Hydralisk Range attack

How come you never see Hydralisks use their spine shooting attack in cutscenes? I never saw them use it in SC1 cutscenes. They always use their talons. What is their range attack anyway? Do they shoot spines, or do they spit acid or is it something else.

 

They shoot spines.

We never got a good look at the hydralisk's ranged attack until Warcraft III, so I presume Blizzard didn't really know how the attack worked while making StarCraft and Brood War, so no cinematic usage. (If you have Frozen Throne, put a hydralisk into a map, and zoom in on its front end as it attacks something.)

 

Kimera, I think there is a reason why we never got to see the hydralisk's projectile in-game in the first starcraft. The hydralisk launched the spines at bullet speed, so of coarse it would be invisible to the naked eye. The green slime you saw was most undoubtable some fluid that hung around there, trailing after the spine launched at hyper speed. I really liked the old attack animation, and I feel blizzard has done a very poor job at the new hydralisk's ranged attack animation. It is illogical for a spine or spike traveling slow enough to be seen to have the capacity to even dent, let alone pierce powered armor, or thick plated neo steel.

 

LOL it's funny that Blizzard created the hydra and even they don't know exactly what it's like... although I agree with you, that's probably the reason.

Rebel, a few of us concluded and suggested to you that the green trailing slime was a placeholder, and that Blizzard has always intended to make the hydra attack like it does now in SC2. The graphical limitations of SC was the reason for the slime. As for such slow missiles piercing such materials, it's clear that visuals and gameplay are more important than realism and lore.

 

I beg to differ, unless blizzard themselves have confirmed this. I am pretty sure even in sc1, if blizzard wanted to they could have made a similar projectile as the sc2 version. If they could make phase disrupters, laser batteries, yamato cannons, etc, then I am sure a little spike wouldn't be anymore difficult. I would imagine the green slime trailing out is more graphically difficult to implement... your suggestions and conclusion don't really have solid ground. At any rate, how would having the green slime over the visible spike affect gameplay? Since I dare say it doesn't, wouldn't it be better to have something that is more visually appealing, and makes better sense over the opposite?

I think the reason for this is not what you claim, blizzard just did a poor job in trying to reinvent the hydra's ranged attack. Yes, even blizzard makes mistakes.

 

Your comparison of giant laser batteries and energy spheres to small spikes rendered in the poor resolution SC has (and consider dark grey/brown spines over the mud terrain, etc.) has no solid ground either
The green slime was much easier to implement as it stood out, and that was the aim. And the slime would affect gameplay in that it'd create clutter. Just imagine the same amount of trailing in SC2 as in SC, in a ball of 50 hydralisks, tightly packed because of better collission detection and pathfinding. SC is about clear-cut, sharp image so you can distinguish units and have as much control over them as possible. That is why the death animations aren't overdone, rain isn't so prevalent (or even included?), and so and so forth.

 

I don't know, if you think about it there are no attacks in SC1 that shoot slow projectiles without light, like the photon cannons, laser and missiles with fire-trails. In WC1-2 the archers looked al-right because the game was very bright but in SC everything was much darker, having arrow-like projectiles maybe looked off. It might not be a coincidence that the only "ranged" attacker the Lurker without lights on the attack was implemented only with the bright snow and dessert maps. In SC everything have also been very much open to interpretation as the in-game units differ from the cut-scene ones as well as the sketches in the manual and on Blizzard's site.

 

Actually it does. I am not sure if you understood my point... if the projectiles mentioned could be rendered in SC, then it would be no less difficult or obscuring to render something as simple as a moving spike. If you're talking about the projectile visually overlapping with mud terrain and the like, then what is the excuse for having the lurker's projectile as it was? It is obvious Blizzard meant to make the sc1 hydralisk's attack animation like that because that is how they envisioned it to look like. If you want to talk about clutter, then what about the roach's acid attack? Going by your logic, wouldn't you say the roach would cause clutter as well? Perhaps then that is why they made the hydralisk's projectile look as it does in SC2 for the roach's sake, but as I said, they did a poor, poor job at reinventing the hydralisk's attack. They could have just changed the trailing slime into a different color so it doesn't visually overlap with the roach, or just change the roach's attack.

 

I despise the roach attack animation by the way and my explanation for it would be that

• Blizzard desperately wanted to add another acid attack next to the baneling, because units eaten away by green goo looks fun (and indeed it does).

• The short range reduces the number of attacking roaches. Note how I said 50 hydralisk ball... there is no way 50 roaches could attack at the same time, so they can afford to have a more visual attack.

 

If I remember correctly... The Hydralisks were a melee unit in Starcraft 1 Beta, they changed it to range right before the game released and therefore had no time to fix the cut-scenes.

 

Really? That'd be cool to see in a sc1 format, are you able to give a video meleeing sc1 gameplay wise? =) if not its alright i guess, its been like 13 years since sc1 beta i guess =P

 

Sadly I can not. I remember reading some of these changes about 5 years ago on an old site(old site according to back then) which probably has been taken down as I remember looking for it two years later with no success.

I don't think you can even find SC1 Beta vids, most of what you'll find will be pics.

 

I think in SC1, the green stuff was more of a discharge after shooting the spines.

 

You, and me both, I don't even like the roach, period lol.

Your argument still has no solid ground by the way. Think about a mass of carriers, and how much clutter they create with all their interceptors flying around, yet a mass ball of carriers is still viable. Point is, changing the hydralisk's ranged attack to match it into something similar as its predecessors wouldn't be a big deal, just makes it look less cheesy.

 

I always thought they were spines covered in acid, thus explaining the green residue.
I have no idea where I got that from, maybe I made that up as a kid and just stuck with it.

 

Can the hydralisks attack air units in SC2?

 

Yep they can, theyre bit slower now though. No more speed upgrade.

 

"It is illogical for a spine or spike traveling slow enough to be seen to have the capacity to even dent, let alone pierce powered armor, or thick plated neo steel."

Ahh i see what you mean, this and the fact that terran units never run out of gas really told me how much of a part realism played in this game...

 

If spines hit instantly, they wouldn't be affected by Point Defense Drones. No Zerg ground unit would.
And without the goo it's pretty much required that the spines can be seen mid-air.

 

I hate roaches but they have an acid attack so it's green goo, but the hydralisk shoots spines, with don't have acid so it would make sense to me for them to shoot spines (and who the hell is bringing realism into Starcraft? You want realism find a new game, and examples, ultras accually fitting inside an overlord, (the overlord should fly so low to the ground that zerglings could attack it.) and creep speed boost, how would that even work? "oh I'm in liquid sand I guess I can now move faster", and then there's ultralisk burrow (I like the idea but as far as realism how the hell does it do it?)

and what is it with people hateing on the hydralisk?

Oh and also, the hydras old attack was explosive, therefore maybe it was an explosive chemical that they used to cover the spines. Now it's just raw damge, therefore a spine. (think of the marine attacks, they shoots spikes (same thing) and it does raw damge.

With the change of it's attack (as an evolution, which the Zerg evolve) then the hydras attack animation changed as well.