Completely unrelated question for those who are playing the beta:
How accessible is this game for new players? I played SC about 12+ years ago and it was the last time I really did any kind of competitive RTS. I tried to get into the DoW2 multiplayer but it was so different from the campaign that I was completely worthless.
I'm excited for the SC2 campaign and I'd like to get excited for the multiplayer, but reading people on here going on about the different hard coded strategies and this pool and this many resources to base ratio etc etc has me completely crosseyed.
Completely unrelated question for those who are playing the beta:
How accessible is this game for new players? I played SC about 12+ years ago and it was the last time I really did any kind of competitive RTS. I tried to get into the DoW2 multiplayer but it was so different from the campaign that I was completely worthless.
I'm excited for the SC2 campaign and I'd like to get excited for the multiplayer, but reading people on here going on about the different hard coded strategies and this pool and this many resources to base ratio etc etc has me completely crosseyed.
I am still a complete noob but reading about it, practicing, and watching Day[9]'s dailies has improved my game immensely. There's a wealth of information about it but nothing can beat just practicing. It's not too bad once you get the hang of it. Just start slowly. Baby steps.
Don't stress about it too much, the matchmaking is really quite good once you have 10 or so games under your belt. Just read the OP and watch a few HD StarCraft or day [9] vids to get a feel for how each game opens. Don't be afraid to watch your own replays to see what your opponent was up to, especially if they play your race. I've picked up more tips that way than any other.
I'm not competitive, but I still have fun in multiplayer by trying to improve one part of my game each time I play.
Completely unrelated question for those who are playing the beta:
How accessible is this game for new players? I played SC about 12+ years ago and it was the last time I really did any kind of competitive RTS. I tried to get into the DoW2 multiplayer but it was so different from the campaign that I was completely worthless.
I'm excited for the SC2 campaign and I'd like to get excited for the multiplayer, but reading people on here going on about the different hard coded strategies and this pool and this many resources to base ratio etc etc has me completely crosseyed.
The thing to remember about this game is that they have an automated matchmaking system that I am really very impressed with. It is very likely that your first few placement matches will result in your getting crushed. But once you're ten or fifteen games in, you can pretty reliably expect that you will be playing people about your skill level. Yeah, there are build orders that go in six or seven minutes and certain kinds of responses that good players have hardcoded into their play.
But you won't have to bother with that stuff, unless you want to. There are many skill levels, and there will be more once there are millions of people online playing, as I expect to happen pretty quickly after release. So you shouldn't be intimidated by our relatively complicated strategy discussions. If you are really interested in improving and playing all the time and getting your mechanics down, go ahead, jump on in with us. If you aren't, that's great; there will be plenty of people playing like that you will be able to play with.
Invictus on
Generalísimo de Fuerzas Armadas de la República Argentina
So I've read that article before, and it's a good one. But I think there's a tension between two things you're saying. You mention that tournaments are longer series, not just Bo1s, so that you can get caught off guard with a cheese build once and still win it. You also say that the person who loses to cheese is the worse player. I would disagree with that in a way that I think explains what's happening here.
What happens when a good player loses to cheese is that the other player played better in that game. But because of the nature of cheese, one player playing better in that way is not nearly as good a predictor of future games as non-cheese play. This is exactly why tournaments play long series: because that's the best way to find the best player. If losing to cheese once did show that the cheeser was a better player, there wouldn't be a reason for tournaments to play long series: they could know after one game. But that's not the way it works.
Sometimes, of course, the cheeser is the better player (in the sense that when the two play, the cheeser mostly wins). But a win by cheese does not provide us very good evidence that the cheeser is the better player.
i think the difficulty that many of us are having here with this "cheese being frowned upon stance" is that it's a "moral" stance of some kind that has no real bearing on reality. "im a better player than you" means nothing if you lost.
personally, i dont even mind when tournaments are 1 offs and not a series of games. because in those types of tournaments, the winner can literally say, "i never lost a single game."
to even get to tournament level, you absolutely must be an amazing player. to pretend like idra is a better than meek (?), but because meek used "cheese," he beat idra, who is a better player, is total garbage logic. if idra was actually better, he wouldnt have fallen for the cheese. if idra lost to meek's cheese, the most you could say is meek and idra have equivalent skill, but meek played better that game.
for example, if i tried to cheese idra, he would hump me. because he's a better player than me.
edit: the example shoudl have been masq, not meek.
Completely unrelated question for those who are playing the beta:
How accessible is this game for new players? I played SC about 12+ years ago and it was the last time I really did any kind of competitive RTS. I tried to get into the DoW2 multiplayer but it was so different from the campaign that I was completely worthless.
I'm excited for the SC2 campaign and I'd like to get excited for the multiplayer, but reading people on here going on about the different hard coded strategies and this pool and this many resources to base ratio etc etc has me completely crosseyed.
Honestly, Starcraft is (relatively) a very hard RTS to learn, especially for complete beginners. However, Blizzard has stated that they are putting in a lot of features to make it easier for new players to transition into competitive multiplayer. There is some sort of 'challenges' game mode where the game teaches you all the basic mechanics through a series of challenges. There is a practice league online where the game speed is slowed down to allow you to get a handle for things. All the lingo we're using is stuff that you'll pick up over time, so I wouldn't be too concerned about it. And as other players have mentioned, there is a wealth of great information online to get you up-to-speed quickly.
Completely unrelated question for those who are playing the beta:
How accessible is this game for new players? I played SC about 12+ years ago and it was the last time I really did any kind of competitive RTS. I tried to get into the DoW2 multiplayer but it was so different from the campaign that I was completely worthless.
I'm excited for the SC2 campaign and I'd like to get excited for the multiplayer, but reading people on here going on about the different hard coded strategies and this pool and this many resources to base ratio etc etc has me completely crosseyed.
I hadn't played SC1 since the first year, and didn't find the SC2 beta too bad. There's a few other nice points about its accesibility for multiplayer:
There will be "training" maps, teaching you to use hotkeys/figure out which units counter which/etc.
The ladder system, after initial madness, settles down pretty quickly so that you're playing people of similar skill,
There is a "practice ladder" you can play against other people, with rocks in front of bases to stop rushes.
Most of the discussion sounds intimidating, but it's just short hand for stuff that makes sense when you start playing the game. For example, saying 9-pool means you built a spawning pool (the first structure) after you have a total of 9 workers. Choosing when to do this makes a difference, but it's an obvious one - the earlier you build a structure, the faster you can get fighting units, but the slower your economy is. You can safely ignore most strategy discussion until you've played the game quite a bit.
i think the difficulty that many of us are having here with this "cheese being frowned upon stance" is that it's a "moral" stance of some kind that has no real bearing on reality. "im a better player than you" means nothing if you lost.
This is definitely not what I am doing here. The claim that I am a better player than you does not say anything about the outcome of any particular game. Instead, it makes a claim about what generally happens in games between those two players.
I beat meeks the other day. Does that mean I'm better than him? No; he is clearly the better player. But how could that be? I beat him!! Well, yeah, but if we played again, he'd probably beat me. I know this because I am like 1-8 or something against him.
There's no moral component to what I'm saying here. Just a claim about probabilities, or what normally happens. Meeks beats me 90% of the time; that's consistent with my having beaten him, but he's better than me, because he beats me 90% of the time.
What does this have to do with cheese? Well, if somebody beats me with cheese, I don't know too much about how the next game will look. Maybe he sucks once I beat his cheese, which I can reliably do once I am paying attention to it. If somebody harasses my econ then macroes me into the ground, I have very good evidence that the next game will look very similar to that one.
Invictus on
Generalísimo de Fuerzas Armadas de la República Argentina
Since when was one base mass marine + tanks cheese?
Yeah the best part is we're not even talking about a classically defined cheese here. Just a standard terran play that IdrA should have known better than to lose to. But he's a whining bitch so he calls his opponent a fag.
Somehow I feel that an all-in 3 tank push at the 5 minute mark qualifies
also on a totally different note, i must say, after playing about 2 or 3 hundred games, i think i actually like broodwar better. dont get me wrong - i think the ui improvements (auto mine, smart casting, etc.) in sc2 are great and would love if they released an sc1 with the same improvements.
i think my main beef is that spells are too weak while units have become too strong. this makes macro far more important than micro. some people may like that but i dont think i do. personally, i wish they would either make psi storm as damaging as it was (or more damaging even), but maintain the smaller area of effect or do the opposite and make it a bit weaker but have a huge area of effect. same for fungal, emp, and any other direct damage spells.
maybe i just like the action part of the game more than the strategy part of the game? not sure.
Since when was one base mass marine + tanks cheese?
Yeah the best part is we're not even talking about a classically defined cheese here. Just a standard terran play that IdrA should have known better than to lose to. But he's a whining bitch so he calls his opponent a fag.
Somehow I feel that an all-in 3 tank push at the 5 minute mark qualifies
It was definitely an all-in play, though it might not look like it at first glance. Masq had no transition out of this build without doing significant damage to Idra. He had no tech and a weak economy. If he kept massing marines and tanks he would be destroyed by a better army composition in the mid-late game, and he couldn't afford to switch into another composition off of one base.
i think the difficulty that many of us are having here with this "cheese being frowned upon stance" is that it's a "moral" stance of some kind that has no real bearing on reality. "im a better player than you" means nothing if you lost.
This is definitely not what I am doing here. The claim that I am a better player than you does not say anything about the outcome of any particular game. Instead, it makes a claim about what generally happens in games between those two players.
I beat meeks the other day. Does that mean I'm better than him? No; he is clearly the better player. But how could that be? I beat him!! Well, yeah, but if we played again, he'd probably beat me. I know this because I am like 1-8 or something against him.
There's no moral component to what I'm saying here. Just a claim about probabilities, or what normally happens. Meeks beats me 90% of the time; that's consistent with my having beaten him, but he's better than me, because he beats me 90% of the time.
What does this have to do with cheese? Well, if somebody beats me with cheese, I don't know too much about how the next game will look. Maybe he sucks once I beat his cheese, which I can reliably do once I am paying attention to it. If somebody harasses my econ then macroes me into the ground, I have very good evidence that the next game will look very similar to that one.
from your post, im not sure if you actually frown upon cheese. do you? cause it doesnt sound like you do.
if someone beats me with any kind of all-in or just catches me with my pants down in the first 5 minutes, i agree with you - that one game may not be reflective of my usual game play. but im not sure why that should matter. sometimes i use non-standard strats myself and sometimes i win. that's cool. that's a good thing.
personally, i love cheese. i love when people do it and i wish i could do it well. i think it's great because it keeps you honest.
I feel bad for you guys if you think a Tank/Marine push with four (4) SCVs is cheese. Also lol at someone linking Sirlin, the natural end point of all cheese discussion (if you aren't playing this game to win then why even bother).
Completely unrelated question for those who are playing the beta:
How accessible is this game for new players? I played SC about 12+ years ago and it was the last time I really did any kind of competitive RTS. I tried to get into the DoW2 multiplayer but it was so different from the campaign that I was completely worthless.
I'm excited for the SC2 campaign and I'd like to get excited for the multiplayer, but reading people on here going on about the different hard coded strategies and this pool and this many resources to base ratio etc etc has me completely crosseyed.
I was in the same boat. Coming from a backround mostly in fighting games, I played red alert 3 semi competitively when it came out. I just started the beta saturday and i'm ranked (if that actually means anything) 3rd in the gold division.
While my win loss is like 35-25 or something i do alright and im getting better and better everytime i play. Really the thing that helped me the most were the day9 dailys. I watched from episode 100 and up and just that alone got me to the top of gold division. Also watching replays helps. Im just about to watch my last game where i got out macroed in a protoss mirror.
Oh and if anyones up for some games, im down. 2v2 or 1v1.
stoked.141
StokedUp on
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Gamertag(SSF4/MW2)StokedAidzzzSC2 ID Stoked.655 Uploaded SC2 Replays
Since when was one base mass marine + tanks cheese?
Yeah the best part is we're not even talking about a classically defined cheese here. Just a standard terran play that IdrA should have known better than to lose to. But he's a whining bitch so he calls his opponent a fag.
Somehow I feel that an all-in 3 tank push at the 5 minute mark qualifies
5 minutes in is 1 tank and 10 marines. Nothing strange here.
Destroys expo.
Knows idra has committed to roaches and vanilla lings.
Proceeds to send more marines and tanks, this time with 4 scvs as well. Perfectly justifiable as tanks now have siege, so the scvs can drop bunkers in front to reinforce a defensive line, or just repair the tanks.
Skill is winning! If someone only has all-in builds he will lose. If he has variety he might win more. All that matters is you fucked up and you lost. Your internal assessment of the other player's skill level or lack of skill level matters much less than just playing the person again to see if you win this time.
That's why tournaments are best of 3's/ best of 5's. So you literally have no excuse for complaining about cheese. Sure you might get caught off guard once with a "cheese" build. But if you're better you will win the tournament, because if your opponent doesn't have any other tactics he will lose.
So there is absolutely no reason to whine or complain. Losing to all-in random rushes is part of the game. It happens to everyone. It's the equivalent of an entire army descending on an unprepared 3rd world village. It sucks, but it happens. And next game you can scout more and play better.
The only person you should be mad at is yourself, for being a dumbass and falling for a cheesy rush.
My problem with your attitude, and it's a prevalent one, is that I see it in other games too. "Oh I lost to a flowchart ken. He sucks. He's cheesy." No, you were the worse player because you couldn't adapt. You're really just angry at yourself.
Ok, I don't think you actually read my posts before you jumped into the conversation, or at least took time to process them. You seem to think I personally get mad at cheese right? Sometimes, but I don't rage. I know that it is my own fault for losing since I didn't scout well enough or didn't sense that something fishy was going on. I'm not whining or complaining about some game I lost, which is why you telling me I have a "scrubby attitude" is ridiculous.
You can say it's a waste of time trying to assess a player's skill level, and I would agree in the case where you're trying to improve (since blaming someone else for being less skillful won't make you win anymore often), you're still not going to learn anything about a player from seeing him cheese. And there's interest in knowing a player's capabilities for observers. Anyways, I was gonna say more stuff but I think Invictus covered it well enough. I think I'm gonna leave it at this.
Anyways, I was gonna say more stuff but I think Invictus covered it well enough. I think I'm gonna leave it at this.
i still wonder though, do you think the game should have the fog of war? if so, why? if not, why? some games, dont have fog of war, so cheese doesnt exist. do you think this is a good thing?
personally, i think the only reason sc is so good is because there is the fog of war and because cheese exists.
This game will be accessible by people new to RTS's, i'm sure of it. The campaign will surely start out with really simple battles, if not a complete tutorial set of missions.
Four pages later (and one link to Sirlin's obligatory article), I'll say it again: this is why I love Idra. =P
You love Idra because even mentioning him spawns pages of discussion about a topic that has been beat to death for the last 12 years? I hate him for the exact same reason.
i think the difficulty that many of us are having here with this "cheese being frowned upon stance" is that it's a "moral" stance of some kind that has no real bearing on reality. "im a better player than you" means nothing if you lost.
This is definitely not what I am doing here. The claim that I am a better player than you does not say anything about the outcome of any particular game. Instead, it makes a claim about what generally happens in games between those two players.
I beat meeks the other day. Does that mean I'm better than him? No; he is clearly the better player. But how could that be? I beat him!! Well, yeah, but if we played again, he'd probably beat me. I know this because I am like 1-8 or something against him.
There's no moral component to what I'm saying here. Just a claim about probabilities, or what normally happens. Meeks beats me 90% of the time; that's consistent with my having beaten him, but he's better than me, because he beats me 90% of the time.
What does this have to do with cheese? Well, if somebody beats me with cheese, I don't know too much about how the next game will look. Maybe he sucks once I beat his cheese, which I can reliably do once I am paying attention to it. If somebody harasses my econ then macroes me into the ground, I have very good evidence that the next game will look very similar to that one.
from your post, im not sure if you actually frown upon cheese. do you? cause it doesnt sound like you do.
if someone beats me with any kind of all-in or just catches me with my pants down in the first 5 minutes, i agree with you - that one game may not be reflective of my usual game play. but im not sure why that should matter. sometimes i use non-standard strats myself and sometimes i win. that's cool. that's a good thing.
personally, i love cheese. i love when people do it and i wish i could do it well. i think it's great because it keeps you honest.
McAllen, have you actually read the conversation or did you just read the word cheese and assume we're complaining about it. Streltsy was simply pointing out the fact that it's justifiable to be angry when you lose to a cheese build in game, especially when the player who executed it could not beat you in any other way. On the contrary, everyone is defending cheese. I have no idea why this topic always leads to such passionate responses.
All I'm trying to do is explain why it is that some people get so angry after they get cheesed, and why that anger is understandable. I am in fact not at all sure what it is for anger to be justified, but I think everyone can get why someone would be pissed to lose a game to somebody they have good reason to think they could reliably beat. The original discussion was about how to assess IdrA's outburst after losing to Masq.
Now, there are two complications: one about whether or not Masq's strat was actually cheese, and another about how IdrA handled his anger. Masq's play was definitely an all-in; he had no good transitions or expansions and was screwed if IdrA beat it, and IdrA had ways to beat it: static defense or banes, maybe, which he could have used if he had scouted the heavy marine force. IdrA also handled his anger very badly; calling people 'fags' is pretty much not cool.
But the central question, I thought, was about anger in response to losing to cheese. Hopefully people will handle their anger better than IdrA did, but surely everyone can understand why it is that IdrA was so angry, given that he perceived Masq as making a gimmicky move which IdrA could defeat in future games. At the time, at least, it looked to IdrA as though Masq was a player that IdrA could reliably beat 70 or 80% of the time, but Masq's cheese worked this game.
That sucks for IdrA, and he was angry. I think people who are trying to tell IdrA "don't be angry there, you just lost, he was a better player," are kind of missing the point. IdrA isn't saying "I really won that game! you cheated!" IdrA is just pissed because he lost a game he normally doesn't lose, and that I can understand.
Edit: I didn't actually answer your question. Do I frown on cheese? Depends. I think it's a bad way to get better, and a good way to advance your ladder rank beyond what your core skills justify. I think it can be a good way to win this game, right here, this one, if you think that long games give the advantage to your opponent and you have reason to think the opponent would be vulnerable to it. Cheese is certainly part of the rules, so I don't think it's cheating, so I don't see any moral reason to disapprove of it (I have a complicated view of cheating which I have no reason to push on everyone right now). I think that's the best answer I have for you.
Invictus on
Generalísimo de Fuerzas Armadas de la República Argentina
Since when was one base mass marine + tanks cheese?
Yeah the best part is we're not even talking about a classically defined cheese here. Just a standard terran play that IdrA should have known better than to lose to. But he's a whining bitch so he calls his opponent a fag.
Somehow I feel that an all-in 3 tank push at the 5 minute mark qualifies
It was definitely an all-in play, though it might not look like it at first glance. Masq had no transition out of this build without doing significant damage to Idra. He had no tech and a weak economy. If he kept massing marines and tanks he would be destroyed by a better army composition in the mid-late game, and he couldn't afford to switch into another composition off of one base.
Plus, let's talk about scouting Terran opponents.
I bitch about losing to Terran a lot, and the answer pretty much always boils down to "scout moar noob." There are a couple issues with this.
1): Unless you send a very (very) early drone to scout, your opponent will be walled, with one or two exceptions for particular maps (Scrap Station, a couple of the 2v2 maps, etc.) Since you almost certainly sent your drone before he had marines up, unless he's a total idiot, he will slightly delay further tech until he kills your drone. You have learned precisely dick and delayed your economy. Drone scouting is therefore only worthwhile to determine location.
2): Your OL is slow enough that by the time you get to his base, he'll have a couple of marines up and shred your OL, likely before you see anything noteworthy. If you do manage to see that he's strongly teched in a single direction, it's probably too late to change your build if it's unsuitable. Also, you are now foodcapped (or damn close to it), since he burned your OL..
3): Due to addon swapping, early scouting against Terran is often completely useless anyway. Okay, he's got one factory up with a tech lab. From there, he can either go Siege Tanks, blue flame for Hellion, or drop a starport on the tech lab for banshee harass. (Or Raven harass, but that's uncommon.) All of these require different responses. Guess wrong and you're screwed.
All of this, combined with the fact that Zerg is comparatively stupidly easy to scout - with the exception of Corruptors, every single goddamn unit requires its own building, makes ZvT very frustrating for the Zerg player until you can get OL Speed. But by the time you've got it, if you went the wrong way, it's very difficult to rejigger into something workable.
also on a totally different note, i must say, after playing about 2 or 3 hundred games, i think i actually like broodwar better. dont get me wrong - i think the ui improvements (auto mine, smart casting, etc.) in sc2 are great and would love if they released an sc1 with the same improvements.
i think my main beef is that spells are too weak while units have become too strong. this makes macro far more important than micro. some people may like that but i dont think i do. personally, i wish they would either make psi storm as damaging as it was (or more damaging even), but maintain the smaller area of effect or do the opposite and make it a bit weaker but have a huge area of effect. same for fungal, emp, and any other direct damage spells.
maybe i just like the action part of the game more than the strategy part of the game? not sure.
you are a crazy person, those spells are crazy good when used properly
Four pages later (and one link to Sirlin's obligatory article), I'll say it again: this is why I love Idra. =P
You love Idra because even mentioning him spawns pages of discussion about a topic that has been beat to death for the last 12 years? I hate him for the exact same reason.
I think he's exactly the type of polarizing character every up and coming e-sport needs. 8-)
Should we replace the word cheese ( which has a negative connotation ) with risky?
If we can agree that SC2 isn't broken, and that the person who makes the least mistakes in that particular game will win, then I don't really see a difference between cheese and risk.
I bitch about losing to Terran a lot, and the answer pretty much always boils down to "scout moar noob." There are a couple issues with this.
1): Unless you send a very (very) early drone to scout, your opponent will be walled, with one or two exceptions for particular maps (Scrap Station, a couple of the 2v2 maps, etc.) Since you almost certainly sent your drone before he had marines up, unless he's a total idiot, he will slightly delay further tech until he kills your drone. You have learned precisely dick and delayed your economy. Drone scouting is therefore only worthwhile to determine location.
2): Your OL is slow enough that by the time you get to his base, he'll have a couple of marines up and shred your OL, likely before you see anything noteworthy. If you do manage to see that he's strongly teched in a single direction, it's probably too late to change your build if it's unsuitable. Also, you are now foodcapped (or damn close to it), since he burned your OL..
3): Due to addon swapping, early scouting against Terran is often completely useless anyway. Okay, he's got one factory up with a tech lab. From there, he can either go Siege Tanks, blue flame for Hellion, or drop a starport on the tech lab for banshee harass. (Or Raven harass, but that's uncommon.) All of these require different responses. Guess wrong and you're screwed.
All of this, combined with the fact that Zerg is comparatively stupidly easy to scout - with the exception of Corruptors, every single goddamn unit requires its own building, makes ZvT very frustrating for the Zerg player until you can get OL Speed. But by the time you've got it, if you went the wrong way, it's very difficult to rejigger into something workable.
You have to know what to look for when you are scouting in the early game. The important thing is to count the marines/maruaders and watch what goes on the barracks. This can clue you in quite bit to what they are doing. Reactor means mass Marines or Hellions, and Tech lab means reapers/maruaders.
Also do not be afraid to sac an overlord at certain points ot get scouting info. If you time it right it can be well worth more than 100 minerals you will lose. This is one step most players miss out on. When I watch Sheth play or something you will almost ALWAYS see them sac an overlord at least once.
Zerg are VERY hard to scout for long cause lings move so damn fast. You want to talk about something easy to scout, that's Protoss. Zealots are WAY to slow and a stalker/sentry takes FOREVER to get.
And Zerg should be very easy to tech switch with, more so than other races, so just be prepared and sac those overlords.
Anyways, I was gonna say more stuff but I think Invictus covered it well enough. I think I'm gonna leave it at this.
i still wonder though, do you think the game should have the fog of war? if so, why? if not, why? some games, dont have fog of war, so cheese doesnt exist. do you think this is a good thing?
personally, i think the only reason sc is so good is because there is the fog of war and because cheese exists.
Yes it should exist, and in fact I'm kind of sad cheese seems to be less viable in SC2. Especially talking about the old highground mechanic, I think it would be great if they merged the old one with the new to give extra awesome highground.
Some element of chance makes for an exciting spectator sport, as long as you don't go overboard. One battle might very well be decided by chance, one game is unlikely to be but it still happens occasionally, a Bo series just about never attributed to chance.
edit: And FoW is obviously an interesting element of the game, another way in which pros are separated from newbies. Good scouting is a skill in of itself obviously. The more ways in which players can be separated by having different sets of skills the better.
edit2: I'm also sort of tired right now, so excuse me if I'm not making much sense. -_-
also on a totally different note, i must say, after playing about 2 or 3 hundred games, i think i actually like broodwar better. dont get me wrong - i think the ui improvements (auto mine, smart casting, etc.) in sc2 are great and would love if they released an sc1 with the same improvements.
i think my main beef is that spells are too weak while units have become too strong. this makes macro far more important than micro. some people may like that but i dont think i do. personally, i wish they would either make psi storm as damaging as it was (or more damaging even), but maintain the smaller area of effect or do the opposite and make it a bit weaker but have a huge area of effect. same for fungal, emp, and any other direct damage spells.
maybe i just like the action part of the game more than the strategy part of the game? not sure.
Psi storm is a bit weaker, but, Emp? Really? It's almost game-breaking in TvP. Especially as it negates the hardened shields of the Immortals. Fungal growth does very little damage, but the rooting ability is ridiculous. Also, force fields and point defense drones are amazing. Feedback's pretty sweet, too.
This game will be accessible by people new to RTS's, i'm sure of it. The campaign will surely start out with really simple battles, if not a complete tutorial set of missions.
"You must lead an expedition force into silverpine forest where you will construct a base consisting of three farms and a barracks.
This game will be accessible by people new to RTS's, i'm sure of it. The campaign will surely start out with really simple battles, if not a complete tutorial set of missions.
"You must lead an expedition force into silverpine forest where you will construct a base consisting of three farms and a barracks.
Really, I think this is one of the biggest issues I had with DoW2. The campaign was a lot of fun. It was like "here is your force of space marines. Go do this or defend that." For x hours of campaign until the end.
Then you get into multiplayer and it's like "oh by the way, now you have to collect resources (you've never done this before) and choose your own units on the fly. Also, the units all work differently now and there are two more races you have no experience with. Have fun!"
also on a totally different note, i must say, after playing about 2 or 3 hundred games, i think i actually like broodwar better. dont get me wrong - i think the ui improvements (auto mine, smart casting, etc.) in sc2 are great and would love if they released an sc1 with the same improvements.
i think my main beef is that spells are too weak while units have become too strong. this makes macro far more important than micro. some people may like that but i dont think i do. personally, i wish they would either make psi storm as damaging as it was (or more damaging even), but maintain the smaller area of effect or do the opposite and make it a bit weaker but have a huge area of effect. same for fungal, emp, and any other direct damage spells.
maybe i just like the action part of the game more than the strategy part of the game? not sure.
you are a crazy person, those spells are crazy good when used properly
maybe you didnt play too much broodwar? compared to broodwar, every single spell in this game is garbage.
have you even used the new emp? it's about a billion times better in sc2 than the garbage it was in sc1.
This is true for many reasons. Shields were much weaker in BW (took full damage from everything), and there were no special shields like the immortal's. You could also micro around it in BW, because it was a missile, and it was more obvious because Science Vessels stood out like a sore thumb and ghosts blend in with a bioball. It also comes much earlier.
Forcefield is also a hugely important spell that has not been talked about much. It is the centerpiece of my early PvT.
Invictus on
Generalísimo de Fuerzas Armadas de la República Argentina
Since when was one base mass marine + tanks cheese?
Yeah the best part is we're not even talking about a classically defined cheese here. Just a standard terran play that IdrA should have known better than to lose to. But he's a whining bitch so he calls his opponent a fag.
Somehow I feel that an all-in 3 tank push at the 5 minute mark qualifies
It was definitely an all-in play, though it might not look like it at first glance. Masq had no transition out of this build without doing significant damage to Idra. He had no tech and a weak economy. If he kept massing marines and tanks he would be destroyed by a better army composition in the mid-late game, and he couldn't afford to switch into another composition off of one base.
Plus, let's talk about scouting Terran opponents.
I bitch about losing to Terran a lot, and the answer pretty much always boils down to "scout moar noob." There are a couple issues with this.
1): Unless you send a very (very) early drone to scout, your opponent will be walled, with one or two exceptions for particular maps (Scrap Station, a couple of the 2v2 maps, etc.) Since you almost certainly sent your drone before he had marines up, unless he's a total idiot, he will slightly delay further tech until he kills your drone. You have learned precisely dick and delayed your economy. Drone scouting is therefore only worthwhile to determine location.
2): Your OL is slow enough that by the time you get to his base, he'll have a couple of marines up and shred your OL, likely before you see anything noteworthy. If you do manage to see that he's strongly teched in a single direction, it's probably too late to change your build if it's unsuitable. Also, you are now foodcapped (or damn close to it), since he burned your OL..
3): Due to addon swapping, early scouting against Terran is often completely useless anyway. Okay, he's got one factory up with a tech lab. From there, he can either go Siege Tanks, blue flame for Hellion, or drop a starport on the tech lab for banshee harass. (Or Raven harass, but that's uncommon.) All of these require different responses. Guess wrong and you're screwed.
All of this, combined with the fact that Zerg is comparatively stupidly easy to scout - with the exception of Corruptors, every single goddamn unit requires its own building, makes ZvT very frustrating for the Zerg player until you can get OL Speed. But by the time you've got it, if you went the wrong way, it's very difficult to rejigger into something workable.
People with your attitude are never in the top tournaments.
Because they don't blame it on the game. They find new tactics and abuse those. There are zergs that can completely and utterly destroy every terran player you've lost to. Obviously there are. You know this, too.
How about trying to become like them by improving your game instead of complaining about the nature of the game?
Your attitude is ultimately defeatist, and ultimately useless for improving, because you are not blaming yourself. You are blaming the mechanics of the game for your loss. Therefore, you will not improve as much as you could.
also on a totally different note, i must say, after playing about 2 or 3 hundred games, i think i actually like broodwar better. dont get me wrong - i think the ui improvements (auto mine, smart casting, etc.) in sc2 are great and would love if they released an sc1 with the same improvements.
i think my main beef is that spells are too weak while units have become too strong. this makes macro far more important than micro. some people may like that but i dont think i do. personally, i wish they would either make psi storm as damaging as it was (or more damaging even), but maintain the smaller area of effect or do the opposite and make it a bit weaker but have a huge area of effect. same for fungal, emp, and any other direct damage spells.
maybe i just like the action part of the game more than the strategy part of the game? not sure.
Psi storm is a bit weaker, but, Emp? Really? It's almost game-breaking in TvP. Especially as it negates the hardened shields of the Immortals. Fungal growth does very little damage, but the rooting ability is ridiculous. Also, force fields and point defense drones are amazing. Feedback's pretty sweet, too.
emp was better in sc1 and it didnt break the game.
fungal is terrible compared to plague.
i'll give you force field. that's a great spell.
point defense drone is a mediocre version of swarm.
have you even used the new emp? it's about a billion times better in sc2 than the garbage it was in sc1.
This is true for many reasons. Shields were much weaker in BW (took full damage from everything), and there were no special shields like the immortal's. You could also micro around it in BW, because it was a missile, and it was more obvious because Science Vessels stood out like a sore thumb and ghosts blend in with a bioball. It also comes much earlier.
Forcefield is also a hugely important spell that has not been talked about much. It is the centerpiece of my early PvT.
whaaaaaaaat? emp was not garbage in sc1. it was fucking awesome. shields were worse, but emp was also about killing mana. and though i agree sci vessels went down quick, they could fly, which meant flying in and making a bunch of templars useless.
i'll concede that emp is not terrible in sc2.
but you guys got to agree that the spells overall are still pretty useless compared to broodwar.
also on a totally different note, i must say, after playing about 2 or 3 hundred games, i think i actually like broodwar better. dont get me wrong - i think the ui improvements (auto mine, smart casting, etc.) in sc2 are great and would love if they released an sc1 with the same improvements.
i think my main beef is that spells are too weak while units have become too strong. this makes macro far more important than micro. some people may like that but i dont think i do. personally, i wish they would either make psi storm as damaging as it was (or more damaging even), but maintain the smaller area of effect or do the opposite and make it a bit weaker but have a huge area of effect. same for fungal, emp, and any other direct damage spells.
maybe i just like the action part of the game more than the strategy part of the game? not sure.
you are a crazy person, those spells are crazy good when used properly
maybe you didnt play too much broodwar? compared to broodwar, every single spell in this game is garbage.
I have played Brood War, and this is absolutely false. I would say the spells are about the same power in both games. Terran now has two useful caster units rather than just the Science Vessel. Fungal Growth is about on par with Plague; less damage but the root ability is amazingly powerful. They lost Dark Swarm but got a bunch of other useful abilities in the overseer. Storm is a (little) bit weaker but force fields more than make up for that. I really have no idea where you're getting the idea that spells have gotten worse in this game; they are absolutely integral to play.
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How accessible is this game for new players? I played SC about 12+ years ago and it was the last time I really did any kind of competitive RTS. I tried to get into the DoW2 multiplayer but it was so different from the campaign that I was completely worthless.
I'm excited for the SC2 campaign and I'd like to get excited for the multiplayer, but reading people on here going on about the different hard coded strategies and this pool and this many resources to base ratio etc etc has me completely crosseyed.
Whether he's the better overall player depends on whether he can beat the other guy consistently.
I'm not competitive, but I still have fun in multiplayer by trying to improve one part of my game each time I play.
The thing to remember about this game is that they have an automated matchmaking system that I am really very impressed with. It is very likely that your first few placement matches will result in your getting crushed. But once you're ten or fifteen games in, you can pretty reliably expect that you will be playing people about your skill level. Yeah, there are build orders that go in six or seven minutes and certain kinds of responses that good players have hardcoded into their play.
But you won't have to bother with that stuff, unless you want to. There are many skill levels, and there will be more once there are millions of people online playing, as I expect to happen pretty quickly after release. So you shouldn't be intimidated by our relatively complicated strategy discussions. If you are really interested in improving and playing all the time and getting your mechanics down, go ahead, jump on in with us. If you aren't, that's great; there will be plenty of people playing like that you will be able to play with.
i think the difficulty that many of us are having here with this "cheese being frowned upon stance" is that it's a "moral" stance of some kind that has no real bearing on reality. "im a better player than you" means nothing if you lost.
personally, i dont even mind when tournaments are 1 offs and not a series of games. because in those types of tournaments, the winner can literally say, "i never lost a single game."
to even get to tournament level, you absolutely must be an amazing player. to pretend like idra is a better than meek (?), but because meek used "cheese," he beat idra, who is a better player, is total garbage logic. if idra was actually better, he wouldnt have fallen for the cheese. if idra lost to meek's cheese, the most you could say is meek and idra have equivalent skill, but meek played better that game.
for example, if i tried to cheese idra, he would hump me. because he's a better player than me.
edit: the example shoudl have been masq, not meek.
Honestly, Starcraft is (relatively) a very hard RTS to learn, especially for complete beginners. However, Blizzard has stated that they are putting in a lot of features to make it easier for new players to transition into competitive multiplayer. There is some sort of 'challenges' game mode where the game teaches you all the basic mechanics through a series of challenges. There is a practice league online where the game speed is slowed down to allow you to get a handle for things. All the lingo we're using is stuff that you'll pick up over time, so I wouldn't be too concerned about it. And as other players have mentioned, there is a wealth of great information online to get you up-to-speed quickly.
I hadn't played SC1 since the first year, and didn't find the SC2 beta too bad. There's a few other nice points about its accesibility for multiplayer:
Most of the discussion sounds intimidating, but it's just short hand for stuff that makes sense when you start playing the game. For example, saying 9-pool means you built a spawning pool (the first structure) after you have a total of 9 workers. Choosing when to do this makes a difference, but it's an obvious one - the earlier you build a structure, the faster you can get fighting units, but the slower your economy is. You can safely ignore most strategy discussion until you've played the game quite a bit.
This is definitely not what I am doing here. The claim that I am a better player than you does not say anything about the outcome of any particular game. Instead, it makes a claim about what generally happens in games between those two players.
I beat meeks the other day. Does that mean I'm better than him? No; he is clearly the better player. But how could that be? I beat him!! Well, yeah, but if we played again, he'd probably beat me. I know this because I am like 1-8 or something against him.
There's no moral component to what I'm saying here. Just a claim about probabilities, or what normally happens. Meeks beats me 90% of the time; that's consistent with my having beaten him, but he's better than me, because he beats me 90% of the time.
What does this have to do with cheese? Well, if somebody beats me with cheese, I don't know too much about how the next game will look. Maybe he sucks once I beat his cheese, which I can reliably do once I am paying attention to it. If somebody harasses my econ then macroes me into the ground, I have very good evidence that the next game will look very similar to that one.
Somehow I feel that an all-in 3 tank push at the 5 minute mark qualifies
i think my main beef is that spells are too weak while units have become too strong. this makes macro far more important than micro. some people may like that but i dont think i do. personally, i wish they would either make psi storm as damaging as it was (or more damaging even), but maintain the smaller area of effect or do the opposite and make it a bit weaker but have a huge area of effect. same for fungal, emp, and any other direct damage spells.
maybe i just like the action part of the game more than the strategy part of the game? not sure.
It was definitely an all-in play, though it might not look like it at first glance. Masq had no transition out of this build without doing significant damage to Idra. He had no tech and a weak economy. If he kept massing marines and tanks he would be destroyed by a better army composition in the mid-late game, and he couldn't afford to switch into another composition off of one base.
from your post, im not sure if you actually frown upon cheese. do you? cause it doesnt sound like you do.
if someone beats me with any kind of all-in or just catches me with my pants down in the first 5 minutes, i agree with you - that one game may not be reflective of my usual game play. but im not sure why that should matter. sometimes i use non-standard strats myself and sometimes i win. that's cool. that's a good thing.
personally, i love cheese. i love when people do it and i wish i could do it well. i think it's great because it keeps you honest.
I was in the same boat. Coming from a backround mostly in fighting games, I played red alert 3 semi competitively when it came out. I just started the beta saturday and i'm ranked (if that actually means anything) 3rd in the gold division.
While my win loss is like 35-25 or something i do alright and im getting better and better everytime i play. Really the thing that helped me the most were the day9 dailys. I watched from episode 100 and up and just that alone got me to the top of gold division. Also watching replays helps. Im just about to watch my last game where i got out macroed in a protoss mirror.
Oh and if anyones up for some games, im down. 2v2 or 1v1.
stoked.141
Gamertag(SSF4/MW2)StokedAidzzzSC2 ID Stoked.655
Uploaded SC2 Replays
5 minutes in is 1 tank and 10 marines. Nothing strange here.
Destroys expo.
Knows idra has committed to roaches and vanilla lings.
Proceeds to send more marines and tanks, this time with 4 scvs as well. Perfectly justifiable as tanks now have siege, so the scvs can drop bunkers in front to reinforce a defensive line, or just repair the tanks.
I am struggling to see how this qualifies.
Ok, I don't think you actually read my posts before you jumped into the conversation, or at least took time to process them. You seem to think I personally get mad at cheese right? Sometimes, but I don't rage. I know that it is my own fault for losing since I didn't scout well enough or didn't sense that something fishy was going on. I'm not whining or complaining about some game I lost, which is why you telling me I have a "scrubby attitude" is ridiculous.
You can say it's a waste of time trying to assess a player's skill level, and I would agree in the case where you're trying to improve (since blaming someone else for being less skillful won't make you win anymore often), you're still not going to learn anything about a player from seeing him cheese. And there's interest in knowing a player's capabilities for observers. Anyways, I was gonna say more stuff but I think Invictus covered it well enough. I think I'm gonna leave it at this.
i still wonder though, do you think the game should have the fog of war? if so, why? if not, why? some games, dont have fog of war, so cheese doesnt exist. do you think this is a good thing?
personally, i think the only reason sc is so good is because there is the fog of war and because cheese exists.
You love Idra because even mentioning him spawns pages of discussion about a topic that has been beat to death for the last 12 years? I hate him for the exact same reason.
All I'm trying to do is explain why it is that some people get so angry after they get cheesed, and why that anger is understandable. I am in fact not at all sure what it is for anger to be justified, but I think everyone can get why someone would be pissed to lose a game to somebody they have good reason to think they could reliably beat. The original discussion was about how to assess IdrA's outburst after losing to Masq.
Now, there are two complications: one about whether or not Masq's strat was actually cheese, and another about how IdrA handled his anger. Masq's play was definitely an all-in; he had no good transitions or expansions and was screwed if IdrA beat it, and IdrA had ways to beat it: static defense or banes, maybe, which he could have used if he had scouted the heavy marine force. IdrA also handled his anger very badly; calling people 'fags' is pretty much not cool.
But the central question, I thought, was about anger in response to losing to cheese. Hopefully people will handle their anger better than IdrA did, but surely everyone can understand why it is that IdrA was so angry, given that he perceived Masq as making a gimmicky move which IdrA could defeat in future games. At the time, at least, it looked to IdrA as though Masq was a player that IdrA could reliably beat 70 or 80% of the time, but Masq's cheese worked this game.
That sucks for IdrA, and he was angry. I think people who are trying to tell IdrA "don't be angry there, you just lost, he was a better player," are kind of missing the point. IdrA isn't saying "I really won that game! you cheated!" IdrA is just pissed because he lost a game he normally doesn't lose, and that I can understand.
Edit: I didn't actually answer your question. Do I frown on cheese? Depends. I think it's a bad way to get better, and a good way to advance your ladder rank beyond what your core skills justify. I think it can be a good way to win this game, right here, this one, if you think that long games give the advantage to your opponent and you have reason to think the opponent would be vulnerable to it. Cheese is certainly part of the rules, so I don't think it's cheating, so I don't see any moral reason to disapprove of it (I have a complicated view of cheating which I have no reason to push on everyone right now). I think that's the best answer I have for you.
Plus, let's talk about scouting Terran opponents.
I bitch about losing to Terran a lot, and the answer pretty much always boils down to "scout moar noob." There are a couple issues with this.
1): Unless you send a very (very) early drone to scout, your opponent will be walled, with one or two exceptions for particular maps (Scrap Station, a couple of the 2v2 maps, etc.) Since you almost certainly sent your drone before he had marines up, unless he's a total idiot, he will slightly delay further tech until he kills your drone. You have learned precisely dick and delayed your economy. Drone scouting is therefore only worthwhile to determine location.
2): Your OL is slow enough that by the time you get to his base, he'll have a couple of marines up and shred your OL, likely before you see anything noteworthy. If you do manage to see that he's strongly teched in a single direction, it's probably too late to change your build if it's unsuitable. Also, you are now foodcapped (or damn close to it), since he burned your OL..
3): Due to addon swapping, early scouting against Terran is often completely useless anyway. Okay, he's got one factory up with a tech lab. From there, he can either go Siege Tanks, blue flame for Hellion, or drop a starport on the tech lab for banshee harass. (Or Raven harass, but that's uncommon.) All of these require different responses. Guess wrong and you're screwed.
All of this, combined with the fact that Zerg is comparatively stupidly easy to scout - with the exception of Corruptors, every single goddamn unit requires its own building, makes ZvT very frustrating for the Zerg player until you can get OL Speed. But by the time you've got it, if you went the wrong way, it's very difficult to rejigger into something workable.
you are a crazy person, those spells are crazy good when used properly
PSN: Robo_Wizard1
I think he's exactly the type of polarizing character every up and coming e-sport needs. 8-)
If we can agree that SC2 isn't broken, and that the person who makes the least mistakes in that particular game will win, then I don't really see a difference between cheese and risk.
You have to know what to look for when you are scouting in the early game. The important thing is to count the marines/maruaders and watch what goes on the barracks. This can clue you in quite bit to what they are doing. Reactor means mass Marines or Hellions, and Tech lab means reapers/maruaders.
Also do not be afraid to sac an overlord at certain points ot get scouting info. If you time it right it can be well worth more than 100 minerals you will lose. This is one step most players miss out on. When I watch Sheth play or something you will almost ALWAYS see them sac an overlord at least once.
Zerg are VERY hard to scout for long cause lings move so damn fast. You want to talk about something easy to scout, that's Protoss. Zealots are WAY to slow and a stalker/sentry takes FOREVER to get.
And Zerg should be very easy to tech switch with, more so than other races, so just be prepared and sac those overlords.
Yes it should exist, and in fact I'm kind of sad cheese seems to be less viable in SC2. Especially talking about the old highground mechanic, I think it would be great if they merged the old one with the new to give extra awesome highground.
Some element of chance makes for an exciting spectator sport, as long as you don't go overboard. One battle might very well be decided by chance, one game is unlikely to be but it still happens occasionally, a Bo series just about never attributed to chance.
edit: And FoW is obviously an interesting element of the game, another way in which pros are separated from newbies. Good scouting is a skill in of itself obviously. The more ways in which players can be separated by having different sets of skills the better.
edit2: I'm also sort of tired right now, so excuse me if I'm not making much sense. -_-
Psi storm is a bit weaker, but, Emp? Really? It's almost game-breaking in TvP. Especially as it negates the hardened shields of the Immortals. Fungal growth does very little damage, but the rooting ability is ridiculous. Also, force fields and point defense drones are amazing. Feedback's pretty sweet, too.
"You must lead an expedition force into silverpine forest where you will construct a base consisting of three farms and a barracks.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
Really, I think this is one of the biggest issues I had with DoW2. The campaign was a lot of fun. It was like "here is your force of space marines. Go do this or defend that." For x hours of campaign until the end.
Then you get into multiplayer and it's like "oh by the way, now you have to collect resources (you've never done this before) and choose your own units on the fly. Also, the units all work differently now and there are two more races you have no experience with. Have fun!"
maybe you didnt play too much broodwar? compared to broodwar, every single spell in this game is garbage.
This is true for many reasons. Shields were much weaker in BW (took full damage from everything), and there were no special shields like the immortal's. You could also micro around it in BW, because it was a missile, and it was more obvious because Science Vessels stood out like a sore thumb and ghosts blend in with a bioball. It also comes much earlier.
Forcefield is also a hugely important spell that has not been talked about much. It is the centerpiece of my early PvT.
Because they don't blame it on the game. They find new tactics and abuse those. There are zergs that can completely and utterly destroy every terran player you've lost to. Obviously there are. You know this, too.
How about trying to become like them by improving your game instead of complaining about the nature of the game?
Your attitude is ultimately defeatist, and ultimately useless for improving, because you are not blaming yourself. You are blaming the mechanics of the game for your loss. Therefore, you will not improve as much as you could.
emp was better in sc1 and it didnt break the game.
fungal is terrible compared to plague.
i'll give you force field. that's a great spell.
point defense drone is a mediocre version of swarm.
feedback is sweet. it was in sc1.
whaaaaaaaat? emp was not garbage in sc1. it was fucking awesome. shields were worse, but emp was also about killing mana. and though i agree sci vessels went down quick, they could fly, which meant flying in and making a bunch of templars useless.
i'll concede that emp is not terrible in sc2.
but you guys got to agree that the spells overall are still pretty useless compared to broodwar.
I have played Brood War, and this is absolutely false. I would say the spells are about the same power in both games. Terran now has two useful caster units rather than just the Science Vessel. Fungal Growth is about on par with Plague; less damage but the root ability is amazingly powerful. They lost Dark Swarm but got a bunch of other useful abilities in the overseer. Storm is a (little) bit weaker but force fields more than make up for that. I really have no idea where you're getting the idea that spells have gotten worse in this game; they are absolutely integral to play.
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