ouch wrote:I think it's funny when starcraft fans claim "Perfect" balance. All you have to do is mass produce terran marines and you could win every match.
The only way you could effectively use such a
lack of tactics is against total newbies. Once you're matched with an equally skilled opponent, you would have a real hard time. Hell, I've beaten new players with 2 marines and 5 SCVs... That doesn't mean I'd sit and try and say Terran can easily rush Zerg... Nothing is easy!
The game really
is balanced. This is esp. apparent when you're playing humans online. See, humans have an imagination, not a script of rules that tell them precisely how to act.
There are advanced and very trivial ways to counter such a lack of tactics. Zealots. For each marine you build, your opponent could build ~1.65 zealots. Zealots can easily take ~2.3 marines by themselves. Are you quick with mathematics? Zealots cost 100 minerals and 2 Psi. Marines cost 50 minerals and 1 Supply. Zealots are melee attackers but they move quick and have a heavy attack. Marines are ranged and move slow, hitting ground and air targets but only with low damage. In the end, it
will be fair...
More advanced? A
few High Templars with the Psionic Storm ability would lay waste to marines en mass. In addition, units that do secondary and tertiary damage as well, such as Mutalisks or Siege Tanks (Spread apart for effectiveness,) would really make you think twice about large groups of
anything
ouch wrote:the brood war expansion made it even worse by allowing you to heal the marines.
For every unit that was given to Terran, counter units were given to the other races.
Example: Your group of marines and medics wouldn't even
see my group of Dark Templars coming at them. Even if they could, my DTs have A) Shields B) One-Hit-Kills-Marines:P and C) High hit-points.... They can also merge into Dark Archons and steal your SCVs:)
They also wouldn't be able to see my Lurkers, who would shred through entire rows of your marines with each strike:)
Better yet, mix some Mutalisks with Devourers... Mutalisks' attack bounces of the original target, hitting units close by. Devourers spit acid spores, which multiply the effect of secondary and tertiary attacks... That means your Mutalisks are now directly hitting as many as 4 marines, killing all of them at once, one it. I could go on and on and on... That's what
balance is all about.
ouch wrote:The interface was just as bad, only 12 units selected at a time? come on, how lame is that? and then the bar with the buttons on it was so huge it took nearly 1/3 of the screen.
I know this will be interpreted as an attack on WZ. So before I put it out there, let me first say I love WZ and think it is a great game. Also, I'm here with you guys and not on battle.net, aren't I?:)
Now, all that you claim is bad about the SC UI... StarCraft quite simply works and I'd
love for you to find me a display setup that cannot properly render it. How often does it crash? How often have you heard people say "Hey, SC's UI doesn't show up properly on my system" or "Hey, SC's UI is causing problems with application <X>" or "Font this", "cursor that", "disable this", and "do that" -- The answer is never and you don't. StarCraft uses a minimalist approach to ensure maximum amount of
out-of-the-box support. Nothing to switch on or off, just play it and love it.
Not exactly able to say the same about WZ. After what, 10 years of development? First of all, I had to establish which resolutions WZ could and couldn't use without breaking features. Even after that, I can't run the game with the gnome-screensaver on. I have to temporarily disable it every time... Then after I finally do get a game in, after starting up my screensaver again, I have to re-adjust my monitor settings 'cause the screen got moved around and shrunk heh heh... Basically, what I'm saying is the UI choices you critique StarCraft on are the very choices that make it such an
accessible game. Think localization, too... StarCraft is available in multiple languages, each of which look identicle to each other. Do you think WZ's interface could scale to, say, Korean, which does not use the Latin Alphabet?:)