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Synastren
Nov 8, 2005

Bad at Starcraft 2.
Better at psychology.
Psychology Megathread




Koorisch posted:

Oh wow, i hadn't heard of that, what exactly happened?

Likely referring to the 2015 match fixing scandal that killed a number of careers. Some players even got jail time!
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2016/04/a-starcraft-world-champion-has-been-charged-with-match-fixing/

Probably not the first draft of this though in the Brood War match fixing scandal in 2010.

Amusingly, in both scandals, the best Zerg player in the world of their respective games was summarily stripped of their tournament wins and banned from competition for life.

Outside of Korea, the impact of the scandal on SC2 was relatively minimal. Within Korea it was pretty huge.

Synastren fucked around with this message at 06:12 on Aug 1, 2023

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BisbyWorl
Jan 12, 2019

Knowledge is pain plus observation.




We are continuing to ponder Zeratul's magic prophecy rock.

disposablewords
Sep 12, 2021

I know ships travel strictly at the speed of plot in Starcraft, but I figure Jim's got plenty of time in transit to other missions to stare at a rock for a day or two.

wedgekree
Feb 20, 2013
Yeah, and I presume at least being on acid is amusing for the rest of the game. Maybe?

Kith
Sep 17, 2009

You never learn anything
by doing it right.


the magic rock that makes everyone think you have alcoholism

Calax
Oct 5, 2011

Synastren posted:

Likely referring to the 2015 match fixing scandal that killed a number of careers. Some players even got jail time!
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2016/04/a-starcraft-world-champion-has-been-charged-with-match-fixing/

Probably not the first draft of this though in the Brood War match fixing scandal in 2010.

Amusingly, in both scandals, the best Zerg player in the world of their respective games was summarily stripped of their tournament wins and banned from competition for life.

Outside of Korea, the impact of the scandal on SC2 was relatively minimal. Within Korea it was pretty huge.

The reason I point to this is because around that time or right before there were entire channels dedicated to SC2 replays and tournaments etc. Once the match fixing scandal came out basically those fell apart and moved to other content, meanwhile MOBA's were just showing up at the same time in force, changing esports as a whole.

bladededge
Sep 17, 2017

im sorry every one. the throne of heroes ran out of new heroic spirits so the grail had to summon existing ones in swimsuits instead

JohnKilltrane posted:

Also my big beef with prophecies is that they ruin characters. "I'm doing this because it's what the prophecy said to do" is the most boring possible motivation a character can have unless you're playing with it somehow. The prophecy kind of feels like they shoehorned it in because they couldn't think of any other way to get Raynor and Zeratul to set aside their differences with Kerrigan and try to work with her instead and like, really? You couldn't think of anything better?

Frank Herbert and Dune did to prophecies as a plot device in the 1960's what Evangelion did to the accidental anime falling grope plot device in 1997. Anybody using these plot devices after they have been so thoroughly and brutally deconstructed cannot expect to be taken seriously.

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!!
May 31, 2006

bladededge posted:

Frank Herbert and Dune did to prophecies as a plot device in the 1960's what Evangelion did to the accidental anime falling grope plot device in 1997. Anybody using these plot devices after they have been so thoroughly and brutally deconstructed cannot expect to be taken seriously.

i have seen one extremely good take on the subject, based, of all things, on a throwaway joke from an episode of MST3K

"I need you to help me find the guy who's REALLY going to help us."

there is a lot of comedic/dramatic value in "at last, we've found you. after decades of searching, the one who was promised is revealed. you, young one, are spoken of in prophecy. you're going to be the wizened old sage who teaches the chosen one everything he knows."

congrats, your life's purpose is revealed to you, you're going to be a supporting cast member in someone else's story fifty years from now. now what.

SIGSEGV
Nov 4, 2010


Also you probably die as extra motivation.

BisbyWorl
Jan 12, 2019

Knowledge is pain plus observation.


SIGSEGV posted:

Also you probably die as extra motivation.

At the very least it means you can't die before then, so you can do whatever you want with no risk of serious harm.

SIGSEGV
Nov 4, 2010


There is such a thing as a long and lingering death, or condition, poor great abbot, a great teacher, he died of a sword to the face but before he suffered fifty years of reticulating face eating bacteria and renal calculi.

NewMars
Mar 10, 2013

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:

i have seen one extremely good take on the subject, based, of all things, on a throwaway joke from an episode of MST3K

"I need you to help me find the guy who's REALLY going to help us."

there is a lot of comedic/dramatic value in "at last, we've found you. after decades of searching, the one who was promised is revealed. you, young one, are spoken of in prophecy. you're going to be the wizened old sage who teaches the chosen one everything he knows."

congrats, your life's purpose is revealed to you, you're going to be a supporting cast member in someone else's story fifty years from now. now what.

There's actually a game with this premise: Dragon Quest Builders. Of all things.

Actually that series used a similar idea with Dragon Quest V where your role is to be the dad of the one spoken in prophecy.

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


A'int nothing wrong with that: most of us can only dream of being even that important.

Poil
Mar 17, 2007

"I've spent my life working and preparing for this exact moment to give you all the information you need to"-<skip><skip><skip>"God doesn't this npc ever shut up?"<skip><skip>"Finally! Well, let's go follow that quest marker!"

JohnKilltrane
Dec 30, 2020

bladededge posted:

Frank Herbert and Dune did to prophecies as a plot device in the 1960's what Evangelion did to the accidental anime falling grope plot device in 1997. Anybody using these plot devices after they have been so thoroughly and brutally deconstructed cannot expect to be taken seriously.

I'd kinda like to see fiction where prophecy works the same way it does in actual Abrahamic religions, as a divine or otherwise supernatural oracle concerned more with speaking to the present than the future. Imagine Zeratul all bringing the prophecy to Raynor and saying "I bring this now because the prophecy is meant for you, James Raynor." "Me?" "You, and all Terrans. You are the recipients of this divine oracle." And he reads the prophecy and it's all "Listen up, fuckwads, when we Xel'Naga made sentient species we did so with the expectation that you'd be caretakers of the worlds, so stop loving irradiating everything. You people are obsessed with nuking your problems away and it's ruining everything. Believe it or not there are some of us left so if you can't get your poo poo together we'll come sort it out for you and believe us, you will not like that."

JohnKilltrane fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Aug 2, 2023

BisbyWorl
Jan 12, 2019

Knowledge is pain plus observation.


Prophecy 2: A Sinister Turn

Video: A Sinister Turn




















I start off with a decently well off base, minus a Nexus and a few Pylons to power everything.







Thankfully Zeratul keeps a few Probes on hand for just such an occasion.



Wings has that strange part 1 of a trilogy vibe, so you got a lot of really experimental stuff like this. This is the only time a campaign just straight up gives you full control over another race.



I have a good bit of minerals, enough to crank out a good number of Probes.





Although this is balanced out by the fact that I need to spend 200 to get the rest of my base online.

The core protoss gameplay is the same as SC1. Probes drop down buildings and can then go back to doing something else.



The base consists of a Twilight Council, the SC2 version of the Citadel of Adun. It holds a few upgrades and otherwise acts as a gate to higher tech units.



The Cybernetics Core, which does the exact same thing as SC1. It unlocks your basic ranged unit and holds air unit upgrades.



The Forge handles ground upgrades.



And the Gateway makes infantry.



The Pylons start to finish and bring the base to life.



Much better.



Right now, all I have access to are Zealots and Stalkers.



To keep things like the rest of Wings, the protoss tech structures don't require you to research any unit specific upgrades. They're all unlocked by default and the only thing I have to research are the stat upgrades.



Gee I wonder if the Preservers are alright.



Zealots have lost the overall movement speed upgrade from SC1, and traded it for the ability to rush down targets once they get into range.

Also they added 'En Taro Tassadar' to their normal lines, which I find cute. More interestingly, they also have 'For Artanis.' Looks like he's been moving up in the world!



Here's the bonus objective. There are three unpowered buildings scattered across the map, putting a Pylon near them will give us research, free units, and the building and any units they unlock being added to our build list in case the first one gets destroyed.



Also, an immortal Stalker has waltzed into my base.







Oh no!



It's time for that most time-honored of Blizzard traditions: Corruption!



The two buildings closest to my base are guarded by a single unit to stop me from rushing them. The third is guarded by an entire enemy base.



This is the more important of the two early buildings to grab.



And enough time has passed for the next phase of the mission to start.







This bridge leads to the main enemy base, naturally.



And what dastardly fiend is responsible for all this?

Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit's aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa



Hybrid! These were hinted at during Brood War's secret mission, and now they get to be front and center.

Get used to seeing them, as we'll be drowning in the bastards by the end of this.







A part of the map gets revealed by that cutscene.



And I send my Zealots out to clear the second building.



While that's going on, the Robotics Facility gets powered and gives me a free Immortal! They're a godsend on this map. They hit hard, Hardened Shields gives them a lot of staying power, and the natural break between attacks lets them easily heal up between fights.





The building is guarded by a single Zeal-oh hey an angry red symbol.



Here's the main gimmick of the map: The Hybrid will constantly attack your base.



Unlike SC1, where you unlock both High and Dark Templar with a Templar Archives, SC2 splits them into their own buildings.



The Hybrid will hit a random side of your base each time, but his marker keeps you from getting surprised.



Right off the bat, the Hybrid can Blink, letting him instantly close the gap. He'll periodically Blink after every few attacks, so you can't just swarm him with Zealots to keep him pinned away from any squishy ranged units.



Like so.



With a combined 1400 health, the HybridMaar takes a good bit of sustained firepower to take down, but he loses a lot of bite if you can get him targetting an Immortal.

Bizarrely, Maar is the only Hybrid in the entire trilogy to get an actual name, and even then it never gets used outside of his unit card.







A mixed Stalker/Immortal army is the name of the game today, but Immortals are fairly expensive.



While all this was going on, the Dark Shrine got powered and gave me two free Dark Templar. They're good against attack waves as they never bring Observers, but Maar's a Detector so he'll just shoot them.



Dark Archons have been cut from the lineup in SC2, so instead you can use any mix of High Templar and Dark Templar to make an Archon.

And despite Zeratul's line, there's no actual time constraint here. Maar can drain the life out of the preservers forever with no issues.



Since I had so many voice lines queued up, the DTs were able to spawn, walk to my base, then fend off an attack wave before they got to say their line.



Command us!

Oh, and Maar respawns annoyingly quickly.



Get used to hearing this.



He falls much faster this time.



I start pushing towards the final bonus.



Ooooooooooor not. I killed Maar at 6:53, and he's heading back before a single minute has passed.





Okay, now I can head to the bonus.



On the enemy's side, there's not much we haven't seen before. They have Zealots, Sentries, Stalkers, and Void Rays.



Void Rays are a bit annoying, considering the only unit we have that can hit them are Stalkers.



The issue in this map is just having enough time to actually do anything before Maar starts up again.



I take out the production in this base, plus any Probes that might try to rebuild before heading back.



Maar has a thing where he'll steadily get stronger the more times he comes back, getting more health and shields plus some new abilities. At this point, he's unlocked Graviton Prison, which stuns a target for 5 seconds while dealing 60 damage.



With the base cleared, I can finally grab this.





Sigh.



I try to catch him on the bridge, but Maar has a bizarrely low aggro range if you don't attack him.



I seem to have lost my free High Templar at some point.





Oh no, it just took a bit.

High Templars lost Hallucinate in exchange for the Dark Archon's Feedback. Considering Maar has 250 energy and always starts with a full tank, this will come in handy.



Ready yourself, noble warrior. We confront a terrible evil this day.

There's one more base on the bottom left I need to take out. Both because it'll stop any attack waves from hitting me when I move to free the Preservers and because my free Robotics Facility will happily send Immortals directly into the enemy if I don't clear it.



Sigh.



While Blink is on a cooldown, Maar's other abilities use a small bit of energy so opening each fight with a Feedback helps cut down on damage.

Not that much, mind, Graviton Prison costs a piddly 5 energy.





I start clearing the second base.





I finish up before Maar can hit my base, but lost a good amount of my army and my High Templar in the process.





Which is bad when he's finally capped out and unlocked his final spell, Plasma Blast. It costs 15 energy and deals 260 damage with a bit of splash. If he hits anything that isn't an Immortal or an Archon with it, they die.



Case in point: This random Pylon he decided to hit instead of, like, any of the dudes actively killing him. It doesn't even manage to supply block me or disable any of my Photon Cannons.





The only place I can be attacked from at this point is the bridge, so I decide to grab both expansions and build up my army a bit before heading over.









During this time I kill Maar four goddamn times.

Hell of a showing for the Hybrid, when the first one introduced does nothing but die over and over again. The guy doesn't even bother to go with any of the protoss he's enslaved. He just gets back up and runs directly into my army over and over again!



30 guys should be enough to take this.



This is why I took the time to build up my army. They instantly hit me with a bunch of everything the second I walk in.



Thankfully the base isn't very big, so after the initial defenders are gone I can rush down the Preservers.



Getting close causes Maar to immediately respawn. If he's alive and moving towards my base, he'll instead teleport back here.



Maar also gets Psionic Shockwave at some point, a cooldown based aoe knockback that deals 20 damage.





Once Maar's gone the Preservers' prisons quickly fall.



Although hitting them will also make Maar respawn instantly.



But the prisons are fragile enough that you can just ignore him.



And once the last one falls, Maar explodes.























I must seek out the Overmind's final resting place. Our ancient homeworld... of Aiur.



The Way of the Nerazim - Kill 30 enemy units or structures with Dark Templar in the "A Sinister Turn" mission on Normal difficulty.

Strangely, this mission has no fade to black. It just instantly cuts from there to the results screen.

BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Feb 5, 2024

Phelddagrif
Jan 28, 2009

Before I do anything, I think, well what hasn't been seen. Sometimes, that turns out to be something ghastly and not fit for society. And sometimes that inspiration becomes something that's really worthwhile.
This mission isn't hard, but the constant attacks on your base can get annoying. You'll send out your troops to attack a base on one side, only to get hit by an attack from the other, all while dealing with harassment by the hybrid.

I'm terrible with spellcasters and never build any more High Templar, but the energy drain ability on the one you're given can be very useful, if you can keep him alive (the AI loves to focus it down).

JohnKilltrane
Dec 30, 2020

You really captured the Maar factor of this mission. Outside of a couple of windows early on he doesn't pose that much of a threat, but he's so irritating. It's like the devs said "What if every minute or so someone came up and pushed you on the back of the head while you were playing." Have Maar be more powerful but spawn less frequently and the mission would be less annoying IMHO.

On the other hand, Templar <3 <3 <3 Storm isn't as strong in this game, but it's still hella fun, and Feedback is just so satisfying to use.

Also I know conservation of detail is a thing but Zeratul's whole "The Great Hungerer? Why that could only be the Overmind!" always struck me as a bit of a funny leap.

FoolyCharged
Oct 11, 2012

Cheating at a raffle? I sentence you to 1 year in jail! No! Two years! Three! Four! Five years! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!
Somebody call for an ant?

JohnKilltrane posted:

You really captured the Maar factor of this mission. Outside of a couple of windows early on he doesn't pose that much of a threat, but he's so irritating. It's like the devs said "What if every minute or so someone came up and pushed you on the back of the head while you were playing." Have Maar be more powerful but spawn less frequently and the mission would be less annoying IMHO.

On the other hand, Templar <3 <3 <3 Storm isn't as strong in this game, but it's still hella fun, and Feedback is just so satisfying to use.

Also I know conservation of detail is a thing but Zeratul's whole "The Great Hungerer? Why that could only be the Overmind!" always struck me as a bit of a funny leap.

Little did Zeratul realize the prophecy actually referred to Billy Jenkins, an scv pilot famous for having won hot dog eating contests across Mar Sara. He was unfortunately already obliterated by Tassadar's fleet years ago.

Tenebrais
Sep 2, 2011

You know, I'd completely forgotten this mission exists. I remembered the first one, the next one on Aiur, and the final mission of this chain, but I'd always only remembered this as a three-mission series.


Can't imagine why.

Eeepies
May 29, 2013

Bocchi-chan's... dead.
We'll have to find a new guitarist.
Maar just wanted to invite Zeratul to enjoy some pears, which is why he keeps respawning and walking to give an invitation, but Zeratul kept killing the messenger.

Falcorum
Oct 21, 2010

JohnKilltrane posted:

Also I know conservation of detail is a thing but Zeratul's whole "The Great Hungerer? Why that could only be the Overmind!" always struck me as a bit of a funny leap.

The Great Hungerer is actually Jimmy because of his massive thirst/hunger for revenge :v:

Poil
Mar 17, 2007

The images do not come anywhere near to showing how annoying and tiresome Maar is with his endless and constant taunting.

megane
Jun 20, 2008



Zeratul traveled halfway across the galaxy to piece together a prophecy that goes “bad darkness is dark and bad, check the dead Overmind for more lol”

Felinoid
Mar 8, 2009

Marginally better than Shepard's dancing. 2/10
For a second I was hoping the Great Hungerer would be some fresh new Xel'Naga abomination (something like an ultralisk the size of a colony ship that eats entire cities), but then Zeratul said "could that be the Overmind?" and it felt so out of left field I knew he had to be reading the script.

I bet $0 the Fallen One is either Kerrigan, Zeratul, or Jimmy. (Boy they love people sucking more than they did before, don't they? Wonder if there's a company culture issue at play...)

Hwurmp
May 20, 2005

it was actually the Great Hugger all along

Torrannor
Apr 27, 2013

---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE

Felinoid posted:

For a second I was hoping the Great Hungerer would be some fresh new Xel'Naga abomination (something like an ultralisk the size of a colony ship that eats entire cities), but then Zeratul said "could that be the Overmind?" and it felt so out of left field I knew he had to be reading the script.

I bet $0 the Fallen One is either Kerrigan, Zeratul, or Jimmy. (Boy they love people sucking more than they did before, don't they? Wonder if there's a company culture issue at play...)

You'd be out of your zero dollars, but the real answer is not that much better. Also, prepare to be supremely disappointed in the next mission with the Overmind, I know I was.

BisbyWorl
Jan 12, 2019

Knowledge is pain plus observation.


Poil posted:

The images do not come anywhere near to showing how annoying and tiresome Maar is with his endless and constant taunting.

Now you see why I always post footage alongside every mission. Just in case you really want to hear "Come, my SLAVES. The time has come to give me your STRENGTH," on loop for 20 minutes.

Regalingualius
Jan 7, 2012

We gazed into the eyes of madness... And all we found was horny.




I’m surprised brutal didn’t escalate it to also facing clones of Maar that are staggered out so that you’re always facing a base attack from one of them for the entire mission.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
Can you believe my memory completely edited out this mission?

Like... if you were a competent writer, and you were dealing with a Super Spooky Monsterman that had been hinted at like... over ten years ago in a much-beloved expansion and was otherwise largely undetailed... I feel like what you'd do would be to have it pop up briefly in a cutscene or maybe a single mission without getting blasted wide open, just to scare the player a bit and drive up some sense of urgency and worry.

And then a bit later have them show up, but be undefeatable, as something to be avoided or distracted rather than killed, to establish that they don't just LOOK scary but ARE scary.

Followed up by finding a way to damage them, finally bringing one to battle and taking it down.

And then facing armies of them in missions.

Rather than... this.

Omobono
Feb 19, 2013

That's it! No more hiding in tomato crates! It's time to show that idiota Germany how a real nation fights!

For pasta~! CHARGE!

PurpleXVI posted:

Can you believe my memory completely edited out this mission?

:same:

Full agreement on the rest of the post too.

Regalingualius
Jan 7, 2012

We gazed into the eyes of madness... And all we found was horny.




Funnily enough, it was the next mission in this chain that I completely forgot about, even though it’s the point where SC2’s overall story hits the nosedive of no return.

Koorisch
Mar 29, 2009

PurpleXVI posted:

Like... if you were a competent writer, and you were dealing with a Super Spooky Monsterman that had been hinted at like... over ten years ago in a much-beloved expansion and was otherwise largely undetailed... I feel like what you'd do would be to have it pop up briefly in a cutscene or maybe a single mission without getting blasted wide open, just to scare the player a bit and drive up some sense of urgency and worry.

And then a bit later have them show up, but be undefeatable, as something to be avoided or distracted rather than killed, to establish that they don't just LOOK scary but ARE scary.

Yeah, this wasn't a great showing of the Hybrid.

Regalingualius
Jan 7, 2012

We gazed into the eyes of madness... And all we found was horny.




And the thing is, they should be way more existentially terrifying in-story. Zerg and Protoss are supposed to be fundamentally incompatible with each other (hence why Zerg never had any Infested Protoss units), so the hybrids are supposed to be physically impossible.

:blizz: really kind of killed the tension by having lots of people’s first exposure to them be so… hammy.

MagusofStars
Mar 31, 2012



One interesting quirk of the fact Archons can now be created with any pair of Templar is that they have a variable cost depending on which combo of units you combine - 100 minerals/300 gas, 175/275, or 250 of each. In practice, this never really felt relevant to me since I'd just merge whatever made situational sense - heavily injured guys, a high templar who was dry on energy, or whoever happened to be conveniently located when I wanted some juicy Archon firepower. I assume in multiplayer people do a lot more planning and thoughtfulness into their Archon merges though.

PurpleXVI posted:

Like... if you were a competent writer, and you were dealing with a Super Spooky Monsterman that had been hinted at like... over ten years ago in a much-beloved expansion and was otherwise largely undetailed... I feel like what you'd do would be to have it pop up briefly in a cutscene or maybe a single mission without getting blasted wide open, just to scare the player a bit and drive up some sense of urgency and worry.

And then a bit later have them show up, but be undefeatable, as something to be avoided or distracted rather than killed, to establish that they don't just LOOK scary but ARE scary.
I wonder if they were trying to build that tension by having the same one just resurrect so quickly, to produce a feeling of hopelessness as you see it just continually coming back and "what the gently caress, how can we deal with this self-reviving monster".

Of course, given that multiple people have said they totally forgot this mission existed (and add me to that count too), it's pretty clear that fell completely flat.

NewMars
Mar 10, 2013

JohnKilltrane posted:

I'd kinda like to see fiction where prophecy works the same way it does in actual Abrahamic religions, as a divine or otherwise supernatural oracle concerned more with speaking to the present than the future. Imagine Zeratul all bringing the prophecy to Raynor and saying "I bring this now because the prophecy is meant for you, James Raynor." "Me?" "You, and all Terrans. You are the recipients of this divine oracle." And he reads the prophecy and it's all "Listen up, fuckwads, when we Xel'Naga made sentient species we did so with the expectation that you'd be caretakers of the worlds, so stop loving irradiating everything. You people are obsessed with nuking your problems away and it's ruining everything. Believe it or not there are some of us left so if you can't get your poo poo together we'll come sort it out for you and believe us, you will not like that."

Note from a bit back, but Six Ages/KoDP and it's setting, Glorantha is like this. In those games, the more regular kind of prophecy exists, but most augury is what historical augury was: not asking what the future is, but asking what the gods want and are doing. So, every year you get signs from them, which can be like "you should explore far off places" or "the crops are not gonna be good" or "If you cease fighting people, we'll give you good fortune." That sorta thing.

Synastren
Nov 8, 2005

Bad at Starcraft 2.
Better at psychology.
Psychology Megathread




MagusofStars posted:

One interesting quirk of the fact Archons can now be created with any pair of Templar is that they have a variable cost depending on which combo of units you combine - 100 minerals/300 gas, 175/275, or 250 of each. In practice, this never really felt relevant to me since I'd just merge whatever made situational sense - heavily injured guys, a high templar who was dry on energy, or whoever happened to be conveniently located when I wanted some juicy Archon firepower. I assume in multiplayer people do a lot more planning and thoughtfulness into their Archon merges though.

Generally speaking, it is a rare situation to have both a dark shrine and a templar archives in a multiplayer game. DTs are used almost exclusively for harassment, and once detection is on the field archon drops with a warp prism are the transition sometimes. Archons are usually significantly worse than psionic storm, so rarely will you see archons in significant numbers outside of specific army compositions. Archons are primarily HT + HT, and function as a gas dump if protoss is going super heavy on minerals elsewhere (e.g., zealots or carriers).

Arcanuse
Mar 15, 2019

Having the Hybrid be a stronger, actual one unit army seen blowing through NPC allied/neutral bases, finally get taken down while pulping the last ally base (sooner if the player sends backup) only to respawn less than a minute later might've done the trick.
Or at least had more oomph than the round of hybrid whackamole seen here

Lt. Danger
Dec 22, 2006

jolly good chaps we sure showed the hun

that's kind of a lot for one mission

as I recall at the time of release people did find the constant respawning intimidating/stressful, especially on Brutal. not surprising we utterly trounce this mission now

e: it's the torrasque guys. it's the torrasque from Brood War. c'mon

Lt. Danger fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Aug 6, 2023

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BisbyWorl
Jan 12, 2019

Knowledge is pain plus observation.


Intermission 9



Through sheer timing, we have two new research pairs to look at today!

>Watch news.

















Hmm.

>Talk to Tosh.





The one that made them, for sure. That was just the first of many. Dark harbingers, man. Soon they'll be beyond numbering - an' the stars will weep at what comes after.

How could you know all this?

I don't. I just feel it be true.



>Talk to Swann.





Yeah, sure. Y'know you might wanna try laying off the sauce and getting some shuteye once in a while, eh?

Thanks, mom. I'll get right on that.



>Talk to Horner.





You mean some sort of infested protoss?

No, this wasn't like infestation at all. It was like someone took the strengths of both races and twisted them together. I gotta tell you - if these things are real, we're in a lot of trouble.



>Examine Zerg Tank.



>Examine Protoss Tank.



>Check Research Console.



Tier 3 holds really good poo poo for protoss, and is utterly mid for zerg.





On the left, we can choose between fully automated refineries and the ability to Reactor out SCVs.





While the right has an anti-infantry mech that costs 100 gas a head that's only slightly more durable than a Firebat and a super-dropship that has 30 crew slots, but requires a separate tech building to make.





I go for the refineries and the Hercules. Automated Refineries will let me instantly max out my gas income at the start of the mission, and will let me save 3 supply per geyser by the end. The Herc, meanwhile, is hindered by the fact that the campaign rarely designs missions around drop play. In fact, Heart and Legacy both completely remove transports from the player's arsenal! I mostly grab it because the Predator is even worse.





Enough time has passed for the next Artifact mission to open up.







These missions are the same as always.



Moebius' head-honcho, Dr. Narud, claims the zerg are attacking his main Research Campus on Tyrador. He can't evacuate his people until all their artifact research is safe.

This is actually the final timelocked mission in the game! Any future missions from here on out will instantly unlock.



And, as always, we have the magic rock to stare at.



BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 06:02 on Aug 11, 2023

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