My thoughts after watching the gameplay video several times

Okay, I am an old Starcraft/Broodwar player, so when I heard that an announcement was going to be made soon about the SC franchise in Korea I was psyched for some good news. I would have enjoyed either a MMORG or RTS, but for some reason when they said it was going to be RTS I was more excited than my feelings for a MMORG.

Then I started reading up on it and how Bliz wants to make this game as accessable to e-sports broadcasting and have ways to see the skill level of players by watching replays. This encouraged me that they would not go down the path of WC3.

I then finally got to watch the gameplay trailer and my first thoughts were "Wow, they took away dragoons!" but then I realized that the game has to move foreward and only needs to keep the feel of Starcraft (balance and story) and take the game on that next step.

I began to analyze the stuff we see, the prism ships, the way that units are warped in instead of coming out of the buildings, and the way the new energy field mechanics work. I began to realize that they changed completely the way players will play Protoss. The feel of them is the same, but they are basically an entirely new race when compared to the old one, only using some of the same units.

For example, before when you would cover a base you would throw down a pylon and surround it with cannons. That was fine because the computer would attack the cannons, not the pylons, when you played against a player you would overlap the pylons so that if he took one out some of the cannons will still fire from the other pylon.

Now, players can use a prism ship to just make a field, warp in a builder and build cannons anywhere. A player can throw up an army anywhere he can get a ship to.

This will drastically change the way gameplay works for not only protoss players, but players who play against a protoss player.

How they are going to balance this with terrans and zerg are yet to be announced, but I would think that each race will get vast improvements to mobility and the ability to spawn armies.

Couple this with the ease of units to now move between terrain height and now defense looks like the hardest part of the game.

I think you will see a game develop that the static defensive positions are not going to be valuable past the early stages, with more emphasis on the actual armies and units.

I also noticed that again it seems that Bliz is going for the paper rock scissors type of unit counters. One unit is strong against one type of unit, but that same faction has a counter to that unit and then you have a counter to that unit and so on, and again it seems that micromanagement of units is once again the best way to get the most out of them, with some advancements to AI in case you are not currently managing them (the way the collossus runs from the banes).

So, let me just sum up what my points are:

* Gameplay takes elements and the basic feel of Starcraft but moves the gameplay foreward in new directions

* Unit balance and countermeasures look and feel like Starcraft

* Less emphasis on the static base defense and more on the production and engagement of armies/units

 

And?

 

And....

SAN DEIMOS FOOTBALL RULEZ! (Bill and Ted joke ftl)

And uh, I want to know if you think any of my points are valid, does SC2 move the gameplay foreward but still SC at the core and do you think that base defense while still important will not determine victory, but how you use your units in combat...?

 

O, excuse me for being rude. Hmmm. Well, it's a little early to give a big analysis but yeah, you are mostly right.
About the base defenses, scrap them, I always hated myself for using them. Best defense is offense.

 

did any one notice how weak the siege tank in seige mode was 6 of the let the zealots reach them in sc1 and bw never would have happened

 

The have a LOT a balance issues to do. I'll bet that not even half that many Zealots would make it through in the finished game. Plus, they'll have changed the Tank's model to something more aggro by then. ;D

 

Yes, I think it'll cost energy very similarly to Cloak, using it up until it runs out. They'll also probably give it an upgrade to give it more energy like all energy-using units have.

 

Those were fully upgraded zealots and the siege tanks probably had zero upgrades besides siege mode...

 

I don't think base defences will be obselete, I think you'll just have to be more wary of defending areas of your base that in the old StarCraft would be inaccessible for the enemy.

 

^Yes, I think it's impossible to make an impenetrable ground + air defense. You have to choose to either go all air, or all ground. Kinda like flipping a coin.

 

Looking at the new units, I think I'd lean towards ground for Protoss. I've a feeling the air units will be extremely expensive whereas the good ol' Zealot is always useful and with it's charge ability it's now more relevent in the late game!

 

i think the protoss units in the demo where upgraded to their max.

 

If you look carefully, so far, at least in the demo, phase prisms do not have energy. The pylon power ability worked like siege tank switching between siege mode and tank mode, look carefully at its command window when this happens. There isn't even a cooldown/duration, where as for the stalker blink ability u could see the cooldown cycling. However the phase prism has only 40 shield and 100 HP. In the beginning of the demo you also see it working as a transport, which most people already noticed, it also has the "load unit" command.

One difference in Protoss tactics I could think of right aways is a phase prism dropping off a probe then turning on pylon power, allowing you to build cannons and other sturctures right away without waiting for a pylon to finish building. All the while you can warp-in combat units. This could be an easy way to establish beach heads anywhere on the map.

As for the zealot and tank thing, you need to factor in the fact that SC2 lots have charge, where as SC1 lots did not.

 

I didn't see the zealots with full upgrades and I don't think they do

 

I agree that flexibility is going to be a major point of the game ... however I am not fully convinced that defense is obsolete.

If you think about the original starcraft, to get the "good" units you always had to upgrade a few times. Build some support buildings.

You could handle a terrain difference with an air unit! Need to raid a cliff? Get a mutalisk.

What I think this is doing, is it's adding additional PHASES to the model.
Instead of;

Basic Infantry
Ranged Unit/Melee Specialist
Winger
Big Unit
Big Winger
Tech Tricker
Sneaky Unit


We are going to see some new links in the chain.
Basic Unit
Terrain Mover
Mobilizer
Defense Breaker
etc.

Probably not this exactly, but as a result, defense will evolve more smoothly through a game.

There will be more options to penetrate a base, and depending what you choose, and the defenses the enemy goes with, you could come out on top or in the doghouse.

Example: Foe has a Defensive Protoss hilltop base set up.

Do you:
A. Take Marines and charge up the slope
B. Bring Reapers up over the cliff edge
C. Roll up Siege Tanks and attack from a distance
D. Fly Wraiths through his base and blow it up
E. Dropship in Ghosts and mess him up internally?

Now.
How do these attack strategies change in effectiveness if:
A. He has Colossus that step up and down the cliffs and attack the whole time as you assault?
B. He has the edges of his base cleverly lined with Photon Cannons, so after you jump up you look and realize there's nowhere to go ??
C. He has a balanced force of Zealots and Immortals supported by Shield Batteries?
D. He has a force of Phoenixes deployed to clean up your idea of "firepower"?
E. He has been scouting you silently with a Probe for the last 4 minutes?

I think a clever, active defense will be as powerful as ever. And I think a shoddy, tossed-together pile of Cannons will still be exploitable.

 

Now, I'm not a deep strategist, and am only an average player at my best, mostly much worse, but I think that the Dash ability will catapult the Zealots into relevancy in the end-game.

And I also agree that the "turtle" strategy is pretty much done for. I think what coalescence said, the best defense is offense, is the new strategy tagline.

 

A defensive base that relied mainly on static D was never the most effective even back in SC1. A turtling player up against someone of roughly equal level would lose out eventually due to the resources put in to static D. The more offensive player would naturally gain map dominance and the advantage in expos.

Defending with units while static D assists with support fire was the best way to defend, and I believe always will be. It will just be even more so, and that seems to be what Blizzard is supporting as well with even more offensive options.

As for terrain crossing, though for ground units it's a new thing, the concept itself is not new to SC. Gameplay wise, tactically so far the main difference I see is Protoss. Toss has never really had true harassment capabilities in the category of high mobility hit and run at early tier 2 tech. They virtually had nothing before shuttles and even then no real options at that point beyond reavers, which is a little late. All this was kinda offset by DTs but nontheless. Terran had vultures who were wonderful for the job, and Zerg has always enjoyed cross terrain harassment with muta in early mid-game.

All in all, things are looking good. However, I am particularly curious about what is done with cloak strats. We really haven't seen a single unit with true cloak other than burrowed lings, which is different.

 

It seems any concept they do is built of the last rts game, the stalkers blink ability isnt a new idea, its jsut an extension of warcraft3.
using that same logic warcraft 3 had two things regarding invisiblity, a spell, a potion you could buy, and an item/ability that meant at night you went invisible.
In actuality thats a step backward from starcraft1 since in warcraft3 as soon as you attacked you lost your invisibility.
And things that stunned your oppenent sometimes reavelaed that invisibility. However those things that were invisible were completle invisible visualy, except for the footprint that units would ahve to walk around.
And as we all know, in starcraft invisble units left a revirbiration.
so how they are going to do invisibility may be somewhere inbetween these things.

Personally, with the new warp in thing, there isnt gonna be much left on invisible units in the protoss army.
Espacially since i dont see the return of the arbiter.

 

The concept of cloak in SC is similar to invisibilty but they are not the same. Invisibilty only aid in tactical maneuvering and positioning, while the invisible units themselves cannot engage in combat while under the effect. Burrow is nothing more than shadowmeld which is why I do not regard it as true cloak.

I'm less concerned about arbiters, as the cloaking field is nothing more than a fancy AoE buff(much like an aura) for the rest of your combat units. It has a different use than true cloaked units. I'm more concerned about DTs and wraiths, and any SC2 equivalents. As they will effect gameplay more directly, and forces the need of obtaining detector capabilities earlier in a game.

 

i agree, the concepts are simillar, but different and help define both games independantly

They have added stalkers with blink, which it is possible to go and harras terran bases, much like invis DT's but as deadly.
but if they remove dark templars, then they will have to come up with a new unit to replace the dark archon, and its abilities.
I think to define the races, they will divide, cloak, warp and burrow.

3 abilities, 3 races, providence?

waht do you think?