Starcraft 2 Thread 7-Roach Rush [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Dragon Elite

2011-09-09, 07:55 PM

StarCraft 2 is a real time strategy game by Blizzard that was released on July 27th, 2010. This thread is for general discussion with no real focus within the game.

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Dragon Elite

2011-09-09, 08:04 PM

I love broodlords. Moreso when my opponent is making all marauders.

faceroll

2011-09-09, 08:24 PM

Terran is such a freakin cheesy race. They are good at everything.

Acanous

2011-09-09, 08:32 PM

That they are. However, I've noticed a lot of terran players get trapped in build-mentality, going for macro and leaving themselves wide open to sneak attacks or lockdown.

Edit:

Need a pylon to power it, sadly. You can 6-pylon, then get some more workers before putting the forge down.

EDIT: Actually, 6-pylon 6-forge lines up without workers. You can also afford to make 2 workers and CB them out before your worker who made the forge would get to the opp's base to place the pylon, even on xel'naga. I assume you could keep making workers til you found the opp's base, and be able to afford more cannons and pylons when the rush happens. The simplest one on xel'naga throws down the cannon at 2:20.

How much time would be shaved off if you drop the pylon and forge at an outer corner of your opponent's base? (IE, using that pylon for both forge and cannons, saving 100 mins and a bit of time)
I know this would commit you to an all-in or lose, but every second you get before they scout you and figure out what you're up to counts...

Dragon Elite

2011-09-09, 08:38 PM

Terran is such a freakin cheesy race. They are good at everything.

I agree, especially because they have the best drops and the best ground to ground, and the best air-to-air. However, I have sucked it up and started realizing that I just have to out-macro them AND always counter their units to have a chance.

BTW, I'm not being biased, I play Random.

Spartacus

2011-09-09, 09:02 PM

Just a note: If you start a thread, it's your responsibility to update the OP with new people. A few were missed in the last thread, I think.

ragingrage

2011-09-09, 09:06 PM

I'd like to be adding to the main post
Server: North America
Username: ragingrage
Code: 429

faceroll

2011-09-10, 01:53 AM

I agree, especially because they have the best drops and the best ground to ground, and the best air-to-air. However, I have sucked it up and started realizing that I just have to out-macro them AND always counter their units to have a chance.

BTW, I'm not being biased, I play Random.

I rolled terran a couple times, and they have sooo many tactical advantages. Lift off means you can all in and base trade more efficiently. Medivacs means your death balls of 3/3 infantry can be anywhere. Siege tanks make chokes a huge advantage. Ghosts are awesome units, with high DPS and great abilities. EMP spam pretty much does 1/2 damage to a toss army and takes out their high templar before they can storm. Hellions with blue flame excellent at taking out light units and worker harass. Banshee great harassing unit and for picking off units that can only attack ground. Raven's have great defensive abilities. Vikings great at air superiority.

They just don't have any bad units.

BobVosh

2011-09-10, 02:58 AM

Battlecruisers are pretty bad. Great as a tech switch, but just get owned almost everytime they hit.

No race has bad, BAD units. Other than possibly the ultralisk, due to the ai control of it.

Air to air terran is kinda the worst race. Mutas beat vikings, and pheonix beat vikings. (1v1 a pheonix can beat a viking) The big advantage is the ranges involved make it so his ground is hitting your air at the same time his air hits your air.

faceroll

2011-09-10, 03:07 AM

BobVosh

2011-09-10, 03:35 AM

Ultras and hydras are pretty bad. Immortals are very situational, to the point of being bad. Mothership is useless unless you're using it for mass recall plays, but that's a huge investment (fleet beacon + 400/400), and archon toilet doesn't work anymore. Carriers aren't very good.

Thors & marine with stim are great vs. air. Vikings great vs. broodlord, space giraffe, and mutas (so long as you have parity in muta-viking numbers). Also good for overlord hunting and running down void rays. And they are a pretty critical unit in TvT. You can also turn them into mechs behind mineral lines for harass.

I never see battlecruisers out, but then, massing T3 air rarely happens unless you're zerg, but that's because broodlord pretty much one of the handful of good units zerg has.

Mothership is potentially amazing, but mostly useless. Since it is a unit you are allowed only one of I didn't count it.
Ultras are sad, which makes me sad.
Hydras are amazing for certain things, and trash against most else. Which creeps me out a bit, from the BW days.
Mutas in equal numbers or equal cost devastate vikings. (which is pretty much 1on1, 100/100 for a muta, 150/75 for a viking. Arguably 2 for 1 for minerals to gas so pretty much 100/100 in those terms)
Massing T3 air never really happens because vikings/corrupters/void rays will shut them down HARD. However protoss can get away with it since the carriers do sick amounts of damage (8x8x2 per carrier, assuming +3, otherwise 5x8x2)
Obviously zerg can get away with mass air, as broodlords are one of the few great zerg units.
Immortals are situational, and I hope the +1 range will make them better so they can sit behind the stalkers.

Thiyr

2011-09-10, 03:54 AM

If by ultras and hydras being bad you mean pretty good, then you're correct. Able to be spammed on their own to victory? Not so much, but they're far from bad. I'm remembering Destiny making quite good use of infestor/ultra during his Friendday Wednesday, and hydras have excellent firepower and a respectable range. Gate-heavy toss melts under hydra fire, and they're zergs best option for anti-air overall, despite low maneuverability.

Motherships are best used for mass recall, yes, but while that's a big investment, that's a REALLY, REALLY worthwhile one. fleet + 400/400 for a get-out-of-jail-free card for, say, an air-heavy harass at the back of your opponent's base? I've pissed off my fair share of enemies like that, destroying a few buildings with voids/carriers and then laughing as their anti-air shows up to nothing anywhere nearby, where otherwise i'd lose a TON of resources/supply.

Carriers are horribly, horribly underrated. Voids are good, but they're kinda fragile considering their cost. While carrier's firepower is lower than a void's, that durability can make a notable difference, especially their 2 higher armor. Their real issue is that they're hard to transition into smoothly, but I've been finding them the one thing left standing when I use them (lately when I expect an early push, don't get one, and mass expand in response. 3-4 bases pumping out chargelot/colossus/carrier works pretty darn well in a situation like that)

Thor/marine is good vs air, but a good chunk of that is the marine being a solid unit all around. Against masses of light air (mostly meaning mutas) that's good, but otherwise it's the marines. Vikings, I'll admit, are a good air-superiority unit. if they weren't though, I'd wonder what the deal was, seeing as that's all they're really good for in the first place. It's a solid overall unit without a tremendous specialization, like a vast majority of terran units.

And as far as "good units" zerg has, I was considering this earlier in the day, and came up with a reason people seem to be mis-thinking this. I'll start by covering a good deal of zerg units.

speedlings practically define the earlygame metagame of PvZ and PvT, being the primary reason for making a wall in the first place, as well as greatly reducing the security of expos past the natural.

Roaches are a solid unit overall, hence their popularity.

banelings are tricky, in that they're dependent on enemy micro in some sense, but baneling busts on stationary positions are useful, especially to punch through a wall

Hydras have excellent damage potential and good range, though off-creep their mobility is limited. comboed with roaches they make for a deadly ball, though.

Infestors as they stand right now are probably the unit in the game i consider outright strongest, bar none. see previous thread for details.

ultras are hard to drop, hard to deal with outside of killing them, and make for a great way to deal with masses of t1 units. Their durability means that a few of them in a ball will soak a lot of damage meant for other stuff. Also, they provide zerg with much-needed splash damage.

Mutas are excellent harass units. their speed and splash make for very sad mineral lines, and in numbers are hard to deal with unless matched close in numbers by another air-to-air unit due to their mobility.

Corruptors are niche in their usefulness, but that niche is still a useful one. They take hits better than mutas, corrupt is nifty but underused, and they deal well with most big air and colossi.

BLs are air-siege. this is good. nuff said.

From this and a few predominant strategies, I come to my conclusion. Zerg is not the race for direct combat, nor was it designed to be. They need some kind of direct units, but even in those, mobility is a strong emphasis (hence the hydra's perceived weakness, despite otherwise being a good unit). But this isn't income wars, so we can do more with our units instead of just throwing them into our opponents and seeing who's comes out standing at the end. Doing that with zerg is what necessitates the 300 food push. But speedlings, mutas, roach speed/burrow, infestors, brood lords, nydus worms, the fact that zerg will without a doubt have the most potential dropships in any given game, that all suggests indirect combat to me (which is in line with the whole "swarms of less individually powerful units" motif of the zerg in the first place. Either you win through guerrilla warfare, or you win by having more bodies to throw away than the opponent.). By association, toss is the exact opposite, having probably the most limited harassment options (again, fitting their overarching motif. stronger, less mobile units means you want direct confrontations on your terms.) and terran is inbetween, being midrange at both (are we seeing a pattern of how this keeps fitting a motif here? they can do well in both situations, but aren't the best in either unless they find some advantage to exploit). Saying that zerg's units are weaker is too simple of a statement. Ultimately, zerg's units aren't designed for direct fights, though. And using them for their intended purpose takes a bit more control than just a+right click. Protoss has other difficulties, particularly that they -aren't- mobile, and by association -can't- split from the ball. They can only be in one place at a time. Terran is the all-arounder, making them easier to use, easier to get a hang of, and they have more room to maneuver strategically, but if they push too hard and meet a wall, they're not gonna break it.

Legoshrimp

2011-09-10, 03:54 AM

Terran is such a freakin cheesy race. They are good at everything.

Along these lines, something I have noticed. TvT often times is boring(especially since its the one race I don't play). Also lots of major tournaments recently have had TvT finals. :smallfrown:

faceroll

2011-09-10, 04:46 AM

Mutas in equal numbers or equal cost devastate vikings. (which is pretty much 1on1, 100/100 for a muta, 150/75 for a viking. Arguably 2 for 1 for minerals to gas so pretty much 100/100 in those terms)

You use them for air superiority- release volley, retreat to thor/marine/turret line. Use them defensively against big flocks, offensively against smaller flocks.

some good points

I think ultras and hydras really stand out in being subpar. Immortals are close.

Terran units are just so good at the strategic level. Their armies are adaptable, mobile, and always relevant. Every unit performs its role perfectly, and in great synergy with other units. I'm still trying to get over just how good the medivac is.

Along these lines, something I have noticed. TvT often times is boring(especially since its the one race I don't play). Also lots of major tournaments recently have had TvT finals. :smallfrown:

I use the IEchoic in my TvTs. I usually win at the silver level. It hurts my macro cause I can't use the micro that double drop blue flame hellion + banshee harass + viking superiority requires, but typically it hurts my opponent's macro much more. :smallbiggrin:

LordShotGun

2011-09-10, 08:11 AM

Terran is such a freakin cheesy race. They are good at everything.

This mainly stems back to the marine. Because marines and tanks both lack a visible projectile to deal damage, the the AI never overkills units. This is a huge advantage over stalkers, roaches, and hydras.

I can't find the video on youtube right now (perhaps someone else can) but someone showed that if you have a unit with no projectile (stock marines no changes or upgrades) versus a unit with a projectile (hydras modded to have the same damage, health, and attack speed as marines) the marines ALWAYS WIN with 50% or more surviving.

The hydras(remember these hydras are modded to have the same EXACT stats are normal marines) only win when having level 3 attack upgrades and even then only a few survive.

Spartacus

2011-09-10, 08:53 AM

I think this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap5HojPrt0k) is the video.

LordShotGun

2011-09-10, 09:24 AM

I think this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap5HojPrt0k) is the video.

Ah yes, thank you.

Dragon Elite

2011-09-10, 10:08 AM

Another things about terran, just 2 vikings is enough to make a giant counterattack vs. zerg. Land them at the natural, kill the queen, and kill every single ovie. No more units are gonna get made now.

Spartacus

2011-09-10, 10:41 AM

Killing overlords with only two Vikings is really slow, and if there is more than one Queen (macro hatch, for example) you're in trouble. Drones can be pulled to fight off the landed vikings as well. Lastly, Zerg is one of the most mobile races. Running a dozen Zerglings back from the front to deal with those pesky Vikings is a totally reasonable thing.

Acanous

2011-09-10, 11:42 AM

Kyeudo

2011-09-10, 11:52 AM

Dralnu

2011-09-10, 01:55 PM

Kyeudo

2011-09-10, 01:57 PM

"You guys! Youuuuu guuuuuys! I heard on the internets that Terran is OP so I played the race a couple times in bronze/silver and like they're totally right! One time I a-moved my marines to my opponent's base and he died! And another time I landed a viking in their mineral line and after a minute it killed all their workers! AND THEIR DROPSHIPS HEEEEEALLLL!!!"

:smallsigh:

I had to lol.

On the subject of crappy units, Ultras have pathing issues. That's it. That's the only problem an Ultralisk has. It is otherwise a monstrously hard to kill tank that eats marines and tanks for breakfast. Once they come out faster, Zerg will have even more fun with them.

Legoshrimp

2011-09-10, 07:15 PM

Silverraptor

2011-09-10, 09:06 PM

Dralnu

2011-09-10, 09:08 PM

Yes but instead of bronze/silver its GSL code S.

No, it's people in this thread making the most retarded claims I've ever heard, like mounting a "massive counterattack with 2 vikings." Anything can be considered OP in bronze league, sorry. I never mentioned the top top top pro play, I'm poking the stupidity of people who are not those players who say herpderp balance because they've read it on the internets. Lord knows if the internets suddenly announced that Protoss was OP and that observers were maphacks they'd be chirping along about how easy/unfair Toss is based on their highly scientific findings within the bronze leagues.

Can it be possible that, in fact, Terran are too strong? Absolutely. Having 3 distinct races with their own unique abilities is bound to cause balance issues. That's just a fact of these type of games. You will NEVER have perfect balance. If you want perfect 100% balance I might interest you in this awesome game called rock paper scissors. "Paper is balanced. Nerf rock!" - Scissors

If something IS significantly unbalanced, Blizzard will fix it. That's what patches are for. The game will never be balanced, but it is and will remain close to it.

Silverraptor

2011-09-10, 09:15 PM

No, it's people in this thread making the most retarded claims I've ever heard, like mounting a "massive counterattack with 2 vikings." Anything can be considered OP in bronze league, sorry. I never mentioned the top top top pro play, I'm poking the stupidity of people who are not those players who say herpderp balance because they've read it on the internets. Lord knows if the internets suddenly announced that Protoss was OP and that observers were maphacks they'd be chirping along about how easy/unfair Toss is based on their highly scientific findings within the bronze leagues.

Can it be possible that, in fact, Terran are too strong? Absolutely. Having 3 distinct races with their own unique abilities is bound to cause balance issues. That's just a fact of these type of games. You will NEVER have perfect balance. If you want perfect 100% balance I might interest you in this awesome game called rock paper scissors. "Paper is balanced. Nerf rock!" - Scissors

If something IS significantly unbalanced, Blizzard will fix it. That's what patches are for. The game will never be balanced, but it is and will remain close to it.

Its times like that that I remember an awesome Idra quote where I guy was complaining that Zerg was OP.

"The Thread Starter's argument is invalid due to him being Gold Rank."

:smallbiggrin:
I'm sorry, but this is sooooooo funny.

faceroll

2011-09-10, 09:37 PM

in both cases, (workers and ling callback) the vikings can simply take off, move, land, fire, take off... Vikings can beat any non-ranged ground-only unit in the game, one on one. So long as your micro isn't horrible.

Even an ultra will die to a well micro'd Viking, if it's all you've got.

Ling surround easy to pull off.

That's why I park vikings behind mineral line and shoot drones, then tech structures. They murder lings and drones trying to attack them thanks to the natural chokes.

"You guys! Youuuuu guuuuuys! I heard on the internets that Terran is OP so I played the race a couple times in bronze/silver and like they're totally right! One time I a-moved my marines to my opponent's base and he died! And another time I landed a viking in their mineral line and after a minute it killed all their workers! AND THEIR DROPSHIPS HEEEEEALLLL!!!"

:smallsigh:

For 2011, in TvP and TvZ match ups, T wins more games. See graph in other thread I linked.

No, it's people in this thread making the most retarded claims I've ever heard, like mounting a "massive counterattack with 2 vikings." Anything can be considered OP in bronze league, sorry. I never mentioned the top top top pro play, I'm poking the stupidity of people who are not those players who say herpderp balance because they've read it on the internets. Lord knows if the internets suddenly announced that Protoss was OP and that observers were maphacks they'd be chirping along about how easy/unfair Toss is based on their highly scientific findings within the bronze leagues.

Can it be possible that, in fact, Terran are too strong? Absolutely. Having 3 distinct races with their own unique abilities is bound to cause balance issues. That's just a fact of these type of games. You will NEVER have perfect balance. If you want perfect 100% balance I might interest you in this awesome game called rock paper scissors. "Paper is balanced. Nerf rock!" - Scissors

If something IS significantly unbalanced, Blizzard will fix it. That's what patches are for. The game will never be balanced, but it is and will remain close to it.

Nice ad hominem, bro. Too bad your argument is invalid, huh. Also, data.

Dralnu

2011-09-10, 09:43 PM

And even Idra, who is one of the best zerg players in the world, has dozens of replays where he rages about imbalances yet you can see (and the commentators point it out) that it was critical errors on his part that made him lose.

But yeah, stupid comments are stupid. This thread started off dumb and quickly devolved into vikings taking on ultralisks 1on1. It has to stop.

Nice ad hominem, bro. Too bad your argument is invalid, huh. Also, data.

...

... Are you serious? I'm not sure. Sarcasm is hard to detect on the internet. :smallconfused:

faceroll

2011-09-10, 10:02 PM

http://i.imgur.com/Jvlvy.png

Dralnu

2011-09-10, 10:10 PM

http://i.imgur.com/Jvlvy.png

On what servers? What leagues? Is this all leagues and servers? Just curious. I know the GSL Code S statistics.

You really are serious, aren't you? To clarify, I'm poking fun at the stupidity of arguments you and others have made on game balance based on your handful of games in the bronze/silver leagues. You told me to get data for you. You stick with this, or were you joking?

faceroll

2011-09-10, 11:23 PM

It's a composite of pro-games, from Team Liquid's Player Database. If you look at just GSL Code S, the contrast is even more striking.

You're making an ad hominem argument. Have you ever heard someone criticize a coach or quarterback for a play in the NFL? Have you dismissed their argument out of hand because they are not playing in the NFL?

Silverraptor

2011-09-10, 11:40 PM

http://i.imgur.com/Jvlvy.png

Protoss fell under zerg? What is this treacher... oh, wait. That's probably the people still trying to 4-gate/cannon rush and fail.:smalltongue:

Kyeudo

2011-09-10, 11:42 PM

It's a composite of pro-games, from Team Liquid's Player Database. If you look at just GSL Code S, the contrast is even more striking.

You just created a sampling bias right there. For statistics to actually matter, you need a random sample so that the sample may actually reflect the population.

What your chart right there shows is that the most successful of the pros play terran. It shows how the various pros stack up against one another when divided by race. It does not say anything about the actual state of starcraft's balance.

faceroll

2011-09-10, 11:48 PM

You just created a sampling bias right there. For statistics to actually matter, you need a random sample so that the sample may actually reflect the population.

What your chart right there shows is that the most successful of the pros play terran. It shows how the various pros stack up against one another when divided by race. It does not say anything about the actual state of starcraft's balance.

Well, according to Dralnu, only the pros matter, so it's ok. :smallsigh:

Dralnu

2011-09-11, 02:23 AM

Well, according to Dralnu, only the pros matter, so it's ok. :smallsigh:

No, you continue to miss my point. I'm not disputing whether or not Terran is OP, as you keep trying to imply. I'll try to make it as clear as possible for you:

Whether or not Terran is OP, the statistical impact is so insignificant that it has no direct affect to you, me, or anyone not at the bleeding edge of the Starcraft 2 pro scene in terms of actual gameplay (Code S, basically). You win/lose by doing the following better/worse than your opponent: 1) macro 2) micro 3) scouting and responding to the enemy's strategy. If you win or lose, IT WASN'T BECAUSE OF YOUR RACE!

Do you understand now?

And yeah, if you're complaining about two vikings owning up a zerg's mineral line, it's cause you're in bronze and such things can happen if you're really bad. They ain't exactly blue flame hellions against drone lines. It's not the unit, bro, it's you.

Thiyr

2011-09-11, 03:32 AM

faceroll

2011-09-11, 03:32 AM

No, you continue to miss my point. I'm not disputing whether or not Terran is OP, as you keep trying to imply. I'll try to make it as clear as possible for you:

Whether or not Terran is OP, the statistical impact is so insignificant that it has no direct affect to you, me, or anyone not at the bleeding edge of the Starcraft 2 pro scene in terms of actual gameplay (Code S, basically). You win/lose by doing the following better/worse than your opponent: 1) macro 2) micro 3) scouting and responding to the enemy's strategy. If you win or lose, IT WASN'T BECAUSE OF YOUR RACE!

Do you understand now?

I disagree that you have to be at the bleeding edge of Starcraft (code S) to see the discrepancies between races. There are a handful of problems with races that need to be addressed at what I suppose is called the metagame level- like the difficulty in ZvT for zerg to scout terran before lair tech. That's apparent even at diamond and masters level. It'll be interesting to see how this gets addressed, either from Blizzard or within the community. I suspect many of the cries of racial imbalance for particular units will get figured out by the community, as most races have more than sufficient tools to combat particular strategies. It took like a year for terrans to discover blue flame hellions. Zerg just recently figured out how to stop 4gate. I suspect ghost openings are going to be showing up in more TvTs. A couple years ago, some Korean figured out how to kill a lurker in BW with only 3 marines. I suspect there's similar levels of play hiding in SC2.

Anyway, I would really like you to find where I attributed my losses to a particular race match up. That'd be great, cause I can't seem to find that claim.

And yeah, if you're complaining about two vikings owning up a zerg's mineral line, it's cause you're in bronze and such things can happen if you're really bad. They ain't exactly blue flame hellions against drone lines. It's not the unit, bro, it's you.

k

Thiyr

2011-09-11, 03:38 AM

Well, according to Dralnu, only the pros matter, so it's ok. :smallsigh:

I was going to let it slide, but...

Watch some pro-matches, and see how ZvP and ZvT play out.:

from the last thread. In Fallacyspeak, appeal to authority. That said, I'd love it if we could just stop that whole line of talking and speak like regular people instead of people dissecting academic papers >_>;;

And as Dralnu kinda pointed out, the human element is far more important than race balance given how it's being treated right now. individual units are tweaked when they're having too great an impact (see: the comments on infestors last thread), but the human element is the more important factor. ultimately, race balance is a concern, but the IdrA-style "OMG RACE IS OVERPOWERED" comments are not why, nor are they tremendously relevant imo. It's a concern when any individual unit/strat is metagame-warping in some excessive fashion. For compariason, I'm remembering the balance-concerns waaaay back in the day when I played MtG in Mirrodin. Ravager-Affinity defined the entirety of its metagame, fullstop. Similarly, infestors, blue flame hellions, formerly speed-voids, the 4gate, those all were fairly metagame-defining in the bad way. So while any unit can be cried about, that's not what balance is about. most of it does come down to player skill rather than the units themselves.

As far as needing to be at the bleeding edge, I'd argue that racial imbalance being noticed is...kinda the point of having different races, if we're talking about specific strengths/weaknesses (scouting of terran, protoss's typically weaker mobility, etc). That kind of "balance" isn't something to worry about, that's the spice of life (or rather, the game). It's metagame warping balance that is more of a concern, and that's the stuff that's noticable without being bleeding edge. That's the stuff that gets fixed. The other, smaller stuff, that's the stuff that's gonna matter less than just playing well.

Ziren

2011-09-11, 04:35 AM

Thiyr

2011-09-11, 04:48 AM

Hrm, I only started playing this game in multiplayer so maybe there's some sort of logic behind this that I just can't see...

Why exactly do Overlords use normal assembly point instead of the worker one? It's not like you'd usually want them to go with your combat forces...

I'd say because the worker one is just for workers, but the queen uses neither. I actually wish that everything but workers used the normal waypoint so I could be silly and mass queens, but alas, it makes no sense. .

KillItWithFire

2011-09-11, 07:38 AM

I'd say because the worker one is just for workers, but the queen uses neither. I actually wish that everything but workers used the normal waypoint so I could be silly and mass queens, but alas, it makes no sense. .

That happened to me once. Was up against a zerg and decided to try voids. Well when the first void was halfway done a cheeky zergling got in and saw the active gate. Figuring I didn't have much time before hydras I decided to push out with the two voids that had just popped out of my gates. What I found was not hydras, but about 7 or 8 queens in his main. There was a hydra den in production but I got rid of that. No spores.... just queens. Still scratching my head about that one.

LordShotGun

2011-09-11, 08:30 AM

It took like a year for terrans to discover blue flame hellions. Zerg just recently figured out how to stop 4gate. I suspect ghost openings are going to be showing up in more TvTs. A couple years ago, some Korean figured out how to kill a lurker in BW with only 3 marines. I suspect there's similar levels of play hiding in SC2.

Notice that protoss has not had any major revelations until archons got buffed (then chargelot archon became popular) and I think that warp prisms will get used more now that it is getting major health buff, and MAYBE immortals will be used more now that they not get trapped as often behind their own lines of stalkers.

However. Aside from that protoss can't really evolve their play. It's not that we don't want to explore new builds, it's that our only mobile detection requires robotics bay. For the better part of a year there has been a minor but vocal crowd of people suggesting observers come from the nexus but require a tier two building (stargate, robo-bay, twilight council).

Protoss tech and units are just too limited to effectively evolve. In HotS, however, we have been promised an early harassment unit which I hope will cause some interesting plays.

Kyeudo

2011-09-11, 11:02 AM

However. Aside from that protoss can't really evolve their play. It's not that we don't want to explore new builds, it's that our only mobile detection requires robotics bay. For the better part of a year there has been a minor but vocal crowd of people suggesting observers come from the nexus but require a tier two building (stargate, robo-bay, twilight council).

I think observers from the nexus is a bad idea. Look at Terran - they have no mobile detection until ravens and they hardly ever get that. Instead they use scans for most of their detection needs. I'd suggest a similar option for toss - some unit with an ability that can reveal cloaked units.

BobVosh

2011-09-11, 11:38 AM

I think observers from the nexus is a bad idea. Look at Terran - they have no mobile detection until ravens and they hardly ever get that. Instead they use scans for most of their detection needs. I'd suggest a similar option for toss - some unit with an ability that can reveal cloaked units.

...Like an observer? O.o

Three things really made me excited about sc2, that was the mothership planet cracker looked awesome, cliff walkers (colossus + reapers), and better graphics at a higher resolution than BW (so I'm a little shallow).

I was very sad to learn the planet cracker was gone, and my main race didn't even have a cliff walker.(zerg) I really, really hope zerg get one in HotS. It is a neat mechanic that unfortunately has no real use in sc2.

Graphics were nice though :D

Kyeudo

2011-09-11, 11:57 AM

...Like an observer? O.o

No, like an Infestor or a Ghost. They can reveal cloaked units with their fungal growth and EMP. I've found that mobile detectors aren't important unless there is a lot of cloaking going on, like burrowed roaches or DTs.

Silverraptor

2011-09-11, 02:57 PM

Why was the planet cracker removed?:smallconfused:

Dralnu

2011-09-11, 07:51 PM

I haven't been pushed out of my comfort zone so hard in a while. Played a TvT where my opponent 1based hard contain rushed with a huge amount of tanks and marines, even setting up turrets. I was so flustered, especially when I let my hellion drop get taken out by a turret, that I froze and had to think what the crap to do. He slipped up in the end but I think I'm going to borrow that strat when the positions are so close like that. Those tanks set up such a huge contain so fast!

Replay. (http://www.sc-replay.com/replay/11-09-11/217290-Killadaclown-VS-TacOxRemoT.html?justUp)

Spartacus

2011-09-11, 09:27 PM

Why was the planet cracker removed?:smallconfused:

I assume for similar reasons to the Archon Toilet. Slaughtering entire armies in an instant, or something.

Actually, with the Mothership being so slow, I dunno.

Zevox

2011-09-11, 10:56 PM

So, I finally acquired this game, and have literally spent all weekend playing it (I got no sleep last night). The campaign was great - I never much cared about the storylines in SC1, but they really pulled it off well in 2. All those permanent upgrades you could acquire were a great touch too, especially the research ones. And I was particularly surprised that they managed to make the no-base levels where you have limited units at your disposal and no ability to build very enjoyable. In 1 they just seemed tedious for the most part, but I actually found myself looking forward to them in 2.

Out of curiosity, is there any conventional wisdom on which version of the final level is harder? I opted to take out the air units and deal with the Nydus Wyrms, and I'm curious whether taking the opposite approach would've made things easier or more difficult.

From glancing over guides I see that there's a secret mission I missed out on. I'm actually a little tempted to replay the campaign for it, and maybe up the difficulty to hard this time since it was mostly not much of a challenge on normal (lost the final mission my first time around, but corrected my mistakes rather easily the second time).

I see that ya'll mostly discuss the online multiplayer though. Don't know whether I'm going to participate in that. I've never played Starcraft, or any RTS for that matter, online before, so I'm sure I'd get my rear handed to me even by other newbies (plus watching online videos of good players has intimidated the hell out of me). Plus my computer is pretty low-end, so there's some occasionally-significant lag even in the campaign, which probably means there'd be serious issues for me trying to play online (I have ordered a RAM upgrade to help with that, but it won't arrive for at least a week, and who knows how much it'll help). And in any event I'd need to play some skirmish games against the AI as the Protoss first, to familiarize myself with my preferred race's new abilities and units. I get the impression that the few Protoss missions in the campaign didn't cover everything, especially with the air units being just kind of tacked on to the last mission.

Zevox

Mutant Sheep

2011-09-11, 11:20 PM

-Things about the campaign-
-things about specific capaign things-
-Toss Stuff-
-Multiplayer is only ladder play blah blah-
Zevox
Try custom games. Really. Do it. Also, have you given us your tag and number thingey? Do it. DO IT NAOW! :smalltongue: /thor

Kyeudo

2011-09-11, 11:39 PM

Welcome, Zevox! Glad to hear you have joined our collective of insanity. I too loved the campaign, enough that I beat it about 5 times as I grabbed every achievement I could. I personally think that leaving the Nydus Worms alive is the harder final mission, as they just pour units out of those Nydus, but it also is more fun since you can build your own army of mind controled zerg more easily.

On the subject of ladder, I've found that SC2's campaign and challenge missions do a good job of preparing you for the ladder, especially the later challenge missions about build orders and hotkeys. Also, watch some of Day9's Newbie Tuesday shows and they'll help you master the basics of ladder play. Compeditive ladder play gets really fun the more of it that you do, as you expand the number of strategies that you can pull off, find your own favorite tactics, and experiment with more.

In other news, I finally found a Terran who managed to defeat my ling/infestor/ultra composition using superior positioning, ghosts, and being just to stubborn to kill. However, while tank/marine/marauder/ghost can hold off my favorite composition, I found that Brood Lord/Infestor/Whatever-I-Can-Throw-On-The-Ground-to-Stay-Alive seems to be able to deal appropriately so long as you make efforts to keep the Viking count low. Take a look if you want. (http://www.sc-replay.com/replay/11-09-11/217552-Kyeudo-VS-kwak.html?justUp=1#s_apm_gd)

DarkMemnarch

2011-09-12, 12:15 AM

I have just had the strangest game i have ever played. I was very confused throughout the entire game and I am at a loss for words on how to describe this game

I am going to show you guys this game and let you judge it.

http://www.sc-replay.com/replay/11-09-11/217576-nOOberpower-VS-DarkMemnarch.html?justUp=1

faceroll

2011-09-12, 12:28 AM

I never much cared about the storylines in SC1, but they really pulled it off well in 2.

Starcraft 1 storyline was so good. I skipped pretty much all the story crap in 2 and just mined achievements.

Kyeudo

2011-09-12, 12:35 AM

Just beat a toss. Apparently Ling/Muta/Corrupter/Ultralisk/Hydralisk can work very well. (http://www.sc-replay.com/replay/11-09-11/217588-bromg-VS-Kyeudo.html?justUp=1)

faceroll

2011-09-12, 01:26 AM

Wow, all the metal league players are crappy. We're all just poorly executing builds we read about online. I've been up against high gold and mid-plat, and they aren't that much better than me.

Fungal does more damage than storm. (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=258724&currentpage=391#7813) That's why it destroys brotoss.

BobVosh

2011-09-12, 04:57 AM

Starcraft 1 storyline was so good. I skipped pretty much all the story crap in 2 and just mined achievements.
Agreed, the story for 1+BW was better. Good zerg sadden me a bit.

I assume for similar reasons to the Archon Toilet. Slaughtering entire armies in an instant, or something.

Actually, with the Mothership being so slow, I dunno.

Maybe you could vortex them, and have the energy for the planetcracker when they come out, a la toilet.

LordShotGun

2011-09-12, 07:14 AM

No, like an Infestor or a Ghost. They can reveal cloaked units with their fungal growth and EMP. I've found that mobile detectors aren't important unless there is a lot of cloaking going on, like burrowed roaches or DTs.

Well I always thought psystorm should reveal the units it hits for the duration that they stay inside of it plus 2x the that duration.

For example. You hit a burrowed roach with storm for 2 seconds. It is then revealed for a total of 6 seconds. (2 duration + 2x that duration)

This would allow for Templar tech to be a viable alternative to being forced to get a robo every game or get owned by cloak/burrow.

Kyeudo

2011-09-12, 09:15 AM

Fungal does more damage than storm. (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=258724&currentpage=391#7813) That's why it destroys brotoss.

That guy needs to do better math. He multiplied like every pixel was a unit. He forgot that Protoss units are, on average, twice the size of Zerg units. Thus MORE zerg units fit inside the area of psistorm than protoss units fit in the area of fungal growth and the expected DPS of storm is higher than the expected dps of fungal growth.

The Glyphstone

2011-09-12, 09:50 AM

Agreed, the story for 1+BW was better. Good zerg sadden me a bit.

SC2 doesn't have 'good Zerg' so much as it has 'worse Big Bad'. The Zerg are stilll the mindless, malevolent, devouring monsters we all know and love, the only 'retcon' was an elaboration of why the Overmind was such a moron in SC1 (it was conniving around its KILLMAIMBURN orders), and Kerrigan's redemption.

I like Mengsk as the LBEG better than Kerrigan anyways, he's so deliciously slimy.

Dienekes

2011-09-12, 10:11 AM

Chiming in, SC+BW had a better story. It had conniving betrayals, interesting lore, betrayals, intriguing villains, betrayals, and more betrayals. However SCII had a more interesting way of presenting their story, while SC literally suffered from talking head syndrome.

Anyway I'm rejoining SCII after a 5 month hiatus. I have a feeling all my old protoss strategies are going to be useless now. Anyone have any information for what the current tactics are looking like?

Karoht

2011-09-12, 10:11 AM

So, Calgary Barcraft is a go. There is an RSVP/Invite thingy on facebook, if anyone is in the Calgary area (or will be around Oct 16th) let me know and I'll hit you up with info.

Now the real question becomes, should I bring my laptop or not?

Spartacus

2011-09-12, 10:35 AM

Anyway I'm rejoining SCII after a 5 month hiatus. I have a feeling all my old protoss strategies are going to be useless now. Anyone have any information for what the current tactics are looking like?

1-1-1 is getting to the point where 4-gate was against Zerg months and months ago i.e. might as well GG in PvT if you see the enemy doing it. It has the problems of being really safe, really powerful and really easy to do, making it rather annoying.

Zevox

2011-09-12, 11:11 AM

Try custom games. Really. Do it.
:smallconfused: What are custom games?

Also, have you given us your tag and number thingey? Do it. DO IT NAOW! :smalltongue: /thor
I don't know my tag and "number thingey," so that'd be awfully hard for me to have done...

Also, I love Thor's voice. Especially "I'm here, click me!" :smallbiggrin: I'm tempted to play more Terran just to use those.

Welcome, Zevox! Glad to hear you have joined our collective of insanity. I too loved the campaign, enough that I beat it about 5 times as I grabbed every achievement I could. I personally think that leaving the Nydus Worms alive is the harder final mission, as they just pour units out of those Nydus, but it also is more fun since you can build your own army of mind controled zerg more easily.
Mind controlled eh? I actually went for the other anti-Zerg structure, the one that slows them. Worked quite well for that mission though - I set up a couple at each defense point, and it helped keep the Ultralisks and most of the Zerglings from ever actually getting to attack my bunkers.

Interesting opinion of the mission version. The Nydus pour out units, yeah, but I actually found that the counter to that worked heavily to my advantage. With the Zerg lacking air units and not using many Hydralisks I was free to send out a fleet of banshees to take out the Nydus that spawned too far from my defenses for them to take them out, and those Banshees supported by a few Battlecruisers and Science Vessels were great for taking out Kerrigan before she could reach my defenses and start blowing holes in them. That was my biggest problem the time that I lost - with the steady Zerg attacks I couldn't rebuild my defenses fast enough after her assaults - so taking her out with air units was my big solution to that mission.

On the subject of ladder, I've found that SC2's campaign and challenge missions do a good job of preparing you for the ladder, especially the later challenge missions about build orders and hotkeys.
Challenge missions? What is this? *goes and plays the game, looks them up*

Ooo, very nice new feature. I did all of the basic ones - silver on Terran and Protoss, bronze on Zerg. Tried replaying the Protoss for a gold, but I could never manage to get my total losses below 13 (4/1/8), thanks in large part to not being able to save Zealots fighting long-range units.

Tried the Protoss and Terran second missions, and did not do very well. I never got the hang of casters in SC1, and I'm not much better now. Got the bronze on the Protoss mission, failed the Terran outright, twice.

Also, watch some of Day9's Newbie Tuesday shows and they'll help you master the basics of ladder play.
Newbie training videos? Thanks, I think I will indeed check those out.

Chiming in, SC+BW had a better story. It had conniving betrayals, interesting lore, betrayals, intriguing villains, betrayals, and more betrayals. However SCII had a more interesting way of presenting their story, while SC literally suffered from talking head syndrome.
That I think may be the big issue. I don't remember a lot of the finer details of SC1's story, because it simply never held my interest, so I suppose I can't say definitively that I think SC2's is overall better. However, without a doubt SC2's is far better told, and that can make a huge difference to me.

Zevox

Spartacus

2011-09-12, 12:06 PM

Mind controlled eh?...

Banshees supported by a few Battlecruisers and Science Vessels were great for taking out Kerrigan before she could reach my defenses and start blowing holes in them.

If you do he air mission and mind control a few Brood Lords, the Broodlings keep Kerrigan occupied indefinitely until she times out and goes back to base.

Also, she had a skill that one-shots vehicles, so it may not be a good idea to send your Battlecruisers at her. It seems that +3/+3 Marines with Stim are the best thing for taking her down, as long as you can run out of her Razor Swarm quickly, as she has a shield on her similar to the Immortal Shield, but it also stops spell damage (so no Yamato) but more importantly, never runs out.

Karoht

2011-09-12, 12:45 PM

SC1 Story VS SC2 Story

I won't say which one I think was better. Partly because I can't decide myself, and partly because an arguement around X is better than Y always seems like such a waste.

SC1 had a lot to establish. It therefore had a lot of story to cram in. It had to establish who the Zerg and Protoss were, a bit of culture/mentality of each, and how their respective technology and tactics were used within the universe of the story.

Then we have the Terrans. I'm rather glad that the politics of the Zerg and Protoss were by contrast remarkably simpler. At the same time, had those politics been more fleshed out (not sure what more they could have developed) I think that would have made Zerg/Toss feel very overwhelming. The Terran politics and cultural undercurrents fill much of the Terran campaign. Terran sentiment towards other races, or even towards their own people, is a very big theme. The Son's of Khorhal are fanatics, and the Confederates are willing to murder their own people (by feeding them to the Zerg) in order to support their own military industrial complex.

5 or 10 internal conflicts/political movements later, we have Arcturas Mengsk ending up as large and in charge, heading into SC2. The road to him getting there is a very compelling piece of skullduggery, if I must say. I remember having difficulty following the story the first time I played SC1, but that could be due to the talking head syndrome.

But given the amount of details to cram in for such short campaigns, combined with the limited narrative methods (in mission events, talking heads, cinematics) I think if we took away the cram it would have felt a bit less... crammed.

Enter SC2. The campaign focuses on one faction, namely the Terrans. While not as in depth for the entire universe as SC1 was, and even not as in depth towards the Terrans themselves, it still has quite a few themes explored, while delivering a simple but efficient storyline. And it used quite a few methods to tell us some small yet critical details, in ways you really can't ignore. The optional pathways through the game can and do contribute to some disjointed elements or portions which don't quite sync up, but gives the player a sense of discovery as well. For some the effect works, for some it doesn't.

There is also more Sci-fi stuff. Like in the lab, Stetman's analysis of the Protoss and Zerg. And the fact that it's relevant to your tech progression is a nice touch.

But remember, SC2 is delivering story for 1 faction across 30 or so missions. SC1 had to deliver a lot of story in 10 missions for the Terrans. Then 10 missions of Zerg, and 10 missions of Protoss. Then it had to repeat the process again for Brood War. SC2 is doing it smaller bites across a larger platform.

Overall, I would imagine that when we're done with Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void, along with any final expansion that might wrap things up (Wrath of the Xel'naga?) I think we will look back and see quite a bit of story delivered across the entire SC2 arc. Even if the missions are delivering that story in smaller bites and a larger arc overall.

Granted, I think the story is being simplified for a broader audience (every game and movie is doing this right now, I'm not surprised) and being made less gritty, but without being made lighter. It's still hardcore and brutal and violent (Tychus) but not too dark and edgy or bordering on grimdark. However I'm of the mind that the simplification could just be due to the methods of narrative used, along with the fact that we haven't seen the whole story. Example of that is Kerrigan. Sure, most would agree that the old school Starcraft would have just killed her off. But I say it ain't over until the fat lady sings. Who knows, maybe she dies in the end, and not in a heroic way either. Maybe she sacrifices her self for the greater blah blah blah and all that jazz. Or maybe, she turns on everyone during Heart of the Swarm.

And seeing as I've ranted/rambled about that for far too long, I'll stop there.

Kyeudo

2011-09-12, 01:26 PM

I like Mengsk as the LBEG better than Kerrigan anyways, he's so deliciously slimy.

Agreed. I hope I can feed him to some broodlings.

KillItWithFire

2011-09-12, 01:31 PM

Figured I should post my starcraft name here so you can all get to kicking my rumpus in new and creative fashions.
Reshyk
394

Karoht

2011-09-12, 01:55 PM

Agreed. I hope I can feed him to some broodlings.Is there anything we can feed him to that will only deal 1 HP at a time, really really slowly? That's my vote.

I wonder if we will see anything of the UED again between now and the end of Legacy of the Void. Or am I mis-remembering what happened to the UED and Mengsk's empire?

LordShotGun

2011-09-12, 02:21 PM

:smallconfused: What are custom games?

Ever play warcraft 3? Ever hear of DoTA? Dota is a custom game but hardly the ONLY custom game.

You find custom games on the multiplayer tab and custom games are on the lower right side of your screen. Most of the popular custom games have their own channel so feel free to pop in. I hang out in the zealot frenzy channel mostly (It's a footmen frenzy clone and if you liked footmen frenzy you will like this).

If you do find a custom game that seems interesting, consider trying it out in single player mode (under single player custom games) since Bnet does not have the most tolerant community for newbies.

Silverraptor

2011-09-12, 02:39 PM

Kyeudo

2011-09-12, 03:07 PM

I just lost to the dumbest cheese tactic ever. A toss built a wall of pylons between my natural and my main, after I planted my expo hatch. Then he put down a cannon.

This, of course, totaled my economicly focused opening and left me with no army and no tech. He followed up with some pheonix/void ray harass and then killed me with a big stalker/sentry push.

My overlord was exactly one inch out of position! I could have spotted this a mile away and shut it down, then gone right back to my normal plans. I feel so stupid now. :smallyuk:

Thiyr

2011-09-12, 03:11 PM

Mind controlled eh? I actually went for the other anti-Zerg structure, the one that slows them. Worked quite well for that mission though - I set up a couple at each defense point, and it helped keep the Ultralisks and most of the Zerglings from ever actually getting to attack my bunkers.

Interesting opinion of the mission version. The Nydus pour out units, yeah, but I actually found that the counter to that worked heavily to my advantage. With the Zerg lacking air units and not using many Hydralisks I was free to send out a fleet of banshees to take out the Nydus that spawned too far from my defenses for them to take them out, and those Banshees supported by a few Battlecruisers and Science Vessels were great for taking out Kerrigan before she could reach my defenses and start blowing holes in them. That was my biggest problem the time that I lost - with the steady Zerg attacks I couldn't rebuild my defenses fast enough after her assaults - so taking her out with air units was my big solution to that mission

Actually, I did something similar to this to get both Aces High and Brutal for All In. Using the slowing tech thing, masses of tanks at the lowground inbetween the two ramps to the artifact (so that they could hit both ramps easily), and PFs blocking off the ramps at their tops. Made it near-impossible to break until the end when i started missing nyduses with the roving pack of 6-8 banshees. Add a marineball to deal with kerrigan, and it was pretty easy.

Edit: Also, last night I had a most satisfying game. someone tried to 4gate me, as I pretty much default to expecting now. I opened with my gas-heavy sentry/immortal mix (with a few stalkers/zealots when i can squeeze them in). I was doing a good job of FFing him out of my base, though a worse job of actually keeping production up, and every unit split I did had him targeting down my sentries. He's still got the unit advantage when i get immortal 2 up (late), i'm down to two sentries somehow, barely enough energy for a FF, and he leaves. I'm just gonna pretend that he got frustrated that his win was coming difficult and gave up, because it was so satisfying :D

Silverraptor

2011-09-12, 04:39 PM

So, I finally get back into ladder, and for not playing a few days I already noticed I was making alot of mistakes. Accidental rally point, way too early of a scout, lost my third to him. But in spite of everything seeming just a little off and weird to me, I stomped him flat. (http://www.sc-replay.com/replay/12-09-11/218482-Alariak-VS-Silverraptor.html?justUp=1):smallbiggrin:

Mutant Sheep

2011-09-12, 05:51 PM

Ever play warcraft 3? Ever hear of DoTA? Dota is a custom game but hardly the ONLY custom game.

You find custom games on the multiplayer tab and custom games are on the lower right side of your screen. Most of the popular custom games have their own channel so feel free to pop in. I hang out in the zealot frenzy channel mostly (It's a footmen frenzy clone and if you liked footmen frenzy you will like this).

If you do find a custom game that seems interesting, consider trying it out in single player mode (under single player custom games) since Bnet does not have the most tolerant community for newbies.

I was going to say this! :smallwink:

Zevox, hold your mouse over your character portrait on the multiplayer screen and it should show your number thingey. Then post your name/tagthingey and number here. You can also just open the Gitp channel. then its way easier to friend you, dont need numbers or anything. :smallsmile:

faceroll

2011-09-12, 06:12 PM

Night of the Dead is a really fun custom game. You run around with a marine that has a skill tree killing zerg-zombie monsters and level up.

Sarone

2011-09-12, 07:31 PM

Night of the Dead is a really fun custom game. You run around with a marine that has a skill tree killing zerg-zombie monsters and level up.

Really now. What kind of skills are you upgrading? Can you get additional guys and such? Does the game get harder as yu go along?

faceroll

2011-09-12, 08:17 PM

Holy cow, TLO vs. Destiny, incredible 40+ minute game casted by TB and some brit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqeCOCvkh4k

TLO & Destiny are probably my two favorite players. They're so fun to watch.

Really now. What kind of skills are you upgrading? Can you get additional guys and such? Does the game get harder as yu go along?

You choose a class (medic, rifleman, assault, can unlock more later). You start with a gauss rifle, 3 clips of ammo, and one talent point. Each class has two talent trees. Medic focuses on healing and buffs, rifleman has a defensive tree and an offensive tree. Assault has a similar tree as the rifleman, but where the rifleman focuses on moving and shooting, assault focuses on increasing armor and shooting a lot.

You find weapons, armor, and other upgrades scattered around the map to pick up.

The game starts out hard, and gets harder. It's like a 10 or 12 player game, and within half an hour, typically half of the people are dead.

You can complete missions, which give your account XP. The XP is kept between actual games, and can be used to buy stat upgrades. Every so many XP points, your rank increases. So you start as a private, then go up to sergeant, etc. After you have gained enough XP, you unlock more parts of the story to play, so you have the choice of playing a new campaign when you start a game. I haven't got that far yet.

Allow me to explain in a little more detail.

Every game you play, you start at level 1. However, based on the number of previous games played and XP earned, you start with a number of stat points. These can be used to buy agility, perception, endurance, etc. These stats increase your sight range, weapon reload time, damage, health, energy regen, etc. You can reassign the stat points however you like. So one game, you can play a slow moving, high HP assault class, and the next you can play a fast, stutter stepping rifleman.

Sarone

2011-09-12, 08:29 PM

And it's a custom map. Can I play it with one player or is that going to be a really short game?

faceroll

2011-09-12, 08:32 PM

And it's a custom map. Can I play it with one player or is that going to be a really short game?

I don't think you'll even make it past the starting area with two players. You need at least 4 so you can all cover each other. There's a pretty high degree of map mastery, too. I guess if you had a recon & a rifleman who some how were able to grind out 4 levels, you could do it. Rifleman can drop a device at level 4 that knocks enemies back in an AoE; Recon can drop a device at level 4 that replenishes energy and HP in a small AoE. The only issue is not having a medic to heal status affects that hit Recon (rifleman can cure most status effects on himself).

Just jump on bnet. Not much to be afraid of. The community is nice enough.

Sarone

2011-09-12, 08:35 PM

I don't think you'll even make it past the starting area with two players. You need at least 4 so you can all cover each other. There's a pretty high degree of map mastery, too.

Just jump on bnet. Not much to be afraid of. The community is nice enough.

Yeah. I'll have to do that when I get out of the place I'm in. Slow internet connections suck.

BobVosh

2011-09-12, 09:55 PM

Kyeudo is on day9 right now :O
And sean said Kyeudo steals mail from Dave.
http://day9.tv/live/

Legoshrimp

2011-09-12, 09:56 PM

Watch Kyeudo!!!! http://www.twitch.tv/day9tv

Edit: Ninja'd ! D:

Kyeudo

2011-09-12, 10:02 PM

Dave doesn't have anything interesting in his mail.

Zevox

2011-09-12, 10:03 PM

If you do he air mission and mind control a few Brood Lords, the Broodlings keep Kerrigan occupied indefinitely until she times out and goes back to base.
Huh. That would be awfully convenient. Didn't know she had a time limit. Though then wouldn't you have to worry about mutalisks passing nearby and attacking the Brood Lords?

Also, she had a skill that one-shots vehicles, so it may not be a good idea to send your Battlecruisers at her.
Yeah, she always killed a few units with that, though usually the Banshees, since there were far more of them and their faster movement speed meant they got into range of her first. Nothing I couldn't quickly replace though, since I had two starports with tech reactors ready at my base and nothing else was really doing anything to my air force. Kerrigan doesn't respawn fast enough for the losses to be an issue.

Ever play warcraft 3? Ever hear of DoTA?
No to both, actually. Well, I've "heard of" DoTA in that I've seen that name used a few times on these boards, but I don't even know what the acronym stands for, much less what it is.

You find custom games on the multiplayer tab and custom games are on the lower right side of your screen.
Ah, well, that'll at least make it easy for me to figure out what they are if I start trying multiplayer. Thanks.

Zevox, hold your mouse over your character portrait on the multiplayer screen and it should show your number thingey. Then post your name/tagthingey and number here. You can also just open the Gitp channel. then its way easier to friend you, dont need numbers or anything. :smallsmile:
Friend? Eh, maybe I should wait until I decide whether to get into the whole online multiplayer thing if that's what this is for. No point in having ya'll add to me to a friends list if I'm never gonna play online.

Zevox

Kyeudo

2011-09-12, 10:37 PM

Friend? Eh, maybe I should until I decide whether to get into the whole online multiplayer thing if that's what this is for. No point in having ya'll add to me to a friends list if I'm never gonna play online.

Any time you play Starcraft 2, you are online.

The Glyphstone

2011-09-12, 10:39 PM

Any time you play Starcraft 2, you are online.

Unless you're in Offline mode.

Kyeudo

2011-09-12, 10:50 PM

Unless you're in Offline mode.

Most don't realize that exists.

TFT

2011-09-12, 10:56 PM

So, DarkMemnarch and I agreed that this replay would be posted on here after we finished our game so here it is (http://www.sc2replayed.com/replay-videos/13013).

It was fairly back and forth, though eventually DarkMemnarch's dogged chasing of my third attempts starved me out which allowed him to overwhelm me.

And yes, I did make a lot of mistakes. Inb4Legocallsmeascrub

Legoshrimp

2011-09-12, 10:58 PM

Most don't realize that exists.

It also isn't that useful because you need to have logged in within like 24-48 hours for it to work.

DarkMemnarch

2011-09-12, 11:01 PM

TFT and I just had a game. For those of you who want to watch here it is (http://www.sc-replay.com/replay/12-09-11/218807-DarkMemnarch-VS-TFT.html?justUp=1#s_apm_gd).

Zevox

2011-09-12, 11:02 PM

Any time you play Starcraft 2, you are online.
:smallsigh: You know what I meant. Heck, I even used the full term "online multiplayer" in the second sentence there.

Zevox

Mutant Sheep

2011-09-12, 11:32 PM

:smallsigh: You know what I meant. Heck, I even used the full term "online multiplayer" in the second sentence there.

Zevox

The AI in the campaign is obviously a chatbot. And chatbots are people. So even when doing the campaign your doing multiplayer. :smallbiggrin:

It'd still be nice to have you on the friends list. (Half my "friends" list is just trolls with a friend note warning me hes a troll, so maybe you should avoid my friends list...)

Spartacus

2011-09-13, 04:08 AM

New Funday Monday: Protoss with no Stalkers.

I suspect a lot of Archons and/or air play.

Croverus

2011-09-13, 04:27 AM

I rarely play protoss, but when I do I mostly just zealot rush until I can get voidrays and templars. I seldom use stalkers. I use archons for my anti-air ground unit most of the time. So, yeah, not much of a change in strategy for me.

The Glyphstone

2011-09-13, 12:59 PM

Has anyone had issues with the latest patch? I get this error messages whenever I try to run SC2, firing up the automatic updater crashes with this error message:

"The file "C:\Program Files\StarCraft II\StarCraft II Public Test.exe" is read only and cannot be updated."

No matter how many times I try to run the updater, it always locks up and stops without allowing me into SC2 proper. This is after I found the file quoted and manually unchecked the 'read-only' box.

Sarone

2011-09-13, 02:17 PM

Has anyone had issues with the latest patch? I get this error messages whenever I try to run SC2, firing up the automatic updater crashes with this error message:

No matter how many times I try to run the updater, it always locks up and stops without allowing me into SC2 proper. This is after I found the file quoted and manually unchecked the 'read-only' box.

Man, I hope that doesn't happen when I get back to the States later this year. I'm going to be pissed off.

Silverraptor

2011-09-13, 02:28 PM

Awww...:smallfrown: Day 9 hasn't added the funday monday to the archive yet. I missed Kyeudo's game.

Zevox

2011-09-13, 05:25 PM

So, playing those challenges some more, I've actually done fairly well. Got gold on all the basic ones (after much effort in the Zerg's case, but still), got up to silver on the Protoss caster challenge, and actually managed gold in the third and final Protoss challenge in just a handful of tries. Still nothing for the other four - the only one I've tried was the Terran caster one, and I failed it on both attempts - but still, better than I was expecting to do this quickly.

Zevox

Silverraptor

2011-09-13, 05:48 PM

I got zerg gold the first time I tried it. Protoss took forever for me.:smallfrown:

Acanous

2011-09-13, 07:31 PM

oddly enough, same here o.0
Zerg challenges were self-evident, wheras the protoss ones SEEMED to be, then kicked you in the junk when you tried to do what it told you was the good strat.

Zevox

2011-09-13, 10:31 PM

I got zerg gold the first time I tried it. Protoss took forever for me.:smallfrown:

oddly enough, same here o.0
Zerg challenges were self-evident, wheras the protoss ones SEEMED to be, then kicked you in the junk when you tried to do what it told you was the good strat.
Weird. I had trouble with the basic Zerg challenge because their units are individually weak and were up against Protoss units, which are of course individually strong, so keeping enough alive to meet the "lose 10 or less" goal for gold was a difficult thing to do. Also because I've never liked the Zerg, so I've never used them much, and as such I've never been very good with them.

Protoss was a little harder than Terran in that regard,* but not that hard. Proper positioning, use of powers, retreating when hp dropped to orange levels, and a little luck (like not losing any immortals to the huge siege tank group) was all I needed there.

*Terran are actually the only race I had fewer than 10 losses with when I got that gold - not sure if that's because the campaign left me most familiar with them or if they just have it easy compared to their counterparts in that challenge. Some of their fights were certainly a cakewalk, particularly with the siege tanks. Though they also had to counter an Ultralisk with Marines...

Anyway, I tried the remaining challenges. Sucked as bad at the Zerg caster mission as the Terran - I just can't seem to wipe out large quantities of units in a short time using Infestors or Ghosts I guess. I was surprised that there wasn't a Zerg "expert" mission. On those, I managed bronze on the economy one, and imagine I could get up to at least silver with some practice. Failed the "Rush Defense" mission completely though. I can get past the Zerg rush at the start, but when they reset my base and start doing a Protoss Zealot rush, I can't manage to defend myself. By the time I get marines or bunkers starting to be built, there are too many Zealots coming too frequently for me to actually finish building the defense. I'm honestly not sure what I can do there.

Zevox

KillItWithFire

2011-09-13, 11:36 PM

Weird. I had trouble with the basic Zerg challenge because their units are individually weak and were up against Protoss units, which are of course individually strong, so keeping enough alive to meet the "lose 10 or less" goal for gold was a difficult thing to do. Also because I've never liked the Zerg, so I've never used them much, and as such I've never been very good with them.

Protoss was a little harder than Terran in that regard,* but not that hard. Proper positioning, use of powers, retreating when hp dropped to orange levels, and a little luck (like not losing any immortals to the huge siege tank group) was all I needed there.

*Terran are actually the only race I had fewer than 10 losses with when I got that gold - not sure if that's because the campaign left me most familiar with them or if they just have it easy compared to their counterparts in that challenge. Some of their fights were certainly a cakewalk, particularly with the siege tanks. Though they also had to counter an Ultralisk with Marines...

Anyway, I tried the remaining challenges. Sucked as bad at the Zerg caster mission as the Terran - I just can't seem to wipe out large quantities of units in a short time using Infestors or Ghosts I guess. I was surprised that there wasn't a Zerg "expert" mission. On those, I managed bronze on the economy one, and imagine I could get up to at least silver with some practice. Failed the "Rush Defense" mission completely though. I can get past the Zerg rush at the start, but when they reset my base and start doing a Protoss Zealot rush, I can't manage to defend myself. By the time I get marines or bunkers starting to be built, there are too many Zealots coming too frequently for me to actually finish building the defense. I'm honestly not sure what I can do there.

Zevox

I found the zerg caster challange to be insanely, ridiculously easy. Several high ground tanks just screaming "Please oh please violate my mind and force me to kill my friends while the majority of your army remains safely burrowed!"

BobVosh

2011-09-13, 11:56 PM

I managed to do it with just the infestors I think.

The Terran mission was hard until I split up the army three ways and learned that broodlings each count as a kill.

Kyeudo

2011-09-14, 12:12 AM

I found the zerg caster challange to be insanely, ridiculously easy. Several high ground tanks just screaming "Please oh please violate my mind and force me to kill my friends while the majority of your army remains safely burrowed!"

I used the roaches more often to kill stuff I'd mind controlled than for any other reason. I think I lost two roaches when I killed everything that could be killed.

Thiyr

2011-09-14, 01:14 AM

So I just had two very, very good zerg games. One was an accidental 1v1 (i didn't mean to start it up, and i tried to cancel just as it started). He fast expands, I go roach. He has spines and zerglings. I walk past them into his main, kill a bunch of workers, do a lot of damage to his lings, and I expanded, while building up a force for hit 2. He had since build 2 more spines. Can't just waltz past...but I can kill rocks to your natural (on Nerazim Crypts), kill the spines 1 at a time, and move in for the kill. Ended up just doing really, really well...which is surprising for my maybe 4th or 5th game on ladder with zerg.

Then a 2v2 as zerg (intentional this time, i'm trying to get used to zerg. Mobility is something i've sorely missed and kinda want to try them out.). Decided to go infestor/ling (ally going terran mech), against a toss/terran. I fast expand to the side gold on khaydarin depths, get some banelings to deal with any early marine pressure (saw two reactor'd barracks with my overlord), and just made tons of dudes. Fungaled their inner gold worker line while infested terraning their tank line to suicide them. Got caught in a bad positon (tanks on high ground, marine marauder up top covering them, me with no detection up there), but i had so many lings, and 5 hatches to pump dudes from, that the fungal to keep them in place and neurals on the tanks let me mop up right quick.

In other words, I'm actually really liking zerg, for the same reasons I was always frustrated playing against them as a protoss. being able to be just about anywhere, and harass just about anything is so nice. I just can't seem to keep resources down well at all. apparently 4 hatches that are at least somewhat well injected can't deal with two base + gold income? Or I'm just bad about making guys, Idunno.

BobVosh

2011-09-14, 01:18 AM

I just can't seem to keep resources down well at all. apparently 4 hatches that are at least somewhat well injected can't deal with two base + gold income? Or I'm just bad about making guys, Idunno.

Unless you are building T3, not even close. Inject well and it won't be an issue. Zerg is the race that messing up the macro mechanic will mess it up permanently. (inject vs chrono vs MULEs)

Thiyr

2011-09-14, 01:53 AM

Good to know, moar hatches next time. And more attacking, seeing as I never really lost units.

That said, I wonder why some people can be so angry when they win. Just lost a game (a long, hard fought one, despite me randoming terran), where the guy messages me after I gg saying that "It was gg 20 minutes ago, you're horrible". Why? Does he really need to moan "oh no I won too slowly because my opponent wouldn't roll over when we were consistently trading armies"? It feels like one of those "First World Problems" images waiting to happen >_>;

Zevox

2011-09-14, 02:02 AM

I found the zerg caster challange to be insanely, ridiculously easy. Several high ground tanks just screaming "Please oh please violate my mind and force me to kill my friends while the majority of your army remains safely burrowed!"
Of course, but there are only so many things in range of reach, at least until you get down to the one at the bottom that's in range of the workers.

In any event though, I went back and retried it earlier, and it looks like my main problem with that one was that I simply wasn't being aggressive enough, because I did manage to get gold on it.

Also tried again for gold on the Protoss caster mission, but failed. Anyone have advice there? My main problems so far seem to be Reapers and the Mutalisk wave. Reapers because they can ignore my standard tactic for everything else (3 force fields on the ramp, psi-storm [multiple times for particularly resilient targets like Protoss units, but only once whenever it's sufficient], sentry rays to clean up survivors), though they fall fast enough to a psi-storm that I often don't lose more than a couple of sentries when they come in.

The Mutalisk wave though I can't handle. Psi-storm doesn't seem to work on flying units, force field is obviously useless, the sentries can attack them but aren't tough enough to survive their attacks, they don't have energy for me to feedback - yeah, I've got nothing on them, really. I did beat them once by having my templars merge into Archons, but that cost me all my sentries covering the merging, and then the wave after them, a mixed group of Terran units, decimated the Archons.

Zevox

Thiyr

2011-09-14, 02:32 AM

Also tried again for gold on the Protoss caster mission, but failed. Anyone have advice there? My main problems so far seem to be Reapers and the Mutalisk wave. Reapers because they can ignore my standard tactic for everything else (3 force fields on the ramp, psi-storm [multiple times for particularly resilient targets like Protoss units, but only once whenever it's sufficient], sentry rays to clean up survivors), though they fall fast enough to a psi-storm that I often don't lose more than a couple of sentries when they come in.

The Mutalisk wave though I can't handle. Psi-storm doesn't seem to work on flying units, force field is obviously useless, the sentries can attack them but aren't tough enough to survive their attacks, they don't have energy for me to feedback - yeah, I've got nothing on them, really. I did beat them once by having my templars merge into Archons, but that cost me all my sentries covering the merging, and then the wave after them, a mixed group of Terran units, decimated the Archons.

Zevox

As far as the muta wave, storm may just be being mistargeted. you need to aim a bit lower than the mutas to actually hit them, though I know there's an option to help display where they actually are. storm + guardian shield reduce splash damage should do it. as far as reapers, you can still FF them, it just takes a few more, as you need to FF the cliff they jump up on.

Zevox

2011-09-14, 02:40 AM

As far as the muta wave, storm may just be being mistargeted. you need to aim a bit lower than the mutas to actually hit them, though I know there's an option to help display where they actually are.
Bah, one of those eh? I hate it when flying objects get treated that way. Oh well, I'll see what I can do. If anyone knows how to activate that "display flying unit position" option, that'd be much appreciated.

as far as reapers, you can still FF them, it just takes a few more, as you need to FF the cliff they jump up on.
Eh, that'll take an awful lot of energy though. The cliff is much wider than the ramp, and I already need three to close that off. I know I have a lot of sentries, and so far they've never run out of power for those, but that seems to be pushing my luck there.

Zevox

faceroll

2011-09-14, 02:42 AM

I have a friend who plays diamond zerg, and he says you need 3 hatch per 2 mining base to spend minerals fast enough. Dump all your gas into muta/broodlord/infestor/upgrades (whatever's appropriate in game), then saturate up to 200/200 pop with lings. Lings are cheap and devastating and build so fast, they're pretty disposable.

Of course, but there are only so many things in range of reach, at least until you get down to the one at the bottom that's in range of the workers.

In any event though, I went back and retried it earlier, and it looks like my main problem with that one was that I simply wasn't being aggressive enough, because I did manage to get gold on it.

Also tried again for gold on the Protoss caster mission, but failed. Anyone have advice there? My main problems so far seem to be Reapers and the Mutalisk wave. Reapers because they can ignore my standard tactic for everything else (3 force fields on the ramp, psi-storm [multiple times for particularly resilient targets like Protoss units, but only once whenever it's sufficient], sentry rays to clean up survivors), though they fall fast enough to a psi-storm that I often don't lose more than a couple of sentries when they come in.

The Mutalisk wave though I can't handle. Psi-storm doesn't seem to work on flying units, force field is obviously useless, the sentries can attack them but aren't tough enough to survive their attacks, they don't have energy for me to feedback - yeah, I've got nothing on them, really. I did beat them once by having my templars merge into Archons, but that cost me all my sentries covering the merging, and then the wave after them, a mixed group of Terran units, decimated the Archons.

Zevox

You are making hallucinations, yeah? Just halluciante two archons for every encounter, lead with those, use sentry to mop up anything storm doesn't kill. Also, the way casting works from a control group, it's very inefficient. It will drain one caster of all energy before it starts casting from the next, so in between waves, it's best if you can singly click on a sentry with high energy and hallucinate from it. Make sure you are using hot keys to save time.

Zevox

2011-09-14, 02:46 AM

You are making hallucinations, yeah?
No, I'm not. Those cost a lot of energy, and from the few times I've used them they don't seem to last long enough to justify the cost. Force Fields seem much more effective. (Also they wouldn't help with the Mutalisks anyway, what with the splash damage.)

Zevox

BobVosh

2011-09-14, 03:54 AM

faceroll

2011-09-14, 04:57 AM

No, I'm not. Those cost a lot of energy, and from the few times I've used them they don't seem to last long enough to justify the cost. Force Fields seem much more effective. (Also they wouldn't help with the Mutalisks anyway, what with the splash damage.)

Zevox

Hallucinations are the only thing you should be using your sentry energy on. Mutas do splash in a regular way. 3 archons will soak all the splash from mutas, since they have a higher target priority than sentries. Furthermore, mutas and archons have short range, so your sentries shouldn't even be in muta range and splash will never be a threat. And you never get that many mutas to begin with, anyway, so it's not like the 1 damage that COULD leak through is any threat. If you're good with micro, a hallucinated archon should last you 60 seconds, which is like 2 waves of enemies. I don't think I ever had to commit more than 2 hallucinate archons to mutas. Throw in a real archon, and it's all good. If you lead with two hallucinated archon and have a real archon in the back, the real archon will take the least splash damage, due tot he way the AI works.

I killed 247 units using hallucinations & storm. Just make sure each sentry is casting hallucinate. Otherwise, it's really inefficient, because you'll end up with sentries at full energy and other sentries with no energy. Spread the casting out so that everything is using energy. Same goes for psionic storm.

Kyeudo

2011-09-14, 09:19 AM

Hallucinations are the only thing you should be using your sentry energy on. Mutas do splash in a regular way. 3 archons will soak all the splash from mutas, since they have a higher target priority than sentries. Furthermore, mutas and archons have short range, so your sentries shouldn't even be in muta range and splash will never be a threat. And you never get that many mutas to begin with, anyway, so it's not like the 1 damage that COULD leak through is any threat. If you're good with micro, a hallucinated archon should last you 60 seconds, which is like 2 waves of enemies. I don't think I ever had to commit more than 2 hallucinate archons to mutas. Throw in a real archon, and it's all good. If you lead with two hallucinated archon and have a real archon in the back, the real archon will take the least splash damage, due tot he way the AI works.

I killed 247 units using hallucinations & storm. Just make sure each sentry is casting hallucinate. Otherwise, it's really inefficient, because you'll end up with sentries at full energy and other sentries with no energy. Spread the casting out so that everything is using energy. Same goes for psionic storm.

I killed every enemy in that challenge without ever using a single hallucination. All you need to do is place forcefields correctly, use Guardian Shield when mutas come in, and use storm properly. Oh, and when everything starts ripping through your sentries you turn your HTs into Archons and micro them like crazy to keep their shields up.

mangosta71

2011-09-14, 09:47 AM

Bah, one of those eh? I hate it when flying objects get treated that way. Oh well, I'll see what I can do. If anyone knows how to activate that "display flying unit position" option, that'd be much appreciated.
It should be pretty easy to find. Look under display settings - I forget what exactly it's actually called, but I remember it being fairly obvious. The effect is that there will be a little dotted line leading to a circle under flying units corresponding to their placement on the ground.

Zevox

2011-09-14, 10:11 AM

So, I managed to get gold on the Protoss caster mission. Just barely, but hey, success by the skin of your teeth is still success. I mostly stuck to my previous-mentioned force field/psi-storm strategy, but I did pop out a couple of Archon hallucinations when dealing with later enemies that wouldn't go down that easily, and they did help. I was surprised how much more durable they were than the other hallucinations I've tried in the past.

Also, much to my shock, managed to get gold on the Terran caster challenge. Pretty much just by sending a third of my ghosts on each path and going "screw finesse, I'm just gonna nuke everything in my way." I'm honestly surprised that worked - I didn't get anywhere near the main base in the back that has all those juicy units clustered for the nuking, and wasn't expecting there to be enough units throughout the rest of the map to get a full-blown gold on their own.

So that just leaves the two Terran expert-level challenges. I can probably do the economy one with enough practice, at least up to silver level, but as mentioned before I'm stumped on the rush defense. Anyone have tips on handling the Zealot rush portion of that?

Zevox

Kyeudo

2011-09-14, 10:34 AM

So that just leaves the two Terran expert-level challenges. I can probably do the economy one with enough practice, at least up to silver level, but as mentioned before I'm stumped on the rush defense. Anyone have tips on handling the Zealot rush portion of that?

Use your buildings as walls. All of them. Even the barracks. Build so you are sitting in your own little fort of buildings with the zealots on the outside and your marines on the insider. If you exploit the stupidity of the AI, you don't even need to be completely enclosed, just mostly enclosed. Repair your buildings.

Spartacus

2011-09-14, 10:50 AM

I found building barracks, barracks, marine, bunker worked well. If you're quick about it, the marine pops as the zealot approaches, and as long as you shoot it once, you can run in circles around your base until the bunker finishes. After that, block off some more of your base, build a couple more bunkers, and do whatever you feel like to win.

Oh, remember the AI targets repairing SCVs, so if a zealot gets close, stop repairing until it dies. you're likely to lose some SCVs otherwise.

KillItWithFire

2011-09-14, 11:22 AM

grab some scvs and try to kill the 2 probes before they start on the second gate. Also while this tip may be late, when storming air units look underneath to where their shadows are and storm there. The shadows are where they actually are.

Silverraptor

2011-09-14, 02:37 PM

Weird. I had trouble with the basic Zerg challenge because their units are individually weak and were up against Protoss units, which are of course individually strong, so keeping enough alive to meet the "lose 10 or less" goal for gold was a difficult thing to do. Also because I've never liked the Zerg, so I've never used them much, and as such I've never been very good with them.

Protoss was a little harder than Terran in that regard,* but not that hard. Proper positioning, use of powers, retreating when hp dropped to orange levels, and a little luck (like not losing any immortals to the huge siege tank group) was all I needed there.

*Terran are actually the only race I had fewer than 10 losses with when I got that gold - not sure if that's because the campaign left me most familiar with them or if they just have it easy compared to their counterparts in that challenge. Some of their fights were certainly a cakewalk, particularly with the siege tanks. Though they also had to counter an Ultralisk with Marines...

Anyway, I tried the remaining challenges. Sucked as bad at the Zerg caster mission as the Terran - I just can't seem to wipe out large quantities of units in a short time using Infestors or Ghosts I guess. I was surprised that there wasn't a Zerg "expert" mission. On those, I managed bronze on the economy one, and imagine I could get up to at least silver with some practice. Failed the "Rush Defense" mission completely though. I can get past the Zerg rush at the start, but when they reset my base and start doing a Protoss Zealot rush, I can't manage to defend myself. By the time I get marines or bunkers starting to be built, there are too many Zealots coming too frequently for me to actually finish building the defense. I'm honestly not sure what I can do there.

Zevox

I found the zerg really easy because with the maneverability, it was really a micro game. Roaches vs zealots? I would burrow all the roaches when one of them got to low health, wait for the health to restore, then pop on out. It was hilarious when the zealots were on their way to the structrue and were nearly upon it, to suddenly do a 180 and go after my roaches.:smallbiggrin:

Zevox

2011-09-14, 03:47 PM

I found the zerg really easy because with the maneverability, it was really a micro game. Roaches vs zealots? I would burrow all the roaches when one of them got to low health, wait for the health to restore, then pop on out. It was hilarious when the zealots were on their way to the structrue and were nearly upon it, to suddenly do a 180 and go after my roaches.:smallbiggrin:
Yeah, Roaches vs Zealots was one of the easier ones, at least once I remembered about burrowing (like I said, I've never played much Zerg, so that was really easy for me to forget). Others were not so easy to keep casualities low on though. Like Zerglings vs an Immortal. Or Hydralisks vs Void Rays. Or Mutalisks vs Void Rays.

On another matter, that RAM upgrade I mentioned in my first post arrived much earlier than I expected. Judging by the campaign mission I played after getting it, it has helped, but not as much as I'd hoped. Load time is better, but some serious lag definitely still happens, including some occasional stuttering on the voice acting in cutscenes. Pity, I was hoping getting up to the recommended specs would at least fix that.

Zevox

Silverraptor

2011-09-14, 04:19 PM

So, I did this game a long time ago for funday monday and I would like to add it to the fail game submission of funday monday. I was in gold against a platinum league opponent and I kind of went with a cheesy Forge Fast Expand into a failed cannon rush. I resolved this failed cannon rush from putting me behind that I contained him with cannon's at his front instead, from which I macroed up my 2 bases. When I saw his force containing nothing but maraders, I went with speed Zealots/immortals.

There is however 1 stalker that I warped in before I realized he was going all maraders. Unfortunate as it is that this game was several months before your announcements of no stalkers, I would still like to submit it anyways under the fail game submission. You might be able to incorporate a joke that the stalker is trying to hide itself amoung the zealots to try and avoid the fact that it is not allowed in said game, which is slightly more humorous as to the fact it is in the front lines and yet doesn't get hit by a single marader.

If you decide to incorporate this as a fail game submission, I had uploaded this game a couple months before so that my friends could watch me. You'll find the link here. http://www.sc-replay.com/replay/22-07-11/133731-Silverraptor-VS-VecT.html

Here's hoping.:smalltongue:

Zevox

2011-09-14, 05:24 PM

grab some scvs and try to kill the 2 probes before they start on the second gate.
Did a bit of a variant of this: instead of trying to kill the probes, I started building Barracks at the location where he wanted to put up his second and third gateways. AI being what it is, that meant he just didn't get them.

Worked like a charm. I had a marine arrive pretty much simultaneously with his first zealot, and since I saw that they moved at basically the same pace so I couldn't run-n-gun him to death I instead started having my early marines lead his zealots on wild goose chases off around the cliff and far away from my base, while I built up a couple of bunkers between my barracks and churned out marines. End result, I had two fully stocked bunkers taking out his zealots as they came, one of which was in range of his gateway. Once that dropped I made some reapers and had them kill off the photon canon, pylons, and probes. Got me a gold rating, with one less unit lost than I could have had to get that. Probably not what the designers had in mind though, since it involved exploiting two AI deficiencies.

Also retried the economy challenge and got silver. Gonna take a little doing to get the gold on that one though. Need to speed up by a good minute and a half from that last attempt.

Zevox

faceroll

2011-09-14, 05:27 PM

Use your buildings as walls. All of them. Even the barracks. Build so you are sitting in your own little fort of buildings with the zealots on the outside and your marines on the insider. If you exploit the stupidity of the AI, you don't even need to be completely enclosed, just mostly enclosed. Repair your buildings.

There's also an option in the menu that lets you turn on the building grid. That's really key for making proper wall offs.

Spartacus

2011-09-14, 05:43 PM

Also retried the economy challenge and got silver. Gonna take a little doing to get the gold on that one though. Need to speed up by a good minute and a half from that last attempt.

My first playthrough on that I missed Gold by 2 seconds. I was a little annoyed.

Kyeudo

2011-09-14, 10:10 PM

I just played a Terran who went Hellion/Marauder/Tank as his composition. I'm sure you can all spot the single most glaring flaw in that entire setup. I, however, did not. I ended up going Ling/Roach/Infestor/Ultra, basically exactly what he wanted me to do (other than Infestors). I won anyway, but still, how did I miss the glaring flaw in his composition? Mutas would have butchered his army and I never thought about them once that entire game.

Zevox

2011-09-14, 10:15 PM

My first playthrough on that I missed Gold by 2 seconds. I was a little annoyed.
Ouch. I had a recent attempt where I was only short six marines when the time limit for gold hit, and I had three barracks trying to pump them out in time (one with a reactor). Not as bad as yours, but definitely annoying as well.

Zevox

Silverraptor

2011-09-14, 10:24 PM

So, after failing a funday monday attempt, I started regular ladder, and by regular, I mean zerg players. So I go on a losing streak gainst gold players due to messing up entirely. Then the match maker decided to screw me over and pitted me against this opponent:
http://i617.photobucket.com/albums/tt255/silverraptor_photo/Screenshots/EnemyProfile1.png

WHY IN THE WORLD DID IT DO THIS TO ME?!:smalleek: I mean come on, look at what happened here! (http://www.sc-replay.com/replay/14-09-11/221264-DcSublime-VS-Silverraptor.html?justUp=1)

I am just awesome.

Dralnu

2011-09-14, 10:50 PM

I've ran into a major stumbling block. I don't hotkey my army and I really, really need to.

1st Problem: Ever since I started playing I've always had 1-5 as my buildings, from command center to engineering bays. I try keeping my armies as 6 and 7 but I'm finding that it's too far away to click them when in a fight. I'd like something a bit closer. Is there any way to get a closer hotkey without changing my 1-5 hotkeys?

2nd Problem: I'm trying to work out my marine/ghost strategy in TvZ but I ran into a snag: I don't know how to spam Snipe! I have all my Ghosts, then shift +R (snipe), hold shift, and click click click. This works when I focus fire (shift +A, hold shift, click clik click). But for some reason when I try it with snipe, I snipe once, then it deselects my Ghosts! Anyone know how to properly spam it without deselecting?

I've been practicing a bunch with a friend that's high diamond protoss.. My macro is pretty competitive, my drops and distractions are probably my very best element, but any straight up engagement he rocks me because I have to start with Ghost, EMP, then tab to my marines/marauaders stim, and focus fire with the vikings, run out of the storms, pick up split units with medivac.. And I'm just too darn slow, ESPECIALLY with the Ghost -> Marine transition :smallfrown:

Silverraptor

2011-09-14, 11:19 PM

faceroll

2011-09-15, 12:33 AM

I play random, so hatch/nexus/command center all go on 5, A-move armies go on 1, casters go on 2 or 3, flanking/skirmish units go on 2 or 3, and 3 or 4 are all buildings (just tab through them to build).

Isn't snipe spam just shift + hotkey for snipe + lots of left click?

Kyeudo

2011-09-15, 01:12 AM

My hotkey setup is my main army is on 1 (usually a giant ling ball), 2 is either my infestors or my mutas or my roaches, 3 is my Infestors or my mutas if I have roaches, 4 is an overseer, 5 is all my hatcheries, and 8,9, and 0 are queen groups for various hive clusters.

BobVosh

2011-09-15, 01:59 AM

Zerg is my main, so it is the only one I give a unique version of the hotkeys to.

4 is all my hatcheries, 5-9 is 1 hatch + 1 queen. This way I can double click 5 and press v clicking the middle of the screen to inject. I can inject 5 bases this way in about 1 or 2 seconds.
1 is army, 2 is casters, 3 is usually both. Sometimes 1 is lings, 2 is casters, 3 is rest of army so I can get a good surround. I only ever use blings before casters, so they get the caster hotkey if I have any.
0 is for upgrades.

Terran/Toss
1-3 is army, with 2 being HT/ghosts.
Sentries get lumped in with 1.
5 is CC/Nexus, 4 is main production building (not including warpgates, since they have a free one)
6-7 is other stuff. 0 is upgrade stuff.

Zevox

2011-09-15, 02:16 AM

And I finished the economy challenge with gold! Only had 8 seconds to spare, but a win's a win. That was my last challenge - I've actually finished all nine with golds now. Did not expect to do that in just a few days like this.

Zevox

Kyeudo

2011-09-15, 02:16 AM

Thiyr

2011-09-15, 02:58 AM

I just played a guy who knew how to use blink stalkers. (http://www.sc-replay.com/replay/14-09-11/221368-Stradivarius-VS-Kyeudo.html?justUp=1)The game proceeded to get brutal.

Seriously, why don't toss do openings like this more often? Most either do some FFE build or a 4 gate..

watching the game, gonna alt tab out every so often to comment

blinkpoking the front door did -some- damage, but didn't really throw off your gameplan much at all. he took out an evo chamber, which is annoying but non-essential. Same with the one spine crawler and the lings.

the 10:30 blink in, at first glance, seemed like it was sorta damaging. Then I looked at the numbers and realized that even with that in mind, your econ never really took notable enough damage, and he lost more resources on the attack than you did by a sizable margin. It kept you from being aggressive, but it didn't put him ahead at all.

Then your mutas started and turned the tables around. Except where his damage was mostly neglible (your income only once dropped below his, and that was when you pulled your workers), your mutas first poke didn't do much, and then you took out pylons, depowering him. never everything at once, but enough to slow his play down somewhat notably.

I think I'll stop there to get in before nightly maintenance, but I think the reason more openings like that don't happen is because they're just not effective enough. I've tried blinkstalk openings, and while they have potential and can do -some- damage, they never do -enough- damage to a fastexpand zerg. Too many lings, and I can't get into good positions fast enough to outlast them. Granted I'm not the best litmus test, but as far as i've seen, just not effective enough for the cost (note that the 16 stalkers he lost is food-wise the same as 64 lings. cost-wise, it's even more lings, not including research. You only lost 40some and workers, and not enough workers to justify the hit.)

Spartacus

2011-09-15, 08:21 AM

On the other hand, Stalkers are absolutely brutal against Terran fast expands if controlled well.

Telos

2011-09-15, 11:15 AM

People have asked about how to spam forcefields with sentries and how to spam snipes with ghosts. I found another suggestion on liquipedia that works well. That is to just hold down the key for the spell you want (e.g., F for forcefield) while you click all the places you want it to hit. Starcraft's smart-casting will automatically have one caster respond to each click.

This is roughly equivalent to the alternating method I suggested in the last thread (alternating F-click-F-click-F-click...) except holding down the F-key basically amounts to hitting F multiple times between each click (something like F-F-F-click-F-F-click-F-F-F-F-click-...) which yields the same effect without requiring as much finger movement, and without the risk that you might get two clicks without an F in between (which would deselect your casters and mess everything up).

Spartacus

2011-09-15, 11:43 AM

I find the holding-down method to be much, much more reliable for me than the shift method, as the shift method often ends up with me accidentally telling my Sentries to make all the forcefields after killing all the enemies, which is annoying if I don't notice.

Zevox

2011-09-15, 12:19 PM

So, I have a question. Every time I watch replay videos featuring a Protoss player, they change their Gateways into Warp Gates. Are Warp Gates just that much better than vanilla Gateways, that nobody uses the latter once they can get the former? When I first saw Warp Gates I had figured that the cooldown between each unit made would result in them being overall slower to produce armies in spite of the reduced warp-in time and very nice ability to warp in anywhere there's a pylon. Is that not the case? If not, I guess they are just flat-up better than Gateways, which would surprise me, since I'd figured they'd been included as alternative option rather than a flat-out upgrade.

Zevox

Spartacus

2011-09-15, 12:48 PM

They have 3 advantages:
They warp in more units in a period of time
They warp in units anywhere
The waiting period comes after the unit, not before as with all other unit producing methods

They have 2 disadvantages:
It costs a very small sum to research the tech
It takes a very small amount of time to transition them

mangosta71

2011-09-15, 01:36 PM

BobVosh

2011-09-15, 02:11 PM

The cooldown on a warp gate after producing a unit is actually shorter than the build time of that unit from a vanilla gateway, so you end up producing units faster (in addition to getting them upfront instead of after a delay, as has been mentioned already).

Once you have it researched, it takes either 2 or 10 seconds to convert a gateway into a warp gate (been a while since I played the game, as I've been distracted by other things lately). A 2 second delay in production is made up for in less than one production cycle. A 10 second delay is made up for in about 2 cycles. In other words, by the time a second zealot comes rolling out of a gateway, a warp gate is bringing out its third.

It is like 10 seconds (never clocked it) but you can warp it in.
Even though it is 10 seconds, warp gates remove almost exactly 10 seconds from a warp in.

Check it out for the units:
Zealot: 38 (28 warp gate cooldown)
Stalker: 42 (32 warp gate cooldown)
Sentry: 37 (32 second warp gate)
Dark templar: 55 (45 warp gate cooldown)
High Templar: 55 (45 warp gate cooldown)

I used to think the same way until I actually looked up the stats and saw only the sentry lost any time at all.

Spartacus

2011-09-15, 02:17 PM

10 second transform time, 5 second warp in time. The warp in time, however, overlaps with the cooldown time, so Sentries (for example) do still warp faster over time.

faceroll

2011-09-15, 03:37 PM

You can also chronoboost warpgates on cooldown to speed up their recharge or whatever.

Being able to deploy units across the map is pretty handy, too.

DrizztFan24

2011-09-15, 04:04 PM

For the ghost marine goodies I will also let you know my terran hotkey set-up. (trade secret of us silvers that never seem to advance because our MMR never stabilizes) I use 1 as all of my CC/nexi. 2 is all of my production buildings. I just press tab to cycle between the buildings (so hitting 2 the first selects all buildings but gives build menu for barracks. TAB. build for factories TAB. starports. Works well for ebay/armories also.) 3 and 4 are my main army tabs. Usually it is infantry on 3. casters or tanks go on 4 medivacs+vikings on 5. Upgrades sometimes go on 6.

For snipe spammage, i stim the infantry tab, then hit 4. Now tell the ghosts to hold fire; they should be behind infantry anyways to avoid stray tank shells/fulgore eye beams/fungals. Once they are told to hold fire press "r" and shift+click on the baddies. Proceed to have baddies melt into puddles 'o goo.

TL link plus a video (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=155732)

faceroll

2011-09-15, 04:16 PM

After winning 20 of my last 30 games, I finally got promoted to high gold. The winning game was hilarious. I was zerg vs. an a-move terran. He'd make huge bio balls and march them at my base. I'd just rune banelings into them and mop up the leftovers. I creep-spread across most of the map, and decided to go for the mine-lots-of-gold-minerals achievement. He never creep cleared, so I could see his army marching at me, no matter what direction. Then I'd either run banelings into it or fungal it all to death.

He never changed his strategy- a move marines at my main, lose everything to banelings. At the very end, he rolled out with tanks, but again, a move-ing armies is a good way to lose armies. He gg'd before I could get the achievement.

Matches should be a little more difficult.

Zevox

2011-09-15, 04:31 PM

faceroll

2011-09-15, 04:48 PM

Huh, okay then. I'm surprised that such a thing would be put in if there's really no downside to it (not even a mineral cost for each Gateway you transform - that was probably what most made me think there had to be an advantage the Gateway had over the Warp Gate), but hell, may as well use it.

You mean like mules, chrono boost, creep tumor, or inject larvae?

:smallconfused: Why, out of curiosity? If you just move normally the army won't attack anything until reaching its destination, which seems like a better way to lose armies if an enemy force intercepts them.

Zevox

Against zerg, you should hotkey your marines to sub groups so they're easier to run from banelings. A-moving your army blindly up ramps, while on creep, is an awesome way to lose everything. You lead with a small forward group, pull banelings, and then run that group back. You don't want to just a-move across the map, because then your units form a line which banelings easily roll through (they see me rollin...).

Instead, you want to make short advancements so your units clump and can easily be spread out in a perpendicular direction to oncoming units so you get a nice arc.

Example:

B
m
m
m
m
m
m

At any given time, only 3 of your 6 marines will be able to be firing at an incoming baneling ball.

B
mm
mm
mm

This is a dangerous clump, but what you do is move the marines

B
m m
m m
m m

Now the baneling is getting hit by all 6 marines, and can only take out one line.

When you just a move across the entire map, your army gets horribly out of position, so even if you did want to micro it, you've already lost some of it.

tl;dr
"A-move" is a derogatory term for people who don't micro their army. While A-move is superior to the move command, there are a great deal more superior commands one can issue to their units to get better results.

Spartacus

2011-09-15, 04:53 PM

I'm surprised that such a thing would be put in if there's really no downside to it

There's no downside to researching +1 attack for your units, either. Or rather, it's the same downside, it costs resources and time. Some things are allowed to just be better.

EDIT: Oh, Brood War. 1a2a3a4a5a6a7a was so fun. Now it's 2aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa a, at least as Terran. Marines OP.

Zevox

2011-09-15, 05:03 PM

You mean like mules, chrono boost, creep tumor, or inject larvae?
Don't know what you're referring to with creep tumors (I haven't actually played with SC2 Zerg at all yet, outside of the two challenge missions they had), but the rest are all limited by requiring energy from the base/Queen and having a time limit. Warp Gates have no such limitations - once the gateway has transformed, it's just plain better than it was, and will remain that way as long as it exists.

A-moving your army blindly up ramps, while on creep, is an awesome way to lose everything.
Oh, well that's different. I thought you were referring to a-moving in general, not in specific circumstances when you should be paying close attention to what's happening and responding accordingly.

There's no downside to researching +1 attack for your units, either. Or rather, it's the same downside, it costs resources and time. Some things are allowed to just be better.
True, but Warp Gates are far more useful than any other single upgrade I can think of.

Zevox

faceroll

2011-09-15, 05:03 PM

There's no downside to researching +1 attack for your units, either. Or rather, it's the same downside, it costs resources and time. Some things are allowed to just be better.

EDIT: Oh, Brood War. 1a2a3a4a5a6a7a was so fun. Now it's 2aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa a, at least as Terran. Marines OP.

I hate marines so much. So very, very much. :smallfurious:

BobVosh

2011-09-15, 05:40 PM

True, but Warp Gates are far more useful than any other single upgrade I can think of.

Zevox

Early game having gateway units faster is game breaking. So you get it mid-late game. (about 7 minutes is the earliest you can really get it) Hence why the 4gate was so popular and strong, it was just at the end of gateway units reigning supreme and as soon as you can get warp gate tech.

Suedars

2011-09-15, 05:41 PM

Don't know what you're referring to with creep tumors (I haven't actually played with SC2 Zerg at all yet, outside of the two challenge missions they had), but the rest are all limited by requiring energy from the base/Queen and having a time limit. Warp Gates have no such limitations - once the gateway has transformed, it's just plain better than it was, and will remain that way as long as it exists.

Once you drop a Creep Tumor there's no cost to spreading more Tumors with it. Also Chronoboost is basically free, since there's 0 advantage to not using it.

Suedars

2011-09-15, 05:44 PM

Early game having gateway units faster is game breaking. So you get it mid-late game. (about 7 minutes is the earliest you can really get it) Hence why the 4gate was so popular and strong, it was just at the end of gateway units reigning supreme and as soon as you can get warp gate tech.

What? Literally every Protoss build that isn't a ridiculous all-in has you drop your Core the instant your Gateway finishes, and start Warpgate the moment your Core completes. The only reason you ever delay Warpgate is if you're going for a build that doesn't get an immediate Gateway, like a FFE.

Mutant Sheep

2011-09-15, 05:46 PM

I remember thinking out loud in the chat channel about chronoboosting normal gateways inbetween warpgate cooldowns and if the cooldown goes away in the transformation back and forth and trying to exploit it. (warpgate-gateway-warpgate). /Hipster at Zevox.

Acanous

2011-09-15, 05:49 PM

A-Moving the army causes the AI to have all your units move independantly, from what I've heard. Things with a faster speed will then end up getting there long before things with slower speed, meaning the enemy gets to take them apart as small waves instead of an overwhelming ball.

This is only what I've *Heard* when I asked that question, I'm not a coder, so take it with a grain of salt.

LordShotGun

2011-09-15, 08:10 PM

Early game having gateway units faster is game breaking. So you get it mid-late game. (about 7 minutes is the earliest you can really get it) Hence why the 4gate was so popular and strong, it was just at the end of gateway units reigning supreme and as soon as you can get warp gate tech.

Heh, remember when warp gate research used to just take 30 seconds? I do.

Remember when cronoboost lasted for 30 seconds instead of 20? I do.

Remember when void rays had a speed upgrade and +1 more range? I do.

Remember when high templar had an energy upgrade? I do.

Man, protoss lost the most cool stuff. But, it was necessary for balance, the original crono boost plus the original warp gate research means you had warp gates 1-2 minutes earlier then now.

Spartacus

2011-09-15, 08:54 PM

True, but Warp Gates are far more useful than any other single upgrade I can think of.

They're in a pitched battle with Stim Pack for the best upgrade.

And when something is as good as Stim Pack, well, you know it's pretty damn good.

Telos

2011-09-15, 09:07 PM

Another very minor advantage of not upgrading your Gateways to Warpgates is that you can queue units to build in a Gateway. If your micro is poor enough that, on average, you leave your Warpgates sitting idle for more than 10 seconds after each warpin, then you'll actually produce units faster by queueing them up in your Gateways. Of course, it'd be better still to improve your macro so that you won't let your Warpgates sit idle.

Relatedly, another quite minor advantage of not upgrading your Gateways is that you can build new units via hotkeys and rally them into battle without ever needing to switch your view to a pylon and click a bunch of good places to warp in. But again, it'd be better still to learn to macro well enough that needing to do this won't hold you back.

These advantages obviously aren't a big deal. Really, Blizzard wanted one of Protoss' distinguishing features to be their flexible warp-in, but it would have been OP to have that from the getgo, so they work around this by delaying it until Warpgate is researched. That's why it's (almost) all advantage, with no significant disadvantage.

Silverraptor

2011-09-15, 10:41 PM

Remember when void rays had a speed upgrade and +1 more range? I do.

What?...

WHAAAAAAATTTT?!?!?!?!

Void Rays Were Even More Overpowered Then They Are Now?! That's it! They must be removed from the gaaaaaaaaame!!!!

(*Dramatical theater overraction that doesn't portray actual feelings in the slightest*)

Dienekes

2011-09-15, 10:44 PM

faceroll

2011-09-15, 11:09 PM

Remember when spawning pools only cost 150 minerals?

BobVosh

2011-09-16, 12:12 AM

What? Literally every Protoss build that isn't a ridiculous all-in has you drop your Core the instant your Gateway finishes, and start Warpgate the moment your Core completes. The only reason you ever delay Warpgate is if you're going for a build that doesn't get an immediate Gateway, like a FFE.

I didn't mean in the meta game, I meant in the game....game. Early game base gateway units are the most powerful thing on the board. Mid to late game they aren't as powerful, although definitely useful to have around. You have your T3 tearing them apart by quite large quantities, etc.

Thiyr

2011-09-16, 01:02 AM

Heh, remember when warp gate research used to just take 30 seconds? I do.

Remember when cronoboost lasted for 30 seconds instead of 20? I do.

Remember when void rays had a speed upgrade and +1 more range? I do.

Remember when high templar had an energy upgrade? I do.

Man, protoss lost the most cool stuff. But, it was necessary for balance, the original crono boost plus the original warp gate research means you had warp gates 1-2 minutes earlier then now.

I don't remember warpgate/chrono, though I do remember voids and HT energy. I'm still of the opinion that HT energy is the only one that really doesn't make as much sense as the other 3 though. HT are great...but kinda really limited in use, sadly.

But yea, speed voids were fun but kinda stupid.

Also, Zevox, the big downside for warpgates is that you really do need to have your timing down really good with them, in the same fashion you do with your injects. You get faster units, but if you miss your warp-ins, you can't make that time up, and you can't queue it like you can in a gateway. the problem with that argument is that the downside is on the human end, not on the gameplay mechanics end, though, so in theory the 100% perfect player would get pure benefit from getting warpgates. That said, for people like, say, me, warpgates are great, and i always get them, but that's more so I can try to get things to the front lines faster and get my units at the start of the cooldown instead of at the end, rather than the faster building (which is mostly to mitigate that most people -will- miss your warps, just by the nature of needing to focus on a lot of stuff, i'd imagine)

edit: and as far as early game unit power, on a 1-to-1 basis gateway units are more powerful, but on a food-to-food basis or resource-to-resource, i'd say it's less clear cut (aside from the sentry. Sentries are boss.). a zealot vs 2 marines is going to the zealot...unless said marines do even a little bit of run-shoot-run-shoot. Doesn't even need to be a fullblown stutterstep. And 4 lings beats said zealot outright. equal resources between stalker and roach goes to roach. And marauders deal with both of those easy-peasy, in both food and resource-evenness. The 4gate was strong i'd say not because of the units involved, but because it was getting -reinforced- so quickly, before most normal play could have enough units to deal with the -numbers- coming out, similar to going megarax.

Kyeudo

2011-09-16, 01:13 AM

My night has not been fun. I got 6 pooled twice, 10 pooled once, 5 gated, bunker rushed, and baneling busted. 6 losses in under half an hour. Why does everyone do aggressive all-in styles of play?

Suedars

2011-09-16, 02:12 AM

I didn't mean in the meta game, I meant in the game....game. Early game base gateway units are the most powerful thing on the board. Mid to late game they aren't as powerful, although definitely useful to have around. You have your T3 tearing them apart by quite large quantities, etc.

No, even in the very lategame Gateway units are critical to Protoss play. Toss relies on its low-tier units more than any other race. All of its tech units are extremely fragile for their cost, meaning you need a good amount of Zealots and Sentries supporting them or they'll just die. And just going pure gateway units is completely viable in the lategame, though you need Templar and Twilight Council tech, and need to be aggressively chronoing 2 forges.

Thiyr

2011-09-16, 03:57 AM

No, even in the very lategame Gateway units are critical to Protoss play. Toss relies on its low-tier units more than any other race. All of its tech units are extremely fragile for their cost, meaning you need a good amount of Zealots and Sentries supporting them or they'll just die. And just going pure gateway units is completely viable in the lategame, though you need Templar and Twilight Council tech, and need to be aggressively chronoing 2 forges.

I'd agree with this mostly (though I argue the carrier is actually quite durable as a high-tech unit and that is its primary strength. It acts as a fairly good damage sponge, it just needs its low-tier units as damage at that point.). While marines are fairly essential to terran imo, that's more 'cause they do everything, meaning after the early game, they can be cut for more specialized mixed forces. Lings and Roaches are both needed for lategame zerg, but it's usually one or the other, and their lategame tech doesn't seem quite as vulneralble for some reason. probably because their tech units are either hard to get into range of (Broodlords), are designed to be the biggest sponge in the universe (ultra) or are designed to be stupidly hard to get close to effectively (infestors. Yes, they're t2. I don't care). Maybe it's because sans-carrier, each of the late-game tech options for toss requires a lot of time, and is in some way made more vulnerable (archons, meet emp, colossus, meet being able to get hit by everything) compared to the other races (the BL is beaten by vikings, but that's 'cause the viking is anti-air. The archon is beaten by the ghost because the ghost is good at anti-archon. It acts as a specific achilles heel, rather than just a 'good in this general type of situation' unit. The same can be said about phoenix vs mutas, or immortals vs sieged tanks, but mutas aren't normally the "kill everyhting in their base" unit of choice beyond silver/gold as far as I see, and sieged tanks are more about holding a position, even if that position is your opponent's front door so they can't leave. )

[/endrambling]

Winterwind

2011-09-16, 05:10 AM

Reminder: Next weekly session tomorrow. :smallwink:

Dragon Elite

2011-09-16, 09:29 AM

My night has not been fun. I got 6 pooled twice, 10 pooled once, 5 gated, bunker rushed, and baneling busted. 6 losses in under half an hour. Why does everyone do aggressive all-in styles of play?

10-pools are reasonable, and in fact, if you pull some workers and your first attacking unit, should be no problem. I often pull 10-pool expand builds, and bunker rushes are a little harder, but watch some destiny vids and you will learn everything.

LordShotGun

2011-09-16, 09:38 AM

I don't remember warpgate/chrono, though I do remember voids and HT energy. I'm still of the opinion that HT energy is the only one that really doesn't make as much sense as the other 3 though. HT are great...but kinda really limited in use, sadly.

The problem with the high templar having an energy upgrade made it so that drops became impossible in TvP as one or two high templar could storm the drop and feedback the medivac and then merge into an archon to clean up.

Also, the energy upgrade meant that anywhere there was a pylon, there could be a storm in 5 seconds. This lead to situations where two high templar could hold off a sneaky push on a previously undefended base long enough for the main army to get there.

So while I don't like that they removed the upgrade instead of turning it into perhaps an energy regeneration upgrade, it was necessary.

Spartacus

2011-09-16, 09:41 AM

Removing the upgrade actually brings them more or less in line with the other casters, as far as energy after X time is concerned. The problem was, as you said, that they could be made in a reactionary manner with full energy, whereas the other casters take their build time before they can cast a spell.

Tavar

2011-09-16, 10:21 AM

Kyeudo

2011-09-16, 11:04 AM

Hey, I've been seeing an add that Starcraft 2 is now (partially) Free To Play. It looks like it's just 5 campaign missions and custom games, but I'm not sure. Link's here (https://us.battle.net/account/sc2/starter-edition/;jsessionid=5338C156B6C980CF67EEEB6AFBD4A2FF.blade 34_04_bnet-mgmt), though if anyone has more information about it I'd be interested.

You can play the first 4 campaign missions and you can play Terran on four maps against other players, but you can't play ladder and you can't be toss or zerg.

Suedars

2011-09-16, 01:48 PM

I'd agree with this mostly (though I argue the carrier is actually quite durable as a high-tech unit and that is its primary strength. It acts as a fairly good damage sponge, it just needs its low-tier units as damage at that point.). While marines are fairly essential to terran imo, that's more 'cause they do everything, meaning after the early game, they can be cut for more specialized mixed forces. Lings and Roaches are both needed for lategame zerg, but it's usually one or the other, and their lategame tech doesn't seem quite as vulneralble for some reason. probably because their tech units are either hard to get into range of (Broodlords), are designed to be the biggest sponge in the universe (ultra) or are designed to be stupidly hard to get close to effectively (infestors. Yes, they're t2. I don't care). Maybe it's because sans-carrier, each of the late-game tech options for toss requires a lot of time, and is in some way made more vulnerable (archons, meet emp, colossus, meet being able to get hit by everything) compared to the other races (the BL is beaten by vikings, but that's 'cause the viking is anti-air. The archon is beaten by the ghost because the ghost is good at anti-archon. It acts as a specific achilles heel, rather than just a 'good in this general type of situation' unit. The same can be said about phoenix vs mutas, or immortals vs sieged tanks, but mutas aren't normally the "kill everyhting in their base" unit of choice beyond silver/gold as far as I see, and sieged tanks are more about holding a position, even if that position is your opponent's front door so they can't leave. )

[/endrambling]

Marines are pretty important throughout the game in TvP and TvZ, but in TvT infantry is basically being completely abandoned as mech becomes more and more the way to play.

And mid-lategame zerg gameplay is all about trying to get more geysers up so you can switch out of weaker cheaper units like lings and roaches and into food-efficient gas-heavy power units (mutas, banelings, infestors, ultras, and broodlords). Your entire goal is to literally stop using/use as few lings and roaches as possible. Normally they're just mass produced after a battle to quickly remax, or used to control the enemy's expansions, rather than being used as a core army unit.

Kyeudo

2011-09-16, 02:33 PM

And mid-lategame zerg gameplay is all about trying to get more geysers up so you can switch out of weaker cheaper units like lings and roaches and into food-efficient gas-heavy power units (mutas, banelings, infestors, ultras, and broodlords). Your entire goal is to literally stop using/use as few lings and roaches as possible. Normally they're just mass produced after a battle to quickly remax, or used to control the enemy's expansions, rather than being used as a core army unit.

I have to argue that lings stay very important even into the late game. Very few zerg units out DPS the ling or are as easily replaceable. Their mobility is important in maintaining the harassy styles that Zerg favors and they are the simplest response to several important units fielded by the other races (stalkers, immortals, tanks, marauders, etc.) I'm most worried about my survivial when I have no lings to support my other units.

I will agree with you about roaches though. Roaches are so strangely usefully useless that I avoid them as much as possible.

imperialspectre

2011-09-16, 02:39 PM

Marines are pretty important throughout the game in TvP and TvZ, but in TvT infantry is basically being completely abandoned as mech becomes more and more the way to play.

That's probably going to change after the 1.4 patch. The nerf to blue hellions means infantry drops are going to be the best harass in the midgame again.

Karoht

2011-09-16, 03:22 PM

Lings are about quick and disposable pressure. You can send 36 lings in groups of 6 to 6 different points of the map with incredible speed, and the enemy is usually going to be forced to deal with you in some way, shape, or form. Heck, if all those 6 lings did was camp at an expansion (Burrow is so underestimated some times), and you get the drop on whoever tries to take that spot, they've paid for themselves.

(Notwithstanding that you can do that with 2 lings if you're paying attention but you get the gist)

Thiyr

2011-09-16, 03:39 PM

The problem with the high templar having an energy upgrade made it so that drops became impossible in TvP as one or two high templar could storm the drop and feedback the medivac and then merge into an archon to clean up.

Also, the energy upgrade meant that anywhere there was a pylon, there could be a storm in 5 seconds. This lead to situations where two high templar could hold off a sneaky push on a previously undefended base long enough for the main army to get there.

So while I don't like that they removed the upgrade instead of turning it into perhaps an energy regeneration upgrade, it was necessary.

I've heard that argument before, but I can't necessarily agree with it. In theory that works, and I've tried to do that against muta-harass before, which at the time was the only situation I heard of that technique being particularly notable. The issue comes in that it's more a good deterrent than a solution, 'cause the mutas would just micro out of the storm. same with terran dropping, infanty can walk out of the first storm, get into the medivac, and run away. the second storm if placed well could deal with it, but that's harder to pull off than it seems due to needing the templar to be placed far enough away that they don't die before they spawn. And even if two templar can stop a drop, that means that one of protoss's big tricks (being able to have unit appear where needed with minimal delay, and then waiting afterward, which is really the key to their "mobility") is irrelevant for the HT, because it... counters a strategy given you are actively watching for and responding to it, and you spent the time and resources to get HT, Storm, AND amulet, and keep two warpgates on cooldown with 100/300 sitting in the bank just in case. And even then, the biggest strength of that is the feedback. If it's 1 medivac full of just marines, the storm (if you intend to feedback the medivac, you need either 3 HT or only one storm) needs to kill the majority of the marines (as in, more than 5.) If 3 marines survive, they can kill the archon before it finishes merging. And that's only 1 medivac, which outside the early game where having the resources to have templar up like that is going to cripple you elsewhere is more likely to be 2 or 3 medis. HT are at best as far as I've seen a good -stall- when getting hit in the back of your base, buying time for the actual units to show up if your enemy is stupid enough to stick around. And that's all presuming you see it coming and can spare the APM from whatever else you're doing to defend it. And if you can spare the units from elsewhere.

Sorry for the wall of text, the logic behind "you can use them with warp gate to counter a drop or delay a push" just doesn't fly with me. It wasn't so metagame-defining, warping, or even affecting as the 4gate was, wasn't so all-purpose brutal as the infestor is, and even for all that investment, it is at best only really countering low-number drops and stalling pushes with t1 units. Against 2 races. If you see them coming. Yea, I don't buy it, though seeing some examples where it was big enough to warrant a change would be nice and could probably change my opinion.

LordShotGun

2011-09-16, 07:03 PM

Yea, I don't buy it, though seeing some examples where it was big enough to warrant a change would be nice and could probably change my opinion.

Gosh....I remember seeing some PvT where this came into great effect but it was so many patches ago that I doubt I could find them easily.

But, if you buy it or not, this was blizzards reasoning not mine and thus the change was made. I was just stating my opinion as a protoss player that while it sucked, it did make HT very powerful not only at drop prevention but also harassment. Two storms kill all the scvs at a fully saturated base in 2 seconds (although you could say the same of blue flame hellions, I tend to think terran are the "Wesley" of starcraft and get special privileges)

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWesley

Kyeudo

2011-09-16, 11:17 PM

Terran's Tier 2 rocks the house because their Tier 3 kinda sucks. Thors and Battlecruisers just don't see much use compared to Brood Lords, Colossi, and Ultralisks.

Thiyr

2011-09-17, 02:27 AM

Terran's Tier 2 rocks the house because their Tier 3 kinda sucks. Thors and Battlecruisers just don't see much use compared to Brood Lords, Colossi, and Ultralisks.

Or alternatively, Terran's T3 sucks because their T2 rocks. Thors would be great were it not for siege tanks (and if their ability actually had some kind of use), and BCs suffer the same fate as the Carrier: Big, Beefy, but Inefficient.

Actually, I'd love to see Bliz make the capital ships actually more worthwhile somehow. but in general, unless damage splashes somehow, t3 units just can't compete with more low-tier units. That whole RTS math thing.

As far as HT harass, I can actually buy that argument. That was really brutal. That said, it can still technically be done (you'd need the warp prism anyway, just build the HT beforehand), but I can see that being a bit more notable.

Suedars

2011-09-17, 03:48 AM

Or alternatively, Terran's T3 sucks because their T2 rocks. Thors would be great were it not for siege tanks (and if their ability actually had some kind of use), and BCs suffer the same fate as the Carrier: Big, Beefy, but Inefficient.

Actually, I'd love to see Bliz make the capital ships actually more worthwhile somehow. but in general, unless damage splashes somehow, t3 units just can't compete with more low-tier units. That whole RTS math thing.

As far as HT harass, I can actually buy that argument. That was really brutal. That said, it can still technically be done (you'd need the warp prism anyway, just build the HT beforehand), but I can see that being a bit more notable.

Thors play a very different role than tanks. Well, really they play the same area denial role as tanks, just applied to air rather than ground. The problem is that anti-air area denial just usually isn't that important, and marines already do a decent job of it. Removing tanks wouldn't make Thors any more useful, since they can't do tanks' job at all. Their main problem is that anti-air area control just generally isn't all that important, and that Marines can already somewhat fill their role. It's becoming increasingly important in TvT as a means of winning the Viking war though, which is encouraging. I suppose they also see use in TvT as a spearhead for breaking tank lines since they have so much hp to absorb hits, and despite their name, tanks are more of an artillery unit than actual tanks.

Battlecruisers are mostly fine, since they play an important role in TvT as a win condition if one player manages to dominate the air.

The only other tier 3 unit which needs help is the Carrier. Right now their main problem is that they just don't have a niche. They mostly fill the same role as the Colossus (dealing large amounts of damage at range), but don't do the job as well and are countered by the same units. They also somewhat lose the safety that's the main advantage of superior range, since Interceptors are so fragile and are easily killed by Marines and Stalkers, making the Carrier's damage very easily neutralized.

Kyeudo

2011-09-17, 11:43 AM

BobVosh

2011-09-17, 01:44 PM

Got a video or two to show this?

TFT

2011-09-17, 02:30 PM

From what I've seen, thors can have a pretty big role in 2 v 2 as well.

The reason is because thors can tank a lot of damage, as well as kill most air. So, on a Protoss and Terran team, thors pretty much synergize very awesomely with collossi, by tanking the damage(They stand in front of collossi, of course :smalltongue:) and kill anything that counters collossi. I actually didn't realize how good they were in combination until a pair of PT opponents used them against me and my partner. You can probably insert thors with any other long range Ground damage as well(So tanks and broodlords would probably be the other two bit ones)

Granted, its in a later macro game, but Thors are also T3 units.

Also, I'd like to brag a bit and say that my 2s partner for the CSL and I have beaten our first masters team as a pair! Though we aren't quite that level yet, and will be back to facing high diamond opponents soon :smallfrown:. Oh well.

DarkMemnarch

2011-09-17, 02:46 PM

Terrans have started doing a very brutal timing push against Zerg. They open with hellions (maybe after a bunker rush), keep their four hellions alive, then push as soon as they have one or two tanks and bring a pack of marines along. When this hits, all an early expanding Zerg has is zerglings or maybe a few roaches. The hellions make short work of zerglings, the tank makes short work of slow roaches, and the marines help out with both.

Anyone have suggestions on how to hold this push more consistantly?

Terran have some really abusive timing pushes. The way I deal with them is that I have a ling at the front of his base to know when he is moving out. If u see the hellion/marine tank push coming send out lings over the map near where he is pushing. Then use your roaches to attack from the front and come in from all sides with your lings and blings. The terran will get massacred if u connect the blings to the marines. Also it is really important to catch the terran unseiged.

If u dont think u can handle the push, then mass up while using the lings u sent out ahead of time to cut off reinforcements. This puts the terran in a really tight spot where u can effectively isolate his army from his main and can effectively launch a counterattack to really hurt him. He wont be able to engage because he is fearing a surround.

Recaiden

2011-09-17, 03:03 PM

The Glyphstone

2011-09-17, 03:05 PM

I can't be here this week, because as previously mentioned, my patch updater is malfunctioning and preventing me from playing.

Kyeudo

2011-09-17, 04:22 PM

Got a video or two to show this?

Here's (http://www.sc-replay.com/replay/14-09-11/224017-shotgunderek-VS-Kyeudo.html?justUp=1) two (http://www.sc-replay.com/replay/16-09-11/224018-Kyeudo-VS-xenoshiva.html?justUp=1). I'd give you one of me just barely holding it, but that's on a different computer.

Zevox

2011-09-18, 02:21 AM

So, I've just reached the last mission on a hard-difficulty play through of the campaign. Gotta say, I loved the Nydus Worm mission, especially for getting Swann and Tychus into the field.

Hard difficulty has definitely been more challenging than normal by a good margin. Ran into a few missions it took me several tries to complete at all (Haven's Fall and the final Protoss mission being the most notable), and even those I won in one attempt were very noticeably harder than before, and often took me longer when they weren't on a built-in time limit.

Oh, and I accidentally clicked the "multiplayer" button today - and immediately had it brought to my attention the game has a "practice league" specifically for total newbies. Gotta say, that actually significantly raises the odds of me trying out multiplayer. I'm a little more comfortable knowing that players who are already confident in their RTS/Starcraft skills will probably skip that, giving me the chance to play people in my own situation. Though that assumes there are still any adequate number of people using that a year after the game's release I suppose...

Zevox

Silverraptor

2011-09-18, 02:29 AM

Thiyr

2011-09-18, 03:48 AM

Skip the practice league. It contains maps with rocks that promote bad game play. Just get your placement and ladder up. You'll get to practice with people with your own skill and get better. I got mid bronze after my placement and now I'm High Gold.

Correction: Play one or two games in practice league to get your bearings, but not many. Use it as a place to realize "oh hey the game isn't objective-based anymore" and then leave it. But yea, ladder is actually for the most part forgiving, and the SC community, at least in game, is for the most part fairly nice. If one of us complains about people they play against, recognize that it's a minority case, unlike other highly-competitive online games. Speaking as someone who...apparently did the exact same thing that raptor did but more slowly(Speaking of, Silverraptor, see me after class), the skill curve for the game isn't too bad either in 1v1. go into 2v, 3v, or 4v games, and you'll run into cases where the "slightly favored" enemy team against your team of bronze/silvers is a bunch of diamond/masters level players sometimes, but in 1v you'll stick to people who are about as good as you. Between posting replays here, practice, and a healthy helping of Vitamin [9], you'll be in good shape though.

And as for you, young man...raptor...thing, you and I need to have a talk. And by talk I mean a few games of SC2 with/versus each other. I care not which. For great justice.

BobVosh

2011-09-18, 03:55 AM

A dinosaur vs a pokemon? Awesome.

Thiyr

2011-09-18, 04:45 AM

Okay. I'm coming to realize that...I'm not happy playing toss anymore. I'm a toss player at heart. I've been playing them pretty much from the start of playing sc2. And yet I can't keep doing it. I took a short time to play some zerg before, and I randomed terran earlier, and it was just -fun-. Because I got to be -proactive- about my strategy. I had -options-. With protoss, I had to plan how to deal with the most likely thing my opponent had in store, and try my best to counter it (zealot archon vs terran bioball, fast expand to air vs zerg fast expand or mutas, etc), and then I had to play the "who can counter the counter more" game, which I inevitably lost. I just played a game of TvP, though, admittedly against someone who wasn't doing that hot themselves, and just loved how many things I -could- have done. I went for fast ghosts to deal with early agression and moved into MMMGhostViking after nuking his natural (and catching most of his army with it). But I could have opened banshees, or gone normal MMM, or gone tanks, and any of it was -viable-. Zerg felt the same way for different reasons. Even if I'm pinned in my base, there's so many ways to go -around- your front door and poke back at them that I never feel locked down. But when I play toss, I pretty much have no mobility, and while my units have punch, they all need some kind of mid/late game tech to really complete things unless I go for t3 units. Each unit is good in its place, but don't lend themselves at all to being out of place, which feels like 99.9% of the games I'm in. Am I just missing some part of the protoss metagame? Are protoss really that...in a sense optionless? It feels like the 4gate and deathball push are really all they had going for them, and I'm not big on either of those, so I'm trying to find how else they can excel. I've gotta be missing something.

edit: Though admittedly, forcefielding someone's ramp is a satisfying thing to do. More satisfying when you're doing it to a protoss, denying their expo while you take your third. Even more satisfying when their counter push from both sides (due to warping in on the lowground) fails miserably due to the presence of two immortals and more forcefields. Though apparently that meant I was a smurf. >_>; In reality I just realized he was turtling hard, and I expected 4gate pressure, so I had a lot of sentries and a few immortals and figured why not starve him out if possible.

BobVosh

2011-09-18, 05:50 AM

You feel that toss and helpless if caught out of position, but zerg isn't?

Sounds more like you just burned out a bit on the game. I would recommend just doing random for a bit until you decide on what you feel like playing.

*edit* Also try a stargate opening very once in a while, it can be very effective.

Thiyr

2011-09-18, 05:59 AM

I'm actually more likely finding it to be because i'm out of practice, though really, it's more that I find myself fighting to keep myself in position. It really comes down to that lack of mobility and flexibility for me. I mean, I've been playing 'toss for close to a year now, so I guess that means I may be burning out there, but between mutas, infestors, and nydus, zerg feels like it's got so many tools to be everywhere at once that they can keep knocking you off balance unless they're hitting you at your strongest. Terran just kinda has a tool for everything. I'm just not seeing a good way to get around the "punch you in the face" playstyle for toss that doesn't rely on either my opponent lacking detection (blinkstalks/DTs) or supert3 tech (mommyship). Phoenixes kinda work, but only for so long as the opponent doesn't drop any static D, and everything else is so slow it'll be a suicide mission for the most part.

Hence why I'm trying to find a different viewpoint. I'm sure the stuff is -there-, I'm just having a hard time seeing it. It may be because I feel like I see a lot more Terran and Zerg players here discussing stuff. But in the meantime, I was already doing a bunch of random, so...yea! woo!

Zevox

2011-09-18, 11:39 AM

Skip the practice league. It contains maps with rocks that promote bad game play.
I saw that, but the only thing I can see them affecting is shutting down early scouting (except for Zerg, thanks to Overlords) and eliminating very early rushes/delaying slightly later rushes. Which, honestly, I wouldn't mind. Losing to players going for early rushes is one thing I'd be concerned about in my first matches, if only because I really wouldn't find that fun. Losing a longer game where I at least put up a fight, fine, I could deal with or even enjoy that, but if I just get taken out right away because I don't have just the right response to an early rush, that'd be something that would discourage me from playing at all. And I know that if someone went for one against me when I'm playing my first ever games against actual humans, it'd probably work, just because of my total lack of experience at this kind of thing.

Zevox

ragingrage

2011-09-18, 12:11 PM

The thing is, what's less fun: Losing to early rushes in practice league, or doing well in practice league then just losing to early rushes in Ladder?

Zevox

2011-09-18, 12:34 PM

The thing is, what's less fun: Losing to early rushes in practice league, or doing well in practice league then just losing to early rushes in Ladder?
I'm going to assume your first "practice league" was supposed to be "ladder," since I don't see how you'd lose to early rushes in the practice league given the rocks slowing them down substantially.

The answer is that at least if I do okay in the practice league then start having trouble with early rushes when I get out of it, I've got some experience enjoying the multiplayer, so losing to early rushes hopefully won't immediately discourage me from playing multiplayer at all.

Zevox

Recaiden

2011-09-18, 01:25 PM

I'm going to assume your first "practice league" was supposed to be "ladder," since I don't see how you'd lose to early rushes in the practice league given the rocks slowing them down substantially.

The answer is that at least if I do okay in the practice league then start having trouble with early rushes when I get out of it, I've got some experience enjoying the multiplayer, so losing to early rushes hopefully won't immediately discourage me from playing multiplayer at all.

Zevox

This is a good approach, but I recommend not spending all 50 of the practice league games.

As to how you can still be rushed, Planetary Fortress, Float barracks, and somewhat slower, just breaking the rocks. They give one a sense of security without protecting besides anything but 6-7pool rushes.

Good luck. The multiplayer can be very fun. And rushes aren't that common in either practice or actual, at least in games I've played.

Silverraptor

2011-09-18, 02:22 PM

The thing is, around the bronze and silver league, I found over 40% of the players do cheesy all-ins. Learning how to combat 6-pools, cannon-rushes, 4-gates, and 5 rax is the first thing you need to learn. If you feel nervous, we would more than happily play against you using these cheesy styles so you know what to look for and how to counter, since we'll tell you how to counter them.:smallsmile:

KillItWithFire

2011-09-18, 03:24 PM

Zerg Cookie

2011-09-18, 04:00 PM

Looks like I'm reporting in again.
Eu: Cookie.647

Just got out of a shameful losing spree with a well played ZvZ. Though getting 14 from a top sil guy when I'm gold was embarrassing.

4 wins to my queen portrait :D

Thiyr

2011-09-18, 10:44 PM

So the plan of playing random to take a break from protoss is kinda hard when the RNG gives you toss 4 times in a row for your first 4 games, then flops between toss and terran at about 2:1. >_>;

Zevox

2011-09-18, 10:52 PM

Well, I finished campaign mode on hard. The final mission was a real pain, especially with how much faster and more deadly Kerrigan was than on normal. Tried the Banshee/Battlecruiser fleet that worked for me on normal (albeit that I never got quite as many as I did on normal), and she was just killing them too fast. Took a tip I recall a poster here giving me earlier and set up Hive Mind Emulators to mind control Broodlords, which helped, but she had some kind of AoE damaging power that tore them apart if I didn't immediately micro out of it (and did big damage even if I did), and it seemed to recharge quite fast, so even microing out of it and hitting her from another angle didn't help, and I tended to lose most or all of my Broodlords to that (even when I had a full dozen of them at one point, I think I was left with only two when Kerrigan bit it). Had to use both, plus often some fire from my defensive perimeter's bunkers and siege tanks, to take her down each time, then rebuilt my air forces in time for her next approach.

And maybe it's just that I was on hard instead of normal, but I'm inclined to say that the Nydus Worm/no air units version of the mission was easier. In that I only needed to concentrate my defenses at two points, and could have them all be anti-ground oriented, whereas when the Zerg have their fliers I needed a bunch of missile turrets both near the artifact and at the back of my base, a couple at each ground defense point, and a pack of Vikings to deal with Brood Lords that didn't get into range of my mind control since they outrange turrets and bunkers. That's a lot more stuff that needed building (and repairing as the fight goes on), and an entire extra group of units that needed to be maintained. Plus there's the big leviathan air unit that shows up midway through - I can't recall anything the Nydus Worms did that was comparable to that monster. Maybe if they hadn't been auto-dying when they tried to pop up in my base at locations where my structures had been built that could have been an equally big problem, but even then I imagine my Banshee/Cruiser fleet could handle them.

Anyway though, with that done, I've largely run out of things to do in single player. With all gold challenges and hard mode beaten for campaign all I can do is brutal campaign (yeah, not gonna happen), trying to get all the achievements from the campaign (not interested, I've never cared about achievements), doing the few mutually-exclusive campaign missions I missed on hard (might do that - can you do them in the campaign replay function, or will I have to do an entire third campaign for that?), and skirmish battles with the AI.

Speaking of. I've watched a couple of those "Newbie Tuesday" videos that were mentioned to me when I first posted, and tried implementing some of their advice in skirmish AI battles. And I quickly find myself questioning whether I have anywhere near the multitasking skills the game's multiplayer seems to require. Once I get beyond the first few buildings, I cannot seem to keep on top of all the things I have to do - keep building workers, send three workers unto any new gas structure upon completion, keep building military units, keep building structures, remember which structures I want for my intended build, pick good positions for structures, scout, build upgrades, chrono boost, attack, know when to expand, make sure not to get supply blocked; I'm left feeling like the game needs me to do at least five things at once constantly after the first few minutes. My failure in this regard is easily illustrated by the fact that my resources never stay low after I have, say, 20+ probes out. I often end up with well over a thousand excess minerals by the time I move an army out, sometimes over two thousand. And that's with just one base - I've never expanded before that massive excess kicked in during these games. I win, but that's because I'm facing medium AIs, which are apparently an utter joke that will lose to the first moderate-size force you send at them no matter what.

So, yeah, I'm back to feeling intimidated about the whole multiplayer thing, and not in spite of, but precisely because I've watched those videos and now know all the things I should be doing, but can't seem to. :smallfrown:

Zevox

Neftren

2011-09-18, 10:58 PM

Silverraptor

2011-09-18, 11:11 PM

Don't worry. We'll give you tips on how to get into the habit. Hell, I eve sometimes forget to build workers. And I'm in Gold.:smallbiggrin: Its not something to be proud of, just something that I'm still working on to master. Right now, my main problem is guesstimating at a glance if a mineral line is fully saturated or not.

Thrawn183

2011-09-18, 11:36 PM

I got access to my starcraft 2 account back again!

So annoying that my WoW account that I haven't used in over two years getting hacked can screw up everything else.

Thiyr

2011-09-18, 11:57 PM

Zevox, strangely enough, watch the last two or three newbie tuesdays. They actually specifically talk about how to improve your ability to multitask in a way that will be helpful. In a nutshell, don't worry about anything but the one single thing you're trying to improve at. At all. Example: if you're focusing on creep spread, don't worry about that big army at your front, don't worry about overlords, or workers, just worry about gettin' that creep. You will lose, a lot. But you will start to find that the more you do it, the more you can do that and squeeze in making more workers, or defending a bit, without forgetting to get that creep spread. At that point, you'll be a lot more capable of doing more stuff at once. Seriously, he pretty much mentions almost word for word your concern on multitasking and talks about how daunting it is.

And trust me, you don't need to be perfect by any stretch to do stuff. I'm a decent enough player, and i forget workers and don't produce constantly and get supply blocked and get distracted and I still tend to do fine. Playing a handful of league games really does do wonders for the confidence in ones ability to play. For comparison, I can't do jack-defecation in, say, TF2, but I can still get about a 50:50 win/loss on SC as far as I see.

Kyeudo

2011-09-19, 12:00 AM

Speaking of. I've watched a couple of those "Newbie Tuesday" videos that were mentioned to me when I first posted, and tried implementing some of their advice in skirmish AI battles. And I quickly find myself questioning whether I have anywhere near the multitasking skills the game's multiplayer seems to require. Once I get beyond the first few buildings, I cannot seem to keep on top of all the things I have to do - keep building workers, send three workers unto any new gas structure upon completion, keep building military units, keep building structures, remember which structures I want for my intended build, pick good positions for structures, scout, build upgrades, chrono boost, attack, know when to expand, make sure not to get supply blocked; I'm left feeling like the game needs me to do at least five things at once constantly after the first few minutes. My failure in this regard is easily illustrated by the fact that my resources never stay low after I have, say, 20+ probes out. I often end up with well over a thousand excess minerals by the time I move an army out, sometimes over two thousand. And that's with just one base - I've never expanded before that massive excess kicked in during these games. I win, but that's because I'm facing medium AIs, which are apparently an utter joke that will lose to the first moderate-size force you send at them no matter what.

So, yeah, I'm back to feeling intimidated about the whole multiplayer thing, and not in spite of, but precisely because I've watched those videos and now know all the things I should be doing, but can't seem to. :smallfrown:

I'll let you in on a secret: I have all the problems you do and I'm up in Diamond league. The difference between you and me is that those things aren't as big of problems for me as they used to be.

As you play, you will learn how to handle all of those things better (never perfectly, even the pros aren't perfect all the time). You'll remember how your build is supposed to be going longer, remember to build those workers, remember to start your tech, remember to scout and see what the heck is going on at your opponent's base, and so on.

Remember, the people you will be playing in multiplayer are just as bad or worse than you. They aren't that intimidating when you really think about it.

Zerg Cookie

2011-09-19, 12:48 AM

I know it probably seems obvious to some, but forming control groups with your buildings can really improve your multitasking. Need to see how those rax are doing? hit 5
An exception is warp gates, that get their own button without forming a control group.
Also, there's the map marking buttons what-should-I-call-it. The thing where you can set the F buttons to take you to wherever you set them to take you.

Ex: I got a group for hatcheries, a group for queens and an F for each base. I barely miss larvae injections

Zevox

2011-09-19, 01:53 AM

Zevox, strangely enough, watch the last two or three newbie tuesdays. They actually specifically talk about how to improve your ability to multitask in a way that will be helpful.
Well, I'll look at 'em tomorrow, but this is all proving more intimidating than I expected. It's sort of having the opposite effect on me that learning the details of the one other type of game that I've tried to learn multiplayer for, fighting games, did: there, seeing what the essential concepts were and how they interacted, what the main challenges would be, and how things worked in my preferred game, I was encouraged that this was something I could do. Not on a pro level by any stretch, but good enough to satisfy myself and enjoy my fights. Here, the more I learn, the more I think "this is beyond me."

For comparison, I can't do jack-defecation in, say, TF2, but I can still get about a 50:50 win/loss on SC as far as I see.
Sorry, the comparison doesn't work for me. I don't play TF2 - don't like shooters. As mentioned above, the only other games I've spent any real time playing multiplayer are fighting games. And they're a very different beast from RTS games. The only way you ever get real multitasking required in them is if you play an odd two-in-one character like Carl from BlazBlue or the Ice Climbers from Super Smash Brothers. Which I don't do precisely because that's too much for me.

(Though I guess using MvC3's assists while doing something else with your character is a limited form of multitasking now that I think of it, but not as complicated as two-in-one characters and a long way from what Starcraft seems to involve.)

Remember, the people you will be playing in multiplayer are just as bad or worse than you. They aren't that intimidating when you really think about it.
Under other circumstances I'd believe that, but the fact that every replay I've seen used as an example in the "Newbie Tuesday" videos has left me under the impression that even the players he was criticizing were better than me is kinda undermining such notions. :smallsigh:

I know it probably seems obvious to some, but forming control groups with your buildings can really improve your multitasking. Need to see how those rax are doing? hit 5
Oh, I do that. Well, ever since seeing that it seemed to be standard during those "Newbie Tuesday" videos, anyway. Still doesn't make it any easier for me to keep up with the pace of the game and the myriad things I need to be doing at once.

(Aside: what the heck does "rax" mean? I've seen the word thrown out in this thread a few times in this thread, but can't for the life of me figure out what it refers to.)

Also, there's the map marking buttons what-should-I-call-it. The thing where you can set the F buttons to take you to wherever you set them to take you.
:smallconfused: Eh? Any chance you could explain that one? I don't think I've ever heard of this.

Zevox

Thiyr

2011-09-19, 03:44 AM

Sorry, the comparison doesn't work for me. I don't play TF2 - don't like shooters. As mentioned above, the only other games I've spent any real time playing multiplayer are fighting games. And they're a very different beast from RTS games. The only way you ever get real multitasking required in them is if you play an odd two-in-one character like Carl from BlazBlue or the Ice Climbers from Super Smash Brothers. Which I don't do precisely because that's too much for me.

My point was mostly that unlike in a game like tf2, or to use your preffered other multiplayer game, something like walking into a random fight on SSB, this actually does a very good job of matchmaking. Joining a random game of SSB or tf2 may put you up against someone like me, who kinda knows the game ish, but isn't good, or it may put you up against someone like drolkcal, who's very good at the game as far as i've seen. SC on the other hand, will typically put you up against people who are playing at around your level of skill, plus or minus a little bit.

As for all the skills you're trying to remember, the thing is prioritizing. Knowing a build order is good, knowing when you want certain things to happen is nice, but especially when you're just starting, you're gonna do better just working on one or two things. And the newbie tuesday videos, while it may seem daunting, are still people ranging from bronze up to probably gold/platinum, so the sampling of players is still pretty big. Just trust us on this one, you're not going to be terribly outclassed.

There -is- a lot of stuff to keep track of, but like kyeudo (who I can never remember how to spell the name of) said, we all need to work on it. I can never make units during a fight, never know good times to build stuff if i'm playing terran, forget to get upgrades, forget to scout, heck, I've chronoboosted my cybernetics core while forgetting to start researching warp gate...and forgetting to get an assimilator. I have made such major blunders its amazing. But I get the feeling that until you jump in and see for yourself, you'll keep building it up in your head. I'd honestly suggest just jumping in and seeing how you like it.

(Aside: what the heck does "rax" mean? I've seen the word thrown out in this thread a few times in this thread, but can't for the life of me figure out what it refers to.)

shorthand for barracks(or, bearrax. Which would make me like terran so much more, being able to send out trained bears)

Edit: and i was reminded of the hilariousness of when idra screws up. Idra is a -great- player. Then he does stuff like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRaPGdudeyE). 9 minute mark. This was at a major tourney. He lost to -nothing-.

Kyeudo

2011-09-19, 10:36 AM

Under other circumstances I'd believe that, but the fact that every replay I've seen used as an example in the "Newbie Tuesday" videos has left me under the impression that even the players he was criticizing were better than me is kinda undermining such notions. :smallsigh:

A newbie in starcraft is anyone in Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and most of Diamond (like me). If you are in like the top 8 of Diamond, you might be good, but otherwise, there are things you need to improve.

Suedars

2011-09-19, 01:54 PM

Speaking of. I've watched a couple of those "Newbie Tuesday" videos that were mentioned to me when I first posted, and tried implementing some of their advice in skirmish AI battles. And I quickly find myself questioning whether I have anywhere near the multitasking skills the game's multiplayer seems to require. Once I get beyond the first few buildings, I cannot seem to keep on top of all the things I have to do - keep building workers, send three workers unto any new gas structure upon completion, keep building military units, keep building structures, remember which structures I want for my intended build, pick good positions for structures, scout, build upgrades, chrono boost, attack, know when to expand, make sure not to get supply blocked; I'm left feeling like the game needs me to do at least five things at once constantly after the first few minutes. My failure in this regard is easily illustrated by the fact that my resources never stay low after I have, say, 20+ probes out. I often end up with well over a thousand excess minerals by the time I move an army out, sometimes over two thousand. And that's with just one base - I've never expanded before that massive excess kicked in during these games. I win, but that's because I'm facing medium AIs, which are apparently an utter joke that will lose to the first moderate-size force you send at them no matter what.

So, yeah, I'm back to feeling intimidated about the whole multiplayer thing, and not in spite of, but precisely because I've watched those videos and now know all the things I should be doing, but can't seem to. :smallfrown:

Zevox

Being able to keep track of all that will come in time. But for now it's best to prioritize things and focus on them one at a time. The basics of "pylons and probes" and always producing out of structures and keeping your money low is by far the most important thing in the game. It doesn't matter if your build is suboptimal (especially since optimized builds mainly matter when you're macroing cleanly), your unit composition is off, and you don't micro battles at all. If you've got a good number of workers and you're keeping your money low, you're going to win just because you have more stuff than your opponent (most people in the lower leagues have the exact same problems with economy management).

Don't worry about building placement. Make sure you're walled off against Zerg and you're set. Don't worry about expansion timings. Make a few unit producing structures and constantly produce out of them, and once you hit 400 minerals, expand. Don't worry about microing or even paying attention to battles. Just box all your stuff and a-move to his base. If you're macroing well you'll just have more stuff than him and should win.

Just constantly produce out of all your structures, don't get supply blocked, and add on more structures when your money is starting to get high and you can get to gold or platinum just off of macro alone (well, provided you can hold all-ins).

Karoht

2011-09-19, 01:59 PM

I got access to my starcraft 2 account back again!

So annoying that my WoW account that I haven't used in over two years getting hacked can screw up everything else.
Which means they hacked your Battle.net account, as products are all controlled by this one account, and that includes your SC2 account.

Kind of like having your steam account hacked.

Silverraptor

2011-09-19, 02:29 PM

Dublock

2011-09-19, 05:05 PM

So, yeah, I'm back to feeling intimidated about the whole multiplayer thing, and not in spite of, but precisely because I've watched those videos and now know all the things I should be doing, but can't seem to. :smallfrown:
Zevox

First off yes I am a lurker who decided to post :p

Second thing, I feel how you feel. I haven't done as much as you in the single player.

But whenever I try to load up a game against the AI, I try to follow a build and I am either to slow for anything, get crushed (normally Zerg -.-) or have a fantastic econ going, (sometimes I even spend most of it!) only to be crushed by a lack of army and then I realize I need to make more units, lose the econ, get crushed (tends to be Zerg, that is what happens when I set it to random lol)

Doesn't help I try to be a perfectionist in trying to execute said build.

Thiyr

2011-09-19, 06:08 PM

Most of the players you see in newbie tuesday are gold players. If you want to feel better, I saved alot of replays of when I was in bronze. You'll see how I responded to the enemy sending alot of zealots at me, or a bunch of other stuff that I see as insanely stupid of me when watching them. Would you like to see me in bronzehood?:smallsmile:

Yknow, I think I have one or two of those as well, if I look. Lemme check....Better yet, i have a few from the three games of practice leauge I played! I was astounded by the first two games and how the people I was playing against almost literally did nothing at all. Watch, as I win by making 4 zealots. Be amazed at how I win by making 8 zealots.

Not even kidding. Lemme know if you'd like to see some practice league games (though be warned, they -are- a little over a year old)

Acanous

2011-09-19, 06:13 PM

Had a match the other day, in ladder, where the other guy literally gave up and quit at the 30 minute mark. He had better macro and similar micro to me, he was terran and I was toss (I usually have problems against Terran). Guy kicked me all around the map, eventually told me to give up because my one base couldn't hold out..
When he blasted the Nexus to death with Thors, I told him "there's more than one". He quit. I was shocked.
Underscored the importance of scouting, that.

Sooo I was thinking, is it viable to delay researching stalker blink on a 4gate to pump out a Collossus for the second push instead of the third/fourth?
You'd end up getting blink at around the same time as the collossus, but making stalkers with a sentry or two generally encourages the opponent to stay ground instead of massing air. Comboing with Collossi just seems like a naturally good idea, but I'll lose more stalkers if they get blocked while harassing.
Thoughts?

Legoshrimp

2011-09-19, 06:32 PM

Acanous

2011-09-19, 06:57 PM

Usually 2. Could 1 base it if I thought it would win me the game, but unless the opponent is also toss, there's no way you wouldn't just get surround-owned 1basing a 4gate.

Legoshrimp

2011-09-19, 08:59 PM

Usually 2. Could 1 base it if I thought it would win me the game, but unless the opponent is also toss, there's no way you wouldn't just get surround-owned 1basing a 4gate.

Well 4 gate sort of works on one base(its an all in) but 4 gate blink collosi doesn't. :smalltongue: And collosi don't get really strong until you get 2+ with range so for any timing pushes you should aim to have 2 or more and range when you attack.

Thiyr

2011-09-20, 03:22 PM

So. Patch dropped. Neural Parasite can still affect massive units, it just had its range reduced to 7. I hope this is enough to bring the infestor down to a bit more normal levels. Everything else seems pretty normal as far as the PTR notes suggested, though.

thorgrim29

2011-09-20, 04:49 PM

Well, the hellions got nerfed pretty bad, and the reduction of vision up cliffs is clearly mostly aimed at he siege tanks. And with 4x the speed, the mothership might get more use no?

Spartacus

2011-09-20, 06:11 PM

I heard they were only getting a change to acceleration, not speed.

KillItWithFire

2011-09-20, 06:24 PM

Zevox

2011-09-20, 08:40 PM

So, still trying to get some basics down in AI skirmish games, another concern has occurred to me: what game speed does mutliplayer play at? I imagine it has to default to one speed, to avoid players arguing over it.

I ask because I always play on normal, because, well, it's labeled "normal;" but I notice that the skirmish menu tends to default to fast, or even faster on some maps, which naturally leads to the concern that multiplayer does that as well. And, well, from the few games I tried on faster, I can't say I like how quickly that plays at all. What progress I've made in trying to do the sort of basics outlined in the Newbie Tuesday videos falls apart even at the earliest, "build your first structures and workers" phase of the game at that speed. Fast is better, but I'd still be concerned about it.

Zevox

Spartacus

2011-09-20, 08:45 PM

The game defaults to Faster, probably due to SC:BW always being played on the fastest speed.

Silverraptor

2011-09-21, 12:27 AM

Also, Zevox. If you need to feel any comfort at all, I can upload my early game plays at anytime. I plunged right into multiplayer with very little preparation ahead of time.:smallsmile:

Zevox

2011-09-21, 12:58 AM

The game defaults to Faster, probably due to SC:BW always being played on the fastest speed.
Yeah, I was afraid something like that might be the case. :smallsigh:

Playing a couple more AI games on that speed, it's definitely too much for me.

So, you know what I think I'll do? Tomorrow, I'll play a couple of practice league matches, and completely ignore trying to do all this stuff I got from those videos. I'm sure some of the habit I started building will remain, but honestly, at this point I think trying to play that way, with my focus on building skills that should allow me to play well, is just getting in the way of me enjoying myself. Especially with this speed thing all but convincing me that I'm not going to be able to do that without obsessing over this far more than I want to. Maybe I can be content to just play how I want/do and lose often. If not, I guess multiplayer of RTS games, or at least Starcraft, isn't for me.

Zevox

DarkMemnarch

2011-09-21, 01:33 AM

Yeah, I was afraid something like that might be the case. :smallsigh:

Playing a couple more AI games on that speed, it's definitely too much for me.

So, you know what I think I'll do? Tomorrow, I'll play a couple of practice league matches, and completely ignore trying to do all this stuff I got from those videos. I'm sure some of the habit I started building will remain, but honestly, at this point I think trying to play that way, with my focus on building skills that should allow me to play well, is just getting in the way of me enjoying myself. Especially with this speed thing all but convincing me that I'm not going to be able to do that without obsessing over this far more than I want to. Maybe I can be content to just play how I want/do and lose often. If not, I guess multiplayer of RTS games, or at least Starcraft, isn't for me.

Zevox

When you are doing your matches you should try to keep making workers and keeping your minerals as low as possible. The most important thing in this game is spending your minerals and gas. If you ever have over 1000 minerals that means that your macro is slipping or that you dont have enough production.

The second most important thing is knowing what your opponent is doing. In most games where you know what your opponent is doing you can win by reacting accordingly or catching him unaware.

Also get into the habit of using hotkeys, they make your gameplay a lot better and it will get fairly easy once you start practice using them.

I hope my advice helps you. If you need anymore feel free to ask. This forum is filled with people who are eager to help others. Also everyone here is trying to get better whether it is bronze or diamond league so feel free to post replays and ask how can you improve your gameplay.

Kyeudo

2011-09-21, 01:39 AM

For your first games, just remember to try not to get supply blocked and try to make alot of workers. Those two skills are the most basic, fundamental ideas in Starcraft 2. Everything else can come later.

Wait, I forgot something that is even more fundamental: Have Fun. If you can't do that, you won't last.

Zevox

2011-09-21, 02:54 AM

When you are doing your matches you should try to keep making workers and keeping your minerals as low as possible. The most important thing in this game is spending your minerals and gas. If you ever have over 1000 minerals that means that your macro is slipping or that you dont have enough production.

The second most important thing is knowing what your opponent is doing. In most games where you know what your opponent is doing you can win by reacting accordingly or catching him unaware.

Also get into the habit of using hotkeys, they make your gameplay a lot better and it will get fairly easy once you start practice using them.

I hope my advice helps you. If you need anymore feel free to ask. This forum is filled with people who are eager to help others. Also everyone here is trying to get better whether it is bronze or diamond league so feel free to post replays and ask how can you improve your gameplay.

For your first games, just remember to try not to get supply blocked and try to make alot of workers. Those two skills are the most basic, fundamental ideas in Starcraft 2. Everything else can come later.

Yeah, all that? That's what I was talking about with the "focusing on learning to play well is keeping me from enjoying myself" line. Fact of the matter is, after watching those "Newbie Tuesday" videos and trying to put advice like that into practice in AI skirmish matches, I find that I simply don't want to focus on learning those basic skills. It isn't fun. I want to see fighting and make sure my army does its best, or plan and try to implement some sneak attack on my enemy, not be constantly worrying about building things so fast that I have everything I possibly could at any given moment of the game.

So like I said, I'm going to try some practice league matches. Anyone in that league is going to have as little skill at this game as anyone actually playing it does, so the odds of me being completely outmatched due to having never played this kind of game against a human before are minimized there. And I'm just going to see if I can enjoy myself, not worry about any of that sort of advice. If I can, maybe I'll keep playing. If not, I'll probably give up on multiplayer altogether, because trying to learn how to play the game well obviously isn't doing anything to help me enjoy myself.

Zevox

KillItWithFire

2011-09-21, 06:46 AM

Yeah, all that? That's what I was talking about with the "focusing on learning to play well is keeping me from enjoying myself" line. Fact of the matter is, after watching those "Newbie Tuesday" videos and trying to put advice like that into practice in AI skirmish matches, I find that I simply don't want to focus on learning those basic skills. It isn't fun. I want to see fighting and make sure my army does its best, or plan and try to implement some sneak attack on my enemy, not be constantly worrying about building things so fast that I have everything I possibly could at any given moment of the game.

So like I said, I'm going to try some practice league matches. Anyone in that league is going to have as little skill at this game as anyone actually playing it does, so the odds of me being completely outmatched due to having never played this kind of game against a human before are minimized there. And I'm just going to see if I can enjoy myself, not worry about any of that sort of advice. If I can, maybe I'll keep playing. If not, I'll probably give up on multiplayer altogether, because trying to learn how to play the game well obviously isn't doing anything to help me enjoy myself.

Zevox

I've always found that it really doesn't matter how good you are. Since you're always going to be pitted against people of (realitively) equal skill you can play however suits you and you'll do fine. The key with the newbie tuesday skills is they try to give you a good backbone. FTM, don't worry about moving around the screen fast or anything else like that because most other bronze people will not be doing that. If you remember nothing else just remember "pylons and probes." (or the race version of whatever race you play.) If you have no money you can't pull off any neat strats. Actually, with pylons and probes, so long as you aren't cheesed you should find yourself doing well in bronze after a few rounds of practice methinks.

mangosta71

2011-09-21, 09:30 AM

If it comes down to it, you can accustom yourself to the speed by playing at fastest against easy/medium AI opponents. Move up through the AI difficulties at your own pace - the harder settings will actually vary their strategy from game to game, so you can get a feel for counters. You can build confidence with your race against AIs until you feel ready to face live opponents.

But be warned, live opponents will be different from the AI. You'll need to start pumping out units immediately against a live opponent, whereas against AIs (up to hard, at least) you can spend time and resources building infrastructure before you start raising your army. Live opponents are more likely to cheese you, but they often won't react as quickly/well. And they're also more likely to just give up if you repel their initial push or your army is made up of stuff that they weren't expecting/planning for.

Kyeudo

2011-09-21, 10:38 AM

Yeah, all that? That's what I was talking about with the "focusing on learning to play well is keeping me from enjoying myself" line. Fact of the matter is, after watching those "Newbie Tuesday" videos and trying to put advice like that into practice in AI skirmish matches, I find that I simply don't want to focus on learning those basic skills. It isn't fun. I want to see fighting and make sure my army does its best, or plan and try to implement some sneak attack on my enemy, not be constantly worrying about building things so fast that I have everything I possibly could at any given moment of the game.

Sadly, there is no time in game for much planning. Planning largely happens between games (yes, even planning to do some sort of sneak attack). The most complex plan that I've ever come up with on the spot was "I'm gonna move my lings here, where I know he can see them, so he'll move over to kill them/protect his expo and get his main army out of place so that my main army can go kill his other expo".

It sounds to me like you want to do something micro-intense, and that's fine. Go for it. Do a Muta/Ling harass style or something. Knowing what the basics should be will just help you do that better, you'll figure out how to refine a build order on your own, and you'll find your ability to multitask going up.

Learning to play starcraft is alot like learning to drive. You can watch others do it, you can hear about it, but until you start doing it yourself, you can't really learn what to do. Also, when you first get behind the wheel, you are so terrified of screwing up that you're jerky, you forget things, and it feels all wierd. Once you get good, though, its all on autopilot. I don't have to think much about my build order and what I should be doing, just like I don't have to think much when driving to work.

Karoht

2011-09-21, 11:08 AM

...is just getting in the way of me enjoying myself.Losing isn't fun, but playing your way has it's merrits as well. Get some multiplayer under your belt, see whats what, work from there. Maybe experiment with a build order or two, see if you can find one you like.

When I play Terran, I am a tanks and vikings kind of guy. I know, it isn't the best route out there, but I have fun. Or I play a harass build when playing free for all with friends. I don't win. I NEVER win. But I have a good time and I cause some laughs from time to time.
When I play Protoss, I like big air and I can not lie. Luckily, I tend to play with people who also like big air, so it works out. Yeah, I could probably win just by chunking out some DT's and Stalkers, but where would the fun in that be? Big air battles and clever air plays are great fun when it works out that way.

Maybe I can be content to just play how I want/do and lose often. If not, I guess multiplayer of RTS games, or at least Starcraft, isn't for me.I hear people talk like this about pretty much any game out there. Play. Find out for yourself. Either you have fun, you enjoy the adaptation and the mental exercise and the moment to moment action, or it isn't your thing.
Rule of fun and all that jazz.

Silverraptor

2011-09-21, 02:37 PM

-Complaining about being nervus of starting multiplayer-

That's it! I can't take this! You Are (http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/135448-1v1-terran-zerg-metalopolis) Watching (http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/135486-1v1-terran-metalopolis) My (http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/136384-1v1-protoss-zerg-blistering-sands) Placement (http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/136743-1v1-terran-protoss-steppes-of-war) Matches (http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/136753-1v1-protoss-delta-quadrant)!

I don't want to hear any ifs, ands, or buts. You watch them and see how it determines your first 5 matches and be totally unsuprised on where it put you because it just means your skill level is currently there, with no where to go but up. I expect acknowledgement that you've seen all of them (I will be quizzing you) and if you are still too nervous to try, then I will force you to watch other bronze play.:smallmad:

To tell you the truth, for most of my bronze league games as random, I was mainly ******* around. I found myself getting better over time and developed a sense of getting better to remember the crucial stuff.

Suedars

2011-09-21, 03:37 PM

Fact of the matter is, after watching those "Newbie Tuesday" videos and trying to put advice like that into practice in AI skirmish matches, I find that I simply don't want to focus on learning those basic skills. It isn't fun. I want to see fighting and make sure my army does its best, or plan and try to implement some sneak attack on my enemy, not be constantly worrying about building things so fast that I have everything I possibly could at any given moment of the game.

It sounds like you'd be much better off playing a different game than Starcraft. You can somewhat do all that in Starcraft, but ultimately it's a very macro/economy focused RTS. Until your macro is very solid, just macroing well will always beat a player with poor macro but good tactics/micro. I'd look for a game that focuses less on economy management and more on controlling smaller groups of units well, something along the lines of Warcraft 3 or Dawn of War or even World in Conflict (though probably more recent).

Zevox

2011-09-21, 04:24 PM

Okay, so I played my first game. Protoss (me) vs Terran. And I enjoyed it, I suppose. I went for a pretty basic style, focusing on Stalkers with Blink early and Zealots a little later. He went for Marines, Siege Tanks, and later a few Banshees and Thors. There was a few engagements in the trench between our bases (we were on Novice Desert Oasis), some give-and-take there, but I managed to defend myself pretty well. He got at my natural with his second or third attack, but I repelled it with some Zealots I had in reserve at the other entrance to my base (watching in case he tried to hit me there). Then I got about 15 or so of each unit type and made a push that ultimately won it, with an observer allowing me to blink my Stalkers up into his base and take down a siege tank that would've been a pain otherwise, as well as what few other worthwhile units he had after that failed attack, while my Zealots hit his natural.

Oh, I noticed that it definitely wasn't playing at the fastest speed, so I guess the Practice League doesn't do that. Not sure if it was fast or normal, but I was thankful for it either way.

I saved a replay of it, and uploaded it here (http://www.sc2rep.com/replays/%28T%29Mindcontrol_vs_%28P%29Zevox/13768), if anyone cares to watch 25 minutes of two very novice players (my opponent told me, after the fight's end was a forgone conclusion, that it was only his second game).

Zevox

DarkMemnarch

2011-09-21, 06:14 PM

So I played another game today. This one I feel I played really well in. Lost anyway. I guess I'll give my own analysis of why I lost before you guys give me some tips. Over committed my units in the initial pushes and lost more than I should have. My micro was... poor. And I think immorts would have been preferable to the colossus. Any criticism, on things I did good and bad are welcome. :smallsmile:
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replay-videos/13347

a couple of things that is saw from this game is that it was your macro that lost you the game. You only start mining in your natural at the 16 min mark or so. You were ahead of your opponent basically the entire game. Your initial push actually did a good amount of damage. If you would have had been mining from your nat as soon as your nat was up you would have been able to beat him.

Also as protoss, gas is really important. I noticed that you didnt actually start mining from both gas in your main until the 12 min mark. If you would have been doing that sooner, then you would have made enough stalkers to simply overwhelm him

KillItWithFire

2011-09-21, 08:07 PM

Also as protoss, gas is really important. I noticed that you didnt actually start mining from both gas in your main until the 12 min mark. If you would have been doing that sooner, then you would have made enough stalkers to simply overwhelm him

My problem there is I just never know a good time to get that 2nd gas. When should I think about getting that?

ragingrage

2011-09-21, 08:09 PM

If you're having trouble with when you should do X, might I recommend getting a build order from liquipedia? Not only are they usually effective, but they also tell you when to build your stuff. I've found them incredibly helpful as a Bronze-league player.

Zevox

2011-09-21, 08:36 PM

My problem there is I just never know a good time to get that 2nd gas. When should I think about getting that?
I've taken to putting down my second assimilator at the same time as I put down a cybernetics core. Partly from practicing a build off the wiki that called for it, partly because it simply seems like a good idea given how gas-heavy Protoss are. If you're making anything requiring gas other than just Stalkers and a small handful of upgrades, I think you'll probably need it. Possibly even then. (Disclaimer: I may or may not know what I'm talking about. I have only played three multiplayer games total.)

Speaking of, I played two more games. Had some fun with 'em - early air force (Void Rays) on my second, Dark Templar on my third. Pretty easy wins, as my opponents just failed to react well to the attacks, even though both could possibly have survived them. (The first fell to two Void Rays, did some significant damage to one with four Stalkers, and had three more he forgot about - had he engaged with them and come much closer to killing the damaged one I may have disengaged, giving him time to recuperate. The second, watching the replay from first-person, actually noticed my DTs enter his base from the ripples cloaked units create, but failed to react or micro well enough to repulse them, even though he had a scan ready to go from his command center.) They couldn't have beaten me though - replays show me that I was beating them in units and economy rather soundly, unlike in my first game where we were fairly even.

As mentioned I have replays of those, but I don't think I'll bother uploading them unless someone really wants to see them. They're much more one-sided and uninteresting to watch than the first one.

Zevox