mentalinstra mentalinstra

Starcraft II

▼

Starcraft II

from Elemental Forums

Ok so I know we're all a bunch of hardcore, holier than thou art 4x strategy gamers who prefer "actual" strategy over mindless rushing and blowing stuff up but is anyone else loving this game as much as i am right now? Its really bringing me back to my days with Warcraft II and the original Starcraft. Just a classic style of gameplay that I remember and love so much.

125,497 views 60 replies
Reply #51 from Elemental Forums Top

I love the old APM arguments. While the way things worked in BW rewarded high APM more it is really not as needed in SC2. I have argued that the APM counter needs to have a way to show effective APM not just useless spam.
End of quote

Indeed.. in SC1, you had to select each individual production building every time you wanted to build, along with multiple selections to give your whole army orders and terrible pathing requiring you to constantly babysit your units because they'd turn around and go backwards if their path was blocked for a second.

None of these are issues in SC2 and people can do quite well with lower-than-BW APM counts :P

 

Reply #52 from Demigod Forums Top
  1. It's still better not to queue units, because you'll convince yourself you have less money than you really do
  2. The pathing is still pretty bad - units still won't find targets if there are units in the way, and reapers will take the most bizarre paths ever conceived.
  3. You still need control groups to be effective
  4. The SC2 APM meter does discount certain things, Broodwar APM is something like 30% higher just because of the way it was counted.
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #53 from Elemental Forums Top

I can see Zerg easily getting artificially high APM.    0-s-d.   (where 0 is your hive)  There's 3 A's right there, and you're constantly doing it.   Actually it's more like 0-s-ddd.   And then there's 9-v-click-on-hive (where 9 is your queen).  That's a lot of actions.   It's not expertise, per se--you just do it a lot.   Now if someone has a high APM with a lot of ctrl-keys and shift-keys, now you're talking.

Reply #54 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting OMG_Splitshadow, reply 52

It's still better not to queue units, because you'll convince yourself you have less money than you really do
The pathing is still pretty bad - units still won't find targets if there are units in the way, and reapers will take the most bizarre paths ever conceived.
You still need control groups to be effective
The SC2 APM meter does discount certain things, Broodwar APM is something like 30% higher just because of the way it was counted.
End of OMG_Splitshadow's quote

1) And that has no relation. You can throw all your production buildings into one control group and tab between them. With 3 barracks selected, hitting the Marauder hotkey 3 times will queue one Marauder in each barrack.

2) In most cases, pathing is not the issue. Obviously units out of range aren't going to get in range by themselves, but it's nowhere near as bad as BW where it took a lot of effort to get a big army down a narrow ramp (which is why a lot of maps had very wide ramps, and SC2s are not)

3) But each control group isn't limited to 12 units so instead of having 6-7 groups with a 200 food army, you can still get away with 2-3 if that's all you logically need.

No matter how you look at it, SC2's is vastly more forgiving about APM.

Reply #55 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting 4Nana, reply 45
Funny how you say that zerg are broken, yet a zerg just won the huge GSL tournament in South Korea (winning $87,000), not to mention he had solid late game strategy against terran, who was his opponent for the finals.  
End of 4Nana's quote

Reread my post.  The complaints listed go way beyond balance.  I capitalized the word unfun for emphasis as fun trumps all in a game.

Reply #56 from Sins Forums Top

A friend i play with who is 3rd in his diamond division like me refuses to spam APM for no reason and ends up with an average in the 40s most games. He also is very effective at playing any of the races like that.
End of quote

This is definitely the case; it's not so much how fast you're going as how much you're getting done.  The real measure of "throughput" that the player is achieving is a very subjective thing, and in practice APM isn't really the most appropriate metric. However, as a theoretical concept for the purposes of discussion, it can work.

It's still better not to queue units, because you'll convince yourself you have less money than you really do
End of quote

More importantly, if you can queue large numbers of units this means you've allowed large quantities of money to accumulate, which is itself a major mistake.

The pathing is still pretty bad - units still won't find targets if there are units in the way, and reapers will take the most bizarre paths ever conceived.
End of quote

I haven't noticed serious pathing problems in SC2.  Certainly it's worlds better than SC1.  Reapers can occasionally do weird things, but given the immense concentration it takes to run a successful reaper harass while maintaining your economy, these minor quirks are a non-issue by comparison.

You still need control groups to be effective
End of quote

I've never encountered a RTS where this is not true.

Reply #57 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting Darvin3, reply 56

I've never encountered a RTS where this is not true.
End of Darvin3's quote

Hi Darvin3, may I introduce you do my good friend, supreme commander?

Reply #58 from Sins Forums Top

Hi Darvin3, may I introduce you do my good friend, supreme commander?
End of quote

Completely disagree; control groups were critical in SupCom.

Reply #59 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting Darvin3, reply 58

Completely disagree; control groups were critical in SupCom.
End of Darvin3's quote

Not even remotely. I was ranked top 5%-10% in FA for 2 years (which, given its player base isn't particularly impressive, but imo still classifies as "being effective") and i never ever used control groups.