Warcraft 3 Redux

Games
1

Just wondering if people here are playing this on a regular basis? I’m hooked, even though I’m a huge loser. I started ok, going .500 for my first 12 games, but since then I’m batting around .100 (this coincided with me playing 3v3s with orcs rather than humans). Anyway, I feel like I’m slowly getting better, and I’m trying to play with the same style I played Sacrifice: constant and continuous motion. Not really ‘twitch’ like a FPS (shut it Wumpus), but more like a gardner pruning this wildly growing bush that he can’t visually see the whole thing at once so that it must be mentally assessed and adjusted constantly. Like that.

But, beyond the regular RTS thingy, I really like WC3 because its well balanced, looks bootiful, is rock solid on my system, and has enough variety of units and strategies (if the initial rushes don’t push one side off the board).

Are Qt3ers playing this, or are they too bored with this year’s model of the same old car?

2

I’ve been playing W3 a lot in the past few weeks. The four races and the units are the biggest draw, I’m having a lot of fun trying differnet combinations and seeing what they can do. Of course, I get crushed on BNet, but once you decide that your record doesn’t matter, you can have a lot of fun.

I started playing as Night Elves, but I think so many people have been burned by the huntress rush that when they see NE they do everything they can to crush you right out of the gate. Switching to random gives me a bit of a surprise element and I also have more fun because I’m not always building the same units in the same order.

That said, I have a number of problems with this game:

*The interface blows. Chris Taylor nailed it with Total Annihilation and nobody has come close in five years. I hate how Blizzard puts these artificial limitations in to try and force me to play their way (selecting no more than 12 units at a time, only seeing a small part of the map, shady command queuing [sp?], the list goes on).

*Why do they allow you to create as many accounts as you want? There are a number of people (a large number) who create accounts at will and then do things they would do in their own account because it would ruin their record (attacking teammates, etc).

*I really like the idea of the creeps, but I don’t like how they are always in the same places. Also, they don’t even move, they just sit there. You can open the maps with the map editor, learn where they are, which some players have done to give them a great advantage.

So in the end, Total Annihilation is still my favorite, but W3 has enough neat things going on to keep me playing (heroes, creeps, and the fantastically diverse and well designed units). Oh yeah, and it’s “fun” ;)

3

I play on Battle.net as often as time allows. I play as undead exclusively because I’m trying to stay competitive, though a lot of the players around my level range have gotten really, really good. I’m never at a loss for serious competition. I usually play in 2on2 or even 3on3 arranged team matches with a couple of my colleagues. The arranged team option never ceases to amaze me.

Some balance issues have cropped up that I’m looking forward to seeing addressed in a patch. It’s nothing so serious that it lets a player of lower skill beat a superior player, but certainly, I wouldn’t mind seeing orc shamans toned down a bit.

I love how matches in this game, even six-player matches, tend to last 23-25 minutes on average. A 30 minute match is about as long as they ever get.

Along with Virtua Fighter 4, this is my game of the year so far.

4

War3 is one of the most well rounded rts games ever released although its actually rather controversial amongst the hardcore RTS gamer crowd, the question as to whether or not the innovations such as heros and upkeep are sops to newbify the game for the masses, and whether or not the game is complex enough to become a competitive RTS along the lines of Starcraft. Personally i think they did a good job overall of recreating the rts idea rather than simply rehashing Starcraft, which any other company would have given their daughters away to have the chance to do. The skirmish AI is the best ever with insanely intelligent micromanagement and tactics - i was watching the AI attacking some towers with mortar teams (long range units) and his Arch-Mage, and while chasing a unit of mine came into the range of my towers. I was really impressed as the AI pulled its units back out of the towers’ range just like i would have done. It also micros injured units well and seems to have a good sense about when to attack or when to retreat. How many AIs retreat at all? Its really quite cool. There are some problems in some areas but overall im pleased.

*The interface blows. Chris Taylor nailed it with Total Annihilation and nobody has come close in five years. I hate how Blizzard puts these artificial limitations in to try and force me to play their way (selecting no more than 12 units at a time, only seeing a small part of the map, shady command queuing [sp?], the list goes on).

Part of RTSs has always been unit control and limited 12 unit groups is one of their techniques to detract from 1 unit massing. “Only seeing a small part of the map” doesn’t make sense unless you mean increasing resolution - which is obsolete now with 3d rts games and undesirable anyway for a potentially competitive rts (i can see 2x more of the map than u = gg).

*Why do they allow you to create as many accounts as you want? There are a number of people (a large number) who create accounts at will and then do things they would do in their own account because it would ruin their record (attacking teammates, etc).

? Your wanting tighter restrictions because people suck? Their ladder implementation is arguably the best ever for an RTS game, with randomized matchups making it almost impossible to point trade or become a 1 map wonder.

*I really like the idea of the creeps, but I don’t like how they are always in the same places. Also, they don’t even move, they just sit there. You can open the maps with the map editor, learn where they are, which some players have done to give them a great advantage.

Creeps are a resource, learn where they are and what they do, and use them as such. Creeps give small amounts of gold, good hero items and experience. Again, in a competitive game creeps can’t be a random element that just happens to attack player X but leave player y alone, which is what would happen if they moved around. Hardcore rts’ers hate any random elements with a passion because of the luck involved; say getter a better item (say like Goblin land mines) than your opponent and having it tipping the scales. You neither appreciate nor care about the finer points of making a competitive RTS so please refrain from attacking what you don’t understand. Now you can attack War3 for other things but creep placement isn’t a flaw but a complicated decision.

TA was a good game but it was hardly the most balanced or competitive. It did have the most variety in units to date but turn that formula into swords and slash like TA:K and witness how much it sucks. TAs depth was probably greater than anyone intended; certainly Dungeon Seige isn’t the most complicated or intricate game around.

5

The problem is, a 12 unit limit doesn’t stop mass building and rushing one bit. Select 12 units, assign to group 1. Select 12 more, assing to group 2, etc…

Then just pick a spot on the map, then just cycle groups to that location. It’s actually better doing it that way then, say, selecting 36 units and clicking attack, because you can divide the units into specializations and move them accordingly in the rush. Select group 1, assign to location A for melee attacking, grab group 2, assign to location B for ranged attack, and move group 3 into long range artilery range.

So the ability to assign groups completely negates, in my opinion, any artificial mass attack caused by the 12 unit selection max.

So why bother having it?

6

Basically its like saying 2+2=4 = 1+1+1+1=4 the product is the same but the path to arrive is somewhat different. With 1+1+1+1 you have more chances for player skill differentation, whom can micro their groups the fastest or most efficiently and other similar details. Micro is such a huge part of War3s design philosophy anyway its suprising they didn’t reduce the 12 unit limit. Specifically, for ex, you can use healing spells easier within groups than between them. I can use death coil or holy light to heal troops without actually knowing where they are by healing them via their cards in the info window. If the injured unit is in the 2nd group its only possible by clicking on the unit directly.

I’m not keen or against the 12 unit limit in truth and both sides have merit. But the reasons listed above and in the previous post are probably the rationale behind it. Actually this is one of those elements in War3 that some might rightly call unnecessarily proprietary, like Westwood’s scrolling bar scheme they’re so loathe to depart from, which i think shows a certain unusual inflexibility in their designers’ mindsets.

7

Really? Care to explain the fact that the most popular race on bnet seems to be the Night Elves and that 9 out of 10 of them create two ancients of war and pump huntresses out as quickly as possible? This just leads to people having three groups of the unit they’re massing as opposed to one.

And why tweleve units? Is it really helping anyone when I just happen to have 14 units I want to move somewhere? It’s just annoying because I have to make 2 groups and issue all of my orders twice.

“Only seeing a small part of the map” doesn’t make sense unless you mean increasing resolution - which is obsolete now with 3d rts games and undesirable anyway for a potentially competitive rts (i can see 2x more of the map than u = gg).

OK, I see your point here, but you assume that everyone in the world wants a game that will be played in tournaments, and some of us want to just play a fun game. The viewable area seems very cramped to me. I don’t think I’m wrong because of the cometitive potential, but I suppose I’ll let that rest.

Your wanting tighter restrictions because people suck? Their ladder implementation is arguably the best ever for an RTS game, with randomized matchups making it almost impossible to point trade or become a 1 map wonder.

Why not? If they can force me to only select twelve units, why not force people to be bastards at the expense of their own record?

Creeps are a resource, learn where they are and what they do, and use them as such. Creeps give small amounts of gold, good hero items and experience. Again, in a competitive game creeps can’t be a random element that just happens to attack player X but leave player y alone, which is what would happen if they moved around. Hardcore rts’ers hate any random elements with a passion because of the luck involved; say getter a better item (say like Goblin land mines) than your opponent and having it tipping the scales. You neither appreciate nor care about the finer points of making a competitive RTS so please refrain from attacking what you don’t understand. Now you can attack War3 for other things but creep placement isn’t a flaw but a complicated decision.

Well I’m glad you weren’t so insecure in your opinion that you had to resort to personal attacks.

TA was a good game but it was hardly the most balanced or competitive. It did have the most variety in units to date but turn that formula into swords and slash like TA:K and witness how much it sucks. TAs depth was probably greater than anyone intended; certainly Dungeon Seige isn’t the most complicated or intricate game around.

Of all the games I’ve ever played, I probably spent the most time with TA. I agree that it wasn’t the most balanced, but it was extremely fun to play, mostly because the interface would allow you to do whatever you wanted to do pretty easily. I guess I’d like a game that combined the best elements of TA and W3. This probably wouldn’t be a “competitve” RTS, but that doesn’t mean that it would be a bad game or that I’m wrong.

8

This is the problem with The Goddamn Warcraft school of game design: half the game is the interface. I so do not want to play an interface.

9

Well I’m glad you weren’t so insecure in your opinion that you had to resort to personal attacks.

:) Oh thats just the standard rts gamers’ retort when dealing with balance issues, although more politely put. Usually it goes “you don’t know wtf your talking about n00b so stfu” However there really is some truth in that but its getting people to accept this thats the problem, thus its much easier to just say “stfu n00b” and be done with it. Sorry if it came off too strong though im not trying to argue or be uncivil. Its just that if you don’t know about high level gaming in a genre its best not to argue over specifics like that. Like if i said i thought the Colt was underpowered or that de_inferno was biased towards the CTs id more than likely get a “stfu n00b” tossed at me, and with good reason since i don’t play Counterstrike except occasionally and casually.

Of all the games I’ve ever played, I probably spent the most time with TA. I agree that it wasn’t the most balanced, but it was extremely fun to play, mostly because the interface would allow you to do whatever you wanted to do pretty easily. I guess I’d like a game that combined the best elements of TA and W3. This probably wouldn’t be a “competitve” RTS, but that doesn’t mean that it would be a bad game or that I’m wrong.

TA was a great game in many ways; in some better than any before. But not being a ‘competitive’ rts means the game sucks because it lacks depth. Deep games become competitive, shallow games wallow in the bargin bin. Games like Red Alert 2 or Battle Realms were solid 2nd tier games that for different reasons lacked enough depth to overcome other more competitive rts games at the time. I think the idea of a sleeper RTS is something of a red herring; Kohan was perhaps the closest thing to it and id argue it really wasn’t an RTS in the popular sense. I agree with many of TA’s improvements such as intelligent build queues and wonder why they haven’t trickled down into more popular games. I think in Blizzard’s case their ‘style’ of competitive RTS has become the de facto standard and so even they have difficulty breaking out of those norms to which theyve become accustomed.

Well im off for the weekend adios.

10

Hmm…, I was really hoping this thread would generate some fun stories about people enjoying WC3. Boy, was I wrong.

11

Blizzard sells tons of copies because of the flash they cram in their games. That, combined with the passable-to-good gameplay, is why they’ve become “the standard.”

It certainly isn’t gameplay alone.

12

Here’s my most funnest story about WC3 (note: I still suck at this game, but I don’t care :P )

I was playing as humans against another human player last night. My main problem in this game is that I really have no strategy mid-game. I just kind of build units and can never figure out a good way to hurt the guy without destroying my own army. Oh well, guess I’ll figure that out in time. So I’m just kind of sitting there and decided to pump out some steam tanks, since I hadn’t really used them yet. Got sidetracked by an attack at my expansion, and when I got back my ArchMage was up to level 7 and there were five tanks waiting for me. I had a sorceress cast invisible on one of my knights, sent him into the back of the other guy’s main base, and used mass-teleport to bring the five steam tanks. Not only did they take out every building in the area, they also wiped out all three of his expansions (the gold mine in one had collapsed).

If you’re wondering why it took him so long to get the tanks, just as I teleported out, he had taken his forces in to my base. I guess he figured it would be better to take me out and get the tanks later. After all of that we were each down to one expansion but he had more units, and eventually found me and won the game.

Of course, I realize that neither of us are getting ranked any time soon, but it was amazing how much of a beating those things took before they finally went down. And, uh, it was fun :)

13

I am not sure I see what you mean. It was definitely heavier on the Strategy than WC and others of it’s ilk, but still very much Real Time. I certainly hope your statement was not based on the fact that most “popular sense” RTS’s force you to grab all those resources while Kohan was more of strategic management of it’s collections.

14

For the record, you don’t have to issue all your orders twice if you have two groups of units that you’re moving. (I know, this is going way back in the discussion.)

If you have a group selected, and right-click on one of the units in the other group, they’ll follow that unit until he dies or they’re given other orders.

It helps me a lot of select group 2, right-click on somebody, and then select group 1 and just give me orders, knowing that group 2 is right behind.

15

I started playing as Night Elves, but I think so many people have been burned by the huntress rush that when they see NE they do everything they can to crush you right out of the gate. Switching to random gives me a bit of a surprise element and I also have more fun because I’m not always building the same units in the same order.

I thought that too, until I got to about level 7 in battle.net (I am now level 10). The huntress thing only works in the early game. And the Elves are particularly weak in the early game; their buildings have very little armor. Anyway, here’s the trick: level 3 melee units-- of which the Night Elves have NONE, I might add-- eat huntresses for breakfast. I’m talking about Knights, Taurens, and Abominations. Three of those can easily clobber 8 huntresses, assuming hero support.

That said, the only other criticism that is definitely valid is the whole account creation issue. You can create as many online accounts as you want, and they all start out as level 1-- even if you’ve played 200+ games. That’s total bullshit.

Why bullshit? Because the super-keen auto-matching is done by “level”. Imagine the poor guy who really is level 1, and has played only 1 or 2 games, getting matched against the above 200+ game guy! He’ll get crushed. How much fun is that? It completely and utterly defeats the point of the auto-matching: to always play against players of similar skill levels. And boy howdy, do you ever. Barring getting paired with a randomly totally crappy teammate (it happens), you’ll be fighting tooth and nail all the way.

I’m not against users creating new accounts, but these new accounts should be at a level (or a percentage thereof) of the XP associated with that CDKEY. If they want to get another CDKEY to create a truly “fresh” level 1 account, then do it. I know I’ve been tempted to regress back to level 1 with a random account so I can have a string of uninterrupted wins, and that should not be an option. It completely negates the skill matching, which is critical to new people enjoying the online game.

Also. The formula for calculating how much XP you gain (or lose) for winning games is here.

http://www.battle.net/war3/ladder/rules.shtml

The rankings themselves can be viewed here

http://www.battle.net/war3/ladder/

Here’s my profile

http://www.battle.net/war3/ladder/data/PlayerProfile.aspx?PlayerName=wumpus&Gateway=Azeroth

The rules are actually very complex, and the whole process seems to be well thought out. With that one glaring exception. Level (or at least a percentage thereof) should be associated with CDKEY, not account name.

16

Personally i think they did a good job overall of recreating the rts idea rather than simply rehashing Starcraft, which any other company would have given their daughters away to have the chance to do.

Yes, this is the amazing thing about WC3. It completely avoids all the pitfalls I was so sure that Blizzard would fall right into. Yep. I was wrong. Examples:

  • rushing doesn’t always work
  • climbing up the tech tree instead of massing low-level units is a must
  • intelligent use of a few units can turn the tide of battle
  • players can come back from near death and win games.
  • defenses can turn the tide of battle for you (assuming you defend near them)
  • specialized units (air, mortar) can also win games for you if used strategically

These are tremendous accomplishments.

The one criticism I do have is that team games are frequently (guesstimate, 2/3rds of the time) decided by the first large engagement. It’s all about massed attacks. If the opposing team can’t muster enough forces for whatever reason, and their army is destroyed while the attackers still have a significant force… it’s almost always game over. There is almost no value in 2-3 units, but 12 units together are almost unstoppable, barring very good (eg, costly) defenses. One of the most effective strategies is divide and conquer. For example, if you can play a 2vs2 and either coerce or convince a foolish player to engage you with a single army, while you have both player’s armies… or to engage 1 army versus another in front of a couple towers… It’s simply a numbers game. Don’t engage unless you have at LEAST the same force, preferably more (accounting for levels of units and composition, etc). There’s no point, most of the time, in counter attacking with a few units. You’re better off waiting and massing 12 units.

Sadly, I’ve fallen for this myself too many times. You get caught up in the micromanagement of the skirmish without realizing that you have no chance and should just run away either to a teammate or to your towers.

And before we start deifiying Kohan, WC3 is far more strategic than Kohan ever could be. Imagine WC3 if the enemy’s town converted to your side after you attacked the town hall to 10% damage. That wouldn’t be a game; it’d be a fucking bloodbath.

17

I forgot to add

  • Having lots of resources doesn’t guarantee you a win

One of the most bitterly painful losses was against a random team of two level 12 and 13 players. We managed to take one guy out early with a rush (barely), and we noticed the other guy didn’t help much with his defense. He sent his hero, and a few units, but that was it. Odd. We totally controlled the map-- we both had two mines, and sent scouts to all the other mines to prevent his expansion. We thought we had the game in the bag. My ally built siege units, I built taurens and shamans.

And then that fucker manages to turn around a produce around 16 shamans with 4-5 tauren. We literally COULD. NOT. STOP. THEM. It was like an excruciating Godzilla movie, starring me. Maybe that would have been a good time to record Sparky’s screams.

Yes, it’s our fault for (groan) not attacking together, so he was able to engage our forces individually instead of as a massed attack (our timing was off). I will grant you that. I never plan to do that again if I can help it. But who knew that bastard could own both of us with a single mine?

18

Had the chance to play WC3 a couple of times with friends and am very happy to have passed on purchasing the game. We’ve already hashed through WC3’s serious RTS limitations in other threads. It may stand up as a campaign game and most people that I know who enjoy WC3 praise that portion of it. But it just doesn’t stand up to comparisons as far as a skirmish or multiplayer game goes. Won’t even get into the interface. I’ve never been a big Blizzard RTS-fan, so your mileage may vary :) .

19

My best friend and I are just having a blast over the LAN. Can’t wait to get a couple more guys into it.

If they’d just get a difficulty slider for skirmish maps, I’d be a happy camper. It’s been said before, but…Man, that’s tough!

20

I revisited the skirmish mode with 100+ b.net games under my belt.

I’ll definitely say this: if you can win a 2vs2 game in skirmish (single computer teammate, against two computer opponents) on a 4-6 player map, you are very likely to do well on battle.net.

Make sure you build two barracks; you’ll need them. The computer has perfect teamwork and likes to … well, I don’t want to say rush, because it’s not quite a rush. But he does tend to attack with a large combined force fairly early. The CPU likes to “creep”, or attack the ambient enemies on the map, too.

It is a bit frustrating to have an AI teammate who won’t communicate with you, and particularly one who will totally ignore a combined attack on your base. Any non-braindead human opponent will always town portal in to help you when your base is under attack. No such luck with the computer teammate! So watch your back… you might want to follow his hero because he does a crappy job of sticking with you. Don’t take this lightly. If his forces get decimated, you’re both likely to lose. So swallow your pride and let the CPU take the lead. Follow, unless he does something retarded.

One useful trick is to set the deploy point for both barracks to your hero. Just select them, then right click your hero. This works for a lot of objects in the game btw.

Remember-- you can save your game. Build a core base / hero / small force, then save, so you can go back if necessary without the tedious 3 minute buildup phase.

Note: this is not quite representative of the current strategies I’m seeing on battle.net. usually you want to tech up to level 3 as quickly as possible. Still, if you can beat the computer in this 2vs2 scenario, you are definitely worthy.