sitting there calling out for an opponent like I had just sat down. It actually took like 10 minutes for some reason (buncha idiots wanting to play Dota and shit). wtf, seriously, who comes to blizzcon to play dota? Anyways so a girl and 2 guys showed up and the coordinator told us we'd be doing a 2v2. I said cool, this would be my first 2v2 iirc. One guy's name was Tree, girl's name was Cady, and the other guy I forget. So I made my name House as to go with Tree. They assumed I was referencing the TV show and told me to go back to the hospital etc.
So the first game was underway and I had proxy 2 gated at my nat and rushed a zerg and with macroing reinforcement zeals eventually took out all the buildings (the mantalings from buildings are quite annoying >.< ) but she managed to escape her drones and rebuilt somewhere. My ally was slowy teching to DTs, and I was making an expansion going heavy stalker/zeal. I rekilled the zerg and smashed into the walled in terran and then just let my allies DT finish him off so he could get some playtime lol. They were all pretty noob but that's understandable. After some minor banter about me being a beast they decided to put the girl on my team this time.
Turns out the girl was actually a bit better because she was a great teammate and actually asked me what to build and for tips unlike my previous partner. I told her to just make sure to spawn larvas with her queen and pump lots of drones, and FE. And then mass hydras. So this game I had done esentially the same strat of zealot rushing and did quite a bit of damage to one terran but as I was raping him I typed in LIFT and a few seconds later he did. And began rebuilding on an island. Then I noticed Cady was doing awesome and had a sizeable force of hydras. Along with my stalker/zeal and 1 collosus army I said lets go break the other guy's wall. He had just gotten a few tanks up behind his wall and bunker so I took heavy losses on busting open the door. But Cady had lost nearly nothing and could have probably finished him off had she followed my "target the tank" instruction, but I guess she was too busy. She did manage to take out the bunker and my zeal got 1 last hit to finish off the tank but overall it was a loss. I told her to switch to muta because the island guy and she did. While she was amassing muta I had sent a few warprays and phoenix over to harass the terran luckily before he had turrets and much AA up but close to teir 2.5/3 tech. Her mutas came in and cleaned up. Meanwhile I had created a few more bases and a lot of ground forces zeals and immortals with 2 collossus, and a small strike force of blink stalkers. As I moved into the walled terran again I used a Col to see up the hill on the side and sneak in some stalkers to drill his min line. This caused him to unseige and move all his force to defend which enabled me to just walk in and rape with the rest of my ground. Her mutas were redundant but it was GG again.
So upon joining the next game and reading that I was a beast and more house references I jokingly suggested a 3v1 which they agreed to. I didn't expect to win this at all, especially since they actually chose the WORST map for terran which was this weird 2v2 map where 2 bases are connected and share 1 really wide ass ramp. Furthermore I didn't even realize that this was the map (had only played it once) and had begun SSBSSBing the wall in lol. after a few minutes I noticed an assimilator warping in near me and went to scout and noticed a whole base lol. So I made a bunker and started leapfrogging into the protoss. The funny part was when the probes tried to escape and I had a wall up but I accidentally sunk a depot and let them all out anyways. So they got to escape and rebuild in some obscure part of the map (yellow mins). One terran wised up and tried to save the protoss with his M/M but couldn't match my uphill M/M walled at this point and gave up after a few skirmishes. But It gave me another base with my wallin and I just teched to Seige tanks and reapers as I expanded 3 times in base. I found the protoss base and reapered it up until canons came online. Then I finished it off with a small M/M force. She retreated to the safety of the other 2's main and rebuilt on one of their inner nats.
By this time I was rolling in the money and began pumping Vikings and putting up lots of turrets and sensor towers. A few minutes after I noticed a bleep on the map and saw a red "!" moving around to my backside. I wrote a little "I see you" and it slowed to a stop. Then 30 seconds later it came in and dropped a cloaked ghost in futility which I took out with my massive 12 viking force of macroed off 4 and now 5 starports.
Right after this I decided it's time to go harass with them since there was a zerg opponent anyways. I move across the map and got a few lords. Then I flew around to the back of their base and reverted to ground mode and raped a ton of SCV, lifted back off when muta arrived and began to hit and run the muta. The muta proved to be too strong and fast in an nearly equal numbered fight and I lost my force. But I was persistent and had remade another 12 or so vikings along with my tons of M/M Tank. This time I decided it's time to move out on them and push into their wallin using seiged tanks and viking sight. So I opened up shop and began to pot shot units and buildings. My vikings began to harrass the protoss and and they managed to defend quite well taking out half of my vikings again. But I had been busy making turrets and sensor towers across the map as well as BCs with yamoto upgrade. They tried in vain to nuke my vikings as I swung them back and forth against their air units. Eventually they wisened up and aimed a nuke right at my tank m/m force and I quickly moved away. At this very moment the mutas began to chase my vikings as I retreated and the nuke blasted every single one which gained simultaneous LOLs from 3 players including me.
I reseiged the partial wall in and brought the vikings back into the main and took free reign on the lords and eventually the drones. The terran managed to clean them up, but by this time I had BC rallying to my tanks and Yamoto'd a few tanks and waltzed in. They didn't leave right away trying to nuke me some more but I dodged them all and bulldozed down their bases. After some questioning they decided that I was too good and GG'd a final time. It was so fun. BETA SOON PLZ
Way to keep the OP updated!!! Man, thats one of the coolest things I've seen since I started comming to TL.
As for me, I got to play it a long time ago back at the WWI in Paris. It was just breathtaking, and I must say I loved the Banelings. Also, I thouht Ultralisks were too big! But I really loved the game, I think the nay sayers who havent played it, and are sketical of Blizzard, will once again be wow'd by the High Quality game they will turn out.
On August 27 2009 10:05 CharlieMurphy wrote: you're welcome, maybe I should make a blog about my SC2 experiences, it's probably mostly unnoticed here in this thread.
Big thanks for the battle reports :D Entertaining and got me exciting about the game even more - can just imagine how the games went and how much fun it will be :D
Well being that I was a newb I was at my base most of the time just macroing and checking prices and tech and stuff, so more in that regard. I mean most of the attacks were either win game/lose game straight up since no one knew what would win exactly and by how much exactly. So yes, there is more macro because you are constantly checking if you have a probe going at each base and then looking around at your nexuses (Nexii?) to see if you need to proton charge. And once I had like 3 bases going with proton charge and a 4th one going up on yellow minerals I literally couldn't keep up with my income anymore and was macroing like crazy trying to make more gates and pylons. And from there I went from like 80-100 supply in 15 minutes to 169 (last I looked, may have been the cap?) 200 in like 4 more minutes. And My apm is not trash either, I can pull like 200~
oh yea, I wrote "gg" in pylons while I was doing this in the middle of the map and I blackholed some noobs scvs at his min line. It was funny.
Also When I played inreach in a game he had crazy vicious zerg macro with queen larva and managed to make like 30 ultras in like 15-20 minutes off of 3-4 bases as well. It seemed pretty hard to expand, but I didn't go for storm.
On August 27 2009 10:55 CharlieMurphy wrote: Well being that I was a newb I was at my base most of the time just macroing and checking prices and tech and stuff, so more in that regard. I mean most of the attacks were either win game/lose game straight up since no one knew what would win exactly and by how much exactly. So yes, there is more macro because you are constantly checking if you have a probe going at each base and then looking around at your nexuses (Nexii?) to see if you need to proton charge. And once I had like 3 bases going with proton charge and a 4th one going up on yellow minerals I literally couldn't keep up with my income anymore and was macroing like crazy trying to make more gates and pylons. And from there I went from like 80-100 supply in 15 minutes to 169 (last I looked, may have been the cap?) 200 in like 4 more minutes. And My apm is not trash either, I can pull like 200~
oh yea, I wrote "gg" in pylons while I was doing this in the middle of the map and I blackholed some noobs scvs at his min line. It was funny.
Also When I played inreach in a game he had crazy vicious zerg macro with queen larva and managed to make like 30 ultras in like 15-20 minutes off of 3-4 bases as well. It seemed pretty hard to expand, but I didn't go for storm.
Did you feel like thier were more, less or the same amount of macroing as SC1?
well for protoss probably about the same , it does depend if you are using warp gates however, as they require additional macro. For zerg it totally feels like you need way way more macro because you can't select a hatch and SD once to make 3 drones and in fact need to select queen and do the spawn mutant larva. So instead of 3x4 of SD we have; q- ability x4, then hotkey(3) sd,d,d,d,d,d,d,d,d,d,d,d, and even more if your trying to make lurkers or banelings because once you have your 12 lings/hydras you gotta select the group and go Lx12. I think this is a bit of a problem and might be imbalanced mechanically. But Like I said before it is great if you need to just make 1 overlord or pair of scourge (which isn't in the game) so you don't overcreate units.
On August 27 2009 10:05 CharlieMurphy wrote: you're welcome, maybe I should make a blog about my SC2 experiences, it's probably mostly unnoticed here in this thread.
Please do, your write up was so entertaining to read and it totally made my day, please write more about your experiences and thoughts!
On August 26 2009 06:58 Chill wrote: Get over it. The comsat isn't necessary in SC2.
I dont think we ever got clarification about this. Did people who played at Blizzcon use comsat less? If so why?
It shares energy with MULE drop (a super SCV of sorts to mine for you) and supply drop (permanently increases a supply depot by like 6 or 8). Also, to get the upgraded CC in the first place you need to spend 150 mins and stop making SCVs while it upgrades, which can be a bit of trouble early game.
On August 26 2009 06:58 Chill wrote: Get over it. The comsat isn't necessary in SC2.
I dont think we ever got clarification about this. Did people who played at Blizzcon use comsat less? If so why?
It shares energy with MULE drop (a super SCV of sorts to mine for you) and supply drop (permanently increases a supply depot by like 6 or 8). Also, to get the upgraded CC in the first place you need to spend 150 mins and stop making SCVs while it upgrades, which can be a bit of trouble early game.
So are you saying when you played it you didnt use it as often as you did in SC1?
yea that is one of the main reasons why I used mule less, i'm not really sure on the energy costs (in fact I never even checked what they were) but it seemed that a comcscan would always turn the mule grey and vise versa, so I ended up saving energy for scans since detection is such a bitch in sc2. (you need sensor and turret afaik.)
EPT
