Starcraft II Evaluation So Far - Betatesters?

Since the other Starcraft II thread mostly involves tactical discussion and such, I was wondering if those with Beta keys would share their general feeling with the game thus far?

From what I can see (mainly Husky and HDStarcraft on youtube), it looks mighty fine, but it seems to be suffering from balance-issues (compared to the original at least) and I don't like the idea of Hard Counters in Starcraft.

Also, I was afraid the graphics would have the same cartoony style as in WCIII, but from the videos I've seen the graphics look as raw as in the first game. Is that true?

Anyways, betatesters on the board, what's the verdict so far?

 

I was not sold on the look of the zerg first, it is sometimes hard to make out all their units since they are so one-colored.

Balance is fine, but obviously not perfect.

While I do like how units have their special uses there is this problem how your build can be forced based on the opponent.

I am having a lot of fun and there is a lot of different strategies to go for. Biggest gripe would be to how games often play out the same with the same matchups in races. I play mostly 2vs2, increases the numbers of matchups.

 

As someone who hasn't played in the beta, only against offline (bad) bots while watching games:

Race's are too same-y. I don't mean the units, which are obviously different. I mean in how they fight. Aside from a few units (muta primarily), 90% of battles are 2 large, ranged forces moving against each other while players cast spells. Contrast this to SC1, where Zerg was all about using superior movement to surround enemies and melee gank them. Terran mech was about very strong tanks and mines that were both very unwieldy and caused FF. Protoss was about in the center of the two, being the most overall blob-y of the races. But in SC2, its always Zerg ranged unit blob (Hydra/Roach) against Terran ranged blob (marine/marauder) against protoss almost-ranged blob (stalker/immortal/collossos, with the zealot almost being ranged when you get the leg upgrade), and along with this some casters are sprinkled in for each race. If you replaced the Hydra and Roach models with the Marine and Marauder but kept the stats, you would have troubles distinquishing which side was which at first glance.

Too many units seem vastly overpowered, which is countered by other units on other races being overpowered. Roaches, for example. Its ridiculously good for its cost, and ZvZ is pretty much Roach vs Roach battles unless you sneak muta tech in. The only reason TvZ and PvZ aren't all about roaches is because of immortals and marauders. And since marauders/immortals counter armored units so well, every other unit suffers. Marauders in particular get ridiculous health, ridiculous damage when stimmed, and the slowdown effect which helps a ton, while immortals just do flat out ridiculous damage to anything that's armored. A terran can't hope to use any factory units against protoss or terran, those marauders and immortals will rip them to shreds, while the protoss has serious problems countering marauders outside of spamming every immortal they can (slowdown effect beats zealots, bonus damage beats stalker, high health beats psi storm and collossos). So while it may be balanced race-wise, the units are not balanced well among themselves within their race to allow many different effective strategies. It also affects unit composition within the race. I think that if Ultralisks were able to be created alongside roaches as soon as the roach warren was up, people would still not build them at all because roaches are better.

 

Technically the game is great. It's a direct sequel to SC1, perhaps even more so than BW was, with a much improved UI.

It will probably take an expansion or two for the multiplayer to feel complete.

 

I wouldn't know because Blizzard never accepts me for their closed betas.

 

Overweight Manatee is pretty much spot on I think. I'm enjoying the game, but something about it isn't quite clicking in the way that the original game did. Balance is functional, but mostly because all of the races really do play the same unless you set out to handicap yourself in some way or fully embrace a particular strategy. Casual play creates the same general result no matter which race you play.

There's also something of the old game's charm missing. Everything is very pretty and congruous with the first in terms of design--hell, most of the structures are exactly the same design, just 3D--but the hard edge is missing. Everything looks the same, but it's all very clean. I don't get the same frontier world feeling as I used to. I also can't say that I think that the music is as good. As somebody who has always been a fan of Blizzard's scores, the Zerg and Protoss tracks sound really flat to me, and while the Terran stuff works as accompanying pieces for the tracks in the original game, they don't stand well on their own.

Unfortunately, we can't really speak for the story yet. Or the AI. Is there anything else specifically that you're interested in?

 

So Blizzard is now discriminating against trannies?

 

And manatee's

 

+ I think he's right because the feel of the races has been totally knocked over, and that has largely to do with the increase of weapon power across the board. When you played SC1 in the campaigns, you first had the terrans who really relied on units supporting the heavy damage dealers (siege tank/battlecruiser), then Zerg who relied on zerging. Then when you got to Protoss you were suddenly surprised at how much damage their first unit, the Zealot, would do and how much health it has. These three had their distinct feel to them, the terrans really felt underwhelmed in unit power, but could make use of various tactics, zerg was all about the masses and protoss had really really strong expensive units.

Now in this version... The high damage units seem to be not-protoss exclusive any more. The marauder as mentioned does a huge amount of damage and has a lot of health for a unit that is cheaper than a Zealot and comes almost right off the bat. The siege tank's damage is only about equal to the Thor's main weapon. Vikings do a huge amount of damage versus air and their ground mode also does more damage to ground than the Goliath ever did. Then one the Zerg side has those roaches with phenomenal health which are enough to tip the balance because they are, like the marauders, so quickly built and cheap. They are still about massing units but their masses certainly got a leap in strength. That took the whole power feel out of the Protoss, who frankly should have a bit more shield power to rely on and perhaps less health. And Stalkers are seriously underpowered. Their main weapon is Terran-like in weakness and they have only a bit more health than a Zealot. You are almost forced to go air if the enemy has air.

 

OM misses the experience of playing vs humans a bit.

While roaches are good, they suck versus Protoss. Everybody and their mother goes robobay first and gets an immortal at which point roaches are useless.

Even cannons stop roaches, thats why i use forge fast expand on some maps. I love zerg going roaches because you can counter them easily with immortals/cannons and you can even go stargate and kill the queen/overlords.

Marauders on the other hand are very annoying. I am having serious problems versus mass marauder coupled with a few medivacs, they are so good even versus zealots with their slowdown, that they are the only unit that is good versus their hardcounter, which does not make any sense.

They have been nerfed though, in the latest patch.

Marauder
Concussive Shells now require an upgrade.
Barracks Tech Lab
Concussive Shells upgrade added.
Concussive Shells upgrade costs 100/100 and takes 80 seconds to complete.

 

Best way to counter marauders is fliers (still I do agree they have to much health). Must say I am a bit surprised by the nerfing of Colossus in the patch before this one, because those are only useable in some situations (mostly defense actually) and they go down very easily for their cost.

Was pretty funny when I met a terran who countered my initial roaches with a huge blob marauder army, only to meet my mutalisks.

 

Colossus are so difficult to defend against air, because it takes a lot of resources to get any real anti-air. Even when u get some phoenix it is still neigh impossible to save the colossi before they get mowed down. I have lost countless games where the opponent goes corruptor (extra damage vs massive 22 per hit) or viking, you really need a incredibly large anti-air army to be able to defend your colossi.

 

exactly, because of that they are generally only useful early on when opponents may not have got up a real airforce. But the damage decrease they got... I never use them abymore. and last someone used them against me I managed to shoot down three of them with just 4 vikings.

 

Kris i dont agree, they are vital against any ground army that isnt massive because they deal out a lot of damage.

They counter small units light armor (zerglings,marine,zealot) but they are still very usefull versus hydras,marauder,stalker. You cant win against light units with immortals but the colossi do work versus armoured units.

The only thing you can really do is make a few colossi until the opponent starts to counter to anti-air and then change to high templars.

 

Nah, that's exactly what I was saying. The immortal is just flat out a ridiculous unit. 50-65 damage per shot? Fucking BS overpowered. The only reason the immortal is kept as it is is because nerfing it would mean protoss has no counters against the also overpowered Roach. The system is way too dependent on specific hard counters. The problem is that while immortals are balanced to counter Roaches, they then completely make units like the entire terran mech line and other armored units like Ultralisks obsolete. So by including the overpowered roach, the protoss had to be given their own overpowered unit to hard counter the roach (marauder also serves this for terran), which then makes entire builds like Terran mech, Protoss Templar first, and Zerg melee obsolete. Again, everyone is forced to do pretty much the same massing of 2/3 units along with a few spell casters, put them in a big blob then move that blob against another enemy blob and hope your blob is bigger.

The marauder and roach changes of the last patch were pretty good though. ZvZ might see something other then roaches.

 

Sure it can still be used. But the problem is how it is further down the tech tree at a time when most opponents I meet got some fliers. but if they only go for massed land forces (especially zerg and terran) then you should make them. In particular if you can place it right.