posted
I think it's preference and playing style determines what's the "best bread-and-butter" unit out of all the races.
Somebody mentioned liking the hydrolisks' range, another liked using a shield battery in conjunction with zealots. I personally like the marine/medic combo with the medic using the flare ability on stationary siege fire units.
There is no best unit IMO.
Posts: 4229 | Registered: Dec 2002
| IP: Logged |
Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
the fasest ground unit is a vulture.
speaking of which i hope they make spider minds a littrle more useful, like being able to refill a vultures ammo once its out and crank up their damage a little, a minefield of enhanced spider mines would be awesome.
IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: In terms of cost effectiveness, this is true. They also have the deserved reputation of being the most effectively massed unit, with their general utility exceeding that of marines and dragoons.
Terran are the best massers, however, as they have effective maximized ground-to-ground utility to combine with the dreaded 3/3 infantry.
I've never liked Dragoons because they take up so much freakin' space. It often made it difficult to coordinate fire.
In terms of unit combos, I really have to agree that the Terran 3/3 squad o' doom takes the cake. The Hydra/Defiler combo shouldn't be overlooked though. As Blayne said, Ultralisk tanks shouldn't be overlooked either.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by SoaPiNuReYe: That's why I always played Protoss and just straight up rushed the zerg. Bringing a probe to make a shield battery or two really extended the longevity of your zealots and it was tough for me as a zerg player to counter something like that.
As long as you're not trying to pull the "sneak a probe inside my base at the start and build photon cannons next to my resources" maneuver, we can still be friends.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:if you do it right, a siege tank counter battery is slower then the onslaught of zerglings and hydras
Zerglings and hydras versus terran tanks and infantry is the very quintessence of throwing resources ineffectively against a superior ground force.
Properly scaled, the emergence of tanks trumps the emergence of hydras; excessive range, excessive splash firepower, and the proper damage type (explosive) mean for ground superiority.
Success for zerg in midgame requires either an exploitation of fast zerg expansion (drowning) or quick emergence of specific tank counters such as spawn broodlings.
Hydras are efficient massers, but they are not specialized in the least. Anything that whoops them through specialization will render them into a costly liability (as is the case in other combinations, like goliaths v. mutas). They even have trouble managing the meatier general-use units like Dragoons, which will usually hack them up in straight fights.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:In terms of unit combos, I really have to agree that the Terran 3/3 squad o' doom takes the cake. The Hydra/Defiler combo shouldn't be overlooked though. As Blayne said, Ultralisk tanks shouldn't be overlooked either.
Every unit has its purpose in Starcraft.
The purpose of the Ultralisk is to make your opponent laugh so hard that he can't micromanage.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:In terms of unit combos, I really have to agree that the Terran 3/3 squad o' doom takes the cake. The Hydra/Defiler combo shouldn't be overlooked though. As Blayne said, Ultralisk tanks shouldn't be overlooked either.
Every unit has its purpose in Starcraft.
The purpose of the Ultralisk is to make your opponent laugh so hard that he can't micromanage.
This man speaks the truth!
My best friend and I played a 2v2 against some Koreans who were visiting Hong Kong. We had watched them play a match prior to us and we knew we would probably lose this one. I went Terran and my friend went Protoss. The Koreans both went zerg, it was obvious what was coming.
Right from the get go I realized the only way into my base was by air or through a bottle neck, I built nothing but marines, bunkers, and seige tanks, at the bottle neck, and I setup the siege tanks so they would not accidentally hit the bunkers. I placed TONS of turrets around all the edges of my base.
The Koreans found my friend's protoss base first and steamrolled right over it, after that they eventually found me.
It took them 20 minutes at least from the moment of discovering my location to finally beating me to get through my defenses. It was kinda fun fighting a battle you knew you were going to lose.
I had SCV's rotating in and out repairing my bunkers when I could, and rebuilding turrets they managed to blow up. If a bunker was a lost cause I had 2-3 new seige tanks move in to regain the lost ground. Whenever I defeated a wave I immedietly set to work repairing and rebuilding whatever they had taken out and trying to push out more.
But eventually my resources got low and their zergling river broke through.
I managed to fly 3 seperate buildings out and sent them to 3 different corners of the map, it was another 15 minutes before they blew the last one up. Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
Playing a RTS? Strategy games are fun for me, until I hit the wall between casual and hardcore players, and get the floor wiped with my corpse. The only way RTS are fun is against other people, and in this scenario someone has to lose. I don't like to lose over and over again.
This isn't so for an MMORPG, where the "loser" is almost always the boss at the end of the mission. And even when you lose, you gain gear/money/rep/XP, so it was still worth your time more often than not.
Also key here for me is progression. Every time I start up an RTS (for multi-player), I have the same exact setup that I will every other time I will ever play it. The only thing that progresses is (supposedly) your skill. This can be fun, for a few weeks, a couple of months at best.
In an MMORPG, I get new abilities, new items, new recipes for trade-skills, as well as new challenges, at regular intervals. The game is not the same exact game every time I play it. This is essential for a long-lasting gaming experience.
I do have a lot of fun with the single player portions of RTS games, because your "army" progresses, as does the plot. Unfortunately, RTS campaigns usually end within a couple of weeks of play time.
[/QB]
All I see you saying here is that because of your lack of skill in RTS's you put hours and hours into a MMO because you have to progress eventually. That makes people with time instead of skill better than the rest of the group. Which I don't think sounds like much fun.
Posts: 21 | Registered: Jan 2007
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by -Xan-: All I see you saying here is that because of your lack of skill in RTS's you put hours and hours into a MMO because you have to progress eventually.
Exactly. MMOs will, eventually, reward even people who do not have any natural aptitude at a game. Why do you think so many people play?
quote:That makes people with time instead of skill better than the rest of the group. Which I don't think sounds like much fun.
Generally speaking, people with more time = better at anything than people with less time. This is true in almost all video games (look at how many hours the top competitive players in Halo log), sports, hobbies of all kinds.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
thats a really non kosher strategy.
IP: Logged |
posted
I disagree that only playing against other people online is the only way to have fun with RTS games. I actually love the single player campaign missions in most RTS games. I really like the campaign editor too, I spent almost as much time designing custom maps than playing the game, in SC and WC3.
If I didn't want to get the floor mopped with me, I would simply play a comp stomp with another player. I never was very good, but I did enjoy the games.
Posts: 4229 | Registered: Dec 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:All I see you saying here is that because of your lack of skill in RTS's you put hours and hours into a MMO because you have to progress eventually. That makes people with time instead of skill better than the rest of the group. Which I don't think sounds like much fun.
TO YOU.
The whole point of my entire wall of text post was to demonstrate the MMORPG's are fun FOR ME, and the only reason I listed the other types of games is to demonstrate why they aren't as much fun as an MMORPG FOR ME.
I was not at all trying to say that one genre is better than another in general, just for my own playing experience.
I love RTS games, I just mostly stick to the single player aspect. I will buy Starcraft II the day it comes out, and probably log hundreds of hours with it (especially if the campaign editor is as good as Warcraft III or better).
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Xavier: Also key here for me is progression. Every time I start up an RTS (for multi-player), I have the same exact setup that I will every other time I will ever play it. The only thing that progresses is (supposedly) your skill. This can be fun, for a few weeks, a couple of months at best.
For you. I still play War3 Frozen Throne multiplayer. Heck, I started playing StarCraft again recently. However, I pretty much only play these games with my friends, and I don't do the ranked/ladder thing. I'm not looking to climb rankings or have a winning record (I don't); the play's the thing.
quote:Originally posted by Xavier: Simulations? I loved the Sims, and it's sequel. Once you get the basic strategy down, however, it's pretty much the same thing every day. Once you get the biggest house you want, and everyone has the top career, what's left to do?
The Sims, like SimCity, is a sandbox. There's no goal, it isn't a matter of getting the biggest house or the top career. You don't "win." You just do whatever you want -- for example, you might abuse your sims cruelly to see how they react. You might try to get two particular sims to start dating.
quote:Originally posted by Xavier: Single Player RPGS? Actually, I've played these a bunch, but most take only a couple of weeks to beat, and you miss the social aspect of an MMORPG. You get your character to Uber status, and then what?
This assumes that the "point" of a single-player RPG is character progression. For many people, myself included, it isn't. Character progression is all well and good, but by itself it won't make a game interesting to me -- which is why I play very few JRPGs and don't play MMORPGs at all. Hack 'n slash RPGs I only play with my girlfriend, with the possible exception in the future of Silicon Knights' Too Human, which if history is anything to go by will have a fascinating and deep storyline. I took WoW for a test drive recently to see what all the fuss was about. I killed some mobs so that I could gain levels and abilities which I then used to kill other mobs. Quests I undertook included "kill 8 wretched zombies and 8 mindless zombies," "kill 12 skeletons," and "kill 6 bats." Frankly, I'd like to have that time back.
All of these comments I've quoted (which come from different posts) sum to one thing for me: in general, what you're looking for in games and how you approach them is very different from what I'm looking for and how I approach them.
In general the first thing I look for in a single-player game is narrative.
I didn't play the War3 single-player because I wanted to have bigger and bigger armies and access to new and more powerful units, I played through the single-player mostly because I wanted to know what happened in the story, and partly as a warmup for mutliplayer. It may not have been the most original or surprising story ever, but I enjoyed it. Same goes for StarCraft.
"SimCity has no narrative!" you might say. Ah, but it does: it has the narrative I create within the framework provided by the game. "My city was founded in 1950, and expanded quickly, but it was decimated by the Great Godzilla Attack of 1959."
I love to finish a single-player game and feel the same way I feel when I finish a good book or a good movie, where I just sort of sit back and bask in the emotions I'm feeling. That's why my favourite games are ones like Planescape: Torment, Shadow of the Colossus, and so forth. But I also like plotting strategy and tactics, which is why I enjoy games like Myth, War3, Advance Wars, and even some shooters like Ghost Recon and Gears of War, but also stuff like SimCity and some puzzle games like Lumines and Hexic.
Anyway, all of this is to say that very little of my enjoyment of games comes from "advancement," whatever form that may take. So, while I enjoy social gaming as well as single-player experiences, MMOS don't hold the appeal for me that they seem to hold for their millions of subscribers.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote: All of these comments I've quoted (which come from different posts) sum to one thing for me: in general, what you're looking for in games and how you approach them is very different from what I'm looking for and how I approach them.
Not necessarily. I loved Planescape: Torment, KOTOR, Fallout, and the single player campaigns of WC3 and Starcraft for the same reasons that you did.
However, once those games are "beaten" from a single player campaign, and you know the story, that's the end of it. I will probably pop the game back into the old computer from time to time to relive the story, but at most I get 100 hours of gaming from each game's single player campaign, and more likely 20-40 hours or less. So even for these great single player games, they only hold my interest for a few weeks at best. KOTOR I beat in under a week.
quote:The Sims, like SimCity, is a sandbox. There's no goal, it isn't a matter of getting the biggest house or the top career. You don't "win." You just do whatever you want -- for example, you might abuse your sims cruelly to see how they react.
Yeah, I know this. I loved Sims and Sims2, and SimCity. But I've built my own narratives several times over with each of these games, and that only holds my interest for a few weeks (or a couple of months, as was the case for Sims2).
quote:You might try to get two particular sims to start dating.
Like I've said, I've played the game a ton, and frankly I'm amused by this suggestion. Getting two sims to date takes maybe 10 minutes of play time.
Like I said, I am not trying to say these genres aren't as good as MMORPGs. I was trying to demonstrate why a game like World of Warcraft is fun for me (in response to a direct challenge that I was deluding myself, and that it really wasn't fun for me at all) and by doing so I stated my experiences with other genres, and why a MMORPG like WoW has more long lasting appeal to me.
Going down my list of favorite games, games from other genres are near the top.
Just off the top of my head:
1) World of Warcraft 2) Starcraft 3) Warcraft III 4) Diablo II 5) Planescape: Torment 6) Fallout 7) City of Heroes 8) The Sims 2 9) Knights of the Old Republic 10) Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64) 11) Final Fantasy III (SNES)
Perhaps now you will see why I don't need much convincing?
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by erosomniac: Can someone explain the Fallout thing to me? I got told over and over again to play the games. A few years ago, I found a bundle pack of Fallout 1 & 2 at a CompUSA for $0.99 and tried them and I just couldn't get into it, which apparently makes me an RPG heretic.
There are many reasons:
1) Post-apocalyptic setting, at the time (and now still) it was a nice refreshing break from the endless number of Tolkien-lite fantasy worlds that so many RPGs tended to inhabit. No magic, no god-like beings. 2) Interesting backstory/writing/humour, lots of little references back to "our" world and the alternative 50s from which it sprung 3) Real decisions and consequences, unlike many games your choices are more than just "you can kill the boss in one of two ways, if you're a thief do this, if you're a fighter do this". Instead, you can make real moral (or immoral) choices and these are reflected in the narration when you finish the game 4) The "SPECIAL" game mechanic, to this day, when compared to the D&D style character creation in NWN and KOTOR, or the Morrowind/Oblivion, this system created the most memorable characters with the most interesting results in-game.
I'm sure there are many other reasons, but these are the ones that come to my mind. Now, obviously it will not be everyone's cup of tea and thats ok.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Xavier: However, once those games are "beaten" from a single player campaign, and you know the story, that's the end of it. I will probably pop the game back into the old computer from time to time to relive the story, but at most I get 100 hours of gaming from each game's single player campaign, and more likely 20-40 hours or less. So even for these great single player games, they only hold my interest for a few weeks at best. KOTOR I beat in under a week.
I agree with your point here -- i.e. a single-player game, like a book, has a definite end. One difference is that it takes me a lot more than a few weeks to sink 40-100 hours into a game -- I put close to 100 hours into Oblivion on my first playthrough, but it took me something like 6 months. That aside, though, I don't see the fact that single-player games are finite as a problem, given the length of my game queue. There are lots of great games out there to be played, so I tend not to focus on one for too long. I also tend to intersperse them so that I can play whatever I feel like playing when the mood strikes.
quote:Originally posted by Xavier: Like I said, I am not trying to say these genres aren't as good as MMORPGs.
Just to be clear, I didn't think you were.
quote:Originally posted by Xavier: I was trying to demonstrate why a game like World of Warcraft is fun for me (in response to a direct challenge that I was deluding myself, and that it really wasn't fun for me at all) and by doing so I stated my experiences with other genres, and why a MMORPG like WoW has more long lasting appeal to me.
That's fair, but in doing so you described your approach to a wide number of games in MMORPG terms ("advancement"), which is why I drew the conclusion I drew -- that is, that you like the advancement aspect of games a lot more than I do.
quote:Originally posted by Xavier: Perhaps now you will see why I don't need much convincing?
I'm not trying to convince you of anything, and I'm not looking to be convinced of anything. I'm just exploring whether and to what extent our approaches to gaming are different. Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Man this thread has gone on long enough and I have the solution. RTS>MMORPG RPG>MMORPG Anybody who likes MMORPG<Smart There. Settled.
Posts: 4229 | Registered: Dec 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Nick: Man this thread has gone on long enough and I have the solution. RTS>MMORPG RPG>MMORPG Anybody who likes MMORPG<Smart There. Settled.
So by your book anyone who doesnt like what you like and think like you is <smart...
Posts: 686 | Registered: Sep 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Nick: Man this thread has gone on long enough and I have the solution. RTS>MMORPG RPG>MMORPG Anybody who likes MMORPG<Smart There. Settled.
So by your book anyone who doesnt like what you like and think like you is <smart...
Yes that is exactly what he said. Sure it lessens your existence if you think differently.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
So...who wants to play tonight? My Bnet id is TheTickMS, and I'm addicted to Bunker Command II.
Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I really enjoy a variety of video games, but I rarely play online any more, because I've found that many people have WAY more time to devote to the game than I do. I've often run into kind of a wall, where it seems that if you play at one level, you can compete, but at the next level you get steamrolled every single time, usually so effectively that you aren't even learning or improving, because you're completely stomped.
That's one of the reasons I stick with single player. I can set the difficulty level to offer me as much challenge as I like, without the boredom of a too-easy win, or the frustration of being completely outclassed. I've rarely found the proper balance online. I've had some really good times, but also too many completely boring of frustrating games so that more often than not, it seems like wasted time.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
My solution to that problem is to play with friends rather than playing random matches. Since we pretty much only play with each other, we all gain skill at a roughly comparable rate, so there's no "wall."
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
My problem is that I stomp my friends and family in a routine game of Starcraft; thus, they don't want to play with me.
Posts: 292 | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
That's why I'm happy they had custom campaigns available online and user-made maps. Anyone remember Uther's Party from Warcraft III?
Posts: 1158 | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
Do you know of any outstanding Open RPGs for Warcraft III that I might be interested in? I mean, besides Imagica, which I already have, and The Black Road, which is strictly multiplayer.
Posts: 292 | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
There are lots of great games out there to be played, so I tend not to focus on one for too long. I also tend to intersperse them so that I can play whatever I feel like playing when the mood strikes. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
