Unleash the Hounds: Starcraft II Beta begins

[CyberPitz]

There are only 100 per division. So when you moved down, 363 was the first one with an open spot. That division will only grow as days go by. I personally have mixed feelings about how the ladder system works, but what can I do?

 

[TimoJay]

All of this technical talk is getting me hot and bothered. If anyone can spare a key, I'd like one.......

 

[Vegeta897]

All of this technical talk is getting me hot and bothered.

This made me lol.

 

[CyberPitz]

Tav probably has one.

 

[Insano]

PM me if you want one, TimoJay.

 

[ríomhaire]

I want to clarify my position. I tend to phrase things badly, especially on the internet. I wasn't trying to argue that there should definitely by a scatter button or that micro itself is a bad thing. I was saying that the attitude that adding a scatter button i bad because it removes micro management from the game and thus skill is silly. If ctrl+# wasn't standard in RTSs would they complain about it being added because it removes micro? It's just adding another tool for a player to use in whatever way he pleases. You could ban wedges from golf and it would make getting out of sandtraps more difficult and require more skill, but only in an arbitrary way. Micro isn't a bad thing, designing a game intentionally so that you need insane amounts of micro is.

And I apologise to Vegeta.

 

[ktimekiller]

The point of designing a game to require insane amounts of micro is to truly separate the REAL pros and those who click a scatter button.

 

[ríomhaire]

But micro will come about itself naturally. Removing all hotkeys and command groups would make the skill ceiling higher too. Arbitrarily making the game more difficult so it'll be more difficult is silly!

 

[ktimekiller]

And again, I come right back around to the same words of that it is to separate the real pros from the less skilled players.

I don't understand. Is there a problem in making a game difficult by not giving players some tool that would remove a ton of micro management that would otherwise be a huge difference in a good player that moves his units, and not losing them VS a bad player who sits in the entire psychic storm and loses his army?

 

[nipples]

Does anyone have an extra key? :3

 

[Stigmata]

But micro will come about itself naturally. Removing all hotkeys and command groups would make the skill ceiling higher too. Arbitrarily making the game more difficult so it'll be more difficult is silly!

It's not as arbitrary as you think. As an example: RTSes are about managing your economy, managing your forces, and countering builds. FPSes are about being a crack shot and having good teamwork and combat tactics. Adding auto-micro functions like scatter, spread, retreat, and formation x to Starcraft, is essentially the same as adding autoaim, bottomless clips, and automatic recoil suppression to Counter-Strike. It removes strategy and skill mechanics from the game that are meant to be learned, and meant to be reasonably difficult to master.

 

[ktimekiller]

Finals on monday, and I keep thinking SC2 strategy instead of math formulas T_T

 

[CyberPitz]

Welcome to the last year of high school for me

 

[Operational]

Finals on monday, and I keep thinking SC2 strategy instead of math formulas T_T

What sort of math? Maybe you can combine the two.

 

[ktimekiller]

precalc

 

[Stigmata]

Easy, you just have to analyse army compositions and damage rates with first derivatives! You'll be a Starcraft precalc god.

 

[StarBob]

So how is it that you get from one ladder bracket to the next? We've been number one in our bronze bracket for a while now by a decent margin and we're still bronze. Do we have to be miles ahead of everyone else to move up?

edit: won 1 more game and went up...

 

[Ennui]

I think they reevaluate your league (copper bronze gold etc) only intermittently, so while your rank goes up in your division in real time your league placement is updated less often.

 

[ktimekiller]

Ive been stuck on the top 10 of my gold league for a few days as well T_T

 

[Dekstar]

I wonder what the UK league is like skill-wise...

I'd probably be horrible, but I do now have a lot of time on my hands until I get a job... What should I do guys? Wait 'till the game comes out with the campaign etc, or beg for a key?

 

[Kitfox]

As a protoss player I can't seem to find a good balance between mineral gathering and vespane gathering until mid to late game. My starting build generally goes.

*probes -> mining
*first probe -> mining
*probe in queue -> mining
*probe in queue -> mining
*probe in queue (at this probe i will hit the first food cap) -> mining
*(wait until at least 50 resources) and take one probe off mining -> build pylon at entrance -> go scout with probe
*queue up 2 more probes and wait for pylon to build -> speed boost once pylon is built
* queue up 2 more probes take another probe off mining build gate way near entrance and and a forge if possible -> create another pylon at nexus
* from there i go depending what i scout at the enemy base or what enemy i'm up against
* but i countinue making probes (2 in queue at a time) i often make a vespane thingy majig soon after i build the second pylon and immediatly put 3 probes on it

the problem is i'm always waiting for minerals or vespane i can never seem to get a good balance... if i leave to many probes on minerals i seem to suffer of vespane depreivation if i put 3 probes on vespane i seem to feel a sting in minerals.. what do i do lol

 

[StarBob]

I know nothing about protoss starting. My 2v2 partner has gotten a pretty quick starting zealot build that can usually handle a 6pool zergling rush. I think I've got a pretty good Terran wall build down that can handle all but the fastest rushes.

I think a problem might be that you're queing things early on. I try to time things out so that I'm not pre-spending early on. It keeps my average unspent resources a lot lower and lets me do more in a shorter amount of time.

By the way - when we moved up to silver (finally) and it put us in a new bracket so everyone was online and we got a massive bonus pool. We jumped to number 3 after our first win, but we've probably dropped now since that was kind of late and everyone else was still playing. I'm not sure if that one win was what pushed us over the edge or there was a rebalance thing that Blizzard did at a certain time. I'm guessing the latter since everyone was online in it. Hopefully we can continue our success because my MM ball is becoming less effective every day. Terran has plenty of strategies, but none are as fast an effective as MM.

 

[CyberPitz]

Kit, a couple things.

1.) When discussing build orders, it's easiest for you and the rest of the people reading it to ALWAYS ASSUME CONSTANT PROBE CONSTRUCTION. You have no idea how important that trait is. So you're build should look something like this...

10 Pylon
12 *or something* Forge
13 Pylon
ETC

Try to 100% avoid queuing. Think about it. If you have 1 probe queued at your nexus behind the building one, and two gateways both with 2 building zealots and 1 queued behind them, that's 250 minerals NOT BEING USED right away. While there will be no overlap in building, it's still wasted time in the end. Try your hardest to get out of the habit of queuing too much. While a probe extra isn't terrible *still not perfect*, the rest of your army should never be queuing. Also, don't forget to expand.

NOTE: The reason for constant probe production has a few benefits. First off you can get the ideal saturation *3 in each gas and 3 on each mineral patch*. Second, when you expand, you can take a good chunk of those main probes and move them to the other expansion for faster saturation, thus more money faster.

 

[StarBob]

Yeah in my MM build I basically have 0 queuing. In fact all the way to the second barracks I rarely keep any more minerals than are necessary for the next click. The only thing I'll ever queue is reactor barracks because marines come out fast. Queuing isn't as bad when you're past the rush stages and it's a matter of just making the best use of resources as opposed to making use of them as fast as possible. If you have 500 minerals, you could max queue marines, start teching, or build a command center. It's not as big a deal that you do one of those within a second of getting the required amount (though it helps) but that you make the right decision.

The first 10 minutes of the game though, it's all about maximizing your resource utilization toward a short term goal.

 

[Quixoticism]

http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=24915043027&sid=5000
This is Terrible Terrible Damage™ news. :'( Come May 31st we won't be able to play the Beta for a few weeks!

Also, I'd like to submit that you pylon on 9 so you're not supply blocked by the time your 10th probe is finished. There are some BOs that do 10pylon, like 10gate or something where you want to have the gold stockpiled, but under most situations it's fine to build it early.

 

[CyberPitz]

10 Pylon/10 Gate will help you get your CyberCore out hella fast. Do that if you suspect reaper harass.

 

[Dekstar]

So let me get this right, Terran's have Supply Depots, Zerg have Overlords, and the Protoss use pylons?

Hah, I knew the other two, but for the life of me I have no idea why I didn't get that Protoss used pylons for supply.

 

[CyberPitz]

Probably because they make a powerfield where you can only place buildings around the Pylon.

 

[ktimekiller]

I've gone as far as rank 1 gold in my division, and the game still refuses to promote me T_T

Patch tomorrow? Wipe tomorrow?
/cross fingers

 

[StarBob]

I figure they'll keep this round of stats going until the end of the phase on May 31st... but that's just me though.

 

[CyberPitz]

I can't see them doing a database reset this close to ending...but hey, one more test could have them find that one bug that will stop us from playing for a day when it's released

 

[Hazar]

I don't get the whole need 3 workers to be saturated thing. Assuming the minerals are the same distance away from the base I don't understand why 10 workers working at the main and 0 at the expansion are less efficient from 5 at both.

 

[CyberPitz]

They aren't any different then. You can have 2 workers per patch and no overlap there. It's the slight bit of time where nobody is mining is where the 3rd on each comes into play. That is full saturation.

The reason you want to keep getting more after that, is so you can move some from the main to the expansion, so it can get saturated faster, thus you recognize your revenue faster.

 

[StarBob]

Most of the time though, if you're like me, you are going to burn up most of your minerals before you can fully expand. If you're Terran and using Mules then you'll be stripped before oyu know it. I usually have about 20 or so mining with mules coming in once in a while. I've got to get in the habit of moving SCVs when I hear "mineral field depleted" because I'll end up with like 10 SCVs on a single mineral node. Then I'll have built like 10 more at the new base and end up with 30+ SCVs mining inefficiently
most games I play don't last past the first expansion though. I'd say 75% of my 1v1 games - I don't expand at all.

 

[Bakurei]

Note to self: _NEVER_ _EVER_ left click your troops to move during a battle while near a mineral line! Your queen will decide that she will leeroy to the nearest mineral patch, while doing this she decides "HAY ROACHES dem bitches com!" and will block all your roaches with her fat ass so none of them will move nor attack since they can't get to the waypoint. That one almost cost me my keyboard

 

[CyberPitz]

^
What? I can't even imagine it. You sent your roaches and your queen to a mineral patch. Then you told your roaches to move *while being rapped between mineral patches and the queen* and they couldn't leave?

 

[Bakurei]

Well I didn't press excactly to the mineral patch, I moved them there to block the banelings of my enemy. But for some reason the roaches went next to a mineral patch and the queen blocked them. They just spinned around untill like 2 lings killed them all. Bad micro by me, I was microing the drones away from the banes. Only after watching the replay did I realise where my roaches had gone

 

[ktimekiller]

If you tell them to move, and they have no room to do it, they will just spin. If a unit is trapped by enemy units, you should just sacrifice them and get as many hits/abilities out before they die.

 

[Bakurei]

Yea but when you don't notice that they're stuck it kinda sucks

 

[StarBob]

So how does one deal with banelings? I know they're not great vs Armored but, I don't play zerg to know exactly how their ability works. Do they just auto detonate when they're near an enemy as a standard attack or is it activated? If it is activated, is it instant or do you have to target? I could find this out on my own, but I haven't yet, so I'm asking.