Printable View
I have been playing the Dawn of War (I, not II) games and really enjoying them. For this reason, I'm thinking about getting the Starcraft Battlechest. (SC is supposed to be the best RTS ever... :smallsmile:)
For those who have played SC and DoW, if I like DoW, am I likely to like SC? How different is the play? (I don't play against other people. Just the computer.)
I don't care about comparing the graphics. (I know SC is 10+ years old.) I'm just interested in how the game plays.
Starcraft is more focused on base building like the original dawn of war. It's a more difficult and complex game. I'm not really sure what you like most in DoW.
Oh, it's got a pretty good campaign, the game is cheap right now too. The campaign might be impossibly difficult if you're not use to the more micro/macro intensive rts without cheat codes.
You could give more information. What are you looking for in you're single player experience? Starcraft is the best rts in terms of multiplayer, I can't say it has the best singleplayer since I haven't played that many rts games.
I will get tons of disagreement for this, I know, but it is still my honest feeling on SC.
SC has all the things that I like, a story, decent characters, a wide variety of units etc etc, and yet I find actually playing it to be dull, slow and frustrating.
I realise that I am firmly in the minority here but still, I didn't enjoy it anywhere near the amount it was hyped up to be.
It's kind of hard to disagree with the fact that you didn't enjoy the design of the game. Dull and slow? Frustrating I can understand but you must of been struggling with the piss easy (compared to multiplayer) single player.Quote:
Originally Posted by Timberwolf
In no particular order...Quote:
Originally Posted by Raroy
A decent story. (Why am I fighting?)
A learning curve that isn't a bear. (Sort of, easy to learn, hard to master.)
Varying challenges. (Not the same battle over and over)
Who plays single-player for difficulty anyways? Campaign modes are for the story and the scenarios, which Blizzard (for me, at least), has yet to seriously drop the ball on.Quote:
Originally Posted by Raroy
Beating the game's missions was not a problem. I was frustrated by actually playing it single or multiplayer. Just... arrrrggghhhh the movement of the units... The camera angle, the size of the units on the screen. It's been years since I played it and I still can't bear to repeat the experience.Quote:
Originally Posted by Raroy
I don't know about that. I got almost a third of the way through the Starcraft campaign, and seriously hated it. I had no idea what was going on in the story, I didn't care about any of the characters, and the mission design sucked. The multiplayer may be brilliant, but the singleplayer certainly was not.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Glyphstone
Dawn of War however is seriously tight, and also sweet. If you like that, it is definitely worth your while to investigate Company of Heroes, which takes a lot of the same ideas and expands and improves them. It's also a nice gateway game into some harder core strategy titles, since it eases you into ideas like suppression, basic armor tactics, fire support and so forth. The campaign is surprisingly playable as well, and the Defense of Carantan mission is extraordinarily good.
In that order:Quote:
Originally Posted by Kesnit
Decent story: Yeah, you usually have a pretty good idea of what's going on and what you're fighting, and why. There's some better and some worse aspects (for instance, the Conclave in the Protoss campaign is truly stupid to a suicidal extent, and the UED in the Brood War campagin also does some epically idiotic things).
Learning curve: The original game's capaign eases you into the different units, technologies and tactics one by one, so it's definitely good there. From there on, it's a question on how good an RTS-player you are: if you're strong at tactics and micro-management, then you won't be seriously challenged by most missions, so you likely won't ever "master" the game simply because you don't have to. If you're not quite so good at micromanagement or just can't be bothered by it, you will find a lot of missions to be on the frustrating side.
A few things to note compared to DOW 1: First, resources in Starcraft are limited. You not only have to expand fast, you also must make sure you've got the forces needed to complete a mission before you run out of stuff. Second, there are no squads, there are singular units, and a lot of them will die, and the resources you invested in them will be lost forever. It's fairly easy to complete a DOW mission without ever losing an entire squad (and the few soldiers you lose will be replaced easily and cheaply); you will never manage this in Starcraft, so get used to wasting half of you army for reaching your goal if neccessary. Zerg especially rely on cannon fodder a lot. It also means that while in DOW, battles can go on for quite a while if both sides are evenly matched and keep replenishing their infantry squads, in Starcraft most fights are over quickly when one side gains the upper hand (one exception is if they're both close enoguh to their bases to keep sending in newly-made reinforcements) And third, in this game, air units matter. A lot. In fact, a lot of the time you can succeed on air power alone. All the strongest units (except one pseudo-strong unit by the Zerg that, in fact, is kinda bad and not worth the price) are aerial ones. So in offense and defense both, you will have to count on bases being attacked from any side all the time.
Lastly, troop combinations are very important. This isn't like DoW or Winter Assault where you can just mass-produce one powerful infantry unit and one powerful vehicle (see: winning most missions by just massing Terminators and either Predators or Dreadnoughts, or Ogryns and Leman Russes, or Possessed Chaos Marines and Chaos Predators, or Boss Mobs and Bikes, or...see a pattern here? ;) ) and have an almost-certain chance of winning. You CAN win the game with just one or two types of units IF the enemy isn't prepared for them properly (best example is perhaps the Guardian + Mutalisk or Guardian + Devourer combination of the Zerg, which will raze a base without the right units defending it in no time), but Dio help you if he is.
Bottom line being, try it out, it's cheap as hell and has a lot of fun potential if you don't care for the graphics.
Well, most has been said already. The campaign's story is, in my opinion, brilliant (I strongly recommend reading the backstory in the manual1 though; as usual with Blizzard games, there is an extensive setting and a lot of events that led up to the story that unfolds in the campaign, and understanding and/or enjoyment of the campaign's story might be seriously hampered without that knowledge), personally, I never found the campaign to be all that difficult (even before I started to play SC semi-competitively in multiplayer), and your qualification of not playing the same battle over and over is met as well (for starters, because units are introduced gradually, and usually the mission at hand involves the newly gained units heavily, while still involving the options you gained in previous missions as well).
And as for the graphics, I'm going to be in the minority here, but I actually think SC has exceptionally good graphics. Not when it comes to resolution, special effects and such, of course, but when it comes to finding the sweet spot between looking good and functionality. I know plenty of games that have technically better graphics, but these graphics make it more difficult to make out what is going on, to select particular units in the midst of battle, etc. I've never seen a game that hit the optimum between looking nice and giving the player perfect overview on what is going on just like SC did.
1 Which, in the case of the Battlechest, comes in the form of a .pdf on the CD, if I'm not mistaken.
Alternatively, you could give the demo a shot.
Note: I don't actually know what the demo covers.
As opposed to just buying the damn game? It costs like 5 dollars and comes in a bin. How much do you stand to lose? :smallconfused:Quote:
Originally Posted by nosignal
(Seriously, are there still places where this game costs actual money? 'Cause there's nothing like that here ...)
I've never seen the battlechest below $20.Quote:
Originally Posted by Klose_the_Sith
Amazon.com has it for $13 new. That's the lowest I have seen.Quote:
Originally Posted by warty goblin
Good point. In actual brick and mortar stores I've never seen it under $20.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kesnit
Huh? Ultralisks are excellent. The game has been patched so many times that the balance is very near to perfect. Ultra/Zergling armies are a superb way to get a large number of solid, fast-moving efficient forces you can just rush into peoples' faces until they die.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord of the Helms
Notably the last Brood War mission with Z is quite doable with mass Ultraling; the air you can just ignore thanks to Ultra hardiness and...well, blow up with Scourges.
One of the best things about the game is that every unit is useful (though two are very situational). The game has a decent number of units (though intentionally nothing like e.g. Total Annihilation; intentionally) and every single one of them does a job the race needs done and has an unique niché. And skill matters a LOT. Not only in the grand scheme of things but in controlling individual units. A single well-controlled Zergling (basically light, cheap, fast, squishy melee damage dealer) or Vulture (a really fast hoverbike) can do the same job 6 Vultures or Zerglings without control would fail in.
The thing many people misunderstand about Ultralisks is their purpose, which leads to them thinking that they are bad. Many people think Ultralisks are supposed to be the ultimate melee unit, so if you just take a bunch of them and send them in, they have to slaughter every ground force they encounter. In fact, at that point, two Zerglings have a lot more damage output per second than a single Ultralisk. You don't bring Ultralisks for their damage potential, you bring them to absorb damage that would otherwise hit the Zerglings, allowing them to live long enough to actually apply their superior damage output. If you use Ultralisks all on their own, you will find they suck. If you send in Zerglings without support, most of them will be pointlessly slaughtered and not accomplish much either. But if you mix the two, you get an army that is much more than just the sum of its parts.
Just like that previously proposed "Guardians+Devourers" thing. That's clearly thinking that Devourers are there to shoot down air. No. They are not. Devourers are atrocious at shooting down air. What they are good at is making it easier for other units to shoot down air. Once you have 8 Acid Spores on an air unit you have almost doubled the damage it receives from every Hydralisk or Mutalisk shot. A pure Devourer force will perform much, much worse against air units than a mixed Devourer-Mutalisk force (not to mention that Mutalisks can attack ground as well, if necessary). On the other hand, a pure Mutalisk force will also perform much, much worse against air units than a mixed Devourer-Mutalisk force. Again, more than the sum of the parts.
(I assume you know all that already, Eldariel, just stating it to clarify it for others. :smallwink:)
One of the advantages of said army composition is the speed of both units; the two are amongst the very fastest units in the game giving you an incredibly mobile army allowing for multi-pronged attacks, good harassment, and especially breaking down bases.Quote:
Originally Posted by Winterwind
With Zergling damage and the speed of the combination and Ultra tanking, Ultraling armies tear down bases in the matter of seconds and yet, thanks to the inherent strength of the combination, require a real counter; a small garrison won't be enough to hold it off which allows for them to force opponent's army positioning quite a bit by the threat of hitting the base. Though that, of course, is entirely a multiplayer matter.
The real key here is that Acid Spore adds linear damage increase to all future attacks. Or, it actually reduces target's armor by one. Which is delicious with Mutalisk's attack, which is a triple-hit glaive (each Muta attack hits 3 different targets provided they're close to each other) with each subsequent hit dealing 3rd of the damage of the first hit (Muta damage is 9, so 2nd hit deals 3 and 3rd hit deals 1 normally). Add 8 damage to every one of the glaive hits and the glaive suddenly turns from small annoyance to unit wrecker (so 17, 12, 10).Quote:
Originally Posted by Winterwind
The other effect of the Spores is that they reduce unit attack speed, making them absolutely lethal to air domination units that rely on attack speed, such as Protoss Corsair (which has an insanely fast speed AoE attack that deals small damage with each individual shot, but gets like 4/second). This makes Devourers an air support unit; they're an efficient counter to many air superiority units and enhance your army. This gives them their niché in Zerg vs. Zerg matches which are defined by large Mutalisk conflicts; otherwise air isn't heavily used against Zerg due to the potency of Scourges but in ZvZ, Mutalisks and opponent's own Scourges make it a fair fight so if you get that far, breaking out Devourer can truly demolish opposing Mutalisk army.
Starcraft is a realy good game. So let's talk about the complexites of unit composition (why don't we thrown in build order compositions and transitions aswell?) in the thread about someone new to the game asking if they should buy it. :smalltongue:.
You really don't have much to lose if you buy it. So hey, you can become a cool starcraft haterz and rag about how the design of the game is poor or a cool starcraft expertz who talks about the game way way too muuch.
I find that it comes down to weather you prefer to use micro or macro.
Starcroft has more macro-management, with more of a focus on building bases, pushing out a perfect build order and controlling your economy.
Dawn of War is more focused on micro though - managing each unit to be the best it can be, with a wide variety of abilities for every unit. More of a focus on battle.
In my opinion, Dawn of War is faster and a lot more fun, whereas Starcraft is less of a personal experience, focused more on overall strategy. In short, Dawn of War is more of winning the battles, whereas Starcraft is more about winning the war.
Huh ...Quote:
Originally Posted by warty goblin
I guess the US doesn't always have cheaper games.
(I mean, sure, nominally it should cost more under RRP, but when they start making piles of games in bargain bins / other cheap sale deals Starcraft is among the first to go in.)
I dunno if both games are $5, tbh, but you can definitely get them at $5 apiece round here.
Build many Ultralisks. The Ultralisk's function is to give people hugs, and nobody should have to go without hugs, so build more Ultralisks so everybody can have hugs!
This is not good advice, despite the wonder of HUGS.
"Like 5 dollars".Quote:
Originally Posted by Klose_the_Sith
I never did check: Did the later patches also apply to the campaign? I was referring to when I was playing originally, when Ultralisks, mineral cost aside, also took 8 upkeep, i.e. that of 16 Zerglings (who are faster, do like ten times more damage and, combined had more hitpoints as well, so literally their only weakness compared to Ultras was to AoE attacks). I know Ultras were later patched in Multiplayer to a more sane upkeep value of 4 (and I think there was some mineral cost adjustment as well, and minor changes to damage or HP - been too long, though), thus no longer deterring everyone from ever using them. If those patched unit costs also applied in the campaign, that'd make them acceptable tanks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eldariel
* Also, while Devourer + Mutalisk is more efficient than just Devourers, Devourers, at least back in 2002 or so, were anything but bad at air defense by themselves - I literally tore down the bases of 3 players in one go with the aforementioned Guardian + Devourer combination, including their scouts and Wraiths and Battlecruisers that they sent to defend.
My suggestion: Get both Starcraft 1 and 2. They're both very good.
I'm actually #5 on the GitP Starcraft 2 ladder. /braggingrights
Campaign is unpatched; Brood War however has them at saner values making them quite excellent. And they do work in the original guise too; it's not like you army cap that often in the campaign.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord of the Helms
Mayhap; if air units are stacked, the attack speed slow goes a long way. Still, they're much more efficient with Mutas in the mix.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord of the Helms
Also, if Lord of the Helms was playing in pre-Brood War times, the Ultralisks wouldn't have their special carapace and movement speed upgrades. Those two went a long way towards making Ultralisks more viable, the latter allowing them to keep up with Zerglings and having them close in on Siege Tanks and such quickly enough to allow them just one salvo, rather than several, the latter making them practically impervious to things like Marines or Zealots.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eldariel
QFT. This is really important. One of the major advantages of Ultralisks is their massive armor - they can practically ignore the feeble attacks of Zerglings, Zealots, and Marines.Quote:
Originally Posted by Winterwind
Another thing to consider - the Defiler really adds to the power of the ultraling unit composition, as Dark Swarm means that the enemy's ranged attacks do absolutely nothing to your swarm of units, while your units are fully operational.
Says you, I ALWAYS army cap once I'm past mission 4 or 5 (OC) or 3-4 (Brood War). I am a firm believer in crushing my enemy with ridiculously, needlessly overwhelming force whenever possible :smallamused:Quote:
Originally Posted by Eldariel
And yeah, I did play SC before Brood War came out, and had one hell of a go at that campaign (and was really excited at the release of Brood War, too).