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Reinterpreting all the signature Blizzard giant shoulder pads as instead being giant elbow pads.
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Jun 29, 2023 04:06
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There is no problem in this campaign that enough marines and medics can't solve.
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Jun 29, 2023 09:25
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SoundwaveAU posted:There is no problem in this campaign that enough marines and medics can't solve. Being out of Supply so you can't build more Marines and Medics.
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Jun 29, 2023 09:33
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Kith posted:Being out of Supply so you can't build more Marines and Medics. That's when you send your SCVs to mine from the enemy base to free up supply for more marines and medics.
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Jun 29, 2023 09:36
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By popular demand posted:Was it Fallout that started this thing? I'll show my age by pointing out that the entirety of the manual for The Adventures of Willy Beamish is the doodles of an eight-year-old, six years before Fallout. Someone must have had a ton of fun writing it.
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Jun 29, 2023 14:06
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Incidentally, wiping out bases on most maps like Evacuation, while actually quite doable, doesn't serve a purpose. Most attack waves in SC2 seem to be pre-scripted and will drop pod in rather than being created at the bases. Starcraft 2 actively discourages going exploring and deviating from the script, which is one of the things I dislike about its generally cohesive map design. I like to take my time, build up, and generally play turtle, but most missions in this game have some kind of ticking clock or other demand for immediate aggression.
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Jun 30, 2023 16:22
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Sc2 does promote exploring though. It has free combat units and resource pick ups scattered around the maps that encourage you to leave your base and explore so you can afford that early agression rather than sitting in your base until you can doomball the enemy.
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Jun 30, 2023 16:35
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And the bonus objectives are often a little out of the way
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Jun 30, 2023 16:39
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Also, wiping out bases has a very noticeable effect on a lot of maps with regards to attack waves and is a big part of why sc2 has its reputation for demanding early agression all the time. And while these early maps don't show it very well because they're narratively introducing the zerg as an unending Horde of bug monsters coming out of everywhere, the game usually let's you end the mission early by smashing the enemy base out of existence(which speedruns naturally appreciate) and often gives you achievements for doing so. Combined with the Easter eggs like our tauren marine in his outhouse rocket on mar sara 3, it very much rewards you for showing you can beat he base intended to be too difficult to bother with.
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Jun 30, 2023 16:59
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Not being able to turtle unless the map encourages you to is a fair point, SC2 Brutal encourages very quick aggression. Many maps are much easier if you quickly get your expansion base, or wipe out an enemy side base to limit the amount of attacks on you.
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Jun 30, 2023 17:10
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It's not so much that SC2 discourages exploring and going off-script as that it makes demands of you to do so. Going out, finding the collectables, and especially taking out enemy bases that aren't objectives require a higher level of both micro and macro skills than the core mission objectives do, but if they had wanted to not let you do it at all they could have prevented it. There's really nothing stopping them from just making the enemy core base invincible or cheating in an unending stream of enemies to defend it if they'd chosen to. The game in general is set up to encourage you to think on your feet and act fast rather than simply turtling until you've built an unstoppable army, big enough to work with whatever unit composition you like, at your own pace. There's missions where you can do that, but it was an extremely reliable strategy in past games and they've noticeably taken efforts to make sure you can't just take this same approach every mission. More often than not you have to work to the mission's pace rather than make it wait for you. At the same time, especially at low difficulties, the demands aren't tight enough to make you really feel punished if that's not your forté. Just building a second barracks(/hatchery/gateway) is usually enough to comfortably meet the production demands of the mission.
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Jun 30, 2023 17:28
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Yeah the idea that SC2 demands you follow its script is like actively wrong. It's encouraging you to engage with it in a fast paced way due to the mission design and that's generally by far the most fun way to engage with RTS games, but nothing is stopping you in a lot of missions from just ignoring optional objectives and turtling up until you can A move the map. There's also multiple missions that are designed around the idea of fortifying up a massive base to hold a location or to eventually A move the map into oblivion. The game rewards you though for engaging with it in the way it wants you to, and that's a good thing honestly. It's like the difference in playing Devil May Cry by standing back and spamming the Grenade Launcher or actively going into melee and trying to style. It's a good thing when games encourage players to engage with them in the most dynamic way they allow, and SC2 is really good about rewarding aggressive or fast paced approaches to situations. There's a lot of really whacky solutions to a lot of missions that are really fun to do.
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Jun 30, 2023 17:59
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hell, even co-op rewards high aggression. going on the offensive makes many co-op missions much, much easier: there are still scripted spawns, but those are in addition to the units that the AI creates. clearing the map typically cuts the enemy headcount by half at least. it's why the hero-based commanders are so insanely powerful: you can just walk into an enemy base early on and rip it apart, which ultimately makes the rest of the game easier because you're fighting fewer battles later.
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Jun 30, 2023 21:32
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Honestly when I played, which I think was admittedly on normal because my general experience with higher difficulty levels is that they add more tedium rather than more challenge, I felt like rolling out and dunking on the enemies I wasn't supposed to fight was something I did to pass the time or for bragging points, rather than something that made a difference to the mission.
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Jun 30, 2023 23:48
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PurpleXVI posted:Honestly when I played, which I think was admittedly on normal because my general experience with higher difficulty levels is that they add more tedium rather than more challenge, I felt like rolling out and dunking on the enemies I wasn't supposed to fight was something I did to pass the time or for bragging points, rather than something that made a difference to the mission. That's pretty much what the achievements and things are there for. Typically its a lot easier to just do the mission objectives, but sometimes a character is a jerk and you want to style on them and show them what's what instead.
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Jul 1, 2023 03:20
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Colonists 2: Outbreak Video: Outbreak  If you've played co-op at all, you'll find the core of this mission burned into your very soul.      It's a zerg virus. All we can do is burn it out.  But... where are all the people?         We start off with a fairly well off base, with a free Refinery, two Barracks, and four Depots.  We also have a small force of two Firebats, three Marines, and two Medics at each entrance to the base, I move to get a Bunker up for each group before sundown.   Plus make a Tech Lab so I can get some Marauders out for the AoE slow.  The Adjutant is nice and gives you a warning every day.    I need my SCVs on minerals while I get my economy going, so instead of sending one to each side for repairs I instead I put a Firebat on Hold Position in front of the Bunker. That way, a good chunk of incoming damage will on them, which my two Medics can keep topped off with no trouble. Now, you may have noticed those red dots on the map.  That's thanks to the handy dandy Sensor Tower this mission also unlocks! Any enemy in range is automatically marked.  They only show as a red ! while you don't have vision, but that's still good enough as an early warning system.  And it begins.  The Bunkers will pretty much be firing non-stop for the entire night. Infested Terran themselves have ditched the suicide bomb gimmick and instead just slap at you.  My defenses are good enough for night 1, so all I can really do is get my resources saturated.  This is the one time Firebats are useful, as there are just so many enemies around that there's a good chance they can actually attack.  With a bit under 1:30 left on the clock, we get our new toy.  Three Hellions, which we saw back during Liberation Day.  Plus a free Factory to make more! The strange thing is that campaign Hellions get a completely unmentioned buff over their MP versions. They have an extra 10 HP, and their attack has gone from 8+6 to 10+8.  Jim chimes in at 30 seconds.  Infested Terrans have 35 health, so two shots from a Hellion can kill large numbers of them at a time.  And whatever Infested left standing burn in about 2 seconds after sunrise.  There's zero pressure on your base during the day, so I can unload everyone and roll my army across the map.  The goal here is to go all over the map and wipe out as many buildings as possible during the day, then fall back at night to defend. The Hellion moves fast, and every building on the map is flagged as Light so they can kill them quickly.  Unlike its future co-op counterpart, Outbreak has minimal defenses while you're actually clearing. The buildings spawn a handful of Broodlings on death (forgot to mention that, larger zerg buildings now spawn Broodlings on death) and there's a couple of Spine Crawlers dotted about the map, but for the most part you can just hit F2 and attack-move across the minimap without issue.  Each time you clear a batch of buildings, Hanson chimes in to let you know you can move on.  So I keep moving.  Keep building.  Remake my Bunker wall.   And finish one last section just a few seconds before dark.    Sir, if you kill one of those creatures, Stetmann can study it and perhaps learn something.Naturally, the bonus objective demands that you intentionally head out at night.  Now that most of the top left has been cleared, there's less pressure on the northern side. The catch is that the spawn rate of the infested buildings ramp up as you kill more, so the other side will be hit harder.  Night 2 starts to spawn in Infested Marines, which will chip away at you from a distance and stop you from simply loading all your Bunkers with Firebats.  For whatever reason, the map partially reveals where the Infestors spawned in at. This will be helpful in a bit.  There's this suspiciously breakable debris near the back of my base.  So I use my cunning knowledge to pre-emptively wall it off for later.  oh god what the gently caress this shouldn't happen tonight  poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo  Okay the Hellions can keep this secure crisis averted.  What is that...thing!? Was it human?The game makes a point to mark the first Aberration you see. They're big, they're slappy, they should not be here tonight.  Since I pulled everyone things up top have gotten a bit hectic.  Good thing I only had a few seconds left!  Now, you'd think I'd be unable to grab the bonus right now.  You would be wrong.  While my army does its thing, I build a Turret near the two spots revealed on the map last night.  Since the Infestors just... burrow during the day. Any form of detection will let you snipe them with zero fuss.   While my Hellions zoom across the map to hit the second, my infantry keep pushing south.  Toasty.  With half the map cleared, I pull back for another night.  Since the south is already open and we've already seen Aberrations, there's nothing new that can show up. So...  Skip!    Clear out the top right.  Finish up the middle right.  The bottom right is the most heavily defended. By which I mean it has two Spines Crawlers right next to each other.  I only have a few buildings left, so I decide to finish it here instead of dragging it out another night.  Once you're down to your last 10 buildings, anything left will get flagged on the map in case you missed one somewhere.   As an extra incentive to stay at base, infested buildings constantly spawn large groups of enemies when you attack them at night.  But since I have a nearly maxed army it doesn't matter so much.  Since I have Literally No Defenses right now, I float my base and send it away as a precaution in case the infested have enough time to break in.   And done.       23 Minutes Later - Complete the "Outbreak" mission on Normal difficulty before the 4th night. BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Feb 5, 2024 |
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Jul 1, 2023 04:35
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This is basically the only mission I remember from Wings of Liberty besides the Reaper mission
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Jul 1, 2023 04:59
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This mission is everything wrong with map design. A defense mission except that the enemies are all light and swarmy so you don't have room to experiment, mindless aggression during the day, nothing to explore, and even people who don't know the missile turret cheese can just station units next to infestors when they come out to kill them quickly.
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Jul 1, 2023 05:05
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Eeepies posted:This mission is everything wrong with map design. A defense mission except that the enemies are all light and swarmy so you don't have room to experiment, mindless aggression during the day, nothing to explore, and even people who don't know the missile turret cheese can just station units next to infestors when they come out to kill them quickly. It captures the zombie swarm vibe pretty well, that's all that really matters.
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Jul 1, 2023 05:13
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I've always wondered what movie Tychus is referring to
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Jul 1, 2023 05:14
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Eeepies posted:This mission is everything wrong with map design. A defense mission except that the enemies are all light and swarmy so you don't have room to experiment, mindless aggression during the day, nothing to explore, and even people who don't know the missile turret cheese can just station units next to infestors when they come out to kill them quickly. Eh this mission is fun enough on Brutal to tear through with Reapers.
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Jul 1, 2023 06:18
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Doing this mission with siege tanks is pretty easy.  Also you can float a barracks up on the ledge just south of the west base entrance, in case you want to put a few marines there who can't be hit by anything. It might not be worth it but at least the option is there.
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Jul 1, 2023 09:14
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Does sticking them into bunkers skip over the Firebats' wind-up animation before attacking or are they still slow to actually target stuff?
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Jul 1, 2023 10:23
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PurpleXVI posted:Does sticking them into bunkers skip over the Firebats' wind-up animation before attacking or are they still slow to actually target stuff? It skips their animation, but at the same time you also want Marauders in bunkers to slap anything in range with a slow, so Firebats have to wait even longer before they can start attacking.
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Jul 1, 2023 10:35
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Speaking of Co-op, will you be covering that at all? Technically most of it is canon. Kinda.
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Jul 1, 2023 11:20
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Kith posted:Speaking of Co-op, will you be covering that at all? Technically most of it is canon. Kinda. I am planning on doing a side series further down the line, starting in Heart of the Swarm. I want to wait till any tricks a commander might have has been seen in the campaign, since I can't really go 'This is so-and-so's Battlecruiser, it has x, y, and z over a normal BC' when we haven't seen BCs yet.
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Jul 1, 2023 11:57
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Fun fact: Because hellion attacks are AOE and the infestors start next to the two biodomes and are just burrowed during the day, with sufficient hellions and a good surround, you don't even need to detect them, because emough hellion attacks will 'hit' in their attack on the biodome. It can be a little finicky, but is entirely doable.
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Jul 1, 2023 12:34
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Sometimes you had your hellions in their own group. Other times they were grouped up with the bioball. I understand splitting them up, it lets you cover more ground. Why'd you combine them?
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Jul 1, 2023 15:24
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This is ... not the mission I thought I was voting for. Could we be a bit clearer with future voting options?
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Jul 1, 2023 15:31
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LLSix posted:Sometimes you had your hellions in their own group. Other times they were grouped up with the bioball. I understand splitting them up, it lets you cover more ground. Why'd you combine them? I split them up to hit both Infestors in the same day, the rest of the time I was just hitting F2.
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Jul 1, 2023 15:46
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Intermission 4       I'll be honest, I don't like Donny and Kate's whole gimmick. It's a one note joke about Kate starting to tell the truth and instantly being cut off but, like, media control is Tyranny 101 and Kate has almost praised the Raiders or slammed the Dominion several times by now. Mengsk should have had her unpersoned and replaced with someone more willing to say what he wants, and just letting this go on makes him look incompetent.   Today is fairly dead, all things considered. Hellions don't have any Merc version.  We haven't hit any new Research breakpoints.  And Hellions don't even show up in the Armory.  All we have are a few convos and a small scene that starts up the moment we enter the Bridge.    How could you even suggest that? They're perfectly healthy! I hope so, Ariel. The protoss don't mess around when it comes to infestation. Just in case, maybe you should start looking into some kind of cure for the zerg virus. Conventional wisdom says a cure is impossible — the virus mutates too fast. But I'll look into it. Just do what you can. That's all anyone's askin'.I'd just like to point out that Hanson is looking into a cure for zerg infestation in a lab that, in her own words, has medieval facilities and non-existent knowledge.  >Talk to Horner.   If any of Dr. Hanson's people on Haven are infested... I know — it's just a matter of time before the protoss come looking for them. Still, I have a history with the protoss. If it comes to that, maybe I can talk 'em down.>Talk to Hanson.   >Talk to Swann.    Ah hell, we were stupid. Havin' right on your side ain't no match for gauss guns and combat walkers. Lotta' folks died for nothin'. If you hadn't shown up when you did... Hey, your people bought their own freedom - paid for it in blood. Me and Matt, we were just glad to help.>Check Armory Console.  On top of the usual upgrades for our new unit, we've also done enough missions to unlock something new in the Base tab.  Hellions get Twin-Linked Flamethrower and Thermite Filaments. (deals an additional +10 damage vs Light, 60K credits)  While our new base option is for the Missile Turret, which gets Titanium Housing and Hellstorm Batteries. (turrets get a second attack that deals area damage, 80K credits)  I grab none of those, and instead opt to get the other upgrade for Bunkers and Marines.   There's a small wait before the next Colonist mission opens up, so instead we have to choose between Tosh's mission.  If we intercept the trains and liberate their contents before they can be shipped off-world, we could make a serious profit.Or heading back to good old Tarsonis for a little blast from the past. 
BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Jul 7, 2023 |
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Jul 2, 2023 03:31
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I'm trying to imagine the funniest (as a pejorative) ways the plot could resolve the good doctor looking into curing the Zerg infection, I can't wait to see how Blizz does it.
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Jul 2, 2023 03:42
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I'm going to be honest, by the end of the campaign, I hated the cantina intermissions.
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Jul 2, 2023 04:14
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Bit by bit we get closer to the thing that annoys me about WoL storytelling. But it is not the hoppy bois and it is not Tosh. Let’s go hoppi bois.
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Jul 2, 2023 05:06
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 Hay doctor you may want to work on a cure Well OK*seconds later* I'm working on a cure now doncha know, I hope it's not needed.Did she even had the time to start a worksheet or a research proposal or a scrawled napkin?
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Jul 2, 2023 05:23
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I am positively ashamed that I missed a SC2 LP until it hit page 9. I've played multiplayer fairly regularly for a decade (oof), and even ran (run?) the SA SC2 clan; if you'd like some multiplayer unit ~strategies~ or breakdowns, let me know. It's worth mentioning, though, that with each expansion, multiplayer shifted pretty dramatically, as there were occasionally some massive changes to units, introductions of new units, or a fundamental change in the gamestate at the beginning of the game. And probably half of the units in any campaign are relegated to single player. And there are significant changes to units between their SP/MP versions--marauders now shoot two projectiles at a time in multiplayer, which means that they are marginally less effective against armored units and less weak to unarmored ones. I'm excited to see how this goes! ed: If you're curious about competitive SC2, we've got our thread over in Retro games. The OP is pretty dated. Synastren fucked around with this message at 05:32 on Jul 2, 2023 |
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Jul 2, 2023 05:27
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Synastren posted:I've played multiplayer fairly regularly for a decade (oof), and even ran (run?) the SA SC2 clan; if you'd like some multiplayer unit ~strategies~ or breakdowns, let me know. It's worth mentioning, though, that with each expansion, multiplayer shifted pretty dramatically, as there were occasionally some massive changes to units, introductions of new units, or a fundamental change in the gamestate at the beginning of the game. And probably half of the units in any campaign are relegated to single player. And there are significant changes to units between their SP/MP versions--marauders now shoot two projectiles at a time in multiplayer, which means that they are marginally less effective against armored units and less weak to unarmored ones. Yeah that's the major reason I'm not bothering with going over how units fare in multi like the SC1 LP. Like the Hellion alone has major number differences going from Wings to Wings MP, gets a massive overhaul in HotS, and gets further changes in LotV. All the while other units are being added or tweaked which can all influence mech compositions. I'd either have to thoroughly research the life of a Hellion from day 1 of SC2, or cover just the modern era and talk about a unit that's completely different to what you see in the campaign. And that's for a unit that was mostly the same as their MP counterpart! By the time we hit LotV, every unit will have drastic upgrades and changes over MP so there'd be no real way to do an MP writeup. It just isn't worth the effort, really.
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Jul 2, 2023 05:41
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Jimmy, if those colonists are infested, the protoss will be the least of their worries
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Jul 2, 2023 08:18
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I'm kind of baffled by the idea of the infestation as a subtle virus when it literally turns people into huge, shambling meat mans and wraps buildings in giant meat worms. Like, in SC1, becoming an infested terran never felt to me anything like a virus, it was closer to a Geiger/Aliens-esque transformation, where something hijacked your entire biology immediately and then you got to watch it transform into a weapon while out of control. Hell, the original Zerg were just worms that parasitized animals and eventually learned how to control them rather than just being a passenger along for the ride, I always imagined it was more along those lines.
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Jul 2, 2023 09:54
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PurpleXVI posted:I'm kind of baffled by the idea of the infestation as a subtle virus when it literally turns people into huge, shambling meat mans and wraps buildings in giant meat worms. Counterpoint: Parasite Detected. Zerg can be very small and subtle, and I'm pretty sure there's been at least one short story in which one of those parasites full blown zerg'd someone somehow. I haven't paid much attention to the canon in about a decade, though... so these are half-memories of a thing I'm decently sure I read once.
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Jul 2, 2023 10:28
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