Thoughts so far

*Note: This is basically gonna be a spew everything out. I'll group it best I can. Also, forgive me if I mention something we already know (archaic info included). I've got a tough time keeping up with it.*

I've played a few games with each race, both against live opponents and AI (mostly to mess around with the units)

It's funny, there's so much that's familiar and so much that's completely different.


Race Neutral
This is mostly map and terrain stuff.

Pros

• Two Vespene geysers in your starting base and almost all expansions. Not only are gather rates much higher, but the fact that there's two sources right off the bat makes teching far easier. You can also tell a glance if a geyser is depleted due to colour change.
  
• There's 2 versions of many maps. One normal, one 'novice.' The biggest difference between the is the presence of rocks (with 2000 health) blocking one ramp in your base, presumably to prevent fast rushing.
  
• The Xel'Naga towers are awesome. An absolute must have for defense.
  
• The 'rich' minerals add a whole new aspect to the central bases (they were placed there in most the maps I played). Not only is the central expo the easiest o attack from, but it's also an economic must-have. Can't wait to see the battles for them in games like 2v2v2v2.
  
• Animations are incredible. Not only do they look nice and pretty, but in many cases are informative (fave example is the Protoss Stargate - shows the shape of the unit being warped in.)
  
• The building system is cool. As we know, it shows a little hologram of the building that's going to be made in that place. This is awesome for queuing up multiple buildings (like if you're building a bunch of Pylons or Supply Depots)
  
• IDLE WORKER BUTTON. It's great. A+++.
  
• Units have an icon in their frame showing what buffs and debuffs they currently have.
  
• Your hotgroups (CTRL+1, CTRL+2, etc.) show up just above your bottom UI, with the group leader's icon in a little window. Awesome if you, like I, group Air in one, Infantry in anoher, and vehicles in a third.
  
• Overall, a very pretty, slick interface.
  
• Ability to always show Health, Shield, Energy, and Progress over units and buildings.
  
• There's not 7 billion upgrades to make one unit useful anymore. At most, a unit will have two, usually an ability and a buff (like stealth and an energy upgrade)

Cons

• The rocks can sometimes be frustrating to the player it protects. Not only does your opponent have to fight their way in, you have to destroy them to leave.
  
• One deeper maps (ones with large canyons and such) your camera dips as as you go over them. Realistic, yeah, but it inhibits your view of the map sometimes.
  
• Queue lag and a lot of it. You have to wait almost half a second between canceling units.
  
• The pretty UI is sometimes distracting in the Protoss view. Very shiny and stuff.

Protoss
As my classically favourite race, I've spent the most time with them.

Pros

• The new units are worked in nearly seamlessly. You're never lacking for a unit for such-and-such a situation.
  
• The Void Ray is pretty much the coolest thing ever. Like we expected, it's not intensely powerful against weaker units with one exception. When the beam is fully powered, it will stay fully powered for about 1.5 seconds after it's done firing. If you can fully power it one a powerful unit while defending or on a building while attacking, you can utterly rip apart almost any infantry force. Absolutely delighted. I hesitate to make this claim, but it's replaced the Carrier as the backbone of air superiority.
  
• Don't discount the Carrier though. It's singular upgrade (you can make 8 interceptors out of the box - while spawning with 4!!) allows it to almost spew Interceptors at the enemy. Instant attack.
  
• The Colossus is a lot of fun to use. The wall-step is especially nifty since you can chill half up, half down.
  
• The Mothership is incredible. It's strong, resilient, and its abilities could make you care less about that. Vortex is a really cool ability, and incredibly useful. You suck a unit (or a few - i has a small area of effect though) into the ground, taking it completely out of the fight for a short time. My fave use for it was incapacitating Seiged tanks so my ground units could get close.
  
• The Nexus has the Chrono Boost ability, which boosts he production or research time of a building for 25 seconds. Can't be used on something being warped in, but otherwise really useful. Give you an edge early game with Vespene production.
  
• Archons got a speed boost. Simple, but turns them into real bad mama-jammas.

Cons

• Area of effect abilities hit a considerably smaller area. (Protoss haters - Put this part in the Pros section )Psionic Storm, though still absurdly strong, hits an area the size of a half dollar on my screen. No longer an army killer.
  
• So many filler buildings. The Dark Shrine (prereq for Dark Templars) doesn't do anything. No upgrades, no special abilities. Just...sits there looking pretty. Silly. There's a few more buildings with 1 upgrade and a unit unlock.
  
• I'm underwhelmed by the Stalker's Blink ability. It needs either a slightly longer range or a slightly shorter cooldown. As is, it's a scouting gimmick.
  
• The Warp Gate is superfluous. It needs the ability to load existing units into it then warp them

Zerg
The new Zerg mechanics are, for the most part, absolutely phenomenal. I probably had the most fun with the new aspects of this race.

Pros

• First and foremost, the new creep growing aspects are awesome. You have two ways, either an Overlord spewing temporary creep, or the Queen spawning Creep Tumors, which in turn can spawn one more creep tumor. Your base can be covered in Creep in a matter of seconds, without bulky buildings
  
• Love the Nydus Worm. It's a blast loading up units and having them pop up in the middle of the enemy base
  *NOTE - DO NOT HAVE THE NYDUS WORM EXIT IN THE MIDDLE OF THEIR BASE*
  
• Roaches are great. Underground movement makes the battlefield highly dynamic. NOt just two lines of units beating each other up anymore, plus cuts off route of retreat.
  
• The new creep is cool. Looks pretty, increases Zerg movement speed, and moves down ramps
  
• Overseer's spawn a unit called a Changling, which is more or less Hallucination 2.0. It takes the colour and shape of first enemy encounters (Actually, shape of that race's basic warrior unit). Good spy and silly way to scout.
  
• The Infestor can also move underground, and can even use its abilities while burrowed.

Cons

• I'm not sure if this was a bug, either on the map I tried, overall, or not even a bug. I was able to grow the creep down a ramp blocked by rocks, but not up. The creep showed up on the rocks, but not on the ground.
  
• The same strategy I've always used with Zerg is still the most viable (at least, in my games). The new units don't mix up classic strats almost at all.
  
• The Infestor unit is only marginally useful. Fungal Growth is the only useful abilitiy, as Neural Parasite doesn't last long enough for any real disruption, and he Infested Terrans die far too quick.
  
• Base defense is lacking. Spine crawlers are weak

Terran
Never liked them much; still don't a whole lot. Overall, they placed very similarly to the original. Not a bad thing, but not really good either.

Pros

• Battlecruisers are flying, metal encased sex. These things are near uncontested gods of the battlefield. Yamato charges up much faster now, making it more useful in skirmishes,
  
• The MULE is a really cool ability in the early game (though it's effectiveness is less noticeable once you have a few expos feeding you minerals). Gives the edge on setting up a base defense
  
• Speaking of base defense, the Bunker has an upgrade giving it 2 more slots. Awesome.
  
• The Banshee is really cool once you research its stealth ability. Reapers are supposed to be the harassment unit (?) but I found myself doing far more hit and run with cloaking Banshees.
  
• Reapers live up to their name, primarily against worker units. If your not careful, 5 Reapers can not just cripple but destroy your economy quite early in the game (In was the victim on this one, not the perpetrator )
  
• Building upgrades. Primarily the reactor (the name escapes me). Training 2 units at a time is awesome.

Cons

• Ghosts aren't near as effective anymore in TvT. Sensor Towers neuter them. Did not play as Terran against Zerg or Toss though.
  
• A lot of their units don't really have universal viability. Most tier 2 units are designed for counter from what I could tell.
  
• Weak units? I churned out more Terran units due to deaths than I did Zerg. That's probably cause I suck, but I didn't think I was THAT bad with them.

Disclaimer: I suck at this game. A lot of the pros and cons may be as such because I don't know the proper use/counter/whatever to something. I'm also a campaign kinda guy. A lo of the multiplayer mechanics, and by extension, Battle.net 2.0 properties don't really interest me all that much, so I didn't really play with them.

 

Nice post. Thanks for the info. Seems you are one of those VIPs who got a beta key already.

 

I can't claim to be a VIP, but yeah.

At the moment, I'm giving it an 8.5/10. That translates to 'damn fine.

 

Is this 8.5/10 based on SC 2 as a game of it's own (forgetting for a moment that SC1 exists) or is that based on a comparasion with SC1 and knowing how good it was and still is?

 

8.5 straight up. I'm trying not to compare it to the original. You will notice some comparisons, but mostly as more of an example.

One exception though is when it's an upgrade to an original concept, like my comments about the geysers.

 

Thanks for that

And I have a 2nd question for you.
What is the creep de-generation rate like? As in when you kill the things that make the creep, how long does it take for the creep to retreat and disappear? And do you think this death rate of the creep is balanced?

As I play a lot of time with the Protoss and Terran and little Zerg time this is soemthing I've really wanted to know. In your opinion of cause.

I edited the other post to add in this question but you beat me to an answer before I could get this question in so hence I have to have another post.

 

I didn't really pay attention to that yet, I was more concerned with either killing the things that made creep or keeping them alive.

However, when the Overlord is spewing Creep, and stops, it disappears in a matter of seconds. Not sure if its the same rate as standard Creep.

Oh, and the Creep is more vital than ever. For starters, your buildings can't survive off-Creep and quickly start to die (If I had to guesstimate, I'd say they lose health at about twice the speed of a burning Terran building). Plus, the speed increase of units is highly noticeable, prolly as much as 1.5 times (I'm not sure if it's a size thing, but the speed increase seems to vary, being most noticeable with the Queen who is slower than a BC off creep.)

With that in mind, I'd say it's balanced, because it turns Creep destruction into an offensive tool instead of a "god I hope they don't sneak a spore colony in here"

 

I actually really like the new Terran so far.

They're far more versatile than before. The importance of Tanks is now diminished, and I'm really liking the Raven (new Science Vessel).

Basically it has 3 Spells. Place some temporary auto turrets (shoot ground and air), place a drone that can cancel projectiles, or fire an AoE Missile. The drone that can cancel projectiles is almost like a Defensive Matrix, I used 3 Ravens with just 4-5 Battlecruisers, and wiped out a sea of Stalkers with no losses.

 

From what I've seen, creep from the tumors takes a while to de-generate. I saw a fight where the zerg lost 2 tumors. He was able to repel the protoss forces back and still had time to get the queen there and build a tumor on some creep that was still left from a previous tumor. So, I'd say the rate is similar to that of sc1.

 

Well that I don't like. With all the cool things the creep can now do and how you can get it onto the map so much faster in SC2. So I still have to wait half an age for the creep to die. Might as well not go for the creep producing buildings them. To me this is very unbalanced. The Creep should die just as quick as it can be spammed onto the map. Not faster and not slower.

 

Fenix why is the lurker removed?

 

It de-generates at the same rate that it would if a hatch died. The tumors are very weak, so they die in 1-2 hits anyway, so might as well destroy them since zerg units move much faster on it.

 

It's kinda useless-ish now cause of the Infestor I think.

 

Fenix, have you tested out the infestor thoroughly, how does each of its abilities function?

Also... the zerg seem to have the least amount of units, can you testify to this?

 

Neural Parasite - Allows you to control an enemy unit for 10 seconds.
My thoughts on it. Cool, CAN turn the tide of the battle if used judiciously, but overall just isn't as effective as it could be. It's far more useful against Protoss because they seem to have less units but each one is, as usual, far more powerful

Fungal Growth - Slows units in an area down till they're eventually frozen in place for 10 seconds
Definitely the best Infestor ability. You can pretty much split an attacking force in two with this ability, or use it to shape a battlefield. It DOES effect your own units though

Spawn Infested Terran - Hurls up 4 eggs which hatch in a few seconds.
It's great if you need just that small extra PUSH. They die REALLY fast though against protoss or any heavy weaponry.

As I use the unit more, I see the point of it, but I pretty much just use it as a Fungal Growth spammer.

They all have roughly the same amount of units, but I think it's T>P>Z, by a few units.

 

1. What do you think about the system messages' voices? I found them a bit flat and oddly toned. For example the "more supply depots" message is actually a happy one, as if she was poking fun at the player for forgetting but the other ones are queer too. What's your take on it?

2. How elaborate are the animations? Could you check a few units for about a minute to see how varied their idle movements are?

3. I saw that workers need to accelerate to their movement speeds, along with BCs and possibly other air units. Is there such a ground unit currently?

4. Does the supply glitch(?) still work with Zerg by cancelling a morphing building? What are some of the bugs that you think might not be accidentally in?

5. Zerg air cocoons, are they airborne?

 

1. For the most part, almost all the voices need tweaking. Infliction is mildly off, and a lot of units are missing phrases. On a side one, one cool thing is when a unit is attacked, it's in that voice (character?) that you're informed. My fave is the Carrier yelling at me "WE CANNOT HOLD!"

2. Highly elaborate. I'm sure they're not done, but even some buildings have idle anims. There's 3-7(!?) different animations for most units. There's also a lot of random detail (ie - it shows empty barrels being automated in the Terran Refinery)

3. Yeah, a lot of terran units have acceleration and I think some zerg do, but this may be a creep/no creep thing.

4. I was not aware of said glitch. I'd say no though, it seems like a big fix. I listed the creep bug(?) a while back. I've also noticed a few pathing glitches where a unit would head backwards if a building or larger unit was in the way, as if it didn't know how to go around. Also, notably with the colossus, there's a few walls it just refused to climb down at a certain angle.

5. Dunno, didn't play with corrupters :X

 

The glitch he's refering to was say you had 9/9 supply in drones. You could send one drone to create a refinery, making it 8/9. Then you build another drone(9/9) and cancel the refinery, giving you 10/9 drones. I did that a few times when waiting for my first produced overlord to spawn.

 

Hrm. Definitely have to try that next time I play, both in SC and SC II

 

Yes, I noticed that the warnings are very detailed, it even says if your workers are being attacked. But what you're saying that the unit under attack is the one reporting... that's just sick

1. How obtrusive is the turning animation (i.e., the lack of it) of units that are tracking an enemy during attack? I've seen stalkers rotating, which threw me off a bit as it's quite a sizeable unit and the skidding legs could clearly been seen. Now I know some units like the tank or immortal go around this very neatly, but some units turn the whole of their bulk. Doesn't it take away from the magic of how elaborate the game is otherwise?

2. Costs, stats, details, and opinion on immortals please?