Another Starcraft topic o/

[Hash]

I dunno. I have a low tolerance for bull**** in games. EXTREMELY low. And Starcraft had a lot of stuff I never liked. The entire Protoss race, for example; I always felt it was completely unbalanced vs. the other two. Great game that I just thought suffered from some glaring shortcomings.

For me War3 was the end-all/be-all. I thought the 3d graphics were great, and never found the "cartoony" complaint to have any validation, since the previous two Warcraft titles looked that way too. It's not as large a scale but it is also a game that has many layers of strategic play to it, which is something I love in a real time strategy game. Starcraft was just mass your biggest units and send them off to die, first to run out of money loses.

Like most people have said, though, both games have their places. But because of my point of view I am hoping that Starcraft gains the things I like about War3, like the clever implementation of using mixed groups' abilities.

Regardless it will definitely be a great game, just a matter of preference one way or the other.

Well I dont agree with your opinion on Starcraft, I do agree on the fact that the two games really strike out at two different kinds of people. I myself don't really enjoy Warcraft 3 too much for various reasons, but I do realize that it is a well made game. On the otherhand, I find Starcraft to be a supremely crafted game with great strategy. Obviously, you think the opposite.

This exact mentality is what I want to stay between Starcraft and Warcraft. I'm fairly certain that no matter what game any one person likes better, they probably still accept that the other one is a good game, and I don't want that to ever change. The two games appeal to two different people it seems, and I hope that neither of the games gain any real similarities besides the basics that all RTS games share.

 

[ZeroNightmare]

what part about starcraft do you not agree with him about?

 

[Kurt`]

Offtopic, but still cool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYY-g6ionzM

 

[Devion]

Both Warcraft 3 and Starcraft are well balanced, who says they aren't obviously hasn't played both enough.

I both like SC and WC alot. Warcraft being my first real real time strategy, and with the awesome warlocks/wizards who could cast a demons or water elemental, WC serie always gave me a special feeling.

Warcraft 3 is suppose to have cartoon style skin and textures. Look at WC2, bright colors or WC1 with the cartoony looking unit screen, its not freaking Diablo-style.

Starcraft, in my opinion, has been a game to get used to, I never was a big fan of SF, besides Star Gate and Star Trek. Starcraft is one of the games which isnt graphically high demanding and is a HELL lot of FUN to multiplay. Especially when two opponents are equally matched.
Warcraft 3 is fun to multiplay, but most times, rounds dont last very long and you cant really sneak attack by dropping a nuke . I also think Starcraft is more versatile when it comes to overall units and races.

Warcraft 3 has also it plus points. The hero/xp system just rocks. The spells are well thought out and it gives a real depth to the game.

Both games are great and both are equal in awesomeness. If you prefer SF, Starcraft is the way to go, if you prefer normal fantasy, go with Warcraft 3.

 

[Pain]

Bright colors != Cartoony.

Things like the fact that most, if not all the human male characters have a jaw that would rival that of Stan from American Dad, or Joe from Family Guy.

Things like the fact that when one of these character speaks it looks like a cow chewing grass.

Things like the fact that your hero units are about 3x the size or normal units.

Things like the fact that you will often come across buildings that none of your units could conceivably fit into.

The animations also don't help the counter argument.

And yes, I realize the fantasy genre is a far stretch from "realism" but it almost seems as if they leapt clear across the line.

To my recollection the other games had maybe one of the above mentioned. So the argument that the other games are just as cartoony doesn't hold much weight with me. If you don't mind it, which obviously a lot of players don't, more power to ya. It happens to bug me a lot and doesn't let me get into the game, and I loved the other two.

Also the hero system is something I wish they would've worked through a bit more. It basically forces you to gear your strategy towards micromanagement, which I don't happen to enjoy. If you don't, whenever you play you won't win, ever. And again, if you don't mind being forced into playing a certain way (see Pride's rant about ESF gameplay), more power to ya.

Is it a good game? Sure. I've played it though but I didn't really enjoy it. A lot of people don't mind what I perceive as shortcomings so they enjoy it far more.

And to get back more towards the point, I'm sure the next Starcraft will be a good game as well. I just hope it doesn't suffer from the same shortcomings.

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

Also the hero system is something I wish they would've worked through a bit more. It basically forces you to gear your strategy towards micromanagement, which I don't happen to enjoy. If you don't, whenever you play you won't win, ever. And again, if you don't mind being forced into playing a certain way (see Pride's rant about ESF gameplay), more power to ya.

Actually I disagree here a bit.

Massing up units = no strategy. At least when being "forced" to micromanage, you have to think and strategize--as well as execute--your strategic commands.

Honestly for me if I can win a game with ingenuity and cleverness or a well-laid attack plan or even plain out skill, I'd much rather have that then the old "Click the build powerful unit button 500 times/ttack move on massively outnumbered enemy force FTW" bit.

I also still don't know why Warcraft's art bothers so many people...Starcrafts is really not that far from it, it's just sci fi so it's more gritty.

The unit differences really aren't that grave.

vs.

The latter one is the hero. Yeah he's bigger but honestly three times the size is stretching it.

I dunno, I think some of the complaints are senseless. Warcraft is a fantasy RTS, it obviously has no roots in reality so I don't know why hyper-realistic graphics are necessary. Of course also neglected during the cartoon-style arguments is the fact that the warcraft games had some of the best and most 'realistic' cinematics around for years.

The original Warcraft was only cartoony because that was probably all anyone was imagining doing back then. I imagine they preserved it for faithfulness' sake, but honestly...it's an artistic style. If it looked hyper realistic...it just wouldn't be warcraft. It'd be as if Metal Gear Solid suddenly became cartoony.

All I'm saying is at least War3's system allowed for some degree of variation and strategy (which I think should be paramount in the RTS genre) rather then en masse who-can-outnumber-who-first 'gameplay'.

Honestly I think the way the game looks is a weak reason not to like it. It does look GOOD, doesn't it? The environments and the performance it achieved for the time it was released is amazing, and personally I think it still looks great even today.

I mean, come on...does this really look that bad? You guys make it sound like it looks like crayons and construction paper, sometimes.

Honestly I really like Warcraft 3's system. I don't know if it fits in with Starcraft, the whole heavy on the micromanaging stuff, but I still think it is generally speaking a very positive way to take the RTS genre, as it makes it a lot more ... strategic, believe it or not.

Obviously I am a die-hard Warcraft fan but I'm trying to be objective...I really don't see how people can find Warcraft 3 to be a bad game at all. Honestly it seems like a lot of people grab hold of some differentiating feature of it and cite it as negative when really I honestly see a lot of the things complained about as positives (unique art style, combat system w/ depth, no zerg rushing crap, etc etc).

Starcraft 2 I think is going to go more towards Command and Conquer, with the unit building being the primary way of strategizing. That's good but we'd just better hope that A.) the units are balanced well and B.) there are a lot of them to choose from.

 

[sub]

Massing up units = no strategy. At least when being "forced" to micromanage, you have to think and strategize--as well as execute--your strategic commands.

You clearly haven't played enough of Starcraft to truely understand it.

 

[Kurt`]

Starcraft is totally strategy.

If you mass units in a non-money map game, all your opponent has to do is basically build a few of that unit's counterunit, and you're toast.

Basically, massing anything = betting the farm.

I saw a match between one of my clan members (the "Serebral Assassins" clan) and another clan's guy. The other guy decided to mass a ****load of zerglings in a 1v1 on Lost Temple. When he rushed, our girl (yes, girl) had laid down probably about 40 mines and put a few tanks on her ledge. The mines probably killed off half of his 200 or so zerglings, and the tanks/bunkers finished up the rest. She did a huge counterattack/drop, tanking most of his low level tech buildings (spawning pool, etc.) and drones at his expansions. (she had over 600 wins on her account, and < 20 losses, this was in late 1999 or early 2000)

Maybe not the best example, but for every strategy you think of, there is a simple counterstrategy. You have to stay informed of what your opponent is doing, while trying to outsmart them yourself.

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

^^^^^^^^^ bought the month of release, played until Warcraft III came out. Besides Doom and Warcraft II, Starcraft was probably my most played game. Not to say I was good at it; in fact I sucked. I understood the concepts, I just wasn't good enough at executing the micro, clicking the individual units and sending them at their specialized targets, etc.

Any game where building 500 turrets is a more successful strategy than commanding an army has something wrong with it, if you ask me.

All I'm getting at, is I want the next SC game to be more than that. It should have the massive sci fi warfare epic feel going for it, which means (to me at least) bigger armies and faster pacing.

Honestly if I thought it would be anything more than listening to myself ***** I'd give a little listing of the things about Starcraft that irk me, the way Pain did for Warcraft. Maybe it would help people understand my point of view a little more. But I don't want to incite a flame war; we all want Starcraft 2, one way or the other, and whichever direction they take it will be both criticized and acclaimed, it's just a matter of which side taking which perspective in the end.

@Kurt: That is an example of a GOOD Starcraft game. I really don't dislike Starcraft, for the record; I just like War3's depth more. Plus in my experience the old "Counter-unit" thing doesn't really seem to work out too well in Starcraft...

 

[ZeroNightmare]

You clearly haven't played enough of Starcraft to truely understand it.

yeah building 200 carriers takes alot of brain power

same with building an insane ammount of marines tanks or hydralisk.

and how is 40 marines and tanks and mines killing zergling a valid example.

lol.

set all the marines on hold... in a corner and they could do the same thing. without the tanks or mines.

 

[Pain]

yeah building 200 carriers takes alot of brain power

same with building an insane ammount of marines tanks or hydralisk.

and how is 40 marines and tanks and mines killing zergling a valid example.

lol.

set all the marines on hold... in a corner and they could do the same thing. without the tanks or mines.

1) It's apparent you're exaggerating, but let's bring it down a notch. Carriers take up 6 supply. At any given time mid-game you should have 30+ workers, I usually have about 50. For the sake of argument let's just say 50. Since the unit cap is 200, that leaves you with 150 open slots, ignoring the fact that you should at least have some other units. 150/6 = 25 which means at most you would be able to have 25 carriers, a very far stretch from 200.

2) Carrier counters? Scourge, Dark Swarm/Plague + Hydra's, Scout, Psionic Storm, Battle Cruisers, Wraith, Goliaths, EMP/Lockdown, hell even marines in bunkers. 25 carriers are crap, especially against zerg. Scourges eat capital ships. You have just lost the game.

3) Massing one type of "bread & butter" unit can sometimes be hard to beat. Especially if your opponent does it well, but as stated above, there is a counter for everything.

4) 40 marines, some tanks and some vulture/mines is a lot harder to beat than 100+ marines, I can tell you that right now. While you have your marines in a corner sucking up all your supply, your opponent is free to build a counter unit while you sit there.

@Pride, the artwork is very good. I'm not saying otherwise. I guess I'm just saying I don't like the overall style/feel of it. Also please feel free to state anything you don't like about Starcraft because it's perfectly relevant to the topic, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on the subject.

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

Honestly it's been so long I'm not sure if I could recall most of them. I barely remember some of the fundamentals of the game, but I'll try.

The first thing is that hero units are inexistent.

By your own admission you are supposed to have a huge percentage of your supplies go to workers; for me, I buy a war sim to simulate war. Economy is a part of that, of course, but devoting 1/4 of your total supplies to workers in order to be successful is kind of foolish to me. War3 saw this as a fault too, and remedied it by allowing only 5 workers.

Everything seems to build PAINFULLY slow in Starcraft, to me. Granted I just came off of Act of War (great game, BTW--buy it now), but still.

Every game of Starcraft that I've ever played involved an incredibly lame tactic to victory. You talk about the counters to, say, mass carriers, but inevitably they almost all require a direct and focused effort on that aspect of your forces...which results in other things being neglected.

I never played a game of SC in which someone didn't build literally hundreds of turrets.

I have seen nothing in the game which certain units cannot inevitably defeat (namely the carriers). I had 9 battlecruisers and a slew of Goliaths in a base full of missile turrets and I was wiped off the map that particular game by something like 16 cruisers.

I think of the Protoss as unbalanced. A lot of their attacks are the strongest in their classes of units, plus the whole regenerating shield thing.

I always hated the "manual labor micromanagement" approach, I like War3's subgroups a lot more. I don't want to spend my entire game experience desperately trying to handle all nine hotkeyed groups in a firefight.

Most starcraft games I play go basically the same; someone gets rushed and wiped out early, and the remaining players usually clash in some huge firefight that ends the game because of economic losses sustained.

Found a lot of units to be lame, honestly. The Battlecruiser is way overrated; without it's yamato gun it is just a big massive expensive waste of time; it's pathetic refire rate I remember used to take days to kill anything. And as I said, I saw nine battlecruisers ripped apart by Interceptors without hardly putting a dent in the enemy force. Part of that was my fault because of how I shot the yamatos, but hell...I don't want to spend my whole game desperately trying to click on each individual battlecruiser to fire its gun. That's just dull.

All of the counters you listed for the carriers, in my Starcraft experience, can never be done. They work excellently, yes, but they require you have your enemies' forces WELL scouted and they also almost all require a huge focus in your teching to achieve. Carriers DESTROY battlecruisers, easily, without the yamato gun in the equation. Wraiths and Goliaths die in SECONDS to the interceptors. EMP and Lockdown stop the carrier but to the best of my knowledge its interceptors, if already launched, will continue to rape and pillage the target. Point is, if you weren't well prepared for a mass carrier strike you are done for, no way no how. If you survive it at a main base the amount you lose versus what the opponent loses will be exponentially higher. 12 Carriers wiped out my ENTIRE ATTACKING FORCE in that game I mentioned earlier; the remaining few came in to help finish the job on my leftovers.

I don't know. Honestly my opinion is dated. I never played it as deep as I play RTS's now, but from what I remember I just found it very lopsided in places.

Maybe I should replay it?? I do have it...maybe I will replay it with my new adult RTS'er knowledge, and relearn the things that used to bug me. Honestly I've forgotten a lot of it, I just know I lost interest in it, mainly because of the excess micromanagement involved. War3 gives you the tools necessary to enjoyably manage a small army without having to frantically click individual units or hotkeyed groups to use their abilities; I remember that was the main thing I hated, because I always fantasized about mobile mixed units...which is of course what we have today.

I dunno. I should replay it. I'll probably have a much better understanding of it this time around. Maybe I will post a "Starcraft expose`" thread afterward, heh.

 

[ZeroNightmare]

i was exaggerating a tad.

i dont know what people complain about warcrafts graphic style. blizzard puts a point in making their games so you dont require a super computer to play them comfortably.

didnt they say you could run warcraft 3 on a 95

yeah... and if you spend all of your time trying to counter carriers with scourge blah blah crap you neglect the ground forces and the enemy will destroy you.

protoss can just warp a billion proton towers in. instead of units.

i usually have like 25 workers on each resource, and in warcraft i have about 5-10 depending on how many mines i have, and 7 on wood ( 5 on wood constantly plus 2 builders)

but hell thats like 15% of my army to workers.