StarCraft II Q&A - Batch 34

Nope, not what they said at all. You're making assumptions to let yourself believe what you want to believe. The inability to use Escorts in every important battle isn't something told to us by Blizz, it's something you've conjured from your own imagination.

Bleeding your economy needlessly, to me, sounds like pumping Escorts outside of battle "just to be safe."

I've been playing SC for nearly the entire 10 years. Not saying that it counts for something or somehow I'm more credible. I'm saying I've seen enough of SC for long enough to know that Blizzard ain't full of morons, and that over the long course of adjusting their product, the end result is likely very satisfying.

I'm not a big Blizzard fan btw, but even I would think Blizzard wouldn't come up with such a mechanic to make it suck, especially when its benefits are clear and apparent. I imagine even the 4-Interceptor Carriers would be useful enough in very minor skirmishes. But like I said, just the fact that you can get full 8 Interceptors on all freshly produced Carriers in 4 seconds make this change a good one. 'Nuff said. And hell, I ain't even Protoss.

 

Hmm, it's true what you said about how pumping them out just to be safe would drain your economy, but that doesn't mean they aren't cheap. If they were cheap there would be no need for a time limit or anything. They're obviously pretty strong if they're designed to effectively counter Corrupters and Viking raids, and to be strong they'd have to be fairly expensive. If it's cheap enough to have at every battle, what's the point of having them replace the other four Interceptors? Might as well just keep the Interceptors. However if they are more powerful, thus more expensive, then there is a reason for them and for the timer.

 

to be honest, i do not like the medivac idea, because you cant have healing unit as a early tier

 

OMG, Hex, you really have got to stop it with the whole [make up your own words and really want to start believing it to be fact] thing.

This is what Blizzard said:

This is what you passed off as Blizzard spoken fact:

Hardly the same. Not even close. Stop drawing unfounded false conclusions.

 

The fact that they specify the Corrupter and Viking suggests that they are a good counter against both. In order to be a good counter against both, they'd have to be fairly powerful, thus fairly expensive. Regardless, in order to give it some more umph, it would have to be more expensive. Especially when taking the fact that they're temporary into consideration.
Lastly, Blizzard told us that due to their expense, they won't be able to be used at every battle. You were right in saying that having them constantly active 'just to be safe' will drain your supplies, but they've told us that using them in every battle will also drain supplies so players would have to choose which battles to use them in.

 

maybe they just cost energy and it will drain your energy supply, or your energy economy( since HT's can now transfer energy)

 

Some of the changes seem stupid IMO (some of the questions too ...), but its nice to hear from Blizzard. I think they are making the game to much Warcraft 3 like now (ability with extra attack damage (those new interceptors) etc.)

 

I agree very much. The game is also becoming automated.

 

This conversation has degraded somewhat... Just a reminder, this thread is meant for talking about latest Q&A batch, not for thinking up the worst upgrades possible. I think you guys are looking for this thread: http://www.starcraft2forum.org/forums/showthread.php?t=4375

 

No, it does not. That is merely your personal assumption.

 

Game is gonna be awesome.

 

I never said it would only be effective against Corrupters or Vikings, I said that they will be a good counter. If they weren't a good counter, they wouldn't have mentioned them at all.

 

Since when did "a little more Umph!" mean "effective counter?"

 

More 'Umph!' means it's more powerful. It's got more 'Umph!' against Vikings and Corruptors, so it's more powerful against Vikings and Corruptors. It's more powerful against them meaning it's a better counter against them. A few fully loaded Carriers were able to counter just about anything. Now that's it's got a little more 'Umph!', it's pretty safe to say to say that it will be a fairly effective counter against Vikings and Corrupters.
Besides, why would they even bother mentioning the Viking and Corruptor otherwise? What would be the point? That'd be like them saying 'Warp Ray is getting an extra damage per second per second which will make it more effective against Marines'. Well of course it's going to be more powerful than it used to be when dealing with Marines, but it's still absolutely crap against them. They're much more likely to say 'Warp Ray is getting an extra damage per second per second which will make it more effective against buildings' because that's what the new addition would be best against.

 

Do a little better against and "effectively counter" are two completely different things. You might think it's only either ineffective or effective counter, but there is an ass load of middle ground. And since everything balance wise in SC is sensitive, it does quite matter.

It's a huge difference between going from getting slaughtered to stand a good chance, and just jumping straight to plain effectively counter. Since I know you'll probably argue against this again, let me give you an example from SC1. Goliath got a fat attack range upgrade with Charon Boosters, upping it to a whopping 8. You could easily and quite honestly say that it gave Goliaths "a little more umph!" against Mutalisks, but they still do not effectively counter Mutas, not even close. Think twice before throwing out random "effective counter"s, it carries a heavy meaning in SC.

And don't take this the wrong way, but just FYI, fully loaded Carriers were NOT able to counter just about everything.