Video Games

[Count Arioch the 28th]

it's generally agreed the only viable solo Hell build is the skelly-using Necro with Corpse Explosion

That's actually my build. I generally only need to kill 1 mob in a group. At that point, Corpse Explosion is a great spammable damage spell.

Andariel gave my skeletons some issues. She took out my 4 regular skellies fairly quick, but by that time she was dead due to the fact I slammed an Amplify Damage on her before she engaged my melees and was standing on a huge pile of enemy corpses. She didn't even touch my golem, my 3 skelly mages, or my merc.

[Zinegata]

Watch out for Duriel though. He's generally a much tougher bastard. You may want to get the Mercenary in Act 2 as well, he's generally regarded as the best in the game.

[RandomCasualty2]

Also, Starcraft 2 I'm impressed with so far. Trying the Single Player Campaign again on hard.

Yeah SC2 is incredible. The campaign missions all have unique flavor and mechanics, the cutscenes between missions are great. One thing I thought SC1 and Brood war really lacked was good campaigns. the campaigns were okay, but really limited and having way too many "find the last pylon and destroy it" missions where you just felt like you were wasting your time. SC2 really cuts out a lot of that, the mission design is spectacular and probably one of the most improved things from SC1.

The multiplayer is of course, awesome as hell. It even makes team games actually work well with special team designed maps that start your team close by, instead of having everyone at equidistant locations like SC1 did.

[TOZ]

SC2 isn't just flashy lights with no substance? I guess if I had played the first/wasn't jaded by the recent crop of games I would be less surprised.

[RandomCasualty2]

SC2 isn't just flashy lights with no substance? I guess if I had played the first/wasn't jaded by the recent crop of games I would be less surprised.

If you liked SC1, you'll like SC2 pretty much, and vice versa.

If you haven't really played SC, it's hard to really describe it. It's basically a very fast paced Real time strategy game with a high requirement on twitch skills similar to a FPS game. It's a deep game, but also one requiring lots of speed.

[Crissa]

I can't say that SC2 adds much to the gameplay. There's a few things - like repair being automatic - but you still have the trouble of making units aggressive when you need them or less so when you don't. The option just isn't there. I still feel good ol' Myth did it better.

But the interface of the campaign! Awesome. You actually have near the realism of the movies as an interactive menu, very nice, pulls you out of that interface into their world. I can't say enough good things about that.

Oh, and difficulty levels. Hard seems good for me, where I actually come near losing when being careful... But I like being able to change it on the fly, and their last game - Warcraft III - didn't have difficulty levels, so except for the campaign levels, you were pretty screwed for learning curve.

I dunno if I'll buy it, though.

-Crissa

[Zinegata]

I haven't tried multiplayer yet (and probably won't for a long, long time). However, the Single Player experience was impressive.

What I like about the Single Player is how immersive the story is. It's no longer just "Do a series of missions and watch the story unfold", but it's a subtle blending of Choose-Your-Own Adventure RPGs mixed with a pretty solid RTS experience. The fact that you pretty much get a cutscene every mission - something notably absent in RTS since, oh, Westwood folded - adds icing to the cake.

Also, I'm a sucker for good "Do Not Go Gentle Into the Night" moments. The finale has a really good one.

That being said, the Single Player is actually fairly deep from a tactics/strategy standpoint. A lot of the upgrades / research options you can get are what I call "game changers" - stuff that dramatically alter how you play the game.

For instance, there's a research option that lets you acquire the Hercules Super-Heavy Transport. Now, you may think "What's it good for when I have Medivacs?". Well, the answer is that the thing is so massive that one of them can literally carry all of your SCVs from one base to another along with a sizeable garrison, making some missions much, much easier. (i.e. The previewed mission where lava floods the lower plains)

Also, there's Drop Pods. Instead of appearing out of the barracks, your troops now land from orbit via drop pods anywhere on the map. You can now build half a dozen barracks, have them pump Marines directly into the AI's mineral line, without having to crash through the front gate.

Plus, there's an upgrade that lets Vultures reload Spider Mines for 15 minerals. Ever wanted mines without building massed Vultures? Now totally possible for just a small upgrade cost.

All of these, combined, really let you tailor-fit Raynor's Raiders into the sort of unit you'd like to play. Want a commando force? There's an upgrade that gives Ghosts perma-cloak and +100 energy. Want to go heavy tanks? Get Science Vessels who can heal mechanical units, and equip your tanks with Smart rounds that mitigate splash damage to friendly units.

(Plus, the mercenary units - which are essentially hero units you can hire for a price - are pretty damn cool. Especially the Merc Siege Tanks and the Merc Battlecruiser).

[Awkward Map]

Yeah, a lot of the people that I've talked to have said that the best way to play through DQ9 is "buff fighters, heal as needed, murder everyone", but I wonder if there's an equally viable all-caster strategy. I guess I'm going to find out soon enough!

Jacking up the Staff skill can give enough MP to see 10~ or so fights through throwing down the most damaging screen slamming spell that they have. The damage though, as I said is lacking in comparison so any buffing of the Magical Might stat that can be scraped together from different vocations will be required. The Mage can get a healing ability if they progress in the Staff skill -- which they will -- but I think that a cleric for multi-heal in the late game is pretty essential. Good luck with your caster team!

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Watch out for Duriel though. He's generally a much tougher bastard. You may want to get the Mercenary in Act 2 as well, he's generally regarded as the best in the game.

I gave the act 2 merc a spear, and he is dealing damage well over 100 (which by my low level character's standards is pretty beefy). His aura also makes my minions a lot better to boot.

[Crissa]

Thanks, Zinegata. I can't afford it past the seven hours yet! We're in the middle of a construction project that just hit us with another few hundred in costs to remove a hidden stump.

-Crissa

[Zinegata]

Watch out for Duriel though. He's generally a much tougher bastard. You may want to get the Mercenary in Act 2 as well, he's generally regarded as the best in the game.

I gave the act 2 merc a spear, and he is dealing damage well over 100 (which by my low level character's standards is pretty beefy). His aura also makes my minions a lot better to boot.

Yep, the Aura is really the best feature especially since it affects minions.

Still, prepare for Duriel. And be ready to go "SEND IN THE NEXT WAVE!"

[RobbyPants]

They adjusted the balance of skeletons at some point after release. You get less of them now, but they are beefier. From what I've read, Skellies will work even in Hell difficulty, but if you are coming in with anything less than level 20 skellies and 20 points in skeleton mastery, don't bother, stick to golems.

From what I read, most golems are kind of assey. Iron Golems are pretty cool if you have a decent weapon in inventory.

That very well could be. Most of what I learned about that game I learned over five years ago.

[Zinegata]

There was one final patch a year or two ago that really shook up the game again, so a lot of info needs to be updated, yes.

[RobbyPants]

Huh.... Now I need to start playing again!

Sorry for the out-dated advice, Count!

[RandomCasualty2]

I can't say that SC2 adds much to the gameplay. There's a few things - like repair being automatic - but you still have the trouble of making units aggressive when you need them or less so when you don't. The option just isn't there. I still feel good ol' Myth did it better.

They're small subtle changes that really improve the gameplay. As far as the RTS game itself, they took few risks with it and I consider that a good thing. SC1 was the best multiplayer RTS ever made, they'd be crazy to try to change it too much. Of course that does mean that if you didn't like SC1, you probably won't like SC2 much either. SC has always been a game of speed and twitch skills, so yeah, it's not designed to be a game where you can just give orders and let your units carry them out, you want to be constantly giving commands as a battle unfolds.

The basic game hasn't changed much. There little improvements here and there that make the game more accessible, like being able to select all your units at once in one big group as opposed to the ridiculously small cap of 12 units in SC1. You can also hotkey multiple buildings for production, and rally workers directly to minerals. And another big one that you have smart casting, instead of the old system of issuing a command to cast to every unit. So if you told a group of templar to psitorm, in SC1 all of them would storm, in SC2 only your nearest one would.

[Zinegata]

Starcraft had always required a lot of micro. There were moves to significantly reduce the micro in SC2, but complaints from Korea forced the micro levels to increase again.

For instance, Terrans have an ability called the Mule, which drops a robot worker unto a mineral field which can mine about 270+ minerals over its 90 second lifespan, without affecting your SCV mining at all. Mules have to be called in manually every 90 seconds or so, and there's no way to automatically call them in.

Why were they added? Because the Koreans complained base micromanagement was now too easy and their years of learning how to operate at 300 APM were wasted.

Similarly, Zergs can now boost larva production via Queens, and Protoss have this Chrono Boost thing. Both require manual intervention and boost your economy a lot when you use them.

That being said, the campaign actually provides you with some neat automated worker stuff that you can pick if you're a bit of a newbie player and don't like all this micro. For instance: One upgrade lets you build Supply Depots instantly. No more "Not enough supplies" problem!

[RandomCasualty2]

Starcraft had always required a lot of micro. There were moves to significantly reduce the micro in SC2, but complaints from Korea forced the micro levels to increase again.

To some degree that stuff is justified.

Part of what made SC1 a good game was that it required a lot of speed and skill. That was part of its niche. It was a game that you could always be doing better. Whether it was remembering to build SCVs while you microed your tanks or learning to pick up your reaver in a shuttle and micro it away when it was under attack, you always had places to improve.

And that's actually important and good for a game because it means nobody plays perfect. The moment someone hits perfect play, your game has basically reached it's maximum depth-level. And for anything that you're trying to make into an e-sport, that's kinda crucial that that doesn't happen.

The koreans have a lot of good advice to make the game good honestly. If they listened to most of the people in America, they'd end up with a lame generic strategy game that everyone would forget in a year or two. Yes, those Koreans that practice 8 hours a day should rape you at Starcraft, because they are better than you. Taking measures to make you more even with them is probably a bad idea, because it involves removing skill from the game.

Now that being said, I don't really have a problem with removing that stuff from the campaigns, which are generally less micro based anyway. But as far as multiplayer goes, it really is essential that SC maintains its reputation as a skill game, because that is part of what makes it so good. I mean you can't name one other RTS that people still play that was made before the year 2000 other than Starcraft pretty much.

[Crissa]

But these features are easily added and subtracted from the main game. You don't play a game of Go against a master without a handicap.

And being able to tell units to be passive (don't shoot that enemy that's running past you or chewing on your leg!) or aggressive (keep killing things as long as things exist in sight to kill) would be good.

Right now it's just kinda indistinct whether your units will be kited or not, and I don't feel that adds much to the gameplay. But they do return fire and support units in combat near them, it just would be nicer to be able to encourage or discourage that behavior.

-Crissa

[Zinegata]

It depends really. I personally don't like trying to achieve Korean-level skill, because it really involves long hours of practice just to be somewhat competitive.

While I understand it, I personally don't like it. However, I am trying to point out to what extent it still exists for the benefit of those who are thinking about whether or not to pick up the game.

[RandomCasualty2]

But these features are easily added and subtracted from the main game. You don't play a game of Go against a master without a handicap.

Actually SC2 allows handicaps in custom games.

And being able to tell units to be passive (don't shoot that enemy that's running past you or chewing on your leg!) or aggressive (keep killing things as long as things exist in sight to kill) would be good.

Why? I mean if you want you can order your units to hold position which means they won't follow enemy units, but honestly I can't understand why you'd want to tell your units deliberately not to fire at all.

There's one except with the Terran ghost if you want to infiltrate to nuke, but that unit actually does have a hold fire button.

As for everything else, I can't imagine many situations at all where you wouldn't want to fire.

About all I can really think of is a fringe case ambush situation where you want to have tanks on a cliff hold fire until a lot of enemies get in range so you can get more of them in close combat, but really, that wont' come up much and would only be for super advanced play. 99% of the time I just want my siege tanks to get off as many shots as possible.

[Zinegata]

I'm not a big fan of unit AI in RTS. They tend to either be over-aggressive and try to hunt down an enemy they see across the map, or they stand still and get shot at.

[Pixels]

it's generally agreed the only viable solo Hell build is the skelly-using Necro with Corpse Explosion

Hammerdin is a perfectly viable solo Hell build. And there are a few others that can squeak by with difficulty, like Meteorb.

[Crissa]

It's often very useful for your units not to stop in dangerous positions to fire. If your marines are under fire and running across the street - stopping to fire back is stupid.

And if your marines are standing in the middle of your base or the middle of their base, they should keep finding and shooting things until you tell them to stop.

Passive - Do your command; no buts, ignore distractions.
Hold - Do your command; but interact without leaving your assigned area.
Aggressive - Do your command; but if you see an enemy, give chase.

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty2]

It's often very useful for your units not to stop in dangerous positions to fire. If your marines are under fire and running across the street - stopping to fire back is stupid.

And if your marines are standing in the middle of your base or the middle of their base, they should keep finding and shooting things until you tell them to stop.

You can totally do that. If you want your marines not to stop to shoot shit while moving, you give a straight move command (right click) If you want them to go from point A to point B and destroy everything they find, you use an attack-move command (press A and left click on open space). That means they'll stop to engage stuff.

You can even use shift to set waypoints so they'll go from B to C to D destroying everything they find in that order.

The only thing they won't do is for you to give them no orders at all and just play the game themselves without any input, which it sounds like is what you want.

[Crissa]

Yeah, I found the attack vs hold option after I wasn't with my friend. Her units would stop after killing each building. Still getting them to ignore other units is tough.

The only thing they won't do is for you to give them no orders at all and just play the game themselves without any input, which it sounds like is what you want.

This is why people put you on ignore.

-Crissa