Yeah, the difficulty is a bit hard to manage. I want to have it start off easy and as a result, it can kind of be A-moved, although I personally discourage it. (There are a couple of units like Banelings which will obliterate your marines if given the chance,) which was something I tried to add more off exclusively for Brutal.
As I said, I don't care that much for the difficulty (even though it's nice to get some challenge) so long as it is well made, which it is.
Banelings.. well, I didn't record the first mission, but usually they come alone (as in 1 baneling + other units) making them easy to target fire and then just a-move the rest, the only real problem I had was fungals, because I honestly didn't expect the AI to be smart enough to use it :P Usually they just throw some odd terrans.
Bosswise (mission 1) I'd say you should lower the cleave radius and instead add something like the ravasaur acid spit to randomly target units or perhaps Silva's acid spray (like a fungal but it pools on the ground and slows instead). Obviously the spit shouldn't be a crazy over 9000 damage, but something to make people move out of the way and micro a bit, the most micro I had to do on the boss was move one marine at a time forward to avoid cleave damage.
I never thought about it having so many similarities to Liberation Day. I guess now you mention it, I can kind of see where you're going. I still do feel like Mindless Creatures has a certain uniqueness to it at some points.
Well, it's the first mission so it's quite memorable, may also be because I recently started a replay of the campaign :p
The cinematics are a shame. Horizontal shots add for such a cool effect for cinematics and you'll see me using that feature a lot in coming missions. (There's a heavy amount of it in Mission 4, which lags even for me.) I have learned from my mistakes though, and some of the later missions, I'll try to make these types of shots at an angle where the camera doesn't have to pick up that many doodads at once and perhaps that'll help.
Yeah, I mean you're used to seeing SC topdown, so seeing it from a different angle is cool, however there is no point if the game just starts lagging :F
It was fine though, I went down to 20 fps which is still watchable, but just something to keep in mind.
The medic issure for mission 2 I am well aware of. I personally nowadays don't have too much of an issue clearing the map quite fast, while still keeping her alive and well behind my forces. This occurs exclusively on Brutal though, as it's simply the way the AI is programmed to act like on that difficulty. On the other difficulties, its much easier to keep her alive. I thought of a couple of solutions. One being to add another medic specifically for Brutal difficulty. (Adding her for the others would just make this another A-move mission), or reduce the amount of enemies by a bit. I don't know how much that will help though, seeing as they'll probably focus her down anyway.
Yeah, as I said I don't have a good solution, becuase missions like these are really hard to manage, they almost always get either too easy or too hard. The only thing I'd say is perhaps add some more ambushes. Not Reapers hoping down screaming "DEATH FROM ABOOOOOOOVE" because that would just kill the medic instantly, but perhaps a door opening behind your forces which requires you to save your medic by having map awareness and the reaction/micro skills to protect.
Alternative is getting reinforcements every now and then, but it wouldn't make sense storywise (unless maybe you can have Reeves hack into certain terminals and activate zerg pens or bots/predators to fight and tank damage for you?). Alternatively alternatively; Reeves and Baldwin can't die, just get knocked down (both of them has to die at the same time to fail the mission) and after a while they revive (maybe put a limit so they can only be revived 3 times each or something, to discourage respawn abuse?) kinda like the mission "Belly of the Beast".
Also, for the love of explosives, make C4 have a longer range, because as of right now you have to run in, tank a bunch of damage, retreat and get healed, wait for the bunker to burn down and then attack. It really breaks the flow.
Also (again), adrenaline rush for Baldwin is worthless, because
It takes energy from your medics, who has to heal it up, rather than healing damaged units (since medics start with almost no energy at the beginning)
You have to cycle through and click and I know, Tab + R really isn't that hard to click, but I'd rather micro and use Reeves AoE spell than Baldwin's Adreneline Rush which makes him pewpew a bit faster
I also noticed a couple bugs when watching through your videos. Mainly, the Zerg sometimes randomly standing still at one location. They definitely shouldn't be doing that and that has never occured to me, and also the first and last incursion team stopping once they cross the bridge. They should be attacking you directly, so I'm glad I actually watched this through.
Yeah, tried drawing attention to it, at first I thought the zerglings were supposed to stop since the door didn't seem to close but that just made it too easy, don't know if you noticed, but the bridges seem to block vision, so you could exploit it when you meet the predator you can stand at the edge of the bridge and just poke it.
Of course, it's faster to just A-move into it depending on how many units you have, but still something to consider.
I also really feel bad for you. That medic caused you a lot of issues it really seemed like, and even when you were so close to finishing the mission, you end up failing, which is really unfortunate. I noticed one thing: You don't utilize saves at all. Those could probably helped you a lot. Any reason for not using that?
I usually like to go all or nothing in mission, if a I fail I can get a fresh start and not do the same mistakes, for example the medic getting killed or damaged would just have been an insta-restart anyway so I didn't see much point to saving.
I could however have saved at the base, rather than redoing the entire gauntlet just because I missread 2 gatecontrol instead of 3, but meh, I'm not in a rush anyway :F Maybe I find something else to improve or bugs to squish
Edit: Forgot to tell you, when you get locked in with the zerg and have to go unlock the door,
Edit 2: Don't know if this is an isolated case, but when I tried skipping the cinematic just after destroying the 3rd gate control, the dialogue continued and then suddenly the same cinematic started again.
Skipped the 2nd time and the camera was turned 90 degrees (looking west, rather than north), nothing serious, but kinda disorienting.
Just got done with mission 1 (on just hard, as this is the first time plaing SC2 in 2 years) and is firing up mission 2 as I'm writing this.
Very neat and good presentation - Edit: Very professional looking, however the mission is a tiny bit too tutorial-esque, phase one is basically the first mission in WoL and very straightforward, you could basically A-move through it all. Since it's the first mission I have no problem with it, especially since the difficulty is consistent and does not spike randomly. Would be kinda nice to add a miniboss or something similar on the higher difficulties, with some kiting and perhaps abilities you need to micro around.
Phase two is very similar to Zero Hour in WoL and thus I am by default needed to like it, I kinda missed the optional objectives from the aforementioned however, because it forced you to drop the cozy blanket and move out to secure additional resources and units, rather than spam marine-medic and patrol between your 3*2 bunker placements - the small base also makes it easier to move your units around. I guess the 'destroy the nydus' was the compromise, but since it's pretty close to your base it doesn't pose that much of a threat.
Also, during cinematics when the camera is pointing sideways, rather than topdown, my computer tanks heavily and goes from 200 to 20 fps because of the doodads, not a major problem since gameplay is fine, but just a little note (terrain still looks really good and professional).
It's the first mission though, so I take it mostly as an introduction, but yeah very well made and enjoyable.
MISSION 2
Should be renamed 'MEDIC!!!!'
Phase one requires you to keep your medic alive (on Brutal) or you stand no chance at all, no idea really how it could be improved, but basically all you have to do is keep your medic behind (since enemies will target her if she's too close) and move slowly forward, some units (as you can see my ) completely miss you (don't know if it's intentional) so you can just wait in a corner and AoE them with Reeves when they run past.
Phase 2 is pretty straightforward (but in my own ineptitude I wasn't paying attention and thought you only had to destroy 2 gatecontrols and thus lost).
However - as with every terran mission - it's easy to just spam marine/medic and roflstomp.
Still very well made and enjoyable to play, don't actually care that much about difficulty (as long as it's not just A-move).
Second mission, the one after you've destroyed the 3rd gate control and Rhik is being a lil shit.
As I said, I don't care that much for the difficulty (even though it's nice to get some challenge) so long as it is well made, which it is. Banelings.. well, I didn't record the first mission, but usually they come alone (as in 1 baneling + other units) making them easy to target fire and then just a-move the rest, the only real problem I had was fungals, because I honestly didn't expect the AI to be smart enough to use it :P Usually they just throw some odd terrans.
Bosswise (mission 1) I'd say you should lower the cleave radius and instead add something like the ravasaur acid spit to randomly target units or perhaps Silva's acid spray (like a fungal but it pools on the ground and slows instead). Obviously the spit shouldn't be a crazy over 9000 damage, but something to make people move out of the way and micro a bit, the most micro I had to do on the boss was move one marine at a time forward to avoid cleave damage.
Well, it's the first mission so it's quite memorable, may also be because I recently started a replay of the campaign :p
Yeah, I mean you're used to seeing SC topdown, so seeing it from a different angle is cool, however there is no point if the game just starts lagging :F It was fine though, I went down to 20 fps which is still watchable, but just something to keep in mind.
Yeah, as I said I don't have a good solution, becuase missions like these are really hard to manage, they almost always get either too easy or too hard. The only thing I'd say is perhaps add some more ambushes. Not Reapers hoping down screaming "DEATH FROM ABOOOOOOOVE" because that would just kill the medic instantly, but perhaps a door opening behind your forces which requires you to save your medic by having map awareness and the reaction/micro skills to protect.
Alternative is getting reinforcements every now and then, but it wouldn't make sense storywise (unless maybe you can have Reeves hack into certain terminals and activate zerg pens or bots/predators to fight and tank damage for you?). Alternatively alternatively; Reeves and Baldwin can't die, just get knocked down (both of them has to die at the same time to fail the mission) and after a while they revive (maybe put a limit so they can only be revived 3 times each or something, to discourage respawn abuse?) kinda like the mission "Belly of the Beast".
Also, for the love of explosives, make C4 have a longer range, because as of right now you have to run in, tank a bunch of damage, retreat and get healed, wait for the bunker to burn down and then attack. It really breaks the flow.
Also (again), adrenaline rush for Baldwin is worthless, because
Yeah, tried drawing attention to it, at first I thought the zerglings were supposed to stop since the door didn't seem to close but that just made it too easy, don't know if you noticed, but the bridges seem to block vision, so you could exploit it when you meet the predator you can stand at the edge of the bridge and just poke it. Of course, it's faster to just A-move into it depending on how many units you have, but still something to consider.
I usually like to go all or nothing in mission, if a I fail I can get a fresh start and not do the same mistakes, for example the medic getting killed or damaged would just have been an insta-restart anyway so I didn't see much point to saving.
I could however have saved at the base, rather than redoing the entire gauntlet just because I missread 2 gatecontrol instead of 3, but meh, I'm not in a rush anyway :F Maybe I find something else to improve or bugs to squish
Edit: Forgot to tell you, when you get locked in with the zerg and have to go unlock the door,
Edit 2: Don't know if this is an isolated case, but when I tried skipping the cinematic just after destroying the 3rd gate control, the dialogue continued and then suddenly the same cinematic started again. Skipped the 2nd time and the camera was turned 90 degrees (looking west, rather than north), nothing serious, but kinda disorienting.
Just got done with mission 1 (on just hard, as this is the first time plaing SC2 in 2 years) and is firing up mission 2 as I'm writing this.
Very neat and good presentation - Edit: Very professional looking, however the mission is a tiny bit too tutorial-esque, phase one is basically the first mission in WoL and very straightforward, you could basically A-move through it all. Since it's the first mission I have no problem with it, especially since the difficulty is consistent and does not spike randomly. Would be kinda nice to add a miniboss or something similar on the higher difficulties, with some kiting and perhaps abilities you need to micro around.
Phase two is very similar to Zero Hour in WoL and thus I am by default needed to like it, I kinda missed the optional objectives from the aforementioned however, because it forced you to drop the cozy blanket and move out to secure additional resources and units, rather than spam marine-medic and patrol between your 3*2 bunker placements - the small base also makes it easier to move your units around. I guess the 'destroy the nydus' was the compromise, but since it's pretty close to your base it doesn't pose that much of a threat.
Also, during cinematics when the camera is pointing sideways, rather than topdown, my computer tanks heavily and goes from 200 to 20 fps because of the doodads, not a major problem since gameplay is fine, but just a little note (terrain still looks really good and professional).
It's the first mission though, so I take it mostly as an introduction, but yeah very well made and enjoyable.
MISSION 2
Should be renamed 'MEDIC!!!!' Phase one requires you to keep your medic alive (on Brutal) or you stand no chance at all, no idea really how it could be improved, but basically all you have to do is keep your medic behind (since enemies will target her if she's too close) and move slowly forward, some units (as you can see my ) completely miss you (don't know if it's intentional) so you can just wait in a corner and AoE them with Reeves when they run past.
Phase 2 is pretty straightforward (but in my own ineptitude I wasn't paying attention and thought you only had to destroy 2 gatecontrols and thus lost). However - as with every terran mission - it's easy to just spam marine/medic and roflstomp.
Still very well made and enjoyable to play, don't actually care that much about difficulty (as long as it's not just A-move).