Campaign difficulty rating

Campaign Discussion
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Hi! I’m in the course of replaying vanilla SC and SC:BW, and made up my own perception of how hard the maps felt to me. Note that I’m a regular player, not a competitive pro, and I don’t have the intention to be one. I’m just enjoying the SP campaign. Also note that episode VI is still not started, and AFAIK the hardest maps are found there, I reserved my highest scores for that later. ATM I finished To Chain the Beast of episode V only.

Feel free to give your ratings as well, or what did you find different. Maybe it can help others as well, who replay this thing 20 years after release.

Episode I:
Tutorial: Boot Camp: 1
Terran 1: Wasteland: 1
Terran 2: Backwater Station: 1
Terran 3: Desperate Alliance: 3 (only because the surprise factor of the last minute Zerg charge, otherwise 2)
Terran 4: The Jacobs Installation: 1
Terran 5: Revolution: 3
Terran 6: Norad II: 3
Terran 7: The Trump Card: 3
Terran 8: The Big Push: 4
Terran 9: New Gettysburg: 3 (this map is disappointingly easy… the 'toss forces were pathetic)
Terran 10: The Hammer Falls: 6 (actually a big leap in difficulty for newcomers… you need to expand, strong defence, tactical offense)

Episode II:
Zerg 1: Among the Ruins: 3 (I think this could have been easier for a first level for a brand new race to adapt)
Zerg 2: Egression: 2
Zerg 3: The New Dominion: 5 (actually, this one is very annoying for a slot 3 level, your mutas are grossly underpowered against the seemingly unlimited number of marines)
Zerg 4: Agent of the Swarm: 4
Zerg 5: The Amerigo: 2
Zerg 6: The Dark Templar: 4
Zerg 7: The Culling: 5
Zerg 8: Eye for an Eye: 4
Zerg 9: The Invasion of Aiur: 6
Zerg 10: Full Circle: 7 (normally it would be easier than Zerg 9, but the lack of geysers in this map made it more difficult than it should have been)

Episode III:
Protoss 1: First Strike: 2
Protoss 2: Into the Flames: 2
Protoss 3: Higher Ground: 4
Protoss 4: The Hunt for Tassadar: 2 (I think Archons shouldn’t have been introduced this early… made the map a joke)
Protoss 5: Choosing Sides: 4
Protoss 6: Into the Darkness: 6 (normally it should have been a 4/5, but entirely trial and error appearances of burrowed terrans, which can’t be triggered by hallucinations, clearly hurt the level’s entertainment factor)
Protoss 7: Homeland: 5 (albeit 8, if you don’t know the shotcut trick for the mission)
Protoss 8: The Trial of Tassadar: 7 (probably the hardest of vanilla SC)
Protoss 9: Shadow Hunters: 3 (pathetic easy)
Protoss 10: Eye of the Storm: 6

IMHO Homeland (Protoss 7) is by far the hardest level in vanilla SC, if you play it in conventional turtling style, and want to beat everything normally. Since the map’s objectives are unclear (what “heart” means in this level?), I think most fail badly in this map. If you know the shortcut trick, it’s not that bad and the next level with the Arbiter hell is the one that is truly the hardest in the base game.

Brood War:
Episode IV:
Protoss 1: Escape from Aiur: 2
Protoss 2: Dunes of Shakuras: 3
Protoss 3: Legacy of the Xel’Naga: 3
Protoss 4: The Quest for Uraj: 3
Protoss 5: The Battle of Braxis: 6 (probably a bit lower if you know all the trial and errors and the way to beat the spider mine hell…)
Protoss 6: Return to Char: 4 (if you go for the Overmind, 5, if you go for the Khalis)
Protoss 7: The Insurgent: 5
Protoss 8: Countdown: 7 (for newbies at least… only 6, if you properly prepared for the countdown with your photon cannon barrages, archons and scouts)

Episode V:
Terran 1: First Strike: 4 (almost gave it a 5, but it would be gross… I absolutely despise this “starter” level)
Terran 2: The Dylarian Shipyards: 2
Terran 3: Ruins of Tarsonis: 4 (it can get wrong if you don’t understand the logic of the bases though)
Terran 4: Assault on Korhal: 5
Terran 5: Emperor’s Fall: 6 (Birds of War is much worse, because the constant yamato harrassment… the nuke version is 4/5 only)
Terran 6: Emperor’s Flight: 3 (this is a pathetically easy level, almost thinking about 2)
Terran 7: Patriot’s Blood: 2
Terran 8: To Chain the Beast: 7 (well, 6 was considered, I think dealing with the monster can get easier and easier as the map progresses)

Episode VI is coming in a few weeks (with lots of on and off play).
Meantime share your views.

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I have a different view on difficulty but I still think that most of your rating is correct. The difference is that you have a more complete observation of difficulty when it comes to the parameters considered for rating, but because of that, you also get a more subjective result.
You take into consideration strategy, I don’t. In my opinion, the missions get more and more complex. Enemy bases are stronger, more enemies, more resources to spend to reach your goal(s), more advanced tech (which means more possible decisions and strategies to implement in game), and bigger and more time consuming maps.
Like you said, Protoss 7 is very difficult, but when using a specific strategy the difficulty decreases dramatically. And then it becomes complicated to rate.
But by not taking into account what strategy is used, I always had the overall idea that maps are increasing difficulty on equivalent steps. And Zerg 1 is somewhere between Terran 3 and Terran 4 (closer to Terran 3); Protoss 1 is somewhere between Zerg 3 and Zerg 4 (closer to Zerg 3).
Since I said equivalent steps, Zerg 8 is a bit harder than Terran 10, and Protoss 8 is a bit harder than Zerg 10.
Campaigns IV, V and VI are a follow up of this scheme (BW Protoss 8 is a bit harder than the last mission in vanilla). Therefore Brood War is harder than vanilla.
Protoss 9 from vanilla felt so easy… I agree. I’m not accurate on this, as you can see.

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I agree with you with the linear difficulty, and yes, some maps are hard to rate (Terran 3 because of the late zerg rush, Protoss 7 because of the special strategy, Protoss BW 8 because it’s much easier if you don’t rush your heroes to the temple, but you build your photon cannon barrage around it, Terran 8 as how to deal with the torrasque and others).

IMHO some maps are outliers though, some being easier, others being harder than they should be:

Terran 9 is too easy, because the protoss forces are joke-tier. It should have been a map that might have prepared you for the final level.

Zerg 3 is too hard, as you are panfully underpowered (not that the map is hard by episode VI standards, it’s easy, but I think they should have done better with this)

Protoss 9 is too easy as you said (and 7+8 are probably slightly more difficult than protoss 10, but that’s okay maybe.)

Protoss BW 5 is not too hard, but too long and too annoying (the Braxis platform level with the spider mine/missile turret hell)… it should have been more linear at least. Having multiple choices can seriously hurt the flow of the level.

Terran BW 7 is a complete joke. After a demanding level, this is just “let’s see them fighting each other”. It should have been much more interesting without disabling the battlecruisers at least.

Terran BW 8 also could have been harder after beating the Torrasque facility. The final cerebrate practically doesn’t exist.

Zerg BW 3 is not easy, not hard. It’s just awfully long, especially if you want to infest all comcenters. It took me 2 hours (!), and many of that was off time.

Zerg BW 4 could have been easier a bit on the offensive side. Attacking terrans with zerg in campaign is always horrible because of irradiate + cloaked wraiths, this level should have softened this, because you have to suffer with the same method a few more times.

Zerg BW 8 - I’m on this level now. I’ve already spent many hours, and restarted it once. Awful level. Not only difficult, but not fun at all. Why don’t you get the ability of merging the dark templars at least?? Dark Archons would make this level 1000 times more interesting.

From my memory, Zerg BW 9 and secret are very easy, but this time, it’s not a problem, you need this breathing fun between the two insane ones. Omega from my memory wasn’t as bad as To Slay the Beast, and The Reckoning’s strategy to destroy a foe in 25 minutes is important lesson here: either Mengsk or Artanis, but you lose this mission, if all 3 are standing after half an hour.

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[quote=“TNandi-2230, post:1, topic:2308”]
Terran 7: The Trump Card[/quote]
I played through the entire game with cheats my first playthrough (this was back in '98-'99) because I was more interested in following the story than having a challenge (I did the same with WarCraft II).

When I decided to see if I could actually beat the game “honestly,” I had the crazy idea of throwing a defensive matrix on the SCV with the psi emitter and running him straight to the objective marker. It worked. Completion time of less than 2 minutes.

I just did it again this evening on my Twitch stream if anyone wants a chuckle.

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I finished this thing a few weeks ago, and even replayed parts of it before opting to SC2 WOL finally. Here is my personal top 10 levels from vanilla and BW combined with short explanations:

  1. Dark Origin (BW secret mission): absolutely mindblowingly awesome, this mission and it’s cliffhanger truly gives me chills everytime I play it, it’s practically a teaser for Legacy of the Void, and what’s the greatest perspective of the SC history. But not only that: it’s the only puzzle/commando mission, that is actually fun to play, starts very silently, and it’s very easy for most parts, only to get quite tricky in the end without losing it’s welcome. Also great idea to use the snow tileset for this map, perfect fit.

  2. The Insurgent (Protoss BW 7): It’s one of the missions that springs to my mind when I’m thinking about BW. If one picture serves as a flashbulb memory, it’s how the 3 Aldarises are waiting for you in their platforms. Also the loss of Aldaris is the biggest tragedy in SC, he was a truly complex character, being a stubborn a.hole at times, but also a person with true heart. He gave the best aspects of the Protoss missions. I still love this one, for the reason for it being extremely memorable.

  3. The Hammer Falls (Terran 10): Another huge one with a flashbulb memory when I’m thinking about vanilla SC (particularly the area around the ion cannon). It’s a surprisingly hard map for it’s early state, that makes it even more standout, also the story behind, how Raynor left Mengsk behind, and the tragic unhappy end of escaping before being hunted down. Again, great and complex story segment, and Arcturus’s speech at the end makes it even better.

  4. Agent of the Swarm (Zerg 4): Who doesn’t love this one? While episode II was my least favourite episode in the game, and only had two memorable levels (the other being the Tassadar one), you just have to admit the hatch of Kerrigan gives you chills all the time. Also this is the best looking Char map, with great use of the volcanic aspect of the tileset. It’s also great to use Kerrigan in this level, somehow I never again used her as a unit, but here she works well.

  5. Drawing of the Web (Zerg BW 7): This one has an amazing atmosphere with great mission design with the memorable pylon cluster, and the only map, where you really have to use ground units for the zerg, and that gives a great challenge. Also, I love the Shakuras tileset (like in Insurgent), it looks very well made and apocalyptic.

  6. Fury of the Swarm (Zerg BW 6): Probably some don’t agree with me on this one, but again, a great sense of place in this level, the terran base was integrated really well in this ZvZ mission. It also has a really interesting design from gameplay perspective too, how you are trapped on an island, and it’s great to see a deathmatch between the zerg flyers above the sea.

  7. Reign of Fire (Zerg BW 2): Again, memorable level design, and the last comfy map in the game not counting Dark Origin. The way you can use an all-in of zerg heroes, including the Torrasque alone qualify this map to the top 10, but I also like minor things, like the start with Raynor’s strike or when the SCV wants out. It has the most stupid game bug though, luckily only at the start of the level. Also, you can walk on ice, and the Torrasque can go through it.

  8. Norad II (Terran 6): Another flashbulb memory type of map for some reason, it always stayed with me, Arcturus’s “deal” in the end, or just how you have to circle around the entire map to reach the downed ship.

  9. To Slay the Beast (Zerg BW 8): While I think this map would have been legendary with Dark Archons, even without them it’s a freaky, memorable, and it’s clearly the hardest one in the game (Omega is not even close). You are constantly challenged, no time to breathe, and the Char tileset really helps to add atmosphere to it. This map wouldn’t have worked in any other tilesets, the professional craftmanship really shines through here.

  10. Desperate Alliance (Terran 3): An easy map for the end, this one really kickstarted the game and gave some taste of zerg treatment early on. Interesting how most of my picks came from either episode 1 (the easiest set) or episode 6 (hardest set). They are just having the best levels, episode 1 shines with its story, while episode 6 shines with its huge level design.

Btw. while I love the Korhal (desert) tileset a lot, it has a reputation of having some really boring levels sadly. I don’t like any of the 4 maps on Korhal, they are so boring. The various Char and Aiur levels in episode 2 and 3 also blended together for my memory as being rather generic stuff (although nothing is terrible, this is a fantastic game, even in 2021!)

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Two things I have to say.
The Ion Cannon mission was great. I even remember when I played it for the first time, as a 9-years-old child, when I didn’t understand English. But when I replayed it while keeping track of the story I was surprised. This mission doesn’t fit well in the story, much less as a campaign ending.
I love Desert tileset maps, so much that I liked all the Korhal missions. In my opinion those missions aren’t bad. I would have liked them to be more difficult. Enslavers II has a good desert mission.

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The problem with all 4 Korhal missions that they are very slow paced, even by the game standards. Even when you’re under full control of the map, you still need effort to beat the level, because attack force is a different thing to the defense force. I think the lack of Devourers clearly hurt both Liberation and True Colours. And Emperor’s Fall is a crazy turtler mission, it just wants you to turtle up your tech, and get 12 battlecruisers, and go for it.

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