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That's an interesting observation that I hadn't thought about before. Another interesting thing, to me anyway, is that for Starcraft 1 allowed for upgrades whic

by suby 5y ago

That's an interesting observation that I hadn't thought about before. Another interesting thing, to me anyway, is that for Starcraft 1 allowed for upgrades which improved the utility of your early game units. In other words your early game units are some of the strongest units in the game, just not by default. For example the Zergling could be upgraded 3 times for a stronger attack, 3 times for stronger defense, once for movement speed, and late game an upgrade for increasing attack speed. But you can hardly have death balls because of the 12 unit selection cap you mentioned. Plus you wouldn't want to have death balls of a single unit because units were designed to work well together, ie: zerglings paired with defilers / lurkers.

azemetre 5y ago
There are many things that went in favor of SC1 versus SC2. Your workers had different HP, acceleration, and speed; this made each races economy slightly different (you could get away with a different amount of workers). You had high ground mechanics, where units on the low ground had a 50% chance at missing their shot. The unit selection, as you stated. The units for each race WERE broken and unbalanced. Lurkers were insane, siege units were, reavers were insane, etc; but every race had strong powerful units so it "felt" fair. It was the culmination of all the little things that led to a great game that is still played professionally today, over the span of 20 years. In fact, there's a great tournament that just started recently called the Afreeca Star League. You can see the games on youtube (randoming jumping into the middle of one): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpYBYN4fuA0#t=56m0s&ab_channel=AfreecaTVeSports https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpYBYN4fuA0#t=56m0s&ab_chann...
- chii 5y ago
  > The unit selection, as you stated i'm not sure the unit selection cap was a game design choice - i recall it was a technical limitation added to the game so that the AI pathing could work properly (if you had unlimited unit selection, the pathing could take too long to run). But it turns out, this limitation also made the skill-cap of the game higher, and more fun in competitive mode.
  - lmm 5y ago
    That's a matter of opinion. For my friend group it felt like "fake difficulty", where you're fighting the controls more than your opponent, so we stuck to other games (mainly Total Annihilation and then Supreme Commander).

by suby 5y ago

azemetre 5y ago

There are many things that went in favor of SC1 versus SC2. Your workers had different HP, acceleration, and speed; this made each races economy slightly different (you could get away with a different amount of workers). You had high ground mechanics, where units on the low ground had a 50% chance at missing their shot. The unit selection, as you stated. The units for each race WERE broken and unbalanced. Lurkers were insane, siege units were, reavers were insane, etc; but every race had strong powerful units so it "felt" fair. It was the culmination of all the little things that led to a great game that is still played professionally today, over the span of 20 years. In fact, there's a great tournament that just started recently called the Afreeca Star League. You can see the games on youtube (randoming jumping into the middle of one): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpYBYN4fuA0#t=56m0s&ab_channel=AfreecaTVeSports https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpYBYN4fuA0#t=56m0s&ab_chann...

chii 5y ago
> The unit selection, as you stated i'm not sure the unit selection cap was a game design choice - i recall it was a technical limitation added to the game so that the AI pathing could work properly (if you had unlimited unit selection, the pathing could take too long to run). But it turns out, this limitation also made the skill-cap of the game higher, and more fun in competitive mode.
- lmm 5y ago
  That's a matter of opinion. For my friend group it felt like "fake difficulty", where you're fighting the controls more than your opponent, so we stuck to other games (mainly Total Annihilation and then Supreme Commander).