EPTGonna spoiler some opening thoughts. Since this is my first report concerning SC2, I just wanted to get a couple things off my chest.
+ Show Spoiler [Player Mindset] +
Recently I've been a bit frustrated reading all the stupid things people say about the game, and especially the ignorance and arrogance as they say them matter-of-factly. In all honesty, Blizzard has a tough job. On the one hand, they and we all knew that SC2 wasn't going to be perfectly balanced at release. So they're working on balance as we play, but the problem is, the admittance that the game isn't balanced opens the door for millions of idiots to bitch about whatever they recently lost a game to.
This puts Blizzard in a tough spot. If they ignore these people, they appear uncaring to their customer, and, ultimately, these are the people they made the game for. However, if they listen, what/who are they supposed to listen to? Most people lack the analytical skills needed to look at the balance of a game like SC2 objectively, and even more are too shortsighted, even if it doesn't seem that way. It's way too hard to tell what each matchup will look like in 1 month, much less 1 year. Even though being on a balance team for a game like this would be really fun, I do not envy their job right now.
This whole imba/op/up thing made me think back to the days when I was playing BW on ICCup. So I looked back and reread my blogs of my progress, and oddly, NOT ONCE did I or anyone else mention anything being overpowered or imbalanced, except possibly slight map imbalances.
There was no "This is too good, how should it be fixed?" Instead, it was "Why did I lose and what can I do to win next time?" The fact is some people just don't have the mindset to play a game like BW or SC2 competitively. I look forward to the day when those players who are so vocal give up and move on to another game.
This puts Blizzard in a tough spot. If they ignore these people, they appear uncaring to their customer, and, ultimately, these are the people they made the game for. However, if they listen, what/who are they supposed to listen to? Most people lack the analytical skills needed to look at the balance of a game like SC2 objectively, and even more are too shortsighted, even if it doesn't seem that way. It's way too hard to tell what each matchup will look like in 1 month, much less 1 year. Even though being on a balance team for a game like this would be really fun, I do not envy their job right now.
This whole imba/op/up thing made me think back to the days when I was playing BW on ICCup. So I looked back and reread my blogs of my progress, and oddly, NOT ONCE did I or anyone else mention anything being overpowered or imbalanced, except possibly slight map imbalances.
There was no "This is too good, how should it be fixed?" Instead, it was "Why did I lose and what can I do to win next time?" The fact is some people just don't have the mindset to play a game like BW or SC2 competitively. I look forward to the day when those players who are so vocal give up and move on to another game.
+ Show Spoiler [Ranking System] +
It's been clear from the beginning that Blizzard doesn't actually want to rank players. All they had to do was copy/paste what ICCup did, but instead they broke players into Leagues, then further broke players up into divisions. Now, with this whole "hidden MMR" idea, they've taken it to a whole new level.
I'll admit I'm not 100% sure, but I skimmed through the really long "How MMR Works" thread, and my understanding is that the players you play against and the points you win/lose are entirely based on this hidden MMR rating. What this means, is that points are relatively meaningless as a skill measure. The MMR is the skill measure, and the points are only a derivative of that.
This is further complicated by the bonus point pool. We all get about 100 points/week, which requires us to play around 20 games per week. Now, I don't get a whole lot of time to play, and I'm guessing many other players don't either. 20 games in a week is certainly doable. BUT, 20 games each week for 3 or more months? Not reasonable for a more casual player. The game is about 13 weeks old now I think, so in order to have used up your bonus pool, you should have played at least 260 games. I've managed 140, and there's no way I can use up my 450 (and growing) bonus pool at this point. And what about people who jumped in mid-season? The bonus pool is designed to make players play more, but when you fall too far behind, it could actually discourage play, because it's futile to try to use up that many points.
My hope is that this huge bonus pool growth rate is something they just plan to do for the first season, to "get people hooked" on the game. Hopefully when the second ladder season starts, they cut it in half or maybe even just change the system completely and make points and MMR equivalent. Seriously, they have the technology to have a superior ladder to ICCup (auto-matchmaking) and yet they've elaborated something inferior.
I'll admit I'm not 100% sure, but I skimmed through the really long "How MMR Works" thread, and my understanding is that the players you play against and the points you win/lose are entirely based on this hidden MMR rating. What this means, is that points are relatively meaningless as a skill measure. The MMR is the skill measure, and the points are only a derivative of that.
This is further complicated by the bonus point pool. We all get about 100 points/week, which requires us to play around 20 games per week. Now, I don't get a whole lot of time to play, and I'm guessing many other players don't either. 20 games in a week is certainly doable. BUT, 20 games each week for 3 or more months? Not reasonable for a more casual player. The game is about 13 weeks old now I think, so in order to have used up your bonus pool, you should have played at least 260 games. I've managed 140, and there's no way I can use up my 450 (and growing) bonus pool at this point. And what about people who jumped in mid-season? The bonus pool is designed to make players play more, but when you fall too far behind, it could actually discourage play, because it's futile to try to use up that many points.
My hope is that this huge bonus pool growth rate is something they just plan to do for the first season, to "get people hooked" on the game. Hopefully when the second ladder season starts, they cut it in half or maybe even just change the system completely and make points and MMR equivalent. Seriously, they have the technology to have a superior ladder to ICCup (auto-matchmaking) and yet they've elaborated something inferior.
+ Show Spoiler [What they did right] +
That said, they did do a couple things right.
1. The game is really fun.
2. The game is really competitive, and very well balanced, despite what some more vocal people say over and over. I honestly thought the game would suck compared to BW. I was one of those people who said it would be way too easy, low skill ceiling, etc. But I've changed my opinion. The skill ceiling is lower, but it's still high enough IMO.
3. Auto-matchmaking does a really good job matching me up with people of similar skill level, even if their point system is stupid.
Okay on to the actual report:
1v1 analysis:
Zerg(144 games)
(58)ZvZ: 29-29 50.0%
(42)ZvP: 25-17 59.5%
(44)ZvT: 27-17 61.3%
81-63 56.2%
General:
In general, I've noticed quite a lot of my opponents lack some very basic fundamentals that most every BW player already has. Things like army positioning, flanking, macro timings, scouting (after the initial scout) and multitasking efficiency all come to mind. One of the biggest things I do early on is scout my opponent, and keep droning until their pool/rax/gate is almost done before starting my pool.
One thing my opponents have done well with is having a game plan. Unfortunately, the game plan usually only has one step, and it's usually "make unit X and harass while building up an army to attack with." If that doesn't work, they seem pretty lost. As such, many of my games have been decided based on whether I scout and defend what they're gonna throw at me. There's really nothing wrong with this; newer players just don't have the experience that more veteran players have. Eventually they'll realize how bad it is to be on one base and get scouted.
Another thing I've noticed is many newer players wait WAY too long to get upgrades. In contrast to my early-upgrade style, late game often shows my units at 3/3 and my opponents at 1/0 or 1/1.
ZvZ:
I noticed an interesting phenomenon in ZvZ around the time the game was released. Two things seemed to be the trend:
1. Ling/baneling was THE dominant ZvZ strategy, and
2. People HATED playing ling/baneling strategies.
These two things resulted in players racking their brains to come up with a successful ZvZ build involving roaches. I think overall, it became evident that, in a ling/baneling vs roach ZvZ, the ling/baneling player just had the advantage. Roaches are too slow to punish the ling player from expoing for fear of a backstab. Also, roaches were just too few in number to defend everywhere, and one slip up can result in banelings in your min line. Players found that roach builds didn't seem to work unless you had a strong enough economy to pump enough roaches before the ling/baneling timing would arrive at your base.
My impression of this is that games tend toward roach infestor when one or both players manages to hatch first. On maps where hatches/ramps would be too difficult to defend, ling/baneling still dominates.
I'm a greedy zerg, so unless I scout something aggressive, I go hatch first on every map in every matchup, so I've tended toward mass roach/infestor with hydras as needed for mutas when I play ZvZ.
Some things I picked up:
1. SEND YOUR OVERLORDS TO USEFUL PLACES! I see so many players not using their overlords for scouting early game ZvZ. They're not going to send their queens much past their creep line, so you can have overlords watching all the paths. If you scout spire, bring them back. This was standard procedure in BW.
2. If it gets to lategame, get broodlord/corruptor to supplement your roach army.
Reps:
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/101521-1v1-zerg-shakuras-plateau
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/101519-1v1-zerg-shakuras-plateau
ZvP:
My general BO for ZvP is like this:
+ Show Spoiler +
- 9th drone scouts
- 14 hatch
- ?? pool (as late as possible, around the time their gate finishes, depending on rush distance)
- ?? extractor (I don't have a set time, but it's somewhere between when I start my pool and when my hatch finishes)
- 2 queens when hatch/pool finish
- when queens finish, both make creep tumor, and get a 3rd queen and either lair or ling speed depending on scouting. Further usage of those two queens will be larva injects, while 3rd queen makes tumors or transfuses.
- when lair finishes, hydra den, overseer, and 2 evos. Evos get carapace and range attack. Will usually get hydra range when I can, much more quickly if I scout any air units or no colossi.
- roach warren when I scout colossi or colossi tech. Roach speed immediately after
- when +1 carapace/range finish, get +2 carapace/range, and get infestor mound. Once infestor mound done, start hive.
- When hive done, crack attack, ultras, +3 carapace, and +1 melee. I'll be switching over to ultra/ling from here.
A large part of this is left open, like how many lings to make initially, when to expo or add more production hatches, etc. These things are all dependent on what I scout from my opponent, and what I feel is right.
A few general things I've picked up:
1. Get lings on the Xel'Naga watchtowers asap. Also have lings outside the protoss base, keeping an eye out for probes trying to send out a proxy pylon (in case of 4gate build).
2. If you're far ahead and feel it's only a matter of time before you win, build a sunk and a spore at every mining base you have. Protoss players love to go DT when they feel behind. Also, just build a hatch at every untaken base to keep the protoss from getting back in the game with an expo.
My idea of a solid PvZ build involved an FE into phoenix play. I've actually played a couple games against this recently, though IMO it could have been executed better. The protoss player has to be very careful to not overcommit to phoenix, expand quickly, and also apply some pressure to force the Zerg to make lings. Also, phoenix do pretty well aiding an attack force. Their levitation doesn't have to always be used on drones and queens.
Reps:
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/101522-1v1-protoss-zerg-scrap-station
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/101523-1v1-protoss-zerg-shakuras-plateau
ZvT:
While I have the best winrate in ZvT, I feel the least comfortable in this matchup. The Terran has quite a few options, and its tough to scout, and as a result it's tough to macro properly sometimes. I need to work on my scouting. I just now realized that I've forgotten to send in overlords to scout in many of my recent games.
My general BO for ZvT is actually very similar to the one I have for ZvP, except that, if I scout more than one rax, I immediately get a baneling nest. Also, when lair finishes, I get 2 evos, overseer, then either roach warren or spire depending on scouting. If I see thors, I get carapace/range and roaches, otherwise I get carapace/melee and muta/ling/baneling and baneling speed. Endgame is ultra/ling.
But as I said, I'm a bit uncomfortable in this matchup so far. The only Terrans I beat are bad Terrans. Any Terran who expos at a reasonable time generally rolls me. I think I just need more practice in this matchup. I don't use infestors in ZvT currently, and I'm guessing learning how to properly use them in ZvT would help very much.
So really most of my practice in ZvT has been dealing with various types of harass with minimal losses.
Reps:
Actually reviewing my recent ZvT games, I've found that I actually haven't played many ZvTs at all lately, but almost always the Terran stays on one base for far too long, and I'm kind of "winging it" reacting to stop his harass, and that usually results in horrible macro for me. So when a Terran plays well and gets a reasonably quick expo, I'm so thrown off that I macro horribly and get rolled.
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/101525-1v1-terran-zerg-steppes-of-war
Here I think I did really well keeping calm and holding back until I could clean up his drops.
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/101524-1v1-terran-zerg-xelnaga-caverns
Questions:
ZvZ:
1. I have had trouble dealing with players who go muta/ling/baneling against my hydra/roach/infestor. They get enough mutas to harass my main/nat, and this presents a problem for me: I need to keep my hydra/infestor close to my main to deter their harass, but if I attack without my hydra/infestor, I risk getting owned by muta/ling. Even if I manage to find a timing to attack, with mass muta/ling/baneling can be strong, and is also very good at delaying my expos. A (sort of) example of this:
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/101538-1v1-zerg-metalopolis
I got a solid (IMO) lead early, but it was tougher than it should have been to win. My infestor control is pretty horrible. Ingame, I keep trying to use the "g" key for fungal, since I'm so used to g for plague in BW. Also, I'm not very good at judging the casting range, and also it's a bit tougher to hit air units. Can I deter muta harass by just leaving a few infestor/hydra at my main, or do I need more?
ZvP:
Right now I don't plan to get mutas, basically ever. In the past I've played a ZvP style where I just get mass muta and mass ling, with upgrades on the mutas, but I've found that a)psi storm, and b) blink stalkers with upgrades will give this a really tough time. Also early phoenix can make this really hard. So my questions are
1. Do any of you use this mass muta/ling build against Protoss? Why? Have you run into the same troubles I have?
2. Should I plan on getting corruptors when I scout colossi, or can mass roach + a few hydras hold them off while I work my way to ultra/ling? I would really like to avoid spending so much gas on air like that, and instead get ultras sooner, but if need be I could get corruptors and then go broodlords instead. Though personally, I prefer ultra/ling over broodlord/corruptor because of the difference in mobility. Also fully upgraded lings are the shit.
ZvT:
I really have no experience playing what I would consider a "standard" game of ZvT, so no questions here. I just need more experience.
Wow, that was a lot of stuff. But normally I do reports every 30 to 50 games, and there were 144 this time.
As always, comments and constructive criticism welcome.
