StarCraft II Q&A Batch 29

[img width=500 height=100]http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a246/J0neagle/qna29.jpg[/img]​

With the week-end coming up, we'd like to present to you the latest edition of our StarCraft II Q&A! This week Karune is up against a bunker rush and we got some new questions from our fansites. Enjoy!

Gameplay Blog: This week Karune had to learn the hard way a change in our latest build of StarCraft II, which the Devs conveniently forgot to tell him about. As Protoss, he did his standard dual Gateway build, scouting to find that a lone SCV building a bunker outside of my base. In his mind, he thought, OK- a standard bunker rush, no problem! Build 2 Zealots and then hit the Bunker.
As it was a small 2 player map, his opponent was able to bring in a single Marine and Medic very soon, especially with the SCV repairing the Bunker at a very fast rate. As he repaired, Karune chased the SCV around the Bunker and attacked the Bunker with his other Zealots. To his disbelief, the Medic inside the Bunker was healing the SCV outside of the Bunker. Soon enough, another SCV showed up to repair the Bunker, as well as a Marauder, slowing Karunes Zealots before they could reach the Bunker. At this point he had lost his initial two Zealots, but he had built four more. At the same time, Karunes opponent now had a Marauder, Medic, and Marine, with 2 SCVs guarding the Bunker. These SCVs were impossible to kill since they were both running around the Bunker, being healed at the same time, while his Zealots were slowed and shot at by the Bunker. When they attacked the Bunker, the SCVs repaired the Bunker. Needless to say, the standard Bunker rush is not so standard anymore. With Terrans Salvage ability, being able to deconstruct Terran buildings for 100% of the cost back, adds to the devastating effect of a StarCraft II Bunker push. On top of that, adding a Ghost in the Bunker, allows for Sniping within the Bunker, as well as huge range, making it an effect pushing structure before you tech to Siege Tanks. Karunes thoughts: "Thanks for letting me know guys " GG.


1. Do the Terrans currently have a purely dedicated anti-air unit filling the role of the Wraith and Goliath? (sc2pod.com)
No, the Terran Viking is currently their primary anti-air unit, which is built from the Factory. The Viking can currently shoot both ground and air when in ground mode, and is able to transform into an air to air fighter, for better mobility and economy raids.

2. Do the Auto Turrets built by the Nomad attack randomly like the bunkers in the original StarCraft or will the player be able to choose the target similar to the Missile Tower? (broodwar.de)
Auto Turrets can be controlled by the player as if it were a stationary unit. You can both group them and focus fire with them. When they are not given an order, they will fire at the nearest enemy within range.
The Nomads second construction option, which is the Mine Drone, will not be able to be controlled by the player as easily. The Mine Drone is a stationary defense structure, which places four mines around it, and then immediately cloaks both the mines and the structure. Similar to the Spider Mines from the original StarCraft, these mines will wreck havoc on an incoming army without the ability to see cloaked units. The mines do a base damage of 50 plus an additional 50 damage to armored units. On top of that, the Mine Drone replaces the mines after they detonate, temporarily revealing the Mine Drone structure. Similar to the Auto Turret, both of these structures will cost energy to build from the Nomad, and will have a very minimum setup time.

3. With the Reaver removed, and his siege role moved to the Warp Ray, what will take his splash role? (TheWarCenter.net)
The Protoss Colossus now has a linear splash damage beam attack, which blazes enemies in a horizontal area of effect, from where the Colossus is facing. Like all area of effect attacks, the Colossuss beam is excellent at annihilating close groups of M&Ms (Marines and Medics) and mass Zealots.

4. With water featured on some of your maps, will this allow modders to try new game ideas that may make use of water? (StarCraftZone.com)
This should be possible, though much of this experimentation will have to be left up to the modders. I am sure there will be amazing mod creations the community will come up with.

5. What is the status of SCIIs AI? (sclegacy.com)
StarCraft IIs AI (artificial intelligence) is definitely superior to Brood War in many ways, though most notably, the AI does a great deal more of scouting, and makes decisions according to what it has found during those scouting missions. Unsuccessful scouting missions, similar to what a player might experience would tend to lead towards a more standard type of army build or continued scouting.

400 Mineral Bonus for a News Post

 

Great batch, but...

"The Viking can currently shoot both ground and air when in ground mode"
IS THIS A JOKE? I guess we won't need a Goliath replacement anymore...

Medics healing things outside their bunkers=awesome.
And the Salvage ability is back! Wohoo!

 

I didn't even know salvage was taken out.. And I am pretty sure that they will change the Vikings role back, I don't like the ground to air attack idea, unless they really don't want to create an other unit.

 

I think the Mine Drone is excellent! I really like that idea!
And the ability to heal while in the bunkers is also great! But is it a little overpowered?

 

There should be a limitation, or the medics should hela outside units slower.

And by reading the Q&A again, I am not sure if modders should be allowed to create stuff using the water... This is useless for SC. "ships" duh..

 

Abilities able to be activated from inside a bunker? HELLS YEAH

I also like the mine structure. One of the annyying thing about spider mines was when somone hit your minefield it was gone and you hade to buy new vultures

 

I'm happy about the Viking ground to air attack

Mine ability...hm...I think it sounds a bit funny.

 

Being able to use abilities with units inside a bunker sounds promising, but if they keep the rate of healing the medic has in BW then it's going to be annoying and overpowered.

Despite the fact that the game is not even in alpha stage, how can Blizzard come up with such a ridiculously overpowered ability as salvage? It's a good feature, both handy and makes sense lore-wise but COME ON, I know it's the future, but there is no way you can get back 100% of anything you deconstruct, and that's only the flaw in the lore. Gameplay-wise, it'd mean a continuously advancing worm of bunkers which would be unstoppable.
Psh, talk about Protoss being too powerful...

 

Using abilities from inside a bunker should be a no-brainer: of COURSE it should happen. It's ridiculous to think that "oh now that I'm in a bunker I can't heal." I think that opens up so many more strategy options, and of course there will be ways to counter it so don't get your panties in a bunch.

What is a bit interesting to me is that medics can heal scvs, which i thought were people strapped into a sort of mechanical suit. Destroy the mechanical suit, the scv is powerless to operate. I'm not sure how medics heal machinery. I would think that scvs can heal scvs.

As for this:

Gimme a break. First of all, you CAN get back 100% of things you deconstruct. It just depends on how you build it. If you build it with the idea that you may dissasemble it, AND with the idea that you have multiple machines operating on similar mechanical properties... I don't see any reason why you can't decontruct buildings and get 100% resources back. But besides that: chill out. Blizzard is testing stuff.

Plus, I think of the Undead in Warcraft III. They could unsummon buildings and get gold back, but it's not like people used it. There were certain situations, yeah, but it wasn't something that was spammed because of the time that it took. I don't think Blizzard is going to make it possible to just *blink* a building into resources. There's lots of stuff to consider: maybe the building doesn't work while being deconstructed; maybe it takes more damage while being deconstructed.

Overall, I think it's a very cool ability that adds to the Terran's gameplay of mobility and quick adaptation.

 

using abilities inside a bunker is fine, but healing a unit that's outside? Like, through the window? I thought bunkers should only have small holes you can shoot through, no way a medic could heal anything through that.
And that's not to mention healing a unit on the move which would require moving from window to window... that's just wrong

 

Everything in this batch was amazing. Only thing I find stupid is the Viking attacking air in ground mode.
Things they should change:
Viking attacking air in ground form. We'd prefer the Predator and them attacking in group form eliminates that primary need to have the air viking.
Medics should heal slower when in a building, or it will end up being special forces map for Terrans.

 

really cool, but two things kind of bother me.
First, the viking attacking air in ground mode... to me this is kind of useless... but not too bad.
Second, the mine drone... i just sounds like a very strange idea. looks like the nomad will be like no longer relate to science anymore.

 

I also agree that the Viking ground form's ability to attack air is no good. I really liked having to transform depending on the situation. Not to mention that Terrans STILL need another anti-air unit! Giving the ground Viking anti-air capabilities doesn't count.

The Mine Drone is awesome. No issues there. I believe the idea was even mentioned in our discussion about the Nomad's turrets funnily enough.

Finally, Bunkers are going to be crazy for the Terrans. While I think using abilities in it should be fine, Medics should not be able to heal outside. Lore-wise it doesn't make sense, and could be overpowered. But I guess we'll see.

All in all though a great Q & A. I'm glad Blizzard seems to be giving us a weekly update again!

 

viking able to attack in air while in ground mode? this is one of the worst changes. viking will be imba and MASS produce in most games or maybe all games, the viking in the current state is a mulitpurpose or most usefull unit in sc2 so far (like goons and hydra) and its not a good thing in balancing units. and plus giving them ground to air attacks loses its characteristics as a versatile unit that can switch and transform on the go depending on the situations. plus why are there still no current ATA terran unit? are they really serious making the viking the main terran ATA unit? IMO it would suck lorewise, the viking is BIG, shoots missiles(bad thing for a main ATA ship), and can transform to ground mode.

terran needs small fast ATA fighters just like the predator. karune, what happened and where is the predator? it was a very well designed and interesting ATA unit.

terran seems to be 10x more defensive now in sc2 its a good thing but these defensives mechanics can be use in an offensive assualt(bunker rush with M&M&M&G inside, nomad drops, mines, etc.) which i think will be use more often by pro games etc. and with that things like the bc and thor will be rarely use same as it was in sc1 to win games. my solution for this is to make a new stronger static base defenses for the toss and zerg to counter light but effefctive harrasing from bunker, nomads drop etc. so with that the terran will force to create tanks, bc, banshee, or thor to destroy the hardened enemy base and to win the battle.

i still dont like the idea of pro games winning with only using tier 1 to tier 1.5 units in MOST games. i hope to see that tier 2 and tier 3 units use in 7 of 10 games in pro games. and how is that possible? no need to nerf the low tier units and mechanics, but just make a new static defensive (building) counter for these light early tier attacks. like a self destructing 3 near powered pylons. and yes the phase canon looks gay and weak. im thinking zerg or toss can get an early tier 1.8 air unit that can attack ground and be safe from marauders and mines early game. with that terran might go for viking or tanks then the toss goes for phoenix which will make the terran feel to make predator or bc, by this time the toss already ahve some colossus while the terran start making thor. there, most heavy tier units are used.

 

Wrong. If you wanted to deconstruct a building to its very basic material, which could then be used to create something totally different (e.g., salvage a bunker to create marines), it would take a lot of work/money/energy/whatever to do it. That can only be expressed in mineral and gas loss, which would be the difference between the original building cost and the resources you get back after deconstruction..

 

No point complicating things there, but I think it shouldn't be 100% anyway. 80-90% would work better as it would make sure Terrans do not become less attentive to their building positions since they could simply move it, also makes more sense lorewise.

 

Kuvasz you are forgetting another factor time.... Buildings take time to build and I am pretty sure time to deconstruct, thats were that loss is fealt I would guess. As for the Viking having a GtA attack I think its fine because it most likely isn't nearly as powerful as its AtA attack also I would doupt the ground attack gets its bonus v. capital ships.

 

^ What Zergalicious said ^ Salvage can't stay in its current state, period.

 

So can all abilities be activated inside a bunker, or just heal?

That was a really good batch.

 

Btw some info on salvage, I read somewhere if you/another thing cancels a building which is in the process of salvaging you lose minerals or something. (don't ask where as if I knew I'd quote and link you to the source, although I'm pretty sure it was and still is on bnet.)