I'm a fairly mediocre Bronze player, constantly working on one part of my game and losing because of another. The part I've been working on lately is my scouting and understanding of what I'll be facing throughout the game. A few days ago I lost a PvT against a Terran player that seemed to be too good for Bronze. He harrassed my workers with Reapers constantly all game, out-microing my Stalker protection. Early on, I scouted two barracks with a second gas, I figured bio with sieges and was right. So I teched to Collossus,and built up a fairly sizable army, and pushed as soon as my collossus range upgrade finished (coincidentally when my ground damage upgrade finished). I was slaughtered by his superior micro skills, and lost the game soon after.
Here's where it gets interesting. While he was systematically destroying my two bases, he typed GG. Arrogant maybe, but within his right.
Then he left. I won.
I wrote it off as a simple mistake, a time constraint in RL, or some other justified reason. I didnt think much of it until it happened again the next day with a different player. Same story, he outplayed me horrifyingly, then left before sealing the deal.
Then it happened twice in a row yesterday. All "Bronze" opponents.
No way it's a coincidence, these players are deliberately staying in Bronze, annihilating us Bronzers but giving us the "win." WHether they want to just crush the newbies or want to play "casually," or whatever reason, its still destroying Bronze league. One or two occurrences don't change much, but if I've seen four of these players (maybe more, if others tried to cheese me and lost) in only a few days this can't be so uncommon.
I know it may not seem like a big deal, but those games lost all measure of fun for me once I realized they were that much better. There was no "challenge"--I didnt stand a chance if I'd played my best game-- there was no learning experience as there was nothing I could feasibly do to change the outcome of that match. Leaving at the end just left a horrible taste in my mouth, because I knew--and more importantly they knew--that the match was there's from the first second, and they were quite literally toying with me. If half the players this must happen to feel the same way, i'd imagine plenty would just stop playing. I know I stopped playing BW after a few years as I could just not compete with anyone i played.
I really dont know why im ranting. I realize its not something that can really be stopped. I also realize it doesnt matter to most of this forum who are far above Bronze. Frankly, it's just disheartening, and I ask that the message get out to anyone from this forum that may have tried staying in Bronze, or knows someone who has, that it really does affect our league.
I know it doesn't solve the problem for anyone but you, but you should get some practice partners in a higher league from the practice partner thread/#tlpickup and make a serious go at getting to silver. It sucks that you can't watch replays with players (easily the best learning tool from my broodwar days imo), but talking to people after the game to see what you did wrong helps a lot more than mass-gaming and trying to figure it out on your own imo. GL and don't give up!
Edit: Also, unrelated since it is almost surely not the case, but back in broodwar I had 1 or 2 iccup losses a season because I left before they did after they gg'ed. It is just force of habit to quit once gg is called.
This was common in iccup. A lot of high players would create smurfs and smash people in d and d+ ranks. The best situation would be to accept the wins and continue playing in silver. There should be a lot less smurfs in that division.
I don't mean to sound harsh or anything, but I think a potential source of the problem is that there is no defined lower bound for skill in the bronze league. The diamond league is much the same; there's no defined upper bound on skill, so the level of play in diamond varies greatly from the top to the bottom. While top gold players aren't that different from bottom gold players, top diamond (or bronze) players simply cannot be compared to bottom diamond (or bronze) players.
It's quite possible that the players you played are indicative of the "true" skill of a bronze player, and you just happen to be extremely bad.
Like....I really don't mean to sound like a dick. I don't know how else I could've phrased this T_T
Good point. And the fact that the OP knows what to do makes it unlikely that he's the lowest of the low in bronze league, and is probably a normal bronze leaguer or one of the better ones. I was just throwing out the possibility.
I totally understand your point Empyrean, and I did consider after the first and second "losses" that I might be worse than I think I am. The third and fourth were what really got me thinking. My W/L isn't stellar at just about even, but I like to think thats more due to my absent-mindedness mid and late game than my lack of knowledge and skill. I tend to focus too heavily on micro mid and late game, sacrificing map control and macro in general mostly due to me forgetting it and my resources piling up.
These guys were better than the average macro-focussed Bronze player though. Specifically in the first match, my colossus push shouldve punched through his nat's MM/siege defenses with ease. He totally out-microed me.
On October 02 2010 12:54 stealthrider wrote:These guys were better than the average macro-focussed Bronze player though. Specifically in the first match, my colossus push shouldve punched through his nat's MM/siege defenses with ease. He totally out-microed me.
That last part strikes me as odd though. If they're good players intentionally sandbagging into bronze then I would expect macro to be what's overwhelming you.
The fact that your army was close enough in size to his to make it a close fight indicates to me that you guys are still fairly evenly matched.
If he was a good player intentionally losing in bronze then you would probably be saying "I expected my colossus push to punch through his nat's MM/siege, but when I got there his army was three times bigger than mine."
The other three did outmacro me. Quite horribly, infact.
This guy seemed to want to end the game quickly, though--without resorting to cheese. I left out the part where his first major push was defeated when I'd gotten my first collossus out (almost lost it, though). Didn't think it was very relevant. I on the other hand, aside from my early zealots, only managed that one push.
Edit: Think he thought his Reapers would do more damage early than they did, too. All in all it seemed like he was toying with me the whole game.
I am a good player that is still in 30 bronze 4v4 because my allies are too stupid too be aware that there are 8 zealots hanging around the outside of our base and neglect to raise the depot. jesus christ people, you wanna go be terrible? at least play custom games.
In the meantime and for 1v1 they have the right to do whatever they want. personally, you're getting free wins. Why complain?
I think the OP's explanation has to be correct, there's no other reason why someone would beat you and then give you a free win unless they wanted to make sure they stayed in Bronze league. If these guys were legitimately the top of Bronze league, then wouldn't they want to win as many games as possible to get promoted?
My guess is that these guys probably aren't Diamond level or anything, but maybe Gold or low Platinum players who get frustrated playing against people of their skill level and just feel like bashing some Bronze leaguers. I know I feel the same way sometimes after getting crushed several games in a row, but you can play custom games against randoms to achieve the same thing.
The problem is, there's not really much you can do about this. It's not like they are cheating or hacking or breaking the terms of service. The best advice in this thread may very well be to try to get promoted, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't face so many smurfs in Silver league.
On October 02 2010 13:47 Tazza wrote: These "fake" players are so dumb, don't you play ladder with the purpose of moving up?
Well they probably play in the bronze league for the sport of it. I mean they probably get enjoyment out of beating, toying, then free-wining their opponents. Another theory could be that they are trying to obtain achievements, and this is the easiest possible way for them to do it.
On October 02 2010 13:29 Thoreezhea wrote: In the meantime and for 1v1 they have the right to do whatever they want. personally, you're getting free wins. Why complain?
because believe it or not mr. rage at random 4v4 teammates guy, joe smith bronze leaguer's priority of objectives when he plays this game probably read something like this
1) Have Fun 2) Refer to point 1.
When you get belted by some no name gold player who decided to be a jerk and beat up on bronze leaguers, regardless of if the score screen says victory or defeat, i'd imagine its not very fun for them.
On October 02 2010 13:59 Ftrunkz wrote:When you get belted by some no name gold player who decided to be a jerk and beat up on bronze leaguers, regardless of if the score screen says victory or defeat, i'd imagine its not very fun for them.
It's a lot of fun for them. That's why they do it.
EPT
