I've been the kind of guy who never studies but always passes. It's never really been a problem for me ever since I stopped caring about getting high grades. I get grades of 75-85 all the time now and it doesn't bother me anymore.
So the biggest change between this version and the last version is that I can no longer lift up my Factory which basically means I have to play this mission as it is intended.
Originally, I was going to use Vultures and Widow Mines. The idea was to pull enemies into the Widow Mines and slow push with a small group of fast cheap units.
Upon trying this out, it becomes very clear the moment I push out that it will not work. And to seal the deal even further, Edhriano explained how the attack waves work.
The AI doesn't really send attack waves your way. There are just enemies on the map that will be rebuilt as soon as you kill them. My strategy of pulling enemies into Widow Mine explosives will work up to a point. After pushing past that point, there are just so many enemies coming at you that the Widow Mines' won't have enough shots to kill everything. With their 20 second attack cooldown, it just isn't viable.
Instead, I did this map the normal way and pushed with Bio-Tank. A little bit boring, yes, but at least it can't be cheesed the way I did in the previous video.
Another change I pointed out was with the Hybrid Behemoth near the boss door. I think its vision radius or something was increased so using Snipe on it will now draw aggression.
One small change that I didn't comment on is that Stukov's color scheme is now green. Not the same bright shade of green as in Heart of the Swarm but close enough.
So far, a solid but breakable map was made more solid than it was previously. It'll be really hard to break this one. Great work, Edhriano.
So, I played the mission but sorta fucked myself over.
Halfway into the mission, there were a bunch of expos I could take but none of them had space to actually put a Nexus on. By the time I realized I needed a warp prism to complete the mission, I was already mined out with not enough minerals to do anything at all. My army was huge and nigh unbeatable but completely useless in the end since I still couldn't finish the objective. I had to reload a save.
Perhaps make it clear that this is, in fact, not a destroy-everything map.
Also, there was a sudden massive lag spike right as I went to free the preserver. My rig was running at 10 fps on medium settings. It lasted for about until the preserver was freed
I could not click enemy units to see their stats. I wanted to decide what would be a more optimal army so I can do more damage to certain attributes
I can't click the mineral patches to see the amount remaining
Many of your gameplay settings might have gotten reset when you tested the map. It's a common that people will have to re-toggle Enable Enemy Unit Selection and untoggle Enable Simple Command Card in their gameplay options. This has been a problem since the start and doesn't seem like it can be fixed. The weird thing is sometimes it resets, some times it doesn't. It's really annoying like that.
Also, this mission is part of a campaign whose primary draw is challenging micro-intensive missions with boss fights. This mission is literally the only one with a macro section that's currently released. All the others were micro missions. That being said, the use of hotkeys is kinda necessary for all of them.
Your suggestions for making it easier aren't unfounded, though. Casual difficulty should be easier. Having the boss be just as micro intensive on easy as it is on hard makes the difficulty selection kinda pointless.
If that's the case then my strategy doesn't really work with the difficulty. I killed the Hives before pushing into the bases so there was no way they could rebuild.
Edit
Earlier into the video I said I had a strategy I wanted to try but that wasn't the factory lifting that I ended up doing.
The planned strategy was actually using 4-6 reapers to lure a bunch of zerg in range of 6 or more Widow Mines. I realize that Vultures are also a viable option for this strategy so I might end up doing that instead once that factory thing is fixed
The factory thing, you can make the cliffs unpathable or just remove the lift-off ability entirely. As for me killing those NPCs, it's just the Half Life 2 dilemma. I had control during a cutscene and got bored of the dialogue. Next time, just don't give the player control.
No fix for that Hydralisk model, huh? That's unfortunate.
I actually had 14 retries. I stopped commentating after the first few deaths and really analyzed the boss. I regularly play bullet hell games and recognizing and exploiting patterns has been hammered into my brain at this point. Your boss's attack were fairly simple all things considered. I only really needed to deal with one projectile at a time as opposed to a screen full of them.
Edit
Just to add, maybe make the tech lab upgrades for the Widow Mine available for research? And possibly some of the campaign upgrades for the Medic, Vulture and Goliath as well?
So this is an interesting mission to play. While I was playing mostly blind, I did get a good look at the terrain before I played. I made good use of that knowledge on my second attempt at the macro section. Just watch the video to find out what I did. Edhriano, since I know you're watching, I hope my strategy amuses you. Get to work on fixing that.
Next up is the micro section. Fairly easy, but mostly because I was playing on normal. My biggest gripe with this section is the hotkeys. They're all on different buttons. While I am completely fine with hotkeys being different between individual macro units, having heroes with weirdly placed hotkeys really fucks me up. I had to switch to grid to even be able to play. Honestly, it would have been easier if all of them were mapped to the Z, X, C, V, B keys. It'd be so much more convenient.
Another little inconvenience is that Hydralik hero's model. Sometimes I'm clicking right on it but it won't select. I have to click a little bit lower or to the side to be able to select it. I have the same problem when targeting Void Trashers in the LotV Epilogue. If there is a way to fix that, please do so.
Minor gripe, lots of vertical and horizontal terrain. Starcraft's aesthetic design favors isometric terrain more. You some how make it work but I do believe that angling your cliffs will make your maps look better.
The boss fight is a memorization boss which I don't like. Luckily, it goes by fast.Once you get the pattern down, it's not much of a bother.
I got really lost during the micro section but it's more my problem than the map's or mapmakers. It was a matter of observation and the way to go was right under my nose.
Overall, pretty fun map. I'm probably the first person to break this map. Granted, I go out of my way to break them so it's not surprising. In any case, good job Edhriano. Very clean
By all means do it. Just remember, when you start a project, you should finish it. I know what it's like when ideas just hit you and you drop everything to do that new thing. What ends up happening is your unfinished projects start piling up and now you have a bunch of stuff to finish with ideas and concepts that you don't remember or understand anymore
I was going for something akin to a trial or court marshal but with robot aliens in space. And if this were to be playable, It'd have to be scaled up. As it stands, it's way too small to work as actual playable terrain. It'd make for an interesting installation mission, though. Busting into a Purifier military compound with a crack team of Protoss warriors to rescue Fenix. It'd be like Trial of Tassadar except not macro.
What many people don't realize is that OPM is partly a parody of super hero stories in general. The fact that his power is literally to kill things in one punch is the joke.
Well, since this turned into a sort of anime recommendation thread, I guess I'll post a couple I think people should at least try (not counting the ones others have recommended)
Death Parade (2015) | Fantasy Drama | 12 Episodes | Mad House
My friend I have watched a lot of anime and I know exactly what I like. Judging by the shows you people are posting, very few of them would be appealing to you.
How on earth can you people recommend SAO to people, especially the second season. The Phantom Bullet arc was the most boring padded train wreck I've seen to completion in years.
As for FMA, well if you've watched it you'll know how good it is. I also recommend that anime, the Brotherhood adaptation more so than the 2003 adaptation
0
@DOOMEDEARTH: Go
@ksnumedia: Go
I've been the kind of guy who never studies but always passes. It's never really been a problem for me ever since I stopped caring about getting high grades. I get grades of 75-85 all the time now and it doesn't bother me anymore.
0
New Video Up
So the biggest change between this version and the last version is that I can no longer lift up my Factory which basically means I have to play this mission as it is intended.
Originally, I was going to use Vultures and Widow Mines. The idea was to pull enemies into the Widow Mines and slow push with a small group of fast cheap units.
Upon trying this out, it becomes very clear the moment I push out that it will not work. And to seal the deal even further, Edhriano explained how the attack waves work.
The AI doesn't really send attack waves your way. There are just enemies on the map that will be rebuilt as soon as you kill them. My strategy of pulling enemies into Widow Mine explosives will work up to a point. After pushing past that point, there are just so many enemies coming at you that the Widow Mines' won't have enough shots to kill everything. With their 20 second attack cooldown, it just isn't viable.
Instead, I did this map the normal way and pushed with Bio-Tank. A little bit boring, yes, but at least it can't be cheesed the way I did in the previous video.
Another change I pointed out was with the Hybrid Behemoth near the boss door. I think its vision radius or something was increased so using Snipe on it will now draw aggression.
One small change that I didn't comment on is that Stukov's color scheme is now green. Not the same bright shade of green as in Heart of the Swarm but close enough.
So far, a solid but breakable map was made more solid than it was previously. It'll be really hard to break this one. Great work, Edhriano.
0
@ksnumedia: Go
So, I played the mission but sorta fucked myself over.
Halfway into the mission, there were a bunch of expos I could take but none of them had space to actually put a Nexus on. By the time I realized I needed a warp prism to complete the mission, I was already mined out with not enough minerals to do anything at all. My army was huge and nigh unbeatable but completely useless in the end since I still couldn't finish the objective. I had to reload a save.
Perhaps make it clear that this is, in fact, not a destroy-everything map.
Also, there was a sudden massive lag spike right as I went to free the preserver. My rig was running at 10 fps on medium settings. It lasted for about until the preserver was freed
0
Many of your gameplay settings might have gotten reset when you tested the map. It's a common that people will have to re-toggle Enable Enemy Unit Selection and untoggle Enable Simple Command Card in their gameplay options. This has been a problem since the start and doesn't seem like it can be fixed. The weird thing is sometimes it resets, some times it doesn't. It's really annoying like that.
Also, this mission is part of a campaign whose primary draw is challenging micro-intensive missions with boss fights. This mission is literally the only one with a macro section that's currently released. All the others were micro missions. That being said, the use of hotkeys is kinda necessary for all of them.
Your suggestions for making it easier aren't unfounded, though. Casual difficulty should be easier. Having the boss be just as micro intensive on easy as it is on hard makes the difficulty selection kinda pointless.
0
@EDHRIANO: Go
If that's the case then my strategy doesn't really work with the difficulty. I killed the Hives before pushing into the bases so there was no way they could rebuild.
Edit
Earlier into the video I said I had a strategy I wanted to try but that wasn't the factory lifting that I ended up doing.
The planned strategy was actually using 4-6 reapers to lure a bunch of zerg in range of 6 or more Widow Mines. I realize that Vultures are also a viable option for this strategy so I might end up doing that instead once that factory thing is fixed
0
@deltronLive: Go
If there is literally no difference between the difficulties except for starting units and boss health then consider it a placebo. A confidence boost.
0
@EDHRIANO: Go
The factory thing, you can make the cliffs unpathable or just remove the lift-off ability entirely. As for me killing those NPCs, it's just the Half Life 2 dilemma. I had control during a cutscene and got bored of the dialogue. Next time, just don't give the player control.
No fix for that Hydralisk model, huh? That's unfortunate.
I actually had 14 retries. I stopped commentating after the first few deaths and really analyzed the boss. I regularly play bullet hell games and recognizing and exploiting patterns has been hammered into my brain at this point. Your boss's attack were fairly simple all things considered. I only really needed to deal with one projectile at a time as opposed to a screen full of them.
Edit
Just to add, maybe make the tech lab upgrades for the Widow Mine available for research? And possibly some of the campaign upgrades for the Medic, Vulture and Goliath as well?
0
Feedback
So this is an interesting mission to play. While I was playing mostly blind, I did get a good look at the terrain before I played. I made good use of that knowledge on my second attempt at the macro section. Just watch the video to find out what I did. Edhriano, since I know you're watching, I hope my strategy amuses you. Get to work on fixing that.
Next up is the micro section. Fairly easy, but mostly because I was playing on normal. My biggest gripe with this section is the hotkeys. They're all on different buttons. While I am completely fine with hotkeys being different between individual macro units, having heroes with weirdly placed hotkeys really fucks me up. I had to switch to grid to even be able to play. Honestly, it would have been easier if all of them were mapped to the Z, X, C, V, B keys. It'd be so much more convenient.
Another little inconvenience is that Hydralik hero's model. Sometimes I'm clicking right on it but it won't select. I have to click a little bit lower or to the side to be able to select it. I have the same problem when targeting Void Trashers in the LotV Epilogue. If there is a way to fix that, please do so.
Minor gripe, lots of vertical and horizontal terrain. Starcraft's aesthetic design favors isometric terrain more. You some how make it work but I do believe that angling your cliffs will make your maps look better.
The boss fight is a memorization boss which I don't like. Luckily, it goes by fast.Once you get the pattern down, it's not much of a bother.
I got really lost during the micro section but it's more my problem than the map's or mapmakers. It was a matter of observation and the way to go was right under my nose.
Overall, pretty fun map. I'm probably the first person to break this map. Granted, I go out of my way to break them so it's not surprising. In any case, good job Edhriano. Very clean
0
@ksnumedia: Go
By all means do it. Just remember, when you start a project, you should finish it. I know what it's like when ideas just hit you and you drop everything to do that new thing. What ends up happening is your unfinished projects start piling up and now you have a bunch of stuff to finish with ideas and concepts that you don't remember or understand anymore
0
@Mozared: Go
I was going for something akin to a trial or court marshal but with robot aliens in space. And if this were to be playable, It'd have to be scaled up. As it stands, it's way too small to work as actual playable terrain. It'd make for an interesting installation mission, though. Busting into a Purifier military compound with a crack team of Protoss warriors to rescue Fenix. It'd be like Trial of Tassadar except not macro.
0
@Mozared: Go
I took your suggestions into consideration
0
Jumping on the bandwagon. Here's an hour or two of work. Not a lot of doodads. Still trying to get the hang of things
0
@EDHRIANO: Go
What many people don't realize is that OPM is partly a parody of super hero stories in general. The fact that his power is literally to kill things in one punch is the joke.
0
Well, since this turned into a sort of anime recommendation thread, I guess I'll post a couple I think people should at least try (not counting the ones others have recommended)
That's probably a good selection of shows I like that I think others would like as well. Take your pick
0
@TheSC2Maniac: Go
My friend I have watched a lot of anime and I know exactly what I like. Judging by the shows you people are posting, very few of them would be appealing to you.
@ksnumedia: Go
How on earth can you people recommend SAO to people, especially the second season. The Phantom Bullet arc was the most boring padded train wreck I've seen to completion in years.
As for FMA, well if you've watched it you'll know how good it is. I also recommend that anime, the Brotherhood adaptation more so than the 2003 adaptation