Random thoughts on the current HotS Meta Game
Zerg >
Zerg openings are, by and large, the most similar to WoL. The only difference is early roach rushes, which I consider inferior to more standard macro play. If there is a difference, it is that zerg players can more easily place spore crawlers, which is necessary especially against toss, due to cheap DTs and Oracles.
PvT >
This is the most different of all matchups. The culprit is the Mother Ship Core. Since reapers are all the rage, many terran would be tempted to open with reapers vs Toss. However, the MSC completely shuts down reapers. I would go so far as to say that a MSC after Cybernetics is the only way to go. It’s always a good move to immediately send the Core over to the Terran base. You’re almost guaranteed to be able to get a SCV kill or two. Along with a marine kill at that. Best case, he didn’t make any marines, or not enough marines, and you can inflict heavy damage. You’ll have enough energy for a time warp on the mineral line as well. Even if he’s running reapers into your base at the same time your MSC hits his base, you can always recall back.
For this reason, Terran openings v Toss are now less flexible. Terrans now need to get out early marines, for fear of the MSC.
TvT >
Although reaper rushes are all the rage nowadays, I find that good old fashioned banshees to be far superior. They’re good for the same reason the MSC is good. Reapers can’t hit them, and if you overinvest in reapers, you’ll be vulnerable to them. Early siege tech means TvT is still largely a race to turtle, or be the first to out siege your opponent.
PvP >
Traditional five gate attacks are less viable now that the MSC can turn your nexus into a cannon. Since tempests are so good against colossus, PvP is no longer a war of who gets the most colossus. Now there is much more balancing of units involved. You’ll need just the right number of colossi with tempest support.
TvZ >
If a terran player goes for reapers, the zerg player is at a much greater disadvantage than in WoL. Reapers regen means that even a small number of them can, with micro, take out a queen. To deal with them, zerg needs roaches or ling speed. It means that zerg can no longer feel safe delaying their gas. Bye bye Spanishiwa gasless builds. Zerg now needs early gas for the threat of reapers.
Despite some devastating terran losses to mutalisks, I feel that muta play is more crippled in this matchup. Widow mines can make quick work of the flock, leaving zerg players to make more use of their defilers or nydus attacks. The best bet for terran players seems to be bio into bio-mech into mech play. With hellbats to tank with medivacs, and perhaps a few marines mixed in, I feel the terran army that can hold three bases is largely unstoppable.
PvZ >
Mutas seem most powerful in this matchup. Toss is just as immobile as ever, but the mutas are faster. A large muta ball can take out most toss army compositions. For this reason, many games become a race to defend the muta ball. If the zerg player goes for a more traditional army comp., the matchup is largely the same as WoL.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Thursday, January 24, 2013
D/C Clicks
I always keep StarCraft open on my computer. What can I say? I play a lot of StarCraft. When you consider my previous posts about how cumbersome it is to actually start the program, it’s obvious to see why. I have to imagine that other SC gamers do the same thing. It’s so much easier to Windows Key out of and ALT-TAB into StarCraft, than to fully open and close the program.
The downside to this is that if you’re AFK for long enough, you’ll get D/C’d. It’s part of life in the digital world, every server does it.
This post isn’t about getting D/C’d. It’s about what happens *after* you get D/C’d. It’s about what actions the user must perform to recover from a D/C.
As of this writing, once D/C’d, the game generously gives the player a popup window, letting him know he’s been D/C’d. After clicking that window away, you’ve got to click the Menu button, and click Logout. That brings you back to the login screen, where you have to click Connect, before finally being able to enter your password.
It’s a lengthy and tiresome process. I wish I had a macro to reconnect for me. It’s one of those processes that screams to be streamlined. Hey Devs! How about when you D/C someone, you automatically bring him back to the login/Connect screen. Save us a few clicks, yes?
What good is it, staying in the game, a handful of clicks deep, in Offline mode? You can’t do anything! There’s no reason to be in StarCraft if you’re D/C’d and there’s no reason to force your players to make superfluous clicks.
Devs, please, save your millions of customers dozens of clicks a day by having a D/C drop us to the login screen.
The downside to this is that if you’re AFK for long enough, you’ll get D/C’d. It’s part of life in the digital world, every server does it.
This post isn’t about getting D/C’d. It’s about what happens *after* you get D/C’d. It’s about what actions the user must perform to recover from a D/C.
As of this writing, once D/C’d, the game generously gives the player a popup window, letting him know he’s been D/C’d. After clicking that window away, you’ve got to click the Menu button, and click Logout. That brings you back to the login screen, where you have to click Connect, before finally being able to enter your password.
It’s a lengthy and tiresome process. I wish I had a macro to reconnect for me. It’s one of those processes that screams to be streamlined. Hey Devs! How about when you D/C someone, you automatically bring him back to the login/Connect screen. Save us a few clicks, yes?
What good is it, staying in the game, a handful of clicks deep, in Offline mode? You can’t do anything! There’s no reason to be in StarCraft if you’re D/C’d and there’s no reason to force your players to make superfluous clicks.
Devs, please, save your millions of customers dozens of clicks a day by having a D/C drop us to the login screen.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Let’s add micro to building upgrades!
Imagine how cool that would be. Instead of upgrades just magically affecting the game after investing minerals, gas, and time, we could add the step of having to click something (or things) as well.
Sounds ridiculous? It is! Yet it’s already in the game.
It’s a seldom used upgrade for Protoss called “Warp Gate,” and after investing minerals, gas, and time, you also have to click stuff to have it affect the game.
Spend minerals, gas, and time upgrading a hatchery to a lair? It turns into a lair automatically.
Spend minerals, gas, and time upgrading a command center to an orbital command? It morphs automatically.
Spend minerals, gas, and time upgrading your gateways to warpgates? They do nothing. You must individually micro them.
Sure, this idea is nothing new. But Blizzard never quite explained why this is the one building related upgrade in the game to require micro. Since warpgates are superior to gateways in every way, there is literally no situation where you would want to keep your gateways.
It would make much more sense for probes to build warpgates directly after this upgrade is completed. Sure, have them go through the animation and take the extra time to morph. But for such a simple mechanic, I think we deserve either a patch or an explanation.
The only reason I could see NOT to make this change, is Legacy of the Void. It’s possible that in a future version of the game, Blizzard will add a function to gateways that makes players choose between which mode to use. If this is the direction Blizzard is taking, then good luck getting any of the devs to comment.
Sounds ridiculous? It is! Yet it’s already in the game.
It’s a seldom used upgrade for Protoss called “Warp Gate,” and after investing minerals, gas, and time, you also have to click stuff to have it affect the game.
Spend minerals, gas, and time upgrading a hatchery to a lair? It turns into a lair automatically.
Spend minerals, gas, and time upgrading a command center to an orbital command? It morphs automatically.
Spend minerals, gas, and time upgrading your gateways to warpgates? They do nothing. You must individually micro them.
Sure, this idea is nothing new. But Blizzard never quite explained why this is the one building related upgrade in the game to require micro. Since warpgates are superior to gateways in every way, there is literally no situation where you would want to keep your gateways.
It would make much more sense for probes to build warpgates directly after this upgrade is completed. Sure, have them go through the animation and take the extra time to morph. But for such a simple mechanic, I think we deserve either a patch or an explanation.
The only reason I could see NOT to make this change, is Legacy of the Void. It’s possible that in a future version of the game, Blizzard will add a function to gateways that makes players choose between which mode to use. If this is the direction Blizzard is taking, then good luck getting any of the devs to comment.
Monday, January 14, 2013
WoW v StarCraft
WoW are StarCraft are both games I’ve played for years. But for very different reasons.
At their heart, one is a skill based game, the other an experience based game.
In WoW, the more you play, the more powerful you become. While skill still certainly plays a huge role, it always takes a backseat to experience. No matter how good you are, if you haven’t played long enough to have a level 90 character, you won’t be able to raid. No matter how good you are, if you aren’t geared for heroic raids, your DPS just won’t cut it. That’s how WoW works, and that’s what keeps us playing WoW. We’ve invested literally years into the game, and that investment keeps us playing.
StarCraft is skill based. If you’re one of the best players in the world, like Stephano, you can hop into any account and start pwning all the way to the top. Sure, you’ll need to build a few XP points to get into Grandmaster’s league. But by and large, skill is what seperates the men from the boys.
So imagine my surprise when I read a post on the Blizzard forums that reads something like “XP in SC is insulting.” The person who made the post was taken for a troll. But the more I thought about it, the more I realize he had a valid point.
All these years, I’ve switched back and forth between WoW and StarCraft, specifically on the basis of whether I wanted a skill or experience based game. I think the aforementioned poster had a legitimate point. While adding XP to StarCraft may not be insulting, it certainly makes little sense to me.
Compare StarCraft to an age old strategy game like chess or go, and see how silly it seems. Would chess benefit if players were given XP for every piece they capture, for every fork and skewer they play? What would be the point of XP, when at the end of the day, MMR is the only real metric? And why would Blizzard introduce meaningless XP, while still keeping us ignorant of the only points that matter, MMR?
Rock, devs, anyone on the inside care to comment?
At their heart, one is a skill based game, the other an experience based game.
In WoW, the more you play, the more powerful you become. While skill still certainly plays a huge role, it always takes a backseat to experience. No matter how good you are, if you haven’t played long enough to have a level 90 character, you won’t be able to raid. No matter how good you are, if you aren’t geared for heroic raids, your DPS just won’t cut it. That’s how WoW works, and that’s what keeps us playing WoW. We’ve invested literally years into the game, and that investment keeps us playing.
StarCraft is skill based. If you’re one of the best players in the world, like Stephano, you can hop into any account and start pwning all the way to the top. Sure, you’ll need to build a few XP points to get into Grandmaster’s league. But by and large, skill is what seperates the men from the boys.
So imagine my surprise when I read a post on the Blizzard forums that reads something like “XP in SC is insulting.” The person who made the post was taken for a troll. But the more I thought about it, the more I realize he had a valid point.
All these years, I’ve switched back and forth between WoW and StarCraft, specifically on the basis of whether I wanted a skill or experience based game. I think the aforementioned poster had a legitimate point. While adding XP to StarCraft may not be insulting, it certainly makes little sense to me.
Compare StarCraft to an age old strategy game like chess or go, and see how silly it seems. Would chess benefit if players were given XP for every piece they capture, for every fork and skewer they play? What would be the point of XP, when at the end of the day, MMR is the only real metric? And why would Blizzard introduce meaningless XP, while still keeping us ignorant of the only points that matter, MMR?
Rock, devs, anyone on the inside care to comment?
Thursday, January 10, 2013
2v2, no ty
Am I the only one having this problem. It seems like every time Blizzard makes a minor change to SC2 HotS, I get this minor bug.
Under the "Game Mode", where I only ever play 1v1, the selector defaults to 2v2!
A minor bug, to be sure. Unless, of course, Blizzard is doing it on purpose to promote more players to test their 2v2. Just seems strange to me that it's happened two or three times now.
While we're on the subject of bugs, let me mention another one. I was poking around in the game settings. I found that the start screen could be changed from Zerg to Terran. I switched it over, thinking that I'd never seen the Terran one before.
Turns out the Terran start screen might be more properly called the WoL start screen. I was tired of it, so I switched it back to the Zerg. As I've said in previous posts, Who could get tired of looking at Kerrigan's tits?
Problem is, it never really went back to Zerg. Every time I start the game, it goes to the WoL/Terran screen (looks like a view of a planet from space). Sometimes the Terran screen sticks. Other times, it blinks over to the Zerg one.
Again minor bugs, but worth mentioning.
Under the "Game Mode", where I only ever play 1v1, the selector defaults to 2v2!
A minor bug, to be sure. Unless, of course, Blizzard is doing it on purpose to promote more players to test their 2v2. Just seems strange to me that it's happened two or three times now.
While we're on the subject of bugs, let me mention another one. I was poking around in the game settings. I found that the start screen could be changed from Zerg to Terran. I switched it over, thinking that I'd never seen the Terran one before.
Turns out the Terran start screen might be more properly called the WoL start screen. I was tired of it, so I switched it back to the Zerg. As I've said in previous posts, Who could get tired of looking at Kerrigan's tits?
Problem is, it never really went back to Zerg. Every time I start the game, it goes to the WoL/Terran screen (looks like a view of a planet from space). Sometimes the Terran screen sticks. Other times, it blinks over to the Zerg one.
Again minor bugs, but worth mentioning.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Major Lag
There is a thread on the official StarCraft 2 HotS forums called “Major Lag.” Yesterday, I experienced the bug first hand.
Most notable is that I wouldn’t have called the phenomenon lag. The game appeared to work perfectly in other ways. The zoom functions of the game worked fine. The problem was clearly not latency. It was as though the game speed had been dialed down to the slowest setting possible.
While it made for a bizarre and in many ways, boring game, there was a slight novel effect. With the game speed so slow, I was free to micro incredibly well. My timings were spot on. I was able to micro like a god, and so was my opponent. Was it any surprise that we both went for rushes. He went for a ling rush into banes. I went for a five gate. It was actually quite close. In the end, he resigned, but I felt it could have been anyone’s game.
Subsequent games were without incident.
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