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Research Spotlight: Zerg Tier 1  Shrike Turret
Decent early on, but not scaling with upgrades makes it fall off hard as enemies get more upgrades.  Fortified Bunker
This, on the other hand, is the opposite. Early attack waves aren't that dangerous to a vanilla Bunker, but the extra health is a godsend by the end of the game. It also lets Fire-Suppression Systems heal an extra 75 life. Winner: Fortified Bunker, no contest. Tier 2 
Also note that a Command Center that has been upgraded to a Planetary Fortress can no longer lift off because the added weight is far too much for the Command Center's Atlas boosters. Eh, some people swear by a Planetary but I've never been too fond of it. Using it to defend your mineral lines is iffy, since if an enemy is able to push that far into your base you're already in a really bad spot. The huge size of a CC and the inability to hit air makes it awkward to use as a wall, since any Missile Turrets you throw down for cover will have to shoot over the PF and lose most of their range. There's also a really niche issue in that since you spend gas to make a Planetary, it now costs gas to repair, putting a nigh-permanent drain on your gas reserves. Like, you can get a lot of value out of a Planetary Fortress. 1.5K health backed by 3 armor is an insane amount of bulk and the cannon has DPS on par with four Marines plus splash damage. But I personally don't really go for them. 
The Zerg's ability to burrow has allowed them to massacre countless Terran soldiers in deadly ambushes. The new Perdition Turret should help even the score. They're cheap, they have a respectable amount of bulk, help deal with crowds, and their ability to burrow keeps your army from having to stumble around them when you push out. Funnily enough, they're better at the Firebat's job than actual Firebats, even discounting their scuffed attack animation. Perditions have twice the range, hit harder, and attack faster.  Winner: Eh, both choices have their perks. Grab whichever one you want. Tier 3  Predator
You're paying 100 gas and 3 supply for an anti-Zergling melee unit that can't be patched up by Medics, and you might not have Science Vessels unlocked at this point. Abilities  Lightning Field
 Hercules
The Hercules will also eject Survival Pods if shot down. Ejected occupants will sustain damage, but most would agree that injury is preferable to death. Niche, but at least there are some missions designed around drop play. Abilities  Rapid Deployment
Winner: Hercules, but only because the competition is the Predator. Tier 4  Cellular Reactor
Specialist units are units that use energy, such as the Medic, Ghost, and Wraith. Good if you're using a bunch of micro-heavy units like Ghosts, but even if you aren't the extra healing on Medics and Science Vessels still make this a strong upgrade.  Regenerative Bio-Steel
While this regeneration process is much slower than conventional SCV repairs, it can be the difference between life and death if no SCVs are available. Literal garbage. Trash. Never pick this. The regen is so slow that Vultures, the weakest Mech unit, would take 2 minutes to go from one HP to full with this. A Battlecruiser would take 15. Even if you are doing a mech deathball, Cellular Reactor will give every Science Vessel you make a free 300 HP worth of energy. Winner: Cellular Reactor holy poo poo. Tier 5  Hive Mind Emulator
Each conversion taxes the battery heavily, though, so a long recharge may be required before the next target can be controlled. Before you ask, no you can't steal a worker and get full access to a second race. Mind controlled workers lose access to the Build command. They finally decided to put a stop to that in the campaign. A bit awkward to use, since it's tied to a building instead of something that can move around, but it's effectiveness is directly tied to what composition you're facing if you want to do a mixed army play. For example, you get hit with a big attack wave and decide to snag an Ultralisk out of it to throw into your main force. Right off the bat, it'll probably get nailed by a few Siege Tank rounds before it gets in range of an Emulator, taking a good chunk of life off right then and there. Then the Ultra will be surrounded by the rest of the attack wave, which will quickly turn and start attacking it. All the while, the Tanks will be attacking all the enemies swarming your new Ultralisk, further damaging it with splash damage. Odds are, any ground unit you grab will just get killed before you can add it to your own forces, basically turning the Emulator into a defensive structure you have to micro on every attack wave. However, if there was a mission that just so happened to, say, have a lot of air units which can't be burst down by tanks and don't have to worry about getting body blocked...  Psi Disrupter
The Psi Disrupter has been developed to constantly emit sigma rays in a large area of effect, making it an essential base defense when facing a large Zerg force. Pretty much a permanent, AoE version of Concussive Shells that also works on air units. It's nice, sure, but you'll be throwing Marauders in your Bunkers anyways for the anti-Armored damage.  Winner: Depends on one very important factor we'll be seeing later. BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Sep 27, 2023 |
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Sep 27, 2023 15:40
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Natural 20 posted:I think Heart ironically ends up weaker primarily because of this because it's just so easy in that game to two base Hydra Roach and kill everything on the map without breaking a sweat. That, and there’s also the obvious biggest difference between campaign Zerg and competitive Zerg that makes HotS the worst at teaching you how to play multiplayer for their race.
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Sep 27, 2023 15:51
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Starcraft 2 has a whole separate mode for teaching you the basics of multiplayer. I doubt making the campaign do that was ever a priority, and I don't really think it should have been either, honestly. I don't play strategy games to get good at sports.
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Sep 27, 2023 15:56
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Dawn of War 2's campaign was utter dogshit at teaching multiplayer functionality or balance and yet it remains one of the most beloved RTS campaigns of all time.
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Sep 27, 2023 16:31
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BisbyWorl posted:Winner: Depends on one very important factor we'll be seeing later. Honestly, the way this effects your choice of upgrades and unlocks throughout the campaign is my biggest problem with the way it's designed. It makes me appreciate how the later campaigns give you much more flexibility.
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Sep 27, 2023 16:53
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Regalingualius posted:That, and there’s also the obvious biggest difference between campaign Zerg and competitive Zerg that makes HotS the worst at teaching you how to play multiplayer for their race. Just one? I can think of two massive differences between campaign zerg and skirmish zerg and I don't even play ladder. I assume you mean larva injection, but there is also the hero unit that can solo the whole loving campaign fake edit: I guess there are also the mutations that completely change how unit plays and its role in army comp. Yeah, HotS really doesn't transfer to skirmish 
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Sep 27, 2023 17:13
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Xarn posted:Just one? I can think of two massive differences between campaign zerg and skirmish zerg and I don't even play ladder. I assume you mean larva injection, but there is also the hero unit that can solo the whole loving campaign Oh, poo poo, I was just thinking of the hero unit, I completely forgot about the other two. …I didn’t play a lot of Zerg in skirmish.
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Sep 27, 2023 23:13
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One of the smarter decisions Blizzard made with Starcraft 2 was to largely separate the single player and the multiplayer portions of the game. In fact, I would say that they didn’t go far enough in some cases - in later missions you should just start with fully built out bases, enough workers, etc. Single player should stand on its own and get people hooked on the game play. 1v1 multiplayer is something completely different, that the vast majority of the players don’t enjoy anyway. Making the single player a tutorial for multiplayer is dumb and will lead to people not enjoying the game.
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Sep 27, 2023 23:58
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Xarn posted:Just one? I can think of two massive differences between campaign zerg and skirmish zerg and I don't even play ladder. I assume you mean larva injection, but there is also the hero unit that can solo the whole loving campaign I am looking forward to the analysis of skirmish sc2 Zerg later in the thread, actually, because I never figured out how you're expected to play with those things thanks to Spoiler#1. It feels like a mechanic designed explicitly to stress people with attention issues by making your army inherently worse than the other two armies unless you have pro gamer levels of mental organization. Zerg was my main in BW, and looking back on it, I think it's because of the three they require the most high-level view and least constant attention to individuals. Zerg armies are about getting your economy into a state where you're just constantly throwing streams of green dots everywhere on the minimap. You don't need to pay attention to what the dots are doing a surprising amount of the time.
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Sep 28, 2023 00:02
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It is an APM sink.
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Sep 28, 2023 07:28
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DTurtle posted:One of the smarter decisions Blizzard made with Starcraft 2 was to largely separate the single player and the multiplayer portions of the game. In fact, I would say that they didn’t go far enough in some cases - in later missions you should just start with fully built out bases, enough workers, etc. I agree with this, actually. Especially the "didn't go far enough." In hindsight, I'm also looking at a game mode made a decade ago. After starting skirmish/multiplayer up again, things are pretty wildly different from how they were back then. (Rip 6-pool) That said, I do stand by the idea that single player as a whole should teach the core mechanics of the competitive game, OR make no pretense about not doing so. Starcraft in particular is a weird game to say "the vast majority of players don't enjoy anyway." At least not without something to back up that assertion--Starcraft is up there in the pantheon of "games people really like for competitive play" and is one of the founding 'esports' titles back in the bloody 1990s. The game was a famously competitive draw when the options for that were basically quake, counterstrike, and fighting games. Custom maps have always been a core of Blizzard's RTS games, for sure, but versus matches (ranked or otherwise, traditional or no-rush) are just as big. Even looking at the campaign through the lens of 10 years ago, it's an unhappy medium between fully curated custom experience that focuses on big-fight gameplay and a versus-like experience that forces the player into an abbreviated early-game macro experience. It ends up being an unsatisfying mix of needing to macro up in a way that doesn't quite make sense for folks who have experience with the multiplayer aspect and delays the gratification of smashing your toy soldiers against the computer's toy soliders for no good reason. That said, this criticism is only applicable to versus-like missions. No-build missions and 'holdouts' I think are their own category--the latter of which got its own game mode? Which is pretty cool.
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Sep 28, 2023 07:39
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Xarn posted:It is an APM sink. There is at least one video of Artosis explaining that all the jankiness with unit movements, production, limited control groups, etc in SC 1 is what enables it to continue to be such a good competitive game, as there is an infinitely high skill ceiling.
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Sep 28, 2023 07:46
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Warmachine posted:That said, I do stand by the idea that single player as a whole should teach the core mechanics of the competitive game, OR make no pretense about not doing so. Starcraft in particular is a weird game to say "the vast majority of players don't enjoy anyway." At least not without something to back up that assertion--Starcraft is up there in the pantheon of "games people really like for competitive play" and is one of the founding 'esports' titles back in the bloody 1990s. The game was a famously competitive draw when the options for that were basically quake, counterstrike, and fighting games. Custom maps have always been a core of Blizzard's RTS games, for sure, but versus matches (ranked or otherwise, traditional or no-rush) are just as big. Finding decade old internet articles is a nightmare, but I recall back at launch there were statistics released that about half of the people who bought starcraft 2 on launch never played a single game of multiplayer, and the active multiplayer community was less than 10%. Now, stats are deceptive, a fair amount of pepole probably dropped the game pretty quickly, things may have changed since 2013, but it is fair to say that multiplayer is niche compared to campaign.
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Sep 28, 2023 13:56
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mr_stibbons posted:Finding decade old internet articles is a nightmare, but I recall back at launch there were statistics released that about half of the people who bought starcraft 2 on launch never played a single game of multiplayer, and the active multiplayer community was less than 10%. Now, stats are deceptive, a fair amount of pepole probably dropped the game pretty quickly, things may have changed since 2013, but it is fair to say that multiplayer is niche compared to campaign. I mean, the stats may vary, but I don't think that's just Starcraft. I would say that almost every RTS and FPS game I've ever played, I've never touched the multiplayer, and for the two RTS games where I did play MP(Starcraft and Warcraft 3), it was purely UMS maps, not a single actual game using the default setup. Some people just don't care for PvP, some people just don't care for MP and I in particular do not care for RTS MP because beyond a certain point it always feels more about how quickly and precisely you execute a known optimal strategy than actually thinking about what to do. Without some stats from other games its hard to tell if that 10% is the norm, is high or is low. I would personally guess its pretty normal.
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Sep 28, 2023 14:51
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mr_stibbons posted:Finding decade old internet articles is a nightmare, but I recall back at launch there were statistics released that about half of the people who bought starcraft 2 on launch never played a single game of multiplayer, and the active multiplayer community was less than 10%. Now, stats are deceptive, a fair amount of pepole probably dropped the game pretty quickly, things may have changed since 2013, but it is fair to say that multiplayer is niche compared to campaign. I didnt buy on launch (borrowed from a neighbor when he wasn't playing) but I immediately went straight to custom games to relive my WC3 days and never touched the campaign or normal multi. When I downloaded it again during covid I did the same thing. The entire campaign and story is honestly new to me.
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Sep 28, 2023 15:16
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There is a consistent thing across many RTSs of roughly 80% of players never playing multi and roughly 90% never ever touching ladder play, co-op play, scenarios, mods and custom maps are by and large more popular.
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Sep 28, 2023 15:42
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mr_stibbons posted:Finding decade old internet articles is a nightmare, but I recall back at launch there were statistics released that about half of the people who bought starcraft 2 on launch never played a single game of multiplayer, and the active multiplayer community was less than 10%. Now, stats are deceptive, a fair amount of pepole probably dropped the game pretty quickly, things may have changed since 2013, but it is fair to say that multiplayer is niche compared to campaign. Huh. That's interesting. I missed out on SC/BW competitive because I was very young and didn't have the mindset to enjoy the process of trying to get better. By the time SC2 came out, I was midway through college, and was enamored with the idea of finally having a competitive multiplayer game in a genre I could play well--I never had the passion for twitch-shooters or fighting games. So I went into SC2 with full intent to play ladder. And according to bnet stats I did hit platinum before quitting, so I guess I was doing something right. I'm always interested in attrition stats though, since I'd expect that number to increase over time due to attrition of single-player gamers moving on to other games while committed multiplayer players remain behind. But yeah, that conclusion probably holds water. Might also be falling for the 'distraction' of the bright spotlight on the esports aspect. It makes me wonder about other 'competitive' darling games like League that offer popular non-competitive game modes.
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Sep 28, 2023 16:09
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This is why I think every RTS game needs a Stronghold "Crusader Trail" or Northgards "Conquest" mode. Series of themed skirmish matches of increasing difficulty, stuff like 2v2v2's, you with multiple weak allies, FFA but you're in the middle, standard 1v1 but the other guy has more resources, etc etc. In Northgard it's also coop-able and you've got upgrades that carry over to the next levels. Both because it's a ton of fun and it also covers the "train for multiplayer" niche (if you think that's important) since singleplayer campaign ai's are usually pretty significantly different from skirmish ais. Pretty much every RTS I think of if you go straight from story mode to online you'll get completely tactically outplayed on every level, if you don't at least try some comp stomps first, though. So I don't know if it's truly a problem worth trying to solve (or even if its a problem; we generally don't consider COD single as training for multi for example) edit: basically if SC2 had a mode where I was collecting upgrades and units like in the campaign, and then picking between a selection of generated skirmish maps with occasional weird bits and mutators thrown in I'd probably still be playing it to this day. (I know the coop mode they added is somewhat like this but among other differences coop is mandatory in that) The Chad Jihad fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Sep 28, 2023 |
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Sep 28, 2023 16:25
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The Chad Jihad posted:This is why I think every RTS game needs a Stronghold "Crusader Trail" or Northgards "Conquest" mode. Series of themed skirmish matches of increasing difficulty, stuff like 2v2v2's, you with multiple weak allies, FFA but you're in the middle, standard 1v1 but the other guy has more resources, etc etc. In Northgard it's also coop-able and you've got upgrades that carry over to the next levels. You are describing Perfect Dark except an RTS instead of a console shooter. You are correct, it was lovely to have and would be great to see in more games with player v. player.
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Sep 28, 2023 18:47
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BisbyWorl posted:Tier 5 I grabbed the Hive Mind Emulator and used it ok, but after learning I had to actively cast it and pay attention to where units and emulators were I really wished I'd gone with the Psi Disruptor instead.
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Sep 28, 2023 20:16
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ulmont posted:I grabbed the Hive Mind Emulator and used it ok, but after learning I had to actively cast it and pay attention to where units and emulators were I really wished I'd gone with the Psi Disruptor instead. I almost always take Psi Disruptor. Mind control IS impactful--with the Ultralisk example, you one-clicked the Ultra off the board, while at the same time disrupting the attacker's DPS and maybe killing some more attacking units. But that's one specific example with an outsized impact--it scales to the value of the unit that you mind control. If the attacks are nothing but ling and hydralisk... well, it's pretty meh. The Disruptor on the other hand applies its effect to all units every time. You don't lose effectiveness if the wave doesn't contain anything big and scary to mind control, and you don't need to dedicate thought to using another caster unit when you're dealing with multiple fronts. Which you will be in the missions these are useful in.
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Sep 28, 2023 22:11
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I can never be bothered to micro the mind control thing so always pick the aura instead. You have to babysit them constantly to grab something and if there's too much stuff going on at different places they end up wasted.
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Sep 28, 2023 22:18
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A very important detail that the Psi Disruptor rundown missed is that it's not the same buff as the Marauder's Concussive Shells, which means they stack with each other. It also applies to Flying Units, which makes it insanely, ridiculously, absurdly useful.
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Sep 28, 2023 23:45
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Both have their value, for sure. I appreciate the value of a passive AOE slow; install a few of those around your base and you'll be pretty secure from most threats. But once you've built a bunch of Hive Mind Emulators, hotkeyed them into a control group, and grabbed an entire wing of Mutas... It's so hard to go back.
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Sep 29, 2023 00:11
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lol, I just noticed some lazy graphical detail The goddamn greeble decal is backwards.
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Sep 29, 2023 06:09
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You can see a few things like that in the intro cutscene as well. I believe that the texture is mirrored across the model to optimize.
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Sep 29, 2023 06:40
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aniviron posted:You can see a few things like that in the intro cutscene as well. I believe that the texture is mirrored across the model to optimize. Almost certainly, but blind mirroring would also probably result in the 435 being backwards as well. No one caught the small text decal though. Or they figured no one would notice/it was too small to bother with. edit: This is not the only game with this problem by a long shot, but Blizzard presumably has a better QA team than, say, the folks behind Captain of Industry. Warmachine fucked around with this message at 08:33 on Sep 29, 2023 |
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Sep 29, 2023 08:07
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Kith posted:A very important detail that the Psi Disruptor rundown missed is that it's not the same buff as the Marauder's Concussive Shells, which means they stack with each other. It also applies to Flying Units, which makes it insanely, ridiculously, absurdly useful. Yep, seeing an Ultralisk (nothing else really lives long enough) crawl towards the siege tank line is always fun. The poor thing is really trying, but it will never get there.
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Sep 29, 2023 08:17
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Does the disruptor work on you-know-which-unit? I mean Kerrigan The mind control one obviously doesn't.
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Sep 29, 2023 08:59
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Warmachine posted:Almost certainly, but blind mirroring would also probably result in the 435 being backwards as well. No one caught the small text decal though. Or they figured no one would notice/it was too small to bother with. I think it's also part of Blizzard's obsession with optimizing, too. I haven't played a Blizzard game since... well, since Wings of Liberty actually, but goddamn could those old games run on terrible PCs. When I was a kid, my best friend & dumpster dived some old office PCs and set them up; they were terrible but the one thing they could run was Brood War so we called the ones we built Starcraft computers. SC2 was similarly well-optimized, and it's the insane/anal attention to detail on things like UV maps optimizing for video memory that does it.
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Sep 29, 2023 09:26
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World of Warcraft is also playable on some really crappy PCs, this is definitely one area where you have to "hand it" to Blizz.
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Sep 29, 2023 10:22
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aniviron posted:I think it's also part of Blizzard's obsession with optimizing, too. I haven't played a Blizzard game since... well, since Wings of Liberty actually, but goddamn could those old games run on terrible PCs. When I was a kid, my best friend & dumpster dived some old office PCs and set them up; they were terrible but the one thing they could run was Brood War so we called the ones we built Starcraft computers. SC2 was similarly well-optimized, and it's the insane/anal attention to detail on things like UV maps optimizing for video memory that does it. I put WC3 onto a netbook back when those hadn't been entirely killed as a concept by tablets. The shittiest Atom processor and memory available could still play Frozen Throne passably. Torrannor posted:World of Warcraft is also playable on some really crappy PCs, this is definitely one area where you have to "hand it" to Blizz. Dril tweet.
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Sep 29, 2023 11:50
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Rebellion 4: Media Blitz Video: Media Blitz                    We pan over three bases. There's one with Starports.  One with Factories.  And one with Barracks. Now, you may be wondering if Tychus being a mole will have any impact on this mission on Korhal itself.  The answer is: Nope!  This mission will go off without a hitch, Mengsk's own plant will rampage down the streets of his own city, and everyone lives happily ever after.   The Odin is the exact same as it was last time, only now I have direct control over it.  The Factory base is in the top right.  Starports in the top left.  And Barracks in the bottom right. While each base has a few other production structures, they're heavily limited in other bases. The Factories in the infantry base, for example, can only produce Vultures and Hellions.   There's also not one, but two full expansions that I can take later.  While all this is going on, AI-controlled Jimmy is building up a base.  Now, I can stomp around this area as much as I want, but the Dominion forces and the civilians are boxing me in.  Attacking anything causes all hell to break loose, putting me on a 4:30 timer before the sneak attack ends.  drat, that's a lot of guys!  Anyways.  During the sneak attack enemies will not automatically aggro on the Odin.  Instead, attacking something will cause all enemy units in a small area around the target to wake up.  This makes all the Siege Tanks here a joke, since you can just waltz right into their minimum range and kill them before they can take a single shot.   Now that the central defenses have fallen, I can get to work.  Pop a Factory.  Barrage to both take down another and knock out those defenders.   Then clean up the other two. The enemy is set to not rebuild anything that's destroyed, so this just completely knocked out their ability to make more Siege Tanks. They can send pre-made ones on attack waves, but once those are down I am 100% safe from having my defenses sieged down.  Move commands are important here so I don't accidentally aggro things I don't have to fight. The Odin is tough, but it isn't invincible.  The air base is the hardest for the Odin to hit, thanks to its middling anti-air, but if I can take out the Starports then I've pretty much won the mission right here and now.  It took 20 seconds to kill three Banshees, and the Odin took 500 damage in the process.   Don't rush me, kid. Can't a man take some pleasure in his work?And now, for the final part of my plan:  Wasting time with queued move commands, as the Odin will happily target anything in range if left alone. Those last two Starports are all I have left on my list of priority targets, so I want to burst them down right as the timer runs out to minimize how much damage the Odin takes.  So are these guys! Heh -- don't sweat it. And with a few seconds left on the clock-  The only thing the enemy can throw at me is infantry and low level mech.    But I have gained access to the UNN network. We'll need troops to stay close to one of the broadcast towers long enough to get our message out.If you're watching the video, you can very faintly hear the sound of a Banshee shooting the Odin during this cutscene. Thankfully, it becomes invulnerable as soon as the timer finishes.    The strange thing here is that all the SCVs start mining in the cutscene, even the ones that would normally hop on gas if I didn't have Automated Refineries.  Then when I regain control they're all sitting around, forcing me to waste a second telling them all to mine.   Also, I still have the Odin. You lose it if it dies during the sneak attack, which also ends the sneak attack on the spot, but otherwise it just gets plopped down in your base with however much health it had left.   The Thor is the capstone of Terran ground units. They're on the slow side, but they have high bulk and hit hard. Also... uh... about the whole 'Swann designed the Thor,' thing... Ghost of a Chance posted:Don't pay any attention to how Tosh had one. Breakout posted:Or the Dominion itself. Anyways, Media Blitz is a poor Thor showcase mission for one very important reason:  I still have the Odin, and proper planning during the sneak attack means that the mission is practically over before I ever get one.  The Odin walked past it offscreen, but there are a bunch of Mengsk statues scattered throughout the map that'll spout Odin propaganda when you approach.  I left the Odin to clear the first expansion while I did base stuff.  And here's why I ignored this base during the sneak attack:  The majority of what it makes are just Reapers, Hellions, and Vultures. All of which can do gently caress and All to the Odin, so it can singlehandedly wipe out this base.  A few Science Vessels set to follow will be more than enough to keep the Odin patched up.  I eventually start making more Thors, but they certainly have a high price tag.   The base is pretty much done by this point, and they couldn't even get the Odin below half. This is what happens when you specialize in anti-Light.  Oh hell I nearly set off the first tower.  I want to clear out any lingering production in the other two bases before I start taking towers. Both to give me time to build up more Thors, and to ensure that I can't get hit by an attack wave at an awkward time.  Hey remember those Banshees I left alive during the sneak attack? Well since the Dominion can't make any more they're starting to pull the pre-placed defenders to attack.  Before I move up to the middle base, there's a quick thing I have to take care of.  At the very corner of the map, between the expansion and the Barracks base-  Is a classic Science Facility.  I blow it up.  And in return, it spits out some Secret Documents.  Grabbing the Documents unlocks the sole secret mission in all of SC2.  I get started on an expansion. Mostly for the gas, really, Thors need a bunch.  Oh look, more repurposed defenders. Thanks for making my life easier when I hit what's left of your base!  Now, the random civilians running around the city can't be targeted for attacks. But you know what you can do?  Crush them under your giant robot heels. We're the good guys!  The other expansion has two Barracks, so it goes next.   And done.   The Starport base only has a single Factory and Barracks left.  I take a moment to cap these geysers. I won't be making a third CC, I just want as much gas as possible.  At this point I switch tack and start making Goliaths. I figure if any mission deserves a full mech army, it's this one.  That's two.    This poor Siege Tank is one of the last defenders on the map.   In case the two full expansions on this map weren't enough, there's a fourth base you can snag.  And that's it. The entire map has been neutralized. I can go take the towers whenever I want now.  In order to take a tower I need a unit to stand on the marker.  As long as a unit is on the point, the meter will start to tick up.  Meanwhile Warfield will send in reinforcements to try and push me off.  He sent a force of Reapers and Hellions against my army of machines.  The sharpest military mind in the Dominion, everybody.  I'm not even paying attention to the fight. There's no way I lose this.    Incoming transmission.  Hah. Just for once Arcturus, this really is all about you. I hope you enjoy our show. I knew it. Warfield! Get your men down there. I want Raynor's head, you understand! Him and all his terrorist friends!Despite opening with Raynor's rebellion against Mengsk, this is the first time the two have actually spoken in the entire game. ...Wait, was Mengsk legitimately unaware of this? Despite having, again, a drat mole in the Raiders?  Now for Tower 3.  The reinforcements for this tower all fly in from the bottom right.  The Odin's anti-air on its own is lacklustre. Throw in multiple Thors backed by Goliaths, and they tear up the skies.  Also this random Raven came in from nowhere and dropped a Seeker Missle on me.    In hindsight, maybe I should have taken the towers in a different order rather than walk from one end of the map to the other.   They really, really want you to go full mech for this mission.  Hey, did you know that the Odin properly scales with upgrades? You know, in case it wasn't good enough or anything.  It's neat how each tower sends reinforcements based on what that base doesn't make. Tower 2 sent in infantry and a few Vikings, Tower 3 had ships and infantry, and now Tower 1 has infantry and vehicles.  And done.        Preemptive Strike - Destroy 120 units or structures in the "Media Blitz" mission during the sneak attack on Normal difficulty. BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Feb 5, 2024 |
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Sep 30, 2023 03:55
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Those sure must have been some crazy favors Matt had. Lampshading how little sense this makes doesn't really help.
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Sep 30, 2023 04:16
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Zeratul cares deeply about this game's plot and winds up a pathetic loser being astounded by Prophecy. Tychus is a fun-loving sweetheart who doesn't care about the plot and just wants to smash things with his stolen giant death robot and maybe press that big red button with a skull on it. Be like Tychus.
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Sep 30, 2023 04:22
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And on that note, it's criminal that the Odin doesn't let you use its nuke functionally here.
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Sep 30, 2023 04:22
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This game is really dumb, but blowing poo poo up with giant robots is cool, so I think we can allow this instance of “Oops, All Plot Holes!”
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Sep 30, 2023 04:54
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FoolyCharged posted:And on that note, it's criminal that the Odin doesn't let you use its nuke functionally here. Well yeah, it only had the one.
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Sep 30, 2023 05:21
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FoolyCharged posted:And on that note, it's criminal that the Odin doesn't let you use its nuke functionally here. Guess it only had the one, and no one thought to restock it.
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Sep 30, 2023 05:23
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Now I'm curious whether it could launch out of a spectre or ghost silo.
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Sep 30, 2023 06:00
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