Starcraft 2 is an RPG

[Xi]

They aren't making it a proper sequel anyway. I mean, it doesn't even have First-Person Graphics or reinvented gaming mechanics. Those fucking retards at Blizzard haven't figured out that gameplay from the 90's simply isn't going to cut it in modern times.

"It's been a almost a decade since the original Starcraft was released, and so much has changed about gaming, and games, that a new Starcraft made like the original would be *a step backward for game design, deeply disappointing."

When will they ever learn?

 

[dagorkan]

Starcraft 1 game mechanics sucked. The 'mechanics' which haven't changed since Warcraft 1 and before that C&C and Dune. They're simple, repetitive and they're boring. Winning at that kind of RTS is something only autists (or Koreans) could feel proud of.

 

[vrok]

Starcraft 1 game mechanics sucked. The 'mechanics' which haven't changed since Warcraft 1 and before that C&C and Dune. They're simple, repetitive and they're boring. Winning at that kind of RTS is something only autists (or Koreans) could feel proud of.

Jealous 'cause you suck, eh? How original. Good news though, there's a single player mode where you can learn the game first.

 

[dagorkan]

Anybody who doesn't like Starcraft is jealous of people who do like Starcraft... yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

 

[vrok]

No, not at all. It's your comment about winning that doesn't make sense.

You should try reading the Play To Win articles, your behavior is well documented there.

 

[pkt-zer0]

Starcraft 1 game mechanics sucked. The 'mechanics' which haven't changed since Warcraft 1 and before that C&C and Dune. They're simple, repetitive and they're boring. Winning at that kind of RTS is something only autists (or Koreans) could feel proud of.

Just out of curiosity, and without calling Starcraft's sucktitude (or lack thereof) into question, what kind of RTS would be that you could feel proud of winning at?

 

[dagorkan]

Being proud to win is fine, being proud of having put in thousands of hours to win a boring game isn't.

 

[Slith]

I like starcraft, but the gameplay just doesn't do it for me. It's a lot less tactical, and a lot more pitting the right units against the right units at the right time, with base and resource management to distract you from battles.

I was recently playing the World in Conflict beta, and it isn't even funny how much better that game is than every other RTS I've seen and played recently. There's no resource management, no bases to babysit over, no tech tree, and you call in a limited amount of reinforcements instead of churning troops out of a barracks.

Unit battles are not determined specifically by what unit is good against what unit. For example, in Starcraft a lone Protoss Zealot will *always* kill a lone Marine. It does not matter what each player does given those single units, the Marine will always lose.

Contrast this with World in Conflict, where a clever player can even come out ahead of numerically superior odds. For instance, a normal infantry squad has only one Anti-Tank specialist, allowing them to kill vehicles, but not very effectively. On open flat ground, a Heavy Tank will pulverize this squad, either by running them over, or by using a HEAT round, but the second that squad gets into some cover, it is the enemy tank that is in trouble. If they move into a building, the tank will have to destroy the building to kill them, and a good infantry player will be sure to move his infantry out of the building, and into another before it collapses and kills his squad. Not only that, but there is less armour on the rear, top and sides of the tank, which means the AT man can shoot from the top floor of the building and hit the weaker top armour, doing more damage than if he were on the ground.

Then there's the tactical aid! Let's say your Heavy Tank advanced into a town, and is now being hammered by a full fledged AT squad in a building. Not only are these guys *great* against vehicles, but they have an enormous advantage with their cover. All is not lost however, as the tank player calls in a laser guided bomb using some of his tactical aid points. Suddenly, victory is clutched from the claws of certain defeat, as the bomb completely destroys the AT squad and the building they were in.

 

[vrok]

Unit battles are not determined specifically by what unit is good against what unit. For example, in Starcraft a lone Protoss Zealot will *always* kill a lone Marine. It does not matter what each player does given those single units, the Marine will always lose.

I'm sorry but what? The sides and units are not made to be equal, marines are cheaper ranged units that need better support. Really bad gameplay example of whatever you were trying to point out.

Blabla World In Conflict...

I'll agree that WIC is a pretty interesting game but after having played it for more hours than I can remember during beta I can't really justify this game as an RTS at all. It's more like a Tactical Multiplayer Action game of some kind. Just feels like playing Battlefield 2 with control over extra units.

US/USSR are almost perfectly mirror balanced and all the roles are rock/paper/scissors balanced with infantry being mostly the exception due to lack of proper artillery fire from support players.

Tank players always get owned by choppers, choppers get owned by anti-air and infantry always gets owned without cover, cover which can be removed by a number of Tactical Aids and artillery fire.

Trying to play adaptively and actively changing roles to counter your enemy is punishing since changing role removes all your units brought in with Tactical Aid.

With all that and no base/resource management it's just too simple compared to games like Starcraft and Company of Heroes. It's more a contender to Battlefield than real RTS games. But anyway, it's a decent action game I guess and this should probably be in its own thread.

 

[Mamon]

Vrok speaks the truth. Units in an RTS are not suppossed to be equal. Cheap marines having a chance of beating anything is not tactical, its UNBALANCED. I have not played WIC, but if it is like how Slith describes it, then the game is unbalanced as hell.

 

[The_Pope]

Actually, letting a superior leader defeat a better army through skill is exactly what tactics is all about. It's pretty much the definition of the word. This kind of thing does wreck the strategic balance of the game, but WiC doesn't have a strategic balance to wreck. You go in there with some troops and fight a battle. I'd put it in the Real Time Tactical genre, along with battles in the Total War series and Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat/Dark Omen/Mark of Chaos.

 

[EliotW]

Ground Control (the first one) is probably the best comparison.

 

[kingcomrade]

Starcraft 1 game mechanics sucked.

Epic troll or epic fail?

Starcraft was good because it mixed good unit balance with a fast pace. In my opinion, the two things that really made the game was the importance of the economy (and the concept of map control that comes from keeping someone from expanding) and AoE attacks. Having units that can kill lots of other units if used correctly through AoE is pretty simple but it makes the game much more involving. If not for the Lurker, Siege Tank, and Templar the game would be nowhere as interesting.

 

[Lingwe]

Starcraft 1 game mechanics sucked. The 'mechanics' which haven't changed since Warcraft 1 and before that C&C and Dune. They're simple, repetitive and they're boring. Winning at that kind of RTS is something only autists (or Koreans) could feel proud of.

I was going to post what kingcomrade said. It was good because they managed to create 3 separate factions each with a fairly unique roster of units and fairly well balanced. Compare to games such as Warcraft 2 in which the "different" units really just had a different name, or to Age of Empires in which every civilization used the same units and just had 2 or 3 bonuses or penalties.

The one thing I didn't like at first was how fast paced it was until a Korean guy at boarding school showed me how to play really well.

 

[Slith]

Unit battles are not determined specifically by what unit is good against what unit. For example, in Starcraft a lone Protoss Zealot will *always* kill a lone Marine. It does not matter what each player does given those single units, the Marine will always lose.

I'm sorry but what? The sides and units are not made to be equal, marines are cheaper ranged units that need better support. Really bad gameplay example of whatever you were trying to point out.

No, it perfectly shows what I'm pointing out. Which is that in Starcraft, a marine is meant to have support. They can never, ever, under any circumstances, overcome a 'superior' enemy like a protoss zealot one on one. It does not matter what tactics or strategies you might employ.

World in Conflict does still suffer from the rock/paper/scissors, but not to the same degree as Starcraft. For instance, while tanks are really, really crappy against air support, they can still pop smoke to hide themselves from view, and use their machine guns to shoot down enemy choppers. Whereas, if a Terran Siege tank is beset upon by Mutalisks, it's fucked, no matter what it does.

This holds true for most rock/paper/scissors battles in World in Conflict. Anti-air is really, really good against air-support, but a good air player can use the advantage of surprise against AA to take them out before they get more than a shot or two off.

Infantry stuck in the open and being pummeled by artillery fire can spread their formation out over a larger area, and resupply to replace lost soldiers.

etc. etc. etc.

I'm not trying to say Starcraft sucks, or lacks tactical depth. Just that my personal preferences exclude having base building, strict rock/paper/scissors, and resource management in my RTS's. I prefer the kind of gameplay you might find in Rome Total War or World in Conflict to that of Starcraft or Command and Conquer.

 

[vrok]

Uh... In Starcraft, since you're not limited to specific units, bringing support IS a strategy and the proper tactic is running or avoiding until support has arrived. You're not limited to a rock/paper/scissors role as a player since you can build every single terran unit yourself, not to mention that a marine is still a cheaper unit. In WIC you can only play one role at once.

What I mean is you can't play a meaningful 1on1 in WIC because you alone as a player can't adapt strategically, making the game extremely simple and unchallenging in the long run. The small counters you're mentioning are only there to prevent total frustration from a player rendered otherwise helpless only because of rock/paper/scissors balance.

I can understand that you prefer this narrow fps-like so called tactical "skill" over wider strategical skill, but fact remains that Starcraft is one of the most micro intensive games you can play, because of the sheer number of units and that your exact control over every single one of them can and will decide games.

Watch any pro-gamer play Zerg, using zerglings in early game and you'll see what I mean. That is miles beyond anything WIC has to offer in terms of "skill".

 

[Slith]

Uh... In Starcraft, since you're not limited to specific units, bringing support IS a strategy and the proper tactic is running or avoiding until support has arrived. You're not limited to a rock/paper/scissors role as a player since you can build every single terran unit yourself, not to mention that a marine is still a cheaper unit. In WIC you can only play one role at once.

What I mean is you can't play a meaningful 1on1 in WIC because you alone as a player can't adapt strategically, making the game extremely simple and unchallenging in the long run. The small counters you're mentioning are only there to prevent total frustration from a player rendered otherwise helpless only because of rock/paper/scissors balance.

You obviously never played on the 2vs2 servers, which remove roles entirely and let you order in units without restrictions. Regardless of that, even in the 16 player games, you could very, very easily call in support from the other players on the map with the icon/waypoint system. I can tell you haven't been in any clanmatches, either. Considering how much teamwork is involved. Like packing infantry into APC's, and rolling them up while your artillery smokes the area so you can't be spotted. In my honest opinion, WiC allows for much, much greater teamwork, tactics and strategies than Starcraft ever has.

I can understand that you prefer this narrow fps-like so called tactical "skill" over wider strategical skill, but fact remains that Starcraft is one of the most micro intensive games you can play, because of the sheer number of units and that your exact control over every single one of them can and will decide games.

Watch any pro-gamer play Zerg, using zerglings in early game and you'll see what I mean. That is miles beyond anything WIC has to offer in terms of "skill".

Your arguments are starting to degenerate into frothing fanboy nerd rage.

 

[kingcomrade]

They can never, ever, under any circumstances, overcome a 'superior' enemy like a protoss zealot one on one. It does not matter what tactics or strategies you might employ.

Er. I don't think you know what you are talking about.

Just that my personal preferences exclude having base building, strict rock/paper/scissors, and resource management in my RTS's.

Strict rock paper scissors? Again, I don't think you know what you are talking about.

Age of Empires is strict rock paper scissors. Rise of Nations is strict rock paper scissors. Success in Starcraft doesn't just depend on your macro (which units you've bought and in what order) but your micro (how you use them).

 

[The_Pope]

Don't diss the marines. It's amazing what people pull off with them (anyone see that video of some korean killing several lurkers with one marine?). Also, they'll shred zealots if they have correct terrain (bunker, high ground, impassable barrier). I haven't tried it, but seeing as marines are ranged and more numerous than zealots, you could probably run away with the targeted ones and shoot with the rest, crippling the damage of the zealots without doing as much to yours.

 

[vrok]

WiC allows for much, much greater teamwork, tactics and strategies than Starcraft ever has.

I never ever said WIC didn't require teamwork, I said that it was required because of the extremely simple rock/paper/scissors balance. So your little clan play angle doesn't really pan out for you here.

It requires teamwork, but regarding tactics and strategies it has nothing on Starcraft. That's just your ego talking. There's no possible way you can ever claim that WIC is a more strategic game than Starcraft. Ever.

Personally if I want to play a more teamwork intensive action game I load up Battlefield. I prefer that to a mashed up game that doesn't know what it is trying to be.

If my arguments seemed like "fanboy nerd rage" to you, then you pretty much never had a clue about RTS games from the first moment you posted in this thread. The Zerg shit I mentioned is real, ignoring it won't make it go away.

I don't even understand why you're still here arguing. This is a Starcraft 2 thread. Feel free to create a WIC thread and spread Starcraft misinformation to promote your game in there. WIC beta has been playable for what, a few months tops if closed is included? Starcraft has had tens of thousands of players playing it every day for the last 9 years, lots more if you count in non Battle.net games. Your experience with WIC is hardly a tiny fraction of that. Why bother arguing it? Let's see how great you think WIC is in 9 years.

 

[Cimmerian Nights]

Starcraft 1 game mechanics sucked. The 'mechanics' which haven't changed since Warcraft 1 and before that C&C and Dune. They're simple, repetitive and they're boring. Winning at that kind of RTS is something only autists (or Koreans) could feel proud of.

I have to agree, I played Dune, C&C, Warcraft, AoE, and while little features get added here and there, the core gameplay is the same as Dune 2. Occasionlly you get a game that breaks the mold. RTS is doing to strategy games what FPS are doing to RPGs.

 

[Sarvis]

No, it perfectly shows what I'm pointing out. Which is that in Starcraft, a marine is meant to have support. They can never, ever, under any circumstances, overcome a 'superior' enemy like a protoss zealot one on one. It does not matter what tactics or strategies you might employ.

Marines are not supposed to fight a Zealot one on one. That's why they are cheaper. You can build more of them, so you should always outnumber the zealots with your marines.

 

[kingcomrade]

Well, in typical TvP you don't build marines at all besides 4 or 5 at the beginning of the game. Psionic Storm makes them meat to the Protoss.

 

[Kraszu]

I have to agree, I played Dune, C&C, Warcraft, AoE, and while little features get added here and there, the core gameplay is the same as Dune 2. Occasionlly you get a game that breaks the mold. RTS is doing to strategy games what FPS are doing to RPGs.

Adding new features is not necessary better then taking old and balancing and tweaking them in the way that they were newer before. Game is not only what you do but also why, rts can have more depth or less even if from outside it looks pretty much the same.

As for the rock/paper/scissors it has to be balanced in game like SC it should not be total counters or the game would be only about massing troops, and it should count so you had to plan what units you make not only how you control them.

 

[kingcomrade]