Starcraft 2 Beta

SC2 I'll buy collector's edition to. Just like Diablo 3. I would have bought Collector's for WC2 if they had it at the time.

SC2 collector's will be the first time I buy a collector's edition of any game.

This will be the first physical copy of a PC game I've bought since 2007. I am all about Steam and GOG, so it takes a lot for me to clutter my space with more crap. :)
 
This will be the first physical copy of a PC game I've bought since 2007. I am all about Steam and GOG, so it takes a lot for me to clutter my space with more crap. :)

Yep exactly. I haven't bought a physical copy of anything for PC gaming in years. I've been with Steam a lot.
 
So I've been playing the game on lowest possible settings the last few games and if you want to play competitively it's clearly better.

1. There's less screen clutter and movement is generally smoother even in larger battles.
2. Units are far more distinguishable, most Protoss players looking to snipe a ghost in a Terran army, try using low settings.
3. My actual army seems easier to micro with less effects, each character seems more distinguished and they don't seem to blend together in the late game.

I really hope they find a way to make the game play completely even between the different settings, but right now low clearly has huge perceptual advantages in my mind.
 
So I've been playing the game on lowest possible settings the last few games and if you want to play competitively it's clearly better.

1. There's less screen clutter and movement is generally smoother even in larger battles.
2. Units are far more distinguishable, most Protoss players looking to snipe a ghost in a Terran army, try using low settings.
3. My actual army seems easier to micro with less effects, each character seems more distinguished and they don't seem to blend together in the late game.

I really hope they find a way to make the game play completely even between the different settings, but right now low clearly has huge perceptual advantages in my mind.

I believe it. I'm also positive that if there was a way to enable r_picmip 5 style graphics, some uber-pro out there would definitely do it. :)
 
One thing I take back about it, you can't see a damn thing during any of the night maps. May have made too many conclusions about it from the start. Have to turn up the lighting effects at least a little bit to see during night maps. Seriously, it's almost unplayable with low lighting on night maps.
 
One thing I take back about it, you can't see a damn thing during any of the night maps. May have made too many conclusions about it from the start. Have to turn up the lighting effects at least a little bit to see during night maps. Seriously, it's almost unplayable with low lighting on night maps.

The only 'dark' map for me is twilight fortress, and on everything lowest it isn't too bad at all. One 'glitch' with lowest settings is that orbital scans don't show up very well- if you don't hear the noise its really unlikely that you'd see it. Turn your gamma up a little maybe.

Sucks, but I'll take gameplay improvement > graphics any day
 
Oh yeah me too, I was twilight isn't as bad as Metalopolis for some reason. I can't see at all on Metalopolis, I've come up with a fairly nice mix of high and low settings that seem to work fairly well for me.
 
Oh yeah me too, I was twilight isn't as bad as Metalopolis for some reason. I can't see at all on Metalopolis, I've come up with a fairly nice mix of high and low settings that seem to work fairly well for me.

Heh I like my eye candy while playing the game too much :p.
 
Heh I like my eye candy while playing the game too much :p.

Yeah I turned most of the GPU stuff all the way back up, but I can't stand getting FPS drops in the late game so I left most of the CPU intensive effects way down. I'm really hoping quad core optimization happens for the final release, somewhat doubtful though.
 
P.S. It was a bad day for players in the gold league today, because I went 7-0 LOL.
 
Yeah bishes !!!

I got in wohoo never been able to get in any beta whatsoever Im extremely happy although I suck at RTS games
 
Having trouble with my speedling/muta build. Toss players are starting to catch on and are going stalker/colossi/sentry. Any ideas on how to adjust my build so that I don't get crushed? Tech switching isn't easy against stalker/colossi/sentry balls because blings/lings will never get in range and switching to hydra/roach seems like the only option.

I'm trying to see what other options I have.. of course I need to scout better and see colossi coming earlier, but its pretty difficult until I have ovi speed.
 
Having trouble with my speedling/muta build. Toss players are starting to catch on and are going stalker/colossi/sentry. Any ideas on how to adjust my build so that I don't get crushed? Tech switching isn't easy against stalker/colossi/sentry balls because blings/lings will never get in range and switching to hydra/roach seems like the only option.

I'm trying to see what other options I have.. of course I need to scout better and see colossi coming earlier, but its pretty difficult until I have ovi speed.


Infestors and neural parasite the colossi, fungal growth the rest, and let the blings roll in, is one option, hard to pull off, work better if you snipe Observers with Overseer and Muta. Requires proper placement and execution. Keep map control and expand!
 
Add banelings to the mix?

Infestors and neural parasite the colossi, fungal growth the rest, and let the blings roll in, is one option, hard to pull off, work better if you snipe Observers with Overseer and Muta. Requires proper placement and execution. Keep map control and expand!

I've thought about it a little a realize now there was a point where I could've wrecked an expo, which came within a couple zerglings' damage that I didn't have :( So it was not really possible for me to outmacro a toss with even bases.

Banelings simply cannot get into range if multiple colossi are present, unless I had them burrowed and pop them up at the right time. A possible solution, but tricky to pull off since with colossi jumping cliffs and stalkers blinking around chokes. Siege colossi have 9 range which also largely precludes the use of infestors- the only chance they would have of getting into range is to burrow-move. However, the issue then becomes keeping the infestor alive for any useful amount of time (big units, easy to focus down.) 'Proper execution' would turn into 'near impossibility', though the idea certainly came to me to use infestors.

Fungal growth is something I LOVE using against terran MMM balls (esp. in conjunction with hydras) and is definitely an option I need to explore.

TY for your guys' input, I need to play a couple practice games and get my technique down.
 
You don't always need to FE against a protoss early on, though you can add it in a bit later if you do try to. I think fast speedlings that rush into the protoss mineral line is still very effective. Also, you "could" in theory delay his colossi if you get some roaches cause he'd be forced to get some immortals if you mass enough. Speedlings wreck immortals so that can be a viable option.

Hydras are probably your best bet to everything but colossi wrecks them as well, so unless he only has one and you can FF it somehow with roaches to take the hits, you should probably go some corrupters + brood lord if you can. Though the game might be over by then. Brood lord only to target the colossi down.

Infestors is a very good technique too, fungal growth is good for your speedlings to surround and your roach/hydras to do the rest.
 
You don't always need to FE against a protoss early on, though you can add it in a bit later if you do try to. I think fast speedlings that rush into the protoss mineral line is still very effective. Also, you "could" in theory delay his colossi if you get some roaches cause he'd be forced to get some immortals if you mass enough. Speedlings wreck immortals so that can be a viable option.

Hydras are probably your best bet to everything but colossi wrecks them as well, so unless he only has one and you can FF it somehow with roaches to take the hits, you should probably go some corrupters + brood lord if you can. Though the game might be over by then. Brood lord only to target the colossi down.

Infestors is a very good technique too, fungal growth is good for your speedlings to surround and your roach/hydras to do the rest.

Yeah, with the hydra nerf colossi 2-hit them.. not sure if the regen beats out the second hit. I think being up against three/four colossi + stalkers/sentries means i've already lost if all i have is a 13-15 muta ball and 30 lings. I totally thought fungal growth only worked on biological types, so I need to check that out.

I was also thinking about brood lords, but stalkers w/blink would totally rape. I probably just need better unit diversity and good timing to take out an army like that.
 
I can't tell you how many Zerg vs. Protoss games I've won with neural parasite, I took 3 colossi and 2 immortals over with a mass roach army, and it's gg right away. Zerglings and banelings are the go to units early game. I think most people spend too much time preparing for a mutalisk rush, so I rarely get more that 3 or 4 of them. It's kind of like building a roach warren when someone scouts you, and getting nothing but zerglings. One big key to zerg is switching tech, tricking and out smarting your opponent to make him think you're getting different tech. If he has little time to respond to your changes, he won't be able to counter you quite as well. I think this is true of most races, but zerg seems to be the main race that masses too much of one unit.
 
I can't tell you how many Zerg vs. Protoss games I've won with neural parasite, I took 3 colossi and 2 immortals over with a mass roach army, and it's gg right away. Zerglings and banelings are the go to units early game. I think most people spend too much time preparing for a mutalisk rush, so I rarely get more that 3 or 4 of them. It's kind of like building a roach warren when someone scouts you, and getting nothing but zerglings. One big key to zerg is switching tech, tricking and out smarting your opponent to make him think you're getting different tech. If he has little time to respond to your changes, he won't be able to counter you quite as well. I think this is true of most races, but zerg seems to be the main race that masses too much of one unit.

Zerg has the best and fastest tech switches out of the three races. You just build everything from the hatchery, thereby making them a force to be reckoned with.
 
I'm referring to buildings you need to get to switch tech, most people just get a roach warren and a hydralisk den and assume they're going to win with mass, it's a pretty stupid strategy. Your right about the hatchery, but not enough players utilize it properly
 
I'm referring to buildings you need to get to switch tech, most people just get a roach warren and a hydralisk den and assume they're going to win with mass, it's a pretty stupid strategy. Your right about the hatchery, but not enough players utilize it properly

Ah, indeed. Its just so easy for a zerg to build something else around the map too.

Remember all zerg players, you can use an overlord to spawn creep at some random area in the map and build a building to hide or conceal. You can really throw off an opponent.
 
I can't tell you how many Zerg vs. Protoss games I've won with neural parasite, I took 3 colossi and 2 immortals over with a mass roach army, and it's gg right away.

I guess that's a 1v1 thing, cause I don't think I've ever seen you use neural parasite in our 2v2s. :)
 
Ah, indeed. Its just so easy for a zerg to build something else around the map too.

Remember all zerg players, you can use an overlord to spawn creep at some random area in the map and build a building to hide or conceal. You can really throw off an opponent.

Thats a really cool idea, I've messed around with hiding a Dark Spire as a protoss player, but I never thought of it with zerg. Hiding a spire would suck for any terran massing marauders.
 
I guess that's a 1v1 thing, cause I don't think I've ever seen you use neural parasite in our 2v2s. :)

Yeah 2v2 usually goes way too quickly, I don't really remember seeing colossus in any of our 2v2 games. It's a good strategy but you need something beefy like roaches to stand in front and take the initial damage.
 
I've had a lot of nice wins against Terran tonight as a protoss player. I beat a few guys going for banshees really quickly trying to win by harassment. The one thing I had to keep in mind is the amount of resources they have to spend just to get out two banshees. Typically if you have an all ground army by the time they're finishing up their second banshee, you can use your immortals just to push right through their base. It's worked fairly well for me, and some Terran players don't have an engineering bay earlier than your scout. So if you have vision right where their choke is with the observer it makes pushing a lot easier. I've been getting my forge earlier which helps quite a bit, maybe throw down a cannon in my mineral line while i'm going in, and if i need to warp in some sentries/stalkers at my base when they harass.


I was a little worried when ran into a Terran player that when for marauders and ghosts fairly early. One thing i tried was getting my initial attack upgrades for ground, and when I got a robotics support I went for the colossus range upgrade immediately. Using a heavy zealot based army allowed me also to get the charge upgrade pretty early. He had some nice pushes early, but blocking with force field and cutting his army in half gave me an advantage when he tried to kite or stim through my choke.

There was one point in our large final battle where my five colossi were tearing into his marauder army with two damage upgrade where I think a 3rd of his army just melted at once with splash damage. I can't tell you how crucial that range upgrade first because even with my first colossi being a little late, it's a far more potent unit against marauders because they can't focus fire on it with zealots blocking their way.

Overall, my games tonight were enjoyable, but i'm worried that a lot of the other tech options are being ignored because they just don't feel like the best solution. I easily could have gone for psi storm but that always hurts your army as well considering zealots are melee units. The only time I've really opted for storm was against a zerg player i saw getting a spire, I teched to storm and blink pretty quickly. You'd be surprised how much blink helps against a muta harass. Overall though, it seems like the robotics facility is the go to first tech two building though. Observers seem to be just way too important to skip it in any fashion.

Anyway, I felt it was a good idea to put up a concise report on my Starcraft experience as of late, just to give you guys a nice overview of what feel I'm getting from playing Protoss exclusively, and hopefully we can compare each others experiences as well.

P.S. GGs everyone, we need to play some more 1v1s and 2v2s!
 
I've started playing a hyper-aggressive expanding strategy, and I think it has some promise. I'm trying to abuse the zerg macro mechanic as much as I can, with observers being the only thing that really ruins my day. Still trying to learn how to use infestors and such. Loving trying new builds, I freeform everything and it costs me here and there in terms of timing, but at this level of play I prefer the versatility it affords me.

I'd really love to practice more against you guys, just having trouble being online during normal hours :)
 
Antok86 you should ask Refraxion and check out some replays. I've seen a lot of really aggressive Terran build orders lately where the Terran player goes for a Barracks and a Refinery before their first supply depot. I feel like a lot of players waste that aggression and get behind though, some people utilize it fairly early on and it pays off. There's a lot of unique starts to Terran, but quite frankly I'm bad at them as well.
 
What decko said, lots of aggressive terran builds.

10 rax/10 Refinery/ 11 depot. Then when rax is done, you can go orbital command. The mule will help you catch up in resources, and go for tech lab and reaper harass Zerg or protoss if you like. Just need to learn to transition from there.
 
I am wired to hate fast games. I like teching up to later units and abilities and playing at that end.

Cheese strats that get a victory are just that to me, cheese. Worst was a protoss rush of pylon/canon in my base. All cheese, you learn to ward it off better, but those insta gib games are just not fun to me.


No struggle wins = less satisfying.
 
I am wired to hate fast games. I like teching up to later units and abilities and playing at that end.

Cheese strats that get a victory are just that to me, cheese. Worst was a protoss rush of pylon/canon in my base. All cheese, you learn to ward it off better, but those insta gib games are just not fun to me.


No struggle wins = less satisfying.

Part of the game, you gotta adapt to everything.
 
Part of the game, you gotta adapt to everything.

Yup. A 'foolproof' strategy that leaves itself open to a silly cheese is not foolproof at all. Part of what makes the game tick :)

Though I definitely hate freaking out when I lose track of a probe on a map like Desert Oasis or Blistering Sands. Proxy pylons hidden behind rocks is nasty the first time you fall for it :mad:
 
Yup. A 'foolproof' strategy that leaves itself open to a silly cheese is not foolproof at all. Part of what makes the game tick :)

Though I definitely hate freaking out when I lose track of a probe on a map like Desert Oasis or Blistering Sands. Proxy pylons hidden behind rocks is nasty the first time you fall for it :mad:

Yeah, I beat a protoss player that canon rushed me.. Blistering sands, I was at the 2 o clock position. He started building from the inside of the rock area (Backend) and built inward. I ran off with some scv's built a command center somewhere else. Waited till he started building in more and more.. lifted my orbital command and flew it off while I had units pumping and rushing his base.

He couldn't defend that attack and all he had were canons. He wouldn't say anything and waited for me to take out everything before he left. I made siege tanks, rofl.
 
Yeah 2v2 usually goes way too quickly, I don't really remember seeing colossus in any of our 2v2 games. It's a good strategy but you need something beefy like roaches to stand in front and take the initial damage.

Its funny, they're almost ALWAYS coming in as we finish wiping out the other teams, haha
 
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