Battlezone 2 in retrospect

[appel]

I've been playing StarCraft 2 a lot lately, and boh oh boy... I can't stop thinking about how great BZ2 is.

StarCraft 2 is the biggest "e-sports" game out there. It's so frigging popular. Yet, in my opinion, it sucks. When I compare SC2 with BZ2, BZ2 wins hands down.

The balance in BZ2 is so excellent. For every unit, every weapon, every tactic, there was a counter.
I really think that's a testimony of how well designed BZ2 is.

There's no skill required in SC2. It's all about "build orders", "timings", and just being lucky. SC2 is a huge rock-paper-scissor game. There's a built-in ladder system, which means all players try to ladder-up, which means all players rush you. They try to win by all means necessary, no matter how lame it is, just to get ladder points. And everybody are rude to each other, because the player base is so huge you'll never face the same player again.

Could you imagine how BZ2 would have been if players tried to kill the rec from first minute with minigun, and kept going at it no matter what? Sure, that happened, but was rare. Players didn't play BZ2 for ladder-points, they played it for fun.

BZ2 is probably the best designed RTS game ever where skills mattered a lot. And if skills were lesser than the opponents, hard work counted for much. Luck was rarely a factor, better players almost always defeated lesser players. In SC2 lesser players beat better players all the time, just because he used some lame tactic. SC2 is a idiotic game compared to BZ2.


Why on Earth am I posting here about this? I got banned on the Blizzard's battle.net forums for whining about how badly designed game it was. The player base there just sucks. There's no respect. There's just !"#%#$%!.

I really miss the good old BZ2 days.

[Ded10c]

You got banned for saying the game was bad? Wow.

[Iron_Maiden]

Yay.

[Broadside]

I've been playing StarCraft 2 a lot lately, and boh oh boy... I can't stop thinking about how great BZ2 is.

[snip]

The balance in BZ2 is so excellent. For every unit, every weapon, every tactic, there was a counter.
I really think that's a testimony of how well designed BZ2 is.

[snip]

I agree with you except for missile scouts, sentries, and lancer. I very rarely see any of these things built in a strat.

BZ2 is much more unique and I would love to see a professional sequel or at least a new game with similar style.

[Zero Angel]

As far as team vs team interplay, I would say that BZ2 is quite well balanced -- and entirely skill dependent. Teamwork, tactics (ie: flanking, raiding), and target priorities are all there as part of any tactical team game, there are no or few elements that can negate this (low or average clicks per minute are fine as long as those 3 elements are there, and poor to average dogfighters can still contribute). Furthermore on the strategic end, the only major complaint I have about that is that the outcome of any game is 50% dependent on the commander's own ability to endure pressure where teams are otherwise equal, putting a lot of strain on the commander of a team game -- as well as the Scion arsenal is fairly weakened as a 'whole package' dynamic (where all the units have use) and stacked more towards mid-game to late-game blink warrior domination (with the exception of 1v1s where gauss sentries can help in dogfights vs another human).

There's another RTS that I play called Company of Heroes, and it has taken 5 years for the balance to finally reach a level where there are few 'cheap' strategies that are disproportionately powerful to solid tactics, strategy and micro (ie: a few things like the 5pio T2 build vs Brits and Staghound spam as brits. Which are even less powerful than the roo and piospam of the past but still considered a bit lame). Even then, it's possible for otherwise symmetrical maps to be balanced against certain factions (ie: Wrecked Train is Wehrmacht favored due to cut off points that synergize with MG42's long range and the Defensive Doctrine's bunker reinforcement, and Carpiquet airfield is American favored due to its massive size and important cutoff points which allows for major resource harassment by the Amis). This isnt the case in BZ2.

[appel]

It's crazy how many "piss around" lame games are out there. I guess they're easy to play, so easy that braindead people can play them. Games that are designed in such a way that rushes, "cheeses", "all-ins", are superior than standard strategy just are not worth playing.

You cannot do this in BZ2, the game simply doesn't offer it. You can try to miniscout hover kill the rec 1 min into the game, that's the closest thing I can think of, but still, good players can defend against it, and in all my years in BZ2 I never saw it. Players actually stuck to some ground rules. You never saw 4 mortar bikes hover killing your rec. Plenty of ways to be lame, but players choose not to.

In some cases, the sniper rifle was a bit too powerful. If you had a sniper in your base you could be in big trouble. Blink and arc are also arguably powerful, but I feel that ISDF never used it's entire tech tree properly against scion, like assault tanks, walkers, rocket tanks.

Team games in BZ2 are extremely well balanced. Comparing it to SC2 team games is just funny. In SC2, 3 players gang up on 1 player, and the rest is easy. And maps are especially badly designed.

But I agree, BZ2's flaw is the reliance on a good commander. We all know how that went, as soon as players evaporated from BZ2 it was impossible to get people to command in games. Commanders job is 3-4 times more stressful than thugging.

There also are no defensive structures/units in SC2 that do anything useful. Army is always better than defense in SC2. In BZ2 defenses were vital, and worth their scrap.


I want to try Supreme Commander, I hear it's a more of a RTS game than SC2.

[MrTwosheds]

There is still a bz2 strat community Appel, Almost every night there are full 8-10 player strat games up in pb6.2, with many of the "Old school" players showing up.

[GSH]

Fans of any given title don't appreciate being told "your pet thing is bad, X is better." Try that with fans of sports teams. Or fans of car manufacturers. Or fans of AMD/Intel. Just the way life is. You have to gently suggest things, with a trail of crumbs to move things towards the goal you want.

I think SC2 was highly influenced and even held back by its competitive players. The Starcraft (original) hardcore players had a competitive advantage in being able to do 200+ actions per minute (APM) to make up for the AI being braindead. I don't completely fault SC1's AI being braindead, as it was what was possible on the system specs in the 1990s. The proper response to that for SC2 is to make the AI a bit less dumb or even moderately competent. But, that pisses off the hardcore, who would diss the changes simply because it makes them re-learn things or adapt.

The above paragraph's parallels to BZ2 and certain arrogant fools is a complete coincidence. Not.

-- GSH

[Zax]

The above paragraph's parallels to BZ2 and certain arrogant fools is a complete coincidence. Not.
-- GSH

Try OpenSarcasm. ­¡ alt+173 on your keyboard. The punctuation that denotes your sarcasm. There's no possible way YOU would ever have need for that¡

[Red Devil]

instead of looking back, look ahead

[Zero Angel]

Try OpenSarcasm.

Does it include the source code?

[Ded10c]

The above paragraph's parallels to BZ2 and certain arrogant fools is a complete coincidence. Not.
-- GSH

Try OpenSarcasm. ­¡ alt+173 on your keyboard. The punctuation that denotes your sarcasm. There's no possible way YOU would ever have need for that¡

061f?

[appel]

Fans of any given title don't appreciate being told "your pet thing is bad, X is better." Try that with fans of sports teams. Or fans of car manufacturers. Or fans of AMD/Intel. Just the way life is. You have to gently suggest things, with a trail of crumbs to move things towards the goal you want.

I think SC2 was highly influenced and even held back by its competitive players. The Starcraft (original) hardcore players had a competitive advantage in being able to do 200+ actions per minute (APM) to make up for the AI being braindead. I don't completely fault SC1's AI being braindead, as it was what was possible on the system specs in the 1990s. The proper response to that for SC2 is to make the AI a bit less dumb or even moderately competent. But, that pisses off the hardcore, who would diss the changes simply because it makes them re-learn things or adapt.

The above paragraph's parallels to BZ2 and certain arrogant fools is a complete coincidence. Not.

-- GSH

True, SC2 is way too colored of professional gamers. The problem in SC2 is that everybody pick up the latest and greatest build orders and techniques from the pros, and duplicate to get that quick win. Not so much about skills, more like luck picking the right technique which delivers you a quick win.
Once you realized what your opponent was doing, there's no way to counter it, because in SC2 you don't counter stuff.

At least in BZ2 there was a unit limit, in 4v4's the limit is 4 ships per team You knew the other team wouldn't have more than 4 ships out on the field. The game kept itself balanced that way. And sometimes 2 good players could kill 4 lesser players.
Another factor that keeps rushing and insta-kills to minimum in BZ2 is the ammo requirement, and the high cost of replacing your ship. So you keep going back to your own base for service, giving your opponent time to recover. Units in SC2 have infinite ammo.

Sure, totally different games, but I think the mechanism in BZ2 just gives way better experience. Even losing games in BZ2 is alright, because you did have some fun. In SC2 you just get squashed because you were unprepared.

[Sly]

Wrong Broadside or however ur name is spelled. Msl scouts are useful in games versus scions; ai missil scout covering is an essential part of the only way which I have found to counter blink warriors during prolonged scion vs isdf games. Sentries are useful in suppressing a pool dominant isdf enemy in early games. As for the lonely lancer, its just a poorly designed pos (sorry to any fan boys but this is completely true). The only reason one may not see these ships used frequently in games is because most people who play strats these days are exactly how appel describes SC2 players. They follow a simple build tree (ug, arm, bay, blast etc.) and lack the experience needed to actually deviate from this path when something foreign pops up.

[APCs r Evil]

I don't think I've ever run across anyone other than myself who could be considered a Lancer "fan boy."

I'll freely admit that it sucks and warn people that it has no place in most strategies, but I still love it.

*Semi off topic reminiscing*
I remember back in the good ole days of FE a 2v2 game against some guy and some other guy (Vets, I believe) who were playing Hadean and Spiked themselves in after a botched Mauler assault. My commander, RIP Aougli I believe, kept the other team locked in their base with his Warrior (Standard full-tech loadout.) while I sat comfortably outside the range of the Spikes with my Lancer and effortlessly took down Spike after Spike with Stingers. (To anyone who's not terribly familiar with Hadeans, Spikes are like glorified Turrets, they have Light armor and a 175m range gun that eats Maulers for breakfast.)

Pissed the enemy commander off enough to cause him to go to all chat and yell at Aougli for giving me the no skill Lancer. Which, by the way, I had to cajole Aoug into giving me in the first place.
*End semi off topic reminiscing*