On the Ball: A Shoddy (Star)Craftsman

[DeSpiner]

If a marine rush gets you 1 in 3 victories, it can only mean that there are a lot of beta participants out there in the same situation as Jordan's. Either new to StarCraft, or simply really rusty.

But playing StarCraft is an evolutionary path: people adapt to your winning tactics, then you adapt to their winning tactics and so on. If you don't, then you'll find yourself staring at a 'Defeat!' screen more and more.
In the case of this marine rush, it would be like: fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice... (hope I got it right, since Bush, I can never be sure).

The multi-player learning curve will always be steep for this game, and the reason is it's competitiveness. There are a lot of people wanting to get better and better at this game all the time (what's the population of Korea again?).

With the original StarCraft, I breezed through the single-player, and was only playing multi-player among friends. I considered myself pretty good, until I went on battle.net and discovered fast that my skill scale was way off - I was actually pretty bad. Luckily, I had a friend that had played more online, and that was willing to teach-play me. I didn't get good, but I did become better. The great thing was that even when defeated, the fun never stopped.
I've had this game for more than 10 years now, and I still play it (considerably less, but still...).

As a side note, my first RTS was Westwood's Dune2, but I switched 'sides' ever since Warcraft 2.

 

[Plinglebob]

I could never get the hang of Starcraft whether in single player campaign or in multiplayer against AI or people because I'm a habitual turtler. I started on AoE and C&C and in both of these its easy enough to get solid defenses up before someone tries to rush you but with SC I just got my butt handed to me continually and it stopped being fun. The reason I like Supreme Commander is that Turtling is a viable stratagy.

 

[MetalGenocide]

I guess, this wave of beta, isn't meant for other than press people and the like. *unhappyface*
Many others it seems, also discover that, there is a lot more to it, than just "attack move to enemy base".
Which is good.

 

[Dectilon]

fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice... (hope I got it right, since Bush, I can never be sure).

You didn't

The point of the idiom is that anyone can be fooled once, but should never be fooled twice.

 

[ottenni]

I remember the good old days of Red Alert 2. Zerg rushes ain't got nothing on conscripts. To put some emphasis on that the zerg never made my computer crash. I never really got into Blizzards RTS's though. i have played both Starcraft and Warcraft 3 but i never bought the former and after a while the latter just keeps repeating itself. I have played allot of DoTA though.

 

[Jacob.pederson]

snip

You know what's the best StarCraft II tutorial? StarCraft! Seriously, you can pick that game up for, like, virtually nothing, and you'll have three full-length campaigns to hone your skills in all three races. By the time your can win a skirmish against three of the strongest AI, you'll be ready for the online play. Just don't play against Koreans, they always win.

After that training, it's only a matter of getting to know the new units in SC2, the core gameplay is the same.

There are no AI difficulty levels in the original Star Craft You're right about the campaign though, it's designed to be a teacher.

 

[DTWolfwood]

thanks for the impression. Good to know SC is still SC ^-^

 

[Xocrates]

StarCraft! Seriously, you can pick that game up for, like, virtually nothing, and you'll have three full-length campaigns to hone your skills

Six! Apart from the fact that it's nearly impossible to find starcraft without its expansion, as long as you register your starcraft key on battle.net you'll get Brood war as well.

 

[Playbahnosh]

There are no AI difficulty levels in the original Star Craft

Silly me, of course there are no difficulty levels. I've been playing a lot of Age of Empires 2 lately, I think that's what confused me.

StarCraft! Seriously, you can pick that game up for, like, virtually nothing, and you'll have three full-length campaigns to hone your skills

Six! Apart from the fact that it's nearly impossible to find starcraft without its expansion, as long as you register your starcraft key on battle.net you'll get Brood war as well.

Wow, I didn't know that. I bought my copy of StarCraft nearly eight years ago and the expansion a few years after that.

There you have it Jordan, six campaigns! That's twice the fun!

 

[Nimbus]

This is exactly why I am reluctant to pick up an RTS, especially Starcraft. It's like dropping someone who doesn't even know the rules straight into the big leagues.

 

[Tharwen]

I have yet to play a single-player RTS campaign that teaches you how to beat a human opponent. They never guide your tactics to improvement, they simply say 'have another go' and send mindless waves while you learn to click faster to beat the instant-commands-anywhere-on-the-map AI.

This could simply be a limitation of the AI in the games that I've played, though, so hopefully Starcraft 2 will be the one that fixes this. I await expectantly...

 

[unsmart]

Blizzard already said that the single player campaign will not help teach players to play multiplayer. They did say that there would be tutorials and challenges designed to help people prepare for multiplayer games.

 

[Eri]

I think one of the reasons I don't like playing starcraft is I dont see the point in a 5 minute rush match. I enjoy very much bulding up a complete base with defenses and all that and THEN commencing war. Building 1/3 of the possible buildings or units before winning or dying is not what I'd call fun.

 

[fanklok]

Build as many marines as you can, then send wave after wave at the enemy's base until it's gone. It's a tactic more befitting of the hive-minded Zerg than the more individualistic Terran, but I'm not going to concern myself with the philosophical implications of my wars of attrition when it's the only way I've been able to win.

Ah, so you're a devotee of the Zapp Brannigan school of space combat, then?

send wave after wave of loyal soldiers until the kill bots reach their kill limit?

Wait a minute. Sending wave after wave of marines? That is the worst strategy I've ever heard. :/

No offense, but I could set up two siege tanks, some mines, and a basic chokehold point along with goliaths and missile turrets and you'd run out of minerals before I was even half way finished.

You wanna talk strategy? Try a guy who will drop tanks behind your mineral patches, then commence a full assault so you can't divert units to stop them. Trust me, i've lost many times to that.

You mean thors?

Anyway Jordan when this comes out I want to play you first, for the confidence boost. (you guys think it's still possible to do a dozen zealot rush in the first 5 minutes?) Don't worry if you last atleast 7 minutes you'll probably win my late game is horrific.

 

[Fearzone]

Yeah, this is why I'm content to just watch the SC2 replays. Even that is a blast. Though, watching replays is much better when you understand the game, so more and more I'm now wishing that I could jump in and have my ass handed to me a few times.

 

[TomBeraha]

There are no AI difficulty levels in the original Star Craft

Silly me, of course there are no difficulty levels. I've been playing a lot of Age of Empires 2 lately, I think that's what confused me.

StarCraft! Seriously, you can pick that game up for, like, virtually nothing, and you'll have three full-length campaigns to hone your skills

Six! Apart from the fact that it's nearly impossible to find starcraft without its expansion, as long as you register your starcraft key on battle.net you'll get Brood war as well.

Wow, I didn't know that. I bought my copy of StarCraft nearly eight years ago and the expansion a few years after that.

There you have it Jordan, six campaigns! That's twice the fun!

There most certainly are difficulty levels for the AI in SC1, just update to the latest patch.

 

[Peace Frog]

Seems odd that they disabled the tutorial while inviting people to the beta irrespective of their experience :/

Winning 11, losing 22, isn't quite "roughly half" ^^

 

[John Funk]

Seems odd that they disabled the tutorial while inviting people to the beta irrespective of their experience :/

Winning 11, losing 22, isn't quite "roughly half" ^^

Well, we got press invites

And he meant half since he learned the strategy.

 

[sunpop]

So your problem when winning matches what the problem I have with the strategy in star craft, you just keep a steady stream of marines rushing headlong into the enemy base and never once give them a chance to recover.

The zerg rush strategy is what makes me not like star craft because I prefer to build up a nice balanced group and attack key buildings so the enemy has to waste time recovering while I prepare my final assault team consisting of mostly siege vehicles.

I prefer a match where one person can be dominating then the second they let up a position I cut off there supply lines and there whole army crumbles.

 

[Playbahnosh]

There most certainly are difficulty levels for the AI in SC1, just update to the latest patch.

Which patch is that? Although I'm a little behind on patching, I'm still using the 1.13b, but reading the patch notes of the fresher ones, I can't find anything related to difficulty settings...