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How to beat Terran in StarCraft II Beta: Part II

I play pretty much 100% as Terran during the StarCraft II Beta so far. I played a little as Zerg and Protoss in some custom games but honestly, they got boring to me. I don’t dig the play-style of warping in as the toss or having only one production building as zerg. Anyway here are the ways to annihilate a Terran player in the StarCraft II Beta.

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How to beat Terran in StarCraft II Beta: Part I

I play pretty much 100% as Terran during the StarCraft II Beta so far. I played a little as Zerg and Protoss in some custom games but honestly, they got boring to me. I don’t dig the play-style of warping in as the toss or having only one production building as zerg. Anyway here are the ways to annihilate a Terran player in the StarCraft II Beta.

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StarCraft II Beta – Patch 3 (version 0.5.0.14219B)

Terrans can upgrade their units faster which is awesome considering that it was taking an exponentially long time to get your units to be as formidable in the mid/end-game. Zealots too were nerfed some which means maybe I won’t have to stomp so many super early Zealot harassment moves.

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Starcraft 2 Beta: Patch 1

The US servers were down and now they’re back up. Here are the patch notes and their changes and I have to say I’m happy with some nerfs but I’m pretty amazed that a lot of the obviously imbalanced stuff got away without so much a cursory glance.

Vikings that were already weak to begin with against air units (and being the Terrans most efficient and most mobile air defense) are being nerfed. Sure there’s a damage increase which will be very noticeable, but their armor being reduced means that a few Hydralisks alone will be able to utterly destroy any Mutalisk resistance these units would have normally provided vs. Zerg.

The reaper got nerfed and it’s about time. Reapers were damn abused even with mass Marauders (or Roaches or Stalkers) to counter them, their speed pretty much meant that unless you had a cluster of marauders at every entry point via cliffs, you were going to get some major harassment from Reapers.

I like that the Mothership has been nerfed some but with the new (Arbiter) Recall ability you’re going to have massive strike invasions so the moment you see a single Mothership it should become your top priority no matter what.

Chrono burst remains as powerful and full of cheese as ever. Way to hustle there Blizzard. But Gateways will now take longer which means I won’t be worrying about 3 Zealots pretty much nuking my base to shit right off the start. Marines just don’t stand a chance, neither do Zerglings.

StarCraft II Beta – Patch 1 (version 0.3.0.14093)

BALANCE CHANGES

• TERRAN
  • Viking
    • The armor value for this unit in Fighter Mode has decreased from 1 to 0.
    • The damage done by this unit in Fighter Mode has changed from 6 (+8 armored) to 10 (+4 armored).
  • Reaper
    • The damage done from D-8 Charges has decreased from 40 to 30.
    • The delay between attacks for D-8 Charges has decreased from 2.5 to 1.8.
  • Orbital Command
    • The build time for this upgrade has decreased from 50 to 35.
• PROTOSS
  • Observer
    • Gravitic Boosters: The cost of this research has decreased from 150 minerals and 150 vespene gas to 100 minerals and 100 vespene gas.
  • High Templar
    • Phase Shift: This ability has been removed from the game.
    • New ability: Feedback – Drains all energy from the target unit and causes damage equal to the amount of energy drained.
  • Colossus
    • The building pathing radius for this unit has decreased from .75 to .5625.
  • Mothership
    • Vortex: The energy cost of this ability has increased from 75 to 100.
    • Vortex: The target radius of this ability has decreased from 3.0 to 2.5.
    • Temporal Rift: This ability has been removed from the game.
    • Wormhole Transit: This ability has been removed from the game.
    • New ability: Mass Recall – Teleports all of the player’s units in the target area to the Mothership.
  • Nexus
    • Chrono Boost can no longer target allies.
  • Gateway
    • The build time of this building has increased from 50 to 65.
• ZERG
  • Infestor
    • Fungal Growth: The damage done by this ability has decreased from 48 to 36.
    • Fungal Growth: This ability now prevents affected units from burrowing.
    • Neural Parasite: Functionality changed – The Infestor now channels this spell, which lasts 10 seconds or until the Infestor is destroyed. You can now target all units with this ability.
    • Terran Infestation: The ability’s energy cost has reduced from 50 to 25 and Infested Terrans now spawn 1 at a time.

BUG FIXES

• Addressed an issue causing people to receive an “Internal Battle.net Error” message with their game client.
• Muting your microphone will no longer cause your microphone to be turned off in the operating system once the program has exited.
  • Please note that the voice chat functionality has only partially been implemented. There are many known issues with voice chat that we expect to address in a future patch.
• The “Medium” graphical settings were reconfigured to work better on appropriate machines. The video settings “auto-detect” functionality has been reset as a result.
• Added a frame rate limiter to the game menus to prevent some graphics cards from running at higher frame rates than necessary.

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Starcraft II Beta Initial Feedback 02/18/2010 (long)

So I got into the Beta for Starcraft 2 last night, downloaded the client, played a few matches, and now I have some feedback.

First off, I applaud Blizzard. I played Starcraft 2 during Blizzcon in 2008 and 2009 respectively and have been watching the Battle Reports like a religious zealot and I have to say I am really impressed with this Beta. I’ll touch a little on Terrans at the bottom but I have yet to really play as Protoss or Zerg enough to bother having an opinion. Let’s break it down in order.

Getting into the Beta

It was easy as can be. There were no 404 errors or any issues of lag or broken links. Logging into Battle.net and getting the client after adding it to your account took all of 3 minutes. The download too was pretty quick all things considering. This was actually more smooth than most World of Warcraft patches.

I like that I had to use my mobile authenticator code to log in, that little extra security makes me feel good especially since this game has a direct line to my Battle.net account which has a lot of personal information especially when the Real ID friends list gets going.

The Game

Hearing that music when you first boot up into the game pretty much sealed the deal for me guys. This alone kicked up a storm of nostalgia and really got me excited. Cheers to the audio department for hashing out such a great score. It’s all familiar yet new and really stands out as a different game.

The UI has more polish than most games in production. I haven’t encountered any glitches, choppy animation, jagged edges, or anything at all that detracts from the experience yet. Maybe it’s a Beta feature but the game tailored itself to my PC specs and took a lot of the “ok let’s setup so I can play” out of the equation. Great idea!

Matchmaking was ludicrously fast. There’s just a certain ease to being able to list what you want and go with it. I use Valve’s Left 4 Dead multiplayer method as a benchmark because in my time gaming no other system gets you into the action with other players faster with less menu hopping and muddled settings. Waiting to get into a match is not instant but if it was I’d be concerned at how well the matchmaking system was working. The wait isn’t terribly long either unless you’re trying to get into a FFA match as a Random race.

Maps

One thing I was not expecting was the feeling of vulnerability. You really feel the pressure in Starcraft 2 since there are typically no less than 2 sometimes 3 ways to enter your main base with about as many possible expansions nearby. There are Xel’Naga watch towers everywhere which do a great job of giving you an early warning when you’re about to get rushed but little else. Another factor in the maps are the near endless LOS (line of sight) fences (the bushes/trees, steam vents, cliff sides). You don’t really get to appreciate it from watching the Battle Reports since the entire map is defogged, it’s a little soul crushing to send a marine through a row of trees to end up being answered by about 50 zerglings, hydralisks, and more than a few roaches.

About the only issue I have so far is that sometimes these elements are a little too much in a given map. It makes attacking an enemy base a little more complicated because more often than not you’ll accidentally run into your opponent’s army as they’re moving to your base. This pretty much prompts you to fight them there, kite them, and always to zip back to your base and start building new units to refresh your weakened push. My first match was 20 minutes of this before I broke down and started building Ghosts and Battlecruisers and tried to overpower the hidden wall of siege tanks and anti-air infantry hiding behind every rock.

Post game is AMAZING. Being able to see the economy breakdown and the build order can really teach a player about his playstyle. I found myself looking back and thinking “Why the hell did I do that? I wasted XYZ on that research when I should have just moved with an expansion…”

Terrans

The Thor as a stand alone unit and even with great support seems pretty weak for such an expensive and high-tiered build. It’s not something I’d send out into the battlefield expecting to get a bunch of kills with. The most effective way I managed to deploy a Thor was with a large force-group of Marauders and Vikings going way ahead to draw fire away while the Thor battered from the rear (lol rear). Even then it wasn’t anything I couldn’t have done easier with Reapers using their charges and a Battlecruiser or two picking off anti-air with the Yamato.

Speaking of the Battlecruiser, you removed the other 2 abilities (barrage and defense matrix) so I like that it’s a more simplified unit with just the Yamato but at the same time you pulled a lot of utility away in a unit that really did feel like a flagship. I was really looking forward to rolling 3 BCs with 2 Yamatos and a missile battery as my big punch crew to deal the death blow to an enemy base. I can see how it’d be a little too complicated for a lot of players but I still think it’s worth keeping at least the AOE ground battery.

Terran’s supply drop ability is hands down the most awesome thing yet for dealing with the resource management of Starcraft 2. It’s infinitely faster to drop the upgrade on an existing supply depot than it is to build and entirely new one when you’re short and the cost is next to nothing. It also however, has the side-effect of making your supply depots even more valuable now as losing an upgraded one could make or break your army production in some fights – and then you have to expend the energy over time to upgrade a new cluster of depots.

Replay

The biggest feedback I can give I guess is the importance of Battle Reports. I played against a friend who also got into the beta that really hadn’t watched any of the BRs and he was lost immediately. Commissioning players or even getting developers to have more of these matches not so much in a tutorial sense but in an exemplary sense. Soldiers and athletes watch videos of plays or combat specifically to learn new tactics and feel more comfortable with the interface. Watching yourself lose or win a match in replay is good for learning from your own mistakes but it’d be nice to see two novice players going at it with voice over and pausing by a veteran similar to the play by play and recap segments we see during the BRs and even in most televised sports.

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