Post by toobz on May 2, 2010 14:12:12 GMT -5
Yeah, thats right. Starcraft 2. The beta has apparently been out for a while now and I didn't notice until recently. My friend has a beta key, and I've been playing it a little bit. This game is OFF THE HOOK. Tons of little necessary improvements were made, such as making workers auto mine and also allowing you to select any number of units at once. All I've played so far is Zerg, and only against other people so far. I've won the majority of my matches, losing only 2. All I was doing was the basic strategy that I had in the original starcraft, and it seemed to be working decently. However, in the matches that I did lose (one against terran, one against another zerg) it was obvious that those strategies were pretty useless. There are so many new units and uses for them that its pretty impossible to play the game with your old strats and come out victorious. I need to do some research.
My thoughts on Zerg so far:
Zerglings seem to have been nerfed. I'm very disappointed. Actually let me correct myself. Zerglings haven't really been nerfed so much as everything else has gotten so much better. I will admit the AI on the zerglings got pretty shitty, but pretty much everything else got a boost. I don't know the actual stats of a zergling, but I believe it is similar to the old SC stats as far as attack power goes.
Hydras are now a tier 2 unit. Meaning you have to evolve the Lair if you want to make a hydra den. This really confuses me right now. The hydra is still Zerg's primary anti-air unit, with really nothing else that I know of to take its place. Against an early banshee rush by terran, how on earth is Zerg supposed to defend? It takes so long to tech up to hydra, especially since you need to use gas on zergling speed and roaches (more on these later). Obviously I'm missing something. Spore colonies blow fat stinky dick in this game, their range and power suck compared to how they used to be. I would believe that Muta would take even longer to tech up to than Hydra, but I'm not sure. I'm also not sure that the extra resource cost for making mutas is worth it for a serious air defense. Gotta study study study.
Roaches seem to be the new primary ground attack unit. Zerglings are no longer your goto unit for ground forces. I'm sure there are some uses for zerglings, but they are nowhere near as universally useful as they were in the original. The roach seems to take up that role. They are tier one and can be made after the spawning pool and roach den are built. These guys seem pretty beastly. They have 145 hp (not sure the resource cost on them) and they have a ranged attack that only works on ground units. I really need to start working these guys into my game. The old zergling / hydra combo isn't as good as it was. Roaches are the new bread and butter unit for ground defense and attacks.
The Queen has gone from a virtually useless airborn unit to an incredibly useful ground unit which is available IMMEDIATELY. The queen costs 150 minerals and doesn't require gas or a spawning pool. It seems to be a SOLELY defensive unit. It can attack ground and air units as well. One thing I forgot to mention that got changed with the zerg: Creep is incredibly important now. Zerg units move SIGNIFICANTLY faster when they are running on creep. The Queen especially. Off the creep she is unbearably slow. Not that you'd ever want her away from your base to begin with. Allow me to explain. The queen has this new ability that allows her to spawn larva. Its a spell, so it doesn't require resources to do. Each time the queen casts the spell, the hatchery you use it on are able to spawn up to 6 larva. After you use those larva it goes back down to the normal 3 and you have to cast the spawn larva spell again to get the extra 3 again. INCREDIBLE! Now it is pointless in almost every situation to build your second hatchery inside your main. The queen nearly doubles your larva, giving you the producing power of close to two hatcheries. From what I can see, the best strat for nearly every situation is second hatch at your natural. Also, you can have multiple queen puking larva into any number of hatcheries. So if you have enough expos with enough resources coming in, you can essentially just puke larva into all your hatcheries (if you have really good macro) and have just INSANE producing power. Definitely gonna have to start using these guys. The queen's attack is pretty weak however, so it really doesn't do well on its own for base defense or air defense. It is viable though if you're in a pinch.
Banelings are an evolved form or zergling. IMO these are probably going to rock against protoss/terran. They are essentially suicide bombers that do a shitton of damage to structures. Protoss/terran tend to blockade themselves in their main until they are powerful enough to expand. With these guys at the forefront however, you can do massive damage to those structures. I'm not sure what tier banelings are in, but I'm guessing probably tier 2. Baneling rush seems like it would simply wreck terran early game. Blow up their supply depot and rush zerglings inside. Gonna have to do further research on these guys too.
Ultras. I really only have one thing to say about these guys. Splash damage. Remember how a group of 20 or so ungraded lings could completely wreck ultras? LOL NOT ANY MORE. To prove my point,
Obviously, you're gonna need an equally large unit (which there are plenty of!) to kill these guys. Those little bastards can't do shit anymore. However, I can't really see ultras playing too big a role anymore now that the Zerg have roaches. We'll see though.
Air units, I have no idea. I haven't teched up to see what new goodies the zerg have in the air. I do however know that overlords gain the ability to temporarily spawn creep as long as they are stationary, and as long as you have upgraded to a Lair. This is a really cool little feature, that will probably have so cool uses.
Overall though, the game looks amazing. I absolutely love the changes they made to auto mine drones and to take away the selection limit. Now you don't need 6 hot keys to control your army. All your strats that you had from the original starcraft will probably be pretty useless now. New units mean completely new and better strategies. I did well against the other people I played against only because they were newbies and didn't really know the basics. The people that knew what they were doing however were able to beat me. They were VERY close games though. I feel like this game is so much easier for me to play now I don't have to worry about mundane crap like telling my drones to mine. You can really focus more on scouting and strategy than you could before. And did I mention its very pretty and shiny? The Zerg are just BEAUTIFUL (in a grotesque, nightmarish way), the Terran are really elegant looking and the Protoss are really colorful and bright.
I'm going to try and get my hands on a beta key really soon. I think you can get them by pre-ordering at Gamestop. I'm gonna try and get over there in the next couple days and get the hook up! You guys should to. The multiplayer lobby is much better than before. You can actually have a party set up so that you can do team battles without having to shuffle around to get the right teams.
I can't wait to get in-depth on this crap! It sucks not knowing the resource cost or stats or the counter units. I really don't know ANYTHING about this game besides those things I listed above. And of course, 99% of that shit I wrote is just my theory anyway. We'll have to wait and see what new strategies are invented to utilize all these new powers.
STARCRAFT 2!!!!!!!!!!!!
My thoughts on Zerg so far:
Zerglings seem to have been nerfed. I'm very disappointed. Actually let me correct myself. Zerglings haven't really been nerfed so much as everything else has gotten so much better. I will admit the AI on the zerglings got pretty shitty, but pretty much everything else got a boost. I don't know the actual stats of a zergling, but I believe it is similar to the old SC stats as far as attack power goes.
Hydras are now a tier 2 unit. Meaning you have to evolve the Lair if you want to make a hydra den. This really confuses me right now. The hydra is still Zerg's primary anti-air unit, with really nothing else that I know of to take its place. Against an early banshee rush by terran, how on earth is Zerg supposed to defend? It takes so long to tech up to hydra, especially since you need to use gas on zergling speed and roaches (more on these later). Obviously I'm missing something. Spore colonies blow fat stinky dick in this game, their range and power suck compared to how they used to be. I would believe that Muta would take even longer to tech up to than Hydra, but I'm not sure. I'm also not sure that the extra resource cost for making mutas is worth it for a serious air defense. Gotta study study study.
Roaches seem to be the new primary ground attack unit. Zerglings are no longer your goto unit for ground forces. I'm sure there are some uses for zerglings, but they are nowhere near as universally useful as they were in the original. The roach seems to take up that role. They are tier one and can be made after the spawning pool and roach den are built. These guys seem pretty beastly. They have 145 hp (not sure the resource cost on them) and they have a ranged attack that only works on ground units. I really need to start working these guys into my game. The old zergling / hydra combo isn't as good as it was. Roaches are the new bread and butter unit for ground defense and attacks.
The Queen has gone from a virtually useless airborn unit to an incredibly useful ground unit which is available IMMEDIATELY. The queen costs 150 minerals and doesn't require gas or a spawning pool. It seems to be a SOLELY defensive unit. It can attack ground and air units as well. One thing I forgot to mention that got changed with the zerg: Creep is incredibly important now. Zerg units move SIGNIFICANTLY faster when they are running on creep. The Queen especially. Off the creep she is unbearably slow. Not that you'd ever want her away from your base to begin with. Allow me to explain. The queen has this new ability that allows her to spawn larva. Its a spell, so it doesn't require resources to do. Each time the queen casts the spell, the hatchery you use it on are able to spawn up to 6 larva. After you use those larva it goes back down to the normal 3 and you have to cast the spawn larva spell again to get the extra 3 again. INCREDIBLE! Now it is pointless in almost every situation to build your second hatchery inside your main. The queen nearly doubles your larva, giving you the producing power of close to two hatcheries. From what I can see, the best strat for nearly every situation is second hatch at your natural. Also, you can have multiple queen puking larva into any number of hatcheries. So if you have enough expos with enough resources coming in, you can essentially just puke larva into all your hatcheries (if you have really good macro) and have just INSANE producing power. Definitely gonna have to start using these guys. The queen's attack is pretty weak however, so it really doesn't do well on its own for base defense or air defense. It is viable though if you're in a pinch.
Banelings are an evolved form or zergling. IMO these are probably going to rock against protoss/terran. They are essentially suicide bombers that do a shitton of damage to structures. Protoss/terran tend to blockade themselves in their main until they are powerful enough to expand. With these guys at the forefront however, you can do massive damage to those structures. I'm not sure what tier banelings are in, but I'm guessing probably tier 2. Baneling rush seems like it would simply wreck terran early game. Blow up their supply depot and rush zerglings inside. Gonna have to do further research on these guys too.
Ultras. I really only have one thing to say about these guys. Splash damage. Remember how a group of 20 or so ungraded lings could completely wreck ultras? LOL NOT ANY MORE. To prove my point,
Obviously, you're gonna need an equally large unit (which there are plenty of!) to kill these guys. Those little bastards can't do shit anymore. However, I can't really see ultras playing too big a role anymore now that the Zerg have roaches. We'll see though.
Air units, I have no idea. I haven't teched up to see what new goodies the zerg have in the air. I do however know that overlords gain the ability to temporarily spawn creep as long as they are stationary, and as long as you have upgraded to a Lair. This is a really cool little feature, that will probably have so cool uses.
Overall though, the game looks amazing. I absolutely love the changes they made to auto mine drones and to take away the selection limit. Now you don't need 6 hot keys to control your army. All your strats that you had from the original starcraft will probably be pretty useless now. New units mean completely new and better strategies. I did well against the other people I played against only because they were newbies and didn't really know the basics. The people that knew what they were doing however were able to beat me. They were VERY close games though. I feel like this game is so much easier for me to play now I don't have to worry about mundane crap like telling my drones to mine. You can really focus more on scouting and strategy than you could before. And did I mention its very pretty and shiny? The Zerg are just BEAUTIFUL (in a grotesque, nightmarish way), the Terran are really elegant looking and the Protoss are really colorful and bright.
I'm going to try and get my hands on a beta key really soon. I think you can get them by pre-ordering at Gamestop. I'm gonna try and get over there in the next couple days and get the hook up! You guys should to. The multiplayer lobby is much better than before. You can actually have a party set up so that you can do team battles without having to shuffle around to get the right teams.
I can't wait to get in-depth on this crap! It sucks not knowing the resource cost or stats or the counter units. I really don't know ANYTHING about this game besides those things I listed above. And of course, 99% of that shit I wrote is just my theory anyway. We'll have to wait and see what new strategies are invented to utilize all these new powers. STARCRAFT 2!!!!!!!!!!!!
), and I don't see them used that much.