I’ve spent some additional time with the Starcraft 2 beta these last several days, and am ready to share some more thoughts – this time on the competitive aspect of the beta. I’ve finally jumped into a little bit of online play against real players which include newbies and experienced RTS gamers. Read on for a recap on each of my 7 matchups, the new ladder/league system, and my thoughts on the 1v1 aspect of the game. Spoiler: it’s getting good!
Getting Started
When you first create an account and start the Starcraft II beta, you are told to pick what experience rating you are: new player, experienced , or veteran. I guess I should have chose experienced, but I wimped out and picked “new player”. After all, I wanted to try stuff out instead of getting trounced every match. Once you choose your experience level, you are placed in the Practice League.
Practice League
In this league, you get up to 5 matches against other players in the practice league. None of these matches count, and therefore you can practice whatever you want to do. I played a couple matches in the Practice League, and here is a recap of how they went.
Practice Match 1: Protoss vs Protoss
The first match I played I was pretty nervous, since prior to that I had only been playing a practically non-existent AI. Keep in mind that even though I’m going random, I don’t really know any race in true detail and therefore I sort of just wing it based on what I think are hard counters to what I see. I’ve had the most experience with Protoss, so I felt reasonably comfortable with the matchup. I made a few Zealots and Stalkers (the ranged Gateway Dragoon replacement), expanded to my natural, and moved towards a Dark Shrine and Robotics Facility. I wanted to get Observers up on this guy to see what he was doing while harassing him with Dark Templars. Also, I figured I would be able to build Immortals (sort of like a heavy Dragoon) and Colossi (large monstrosities that tear apart small units with multiple lasers) if needed since it would most likely be a ground war of heavy units in a PvP matchup. As I began my build, my opponent slowed the gamespeed down to Normal speed. “I guess he’s having a hard time with the speed, so maybe he’s not that good” I thought. When I finally got my observer to his base, I discovered he had three gateways up and was constantly pumping Zealots and Stalkers. No natural expansion on his part, and it looked like he was just pumping en mass. “Aren’t Immortals a counter to Zealots and Stalkers?” I decided to pump out a few Dark Templars and Immortals, and sat them at my natural. He attacked. My Immortals got completely destroyed by his mass Zealots, but fortunately for me, he had no idea how to deal with myDark Templars so they tore all his guys apart. Well, I guess I learned when not to use Immortals. In any case, I pumped out Colossi and some mixed Zealots & Stalkers and proceeded to his base and easily won the match.
Practice Match 2: Terran vs Terran
Terran is the hardest race for me to play at the moment as I’m still trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t for them. Tanks work, I knew. And since it was Terran vs Terran, my old Starcraft experience had me assume that I should skip the infantry and go with the tanks and air to take on another Terran. In the Practice League, you play on newbie friendly maps that have rocks that take a while to be destroyed before you can get to your opponent’s natural expansion and base. This is to discourage rushing. Well, I still wanted to know what this guy was building so I built 1 Reaper out of my Barracks. This unit is like a marine but it is able to use its jetpack to jump up and down cliffs. With his jetpack, I would be able to easily scout my opponent to see what he was doing. I sent my reaper over, and found my opponent taking it easy. The guy had sensor towers going up everywhere, proceeded by missile turrets lining the platform of his base. Totally dug in, so I thought to myself, why not break it with a siege tank push? That still works, right? So I made some tanks and a few flying units, set up in the area below the ledge of his main, built a turret and a bunker, and flew in some air units to spot. Tanks destroyed all the turrets in the area along with several SCVs and one of his gas expansions. By then I had already expanded and decided to move towards Battlecruisers and this new Factory unit that sort of replaced the Goliath called the Thor. I still don’t really know how the Thor should be used, but it’s a huge walking mech, talks like Arnold Schwarzenegger, and shoots laser beams on the ground and rockets against air units. They are slow and huge. But, after my tank push, the Battlecruisers and Thors easily broke their way in assisted by the tanks and cleaned up.
After my two matches in the Practice League, I had three left. I felt like it was kind of boring playing people of the skill level I was encountering there, and wanted to skip it. Once you leave the Practice League, you can never go back, I was warned. Ok. I was now out of the Practice League and into the Qualifiers.
Qualifying Rounds
Once you complete your 5 matches in the Practice League, you have to play 5 matches to qualifier for a real League that you will be put in. Depending on how you do (and probably what Experience level you indicated when you started playing) you could get placed anywhere from the Copper League (lowest league) to the Platinum League (highest). Recap of my 5 qualifying matchups is as follows…
Matchup 1: Zerg vs Protoss
On this matchup, we drew a 4 player map, so there were many bases. I went with a normal Spawning Pool build, and once that was complete I scouted my opponent and expanded to my natural and created some new defensive structures before going with a third hatchery at my choke. I scouted my opponent and he seemed to be massing some Zealots and Stalkers (the usual), and I honestly wasn’t sure how to handle them with my Zerg units. Zerglings and Hydralisks like the good old days? Unfortunately, the Hydralisk is now a tier 2 unit, and requires a Lair upgrade. Still, it didn’t seem like the other guy was leaving the base with his units so I continued to expand over the map and figured I’d make a hotkey of Zerglings and a hotkey of Hydralisks before pursuing higher tier stuff. An interesting new unit that the Zerg has is the Queen, which can be built directly from any Hatchery. One of the Queen’s special abilities allows you to spawn more larvae at a Hatchery, so that you can potentially have up to 6 larvae available at a Hatchery. Pretty neat and therefore you don’t always have to mass hatcheries to build a lot of units. I had Overlords set up at every expansion on the map, and while I had 2 expansions already, my opponent didn’t even take his natural yet. Eventually he did, and at that point his army was so huge that my Zerglings and Hydralisks would get flattened. I had to move towards end-game units to beat this guy, and my resource pool certainly allowed it. I teched to a Greater Spire, and created this new unit that replaced the Guardian from the first game. This new unit is called the Brood Lord, and is morphed from the Corrupter, an anti-air only Zerg unit that can only be built once you have a Greater Spire. The Brood Lord functions very similar to the crab-like Guardians of the first game, but this time around, the Brood Lord’s attacks are actual Broodlings that are living units. So when I took my hotkey of Brood Lords to the Protoss base and began attacking, I must have seen several dozen Broodlings land and surround everything he had. It’s almost like a Zerg Carrier, but ground only. Easy win.
Matchup 2: Terran vs Terran
I wasn’t quite sure what to do with Terran (still don’t), so I went with the normal build going towards Barracks, Factory, and then a Starport. Unfortunately, for some reason or another, only a few minutes in I was told that I disconnected and I ended up getting a loss. Sucked.
Matchup 3: Terran vs Zerg
Both of us were random on this map, and when the game started, my opponent said, “gl hf”. Great, my first real opponent this time and I get my worst race. I built a couple supply depots and decided to block off the ramp at my base with a barracks, as it seems to be a popular thing to do as Terran. His drone got in before I was able to completely seal off the choke, but at that point I guess both he and I knew that I was not going to be a slouch since I demonstrated my wall off. I decided to go with marines and tanks, as was somewhat customary in a Terran vs Zerg matchup. I scouted him, and noticed that he was starting to mass Zerglings and Hydralisks. I had my tanks on the ledge but he applied enough pressure that I didn’t have an easy way to float my second Command Center down to expand. Plus, he had Overlords at all expansions on the map, so he was not bad. I scouted him as well, and he was expanding like crazy all over the map. My tanks were holding his mass Hydras at bay every time they tried to rush my natural, but I was losing the resource war. I decided to make these new air units called the Viking, which is an air-to-air unit but can transform into a mech that attacks ground-to-ground. With several Vikings, I wanted to kill all his Overlords watching all of the expansions on the map since I wanted a second expansion to catch up with him. Even after killing the Overlords and expanding a second time, I was discovered and I had to float my expansion back home. I was being trapped in my base with my tanks playing defense and him taking over the map. Mass Tanks and mass Vikings was not a bad idea, but then he started massing Mutalisks with his 4 bases to my 2. I was running out of resources, and eventually his mutas came to attack my tanks. I thought my Vikings would easily kill them, but apparently he had a lot more Mutalisks than I thought. Once my Tanks and Vikings were destroyed, I gave him the “gg” and accepted my first real loss.
Matchup 4: Protoss vs Zerg
In my first matchup, I was on the previous end of this racial fight. We played on Lost Temple, and I went with the standard Pylon Gateway Assimilator build. As soon as my first Zealot came out, 6 Zerglings attacked my base and began going after my probes. Maybe he was lucky that he was able to find my base out of the 3 locations? Anyway, the Zerglings didn’t do too much damage as my single Zealot was able to handle most of them while they tried to hit my mineral line. Another Zealot popped out and then six more Zerglings showed up. The two Zealots easily killed the Zerglings, and then I had a total of 4 Zealots blocking the ramp. No more Zerglings, so I sent 1 Zealot to his main to see what he was up to. I found a couple Zerglings, but also this new Zerg unit called the Roach. I’m not quite sure how to fight them yet, as they are an armored tier 1 Zerg unit. I proceeded to make Stalkers, since I remembered that they get a bonus on armored units. So, with a mixture of Zealots and Stalkers, I felt secure enough to expand to my natural while watching his natural and the other bases around him. After making a few High Templars (figured Psi Storm would still be quite effective against Zerg), I checked his natural and was surprised that this Zerg player still had not expanded yet. However, I caught an overlord flying towards the corner island expansion, and put two Stalkers and a Probe in a Warp Prism (the new Protoss shuttle) and flew towards the island expansion. His expansion was up, so I had my Probe warp in a Pylon to power my eventual cannons while my two Stalkers killed his drones and overlord that was escaping with his remaining drones. Once his overlord popped, he quit the game. That was it? Oh well.
Matchup 5: Zerg vs Protoss
I rolled Zerg on this map against a Protoss picker, and it was on a 4 player map I hadn’t played before. I started with the normal Spawning Pool build before expanding to my natural, but my slow Overlord discovered a Pylon being warped in on my platform. The guy was trying to cannon me because when I went to go check it, I found a second pylon, a cannon, and a forge already warped in. My six zerglings quickly took out the Probe, and then went after the sole cannon. My second wave of Zerglings was able to take out the cannon and all his structures on my platform. I tried to scout him, but he had cannoned himself in. I proceeded to expand to my natural, and then to a few more bases after that. I wasn’t quite sure what to build, so I started making several Hydralisks and wanted to again move to the Brood Lords so I could siege his heavily defended base. I also kept scouting the remaining expansions, and while I had 4 bases going, he only had his main. Then he attacked some of my scouting Overlords with some flying units I didn’t know about. They are called Void Rays, and after taking out my Overlords, he went towards one of my defense-less expansions and easily took it out with only two Void Rays. These flying units apparently do more damage the longer their prism beam stays on a target, so they melted my Hatchery pretty quickly. Then he disappeared for a while, so I rebuilt that expansion. He returned with 8 Void Rays and 2 Carriers this time, but luckily, I had a hotkey of Hydralisks. Unfortunately, it seems like there isn’t an “Increase Hydralisk Speed” upgrade in Starcraft 2, so they were slow getting to the enemy. Once I arrived, I focus fired and popped his two Carriers first before taking out enough Warp Rays for him to run off. I scouted for expansions again this time around and found a remote one that he was trying to build. I sent my remaining Hydralisks and Zerglings there to shut it down. As I was destroying his expansion, I started hearing the sounds of Dark Templars in my main. They destroyed my Greater Spire and practically all my drones at my mineral line. “What the heck? I have overlords all over my base!” I thought. It was only then that I learned the hard way that Overlords no longer are detectors in Starcraft 2 unless you upgrade them into a different unit called the Overseer. I struggled to put down an Evolution Chamber so I could get a Spore Crawler up for detection. Eventually I did but he definitely did some damage. Still, I had several expansions to his none, and I proceeded to build Mutalisks while scouting all the expansions. I shut down a new one he was trying to get, and at that point he quit the game. I guess he got starved out.
Bronze League Placement
The combination of me going 3-2 in my qualifying matchups and that I indicated that I was a “New” player placed me into the Bronze League. The League system is very interesting in Starcraft 2. Basically, after the qualifiers, everyone gets placed into a League with 99 other players. You end up playing those players only in your League. If you continue to beat them, you rank up, and once you get near the top of your League, you play other people at the bottom of the next League. So it’s possible for you to move into higher up leagues, but at the same time, it’s also possible for you to drop down. I think the League system is pretty cool since now you’re in a pool of competitors that is generally at your skill level rather than playing anyone in a Ladder game.
Parting Impressions
I got to say that while I was originally overwhelmed at first before I started playing opponents, I am now starting to take it all in better and am actually enjoying it a lot more. In fact, I want to keep playing. The game is addicting. Part of me doesn’t love the 1v1 aspect, as it’s too personal a warzone to play in for my current skill level, but the only other option is 2v2 and the mechanics of 2v2 are just not newbie friendly either since if either player is bad or communication is poor it’s probably over.
What’s neat is that I actually look forward to losing, since it teaches me something new and makes me a better player. There’s really no other better time than the beta to learn how to play. I’ve learned now that I need to upgrade an Overlord to an Overseer to detect stealth units, and at the same time, I’ve learned that I can destroy a Zerg base if I bring enough Dark Templars before he pulls off the Overseer upgrade. After all, my opponent only sent 2 Dark Templars. Imagine if he had 6-8? Also, the single loss I had in my Terran versus Zerg matchup continues to occupy my thoughts as I keep thinking about other ways I could have tried to win. Did I turtle too much? Should I have just pushed forth with my tanks to the expansion between his natural and mine? Or, should I have massed Marines, Marauders (infantry that shoot slowing grenades), and Medivacs (transports that now heal infantry units as well)? And all this thinking is only after a few matches. If I keep putting in more time, I’ll get a lot better.
Starcraft 2 has me working so much harder in learning the game than perhaps any game I’ve played in the last several years. I’m making notes, reading up on units, and studying replays, etc. What armor type is this unit? What bonuses does it have? What skills is it good at? What is its hard counter? etc. And while playing Random makes it more difficult to learn since I have to study 9 potential matchups, I really like that the opponent doesn’t know what race I am as well. Plus, I’m not a complete Starcraft newbie so Random ain’t so bad. My parting impression for this second impressions article on the Starcraft 2 beta has now moved from hesitantly favorable to strongly favorable. If you’re willing to learn the game, it’s looking to be as good (or even better) than the first one. I just had to crawl out of my shell and get beaten down in order to learn to be a better player.
