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So TL, I thought I would get something off of my chest that I've been thinking for a while.
The concept for a strategy forum for a strategy game seems mindblowingly simple to come up with, and I shouldn't have to explain the premise, but it's necessary for me to go on. The strategy forum (BW or SC2) is obviously a means for discussing strategy. What this means more specifically is that people are theoretically supposed to discuss the finer points of whether or not getting tanks and scanning or going for a faster vessel is a better way to deal with fast lurkers, or whether or not forge FE makes sense anymore as a PvZ build now that SC2 is out.
But really, it's not, and it hasn't been for a while for both BW and SC2. The most interesting aspect of this, however, is that for these two mostly similar games, they seperated from theory in completely different ways.
The BW strategy forum is mostly a forum of people posting replays and asking why they lost. Seems simple enough, but I feel like there is an underlying problem with this, in that when new players post in this forum, they expect strategy tips, and mostly pay attention to those, rather than the more accurate, "macro better" based ones. The name of the forum isn't the only reason for this, though it may contribute. The other reason that I can think of is that as an eSport, we focus on awesome strategy and decision making rather than mechanical play.
This is for good reason, as a)fangirls don't get wet for how well Flash makes marines and b) that's what differentiates a player like Flash and a player like Fantasy. If we focused solely on mechanics, both players would be exactly the same. But the reason we think of Flash as the Ultimate Weapon and Fantasy as the king of harass isn't because they've drilled how many production buildings they need off of a certain base count, it's because of what they do with them.
Newer players realize this, and focus (whether consciously or subconsciously) on this when they look at their replays, and when they pay attention to advice (again, either consciously or subconsciously). This is the problem with the strategy forum for both BW and SC2, despite all of my language being BW based.
But the problem in SC2 goes further. One of my biggest pet peeves in TL is when people name builds after themselves. I don't blame the authors themselves, however. It is their build after all, why wouldn't they call it Sc1pio's 1 base BC rush? The question then becomes, well, who do we blame?
I blame Savior.
More specifically, I blame the Bisu build, but it's more fun to blame a person (especially Savior), so I place the blame on him. If the GomTV MSL finals had been less of a complete massacre and a bit more even, Bisu wouldn't be the Revolutionist, and, more germanely, the Bisu build would be less associated with complete protoss dominance.
How does this relate to SC2, a completely different game a good portion of the fanbase of which couldn't differentiate between Kim Taek Yong and Ma Jae Yoon?
The concept that a build is associated with a name is most famously used in his case, and seems to be where the trend got popular, and subsequently where everyone derives their ability to name their strategies after themselves comes from.
But why does this piss me off so much?
Everyone who wasn't a pro copied pros in SC1, and some still do for SC2. There is an extremely good thought process behind this, seeing as all the BW pros did all day was sit in practice houses and figure out how to best dominate whatever proleague match they had next, so a ton of time was put into builds, along with a ton of collaboration with teammates.
This still occurs in SC2, but to a lesser extent. Seeing as the majority of visible pros to the foreign scene don't have as much time or don't spend as much time on their builds and strategies as the BW pros, I have a lot less confidence in them. Not that they're bad builds necessarily, but I'm sure Jaedong literally practiced 3 hat spire 5 hat hydra and all of its previous iterations until his fingers went numb, and he popularized the build which swung the balance of PvZ back to the Swarm.
When Joe Diamond posts his build in the SC2 strategy forum, this is even less the case: he probably spent a few games coming up with his idea, then tested it a few times, and eventually thought it was good enough to post.
This seems like an argument against posting builds at all, but, in reality, asking for advice on whether or not expanding off of one reactored barracks in TvZ is a good idea is completely different from presenting the brand spanking new Scipio TvZ 1rax Fast Expand.
It's probably a good build. But it's not a build which can destroy (for the first time of two) the career of the reigning bonjwa, usher in an era of dominance for his race, forever associate him with revolution in any matchup, and make him a StarCraft celebrity even when he slumps.
This is why I get mad reading the strategy forum.
tl;dr:
+ Show Spoiler +
1. People expect strategy advice when they need mechanics advice.
2. Stop naming builds after yourself.
3. I am way too verbose.
 
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To be honest, the trend of naming builds hasn't really took off that much in BW. There's the Bisu build, which is known for the biggest upset in starcraft history, the Flash Build(aka double armory, more common name), and the Fantasy Build, which is more of a running joke than anything else. Most builds are referred to by a generic name, only builds that really use a name are SK Terran and Bisu Build.
Now in SC2, it's probably because people want fame. I don't think it's related to the Bisu Build at all.
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The thing about naming builds you create is that um... it's stupid. If a build gets named after someone/something it's not the person who invented it who names it.
The thing that pisses me off about the strategy form (for SC2 at least) is that people often give composition advice which is like the least helpful advice possible. Just imagine the response if what we've seen work in the GSL was first posted as a question to the strategy forms.
Foxer: I'm really enjoying a marine heavy build, but I lose my first push to banelings do you guys have any advice?
Noob1: Get tanks!
Noob2: Go mech!
Noob3: Rush banshees!
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Haha, perhaps every player in the world could use mechanics advice, or at least reminders seeing as we're 4-5 months into the game's release! On the other hand, I feel the same frustration when players assume that mechanics are not the issue.
Macro and Strategy, it makes little sense to talk about one without the other!
Can't speak for the build-naming though 
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My pet peeve of the strategy forums is when people are giving their own build orders, and it's always like:
"Here's my build order:
10 supply
12 barracks
13 gas
15 orbital
16 supply"
and they keep listing more and more completely standard things until they get to like one change that makes it their own unique build order.. and its just a huge waste of space 
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Canada8031 Posts
On December 11 2010 16:45 Lightwip wrote:
To be honest, the trend of naming builds hasn't really took off that much in BW. There's the Bisu build, which is known for the biggest upset in starcraft history, the Flash Build(aka double armory, more common name), and the Fantasy Build, which is more of a running joke than anything else. Most builds are referred to by a generic name, only builds that really use a name are SK Terran and Bisu Build.
Now in SC2, it's probably because people want fame. I don't think it's related to the Bisu Build at all.
The only other two named builds I can think of are the Ayumi build and the Gundam rush, but that's about it. Arguably, the Bisu build has become more of a joke than the Fantasy build. At least in the way it's always referenced, anyways.
The naming trend isn't just limited to builds. Whenever somebody comes up with a new micro technique, there's always a bunch of useless discussion concerning what a good name for the new technique would be. I blame Maynard for this one.
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10387 Posts
I remember when Fantasy introduced the late-game mechanic switch in TvZ, and he said in the interview that he named it the "Denchanic" strategy.. except nobody calls it that now lol
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Midas push.
I enjoyed reading and really feel the strategy forum could do with a little more strategy discussion. I don't know who's going to provide that discussion though. Maybe i should give it a shot sometime.
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I think the bw strategy forum really has nothing to discuss....
If you think about it, the entire strategy of bw is from progamers. so if anything discussing strategy in BW would be discussing a VOD or something.
now about the "mechanics" thing. sure, maybe you can have some great strategy, but when it comes down to improving, ICCUP pretty much punishes bad mechanics.
if not for these "how do i improve" or "why did i lose" threads, we'd be seeing only dissections of x progamer's play, that's all.
personal opinion
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"Strategy" in the SC2 strategy forum basically consists of (optionally) reading what units or build the OP is using, randomly picking anything else, and telling the OP to do that instead. Often right after saying "I didn't bother watching the replay but..." or "I'm only in platinum but what I like to do is..." And yeah the named builds are a lot more common than they should be. It's also painfully obvious that the vast majority of the people making those builds didn't check their replays to make sure they were against a quality opponent.
The strategy forum is kind of a running joke for higher level players, really.
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That was a good read. It is always pleasant to read a well thought out complaint. Too bad I can't discuss it back because of my lack of knowledge about the topic.
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1. People expect strategy advice when they need mechanics advice.
Well, that's not really completely fair. It'd be easy for me to go into every thread and post "play faster", but there's no reason for them to only focus on improving one aspect of their game. So the tips that are actually strategy are just as useful as the tips telling them to play faster/macro better/work on mechanics and nothing prevents the asker from working on both mechanics and strategy at the same time.
The other points I agree with.
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Zurich15345 Posts
WTF the zatic build is totally legit!
Agreed on 1 though. People shouldn't look for strategy advice until they can macro at least somewhat decently (ie are top Diamond).
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On December 11 2010 16:05 Sc1pio wrote:
The question then becomes, well, who do we blame?
I blame Savior.
hahahahahahaha
very nice read, glad to see some newer posters with a good head on their shoulders
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Cool , and mostly true blog. Good write up. 5/5
BTW i must add how much i despised reading BISU BUILD in every post from EVERYONE.
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On December 12 2010 03:59 zatic wrote:
WTF the zatic build is totally legit!
Agreed on 1 though. People shouldn't look for strategy advice until they can macro at least somewhat decently (ie are top Diamond).
Can I just say that I do something similar, and it works wonders for me in every matchup? While it may not directly work anymore, it is still totally legit!
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On December 12 2010 03:53 Count9 wrote:Well, that's not really completely fair. It'd be easy for me to go into every thread and post "play faster", but there's no reason for them to only focus on improving one aspect of their game. So the tips that are actually strategy are just as useful as the tips telling them to play faster/macro better/work on mechanics and nothing prevents the asker from working on both mechanics and strategy at the same time. The other points I agree with.
Though that seems unfair, in 90% of cases it's the best advice to take, though the most mundane and difficult.
Even deeper though, SC decision making is based heavily on timings. When x gets done I do y, or when my opponent does x I proceed to y. When your macro is off, your timings are off, and subsequently you develop a false sense of timing that will only tend to hurt you in the long run.
The moral? Work on your mechanics before anything else.
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I think players can name whatever build after themselves. Unfortunately for them, the build probably sucks and they will probably continue to be ignored even though they have a build named after themselves. A great example would probably be Stalife drops. Unfortunately for him, having a micro mechanic named after him neither got him lasting fame or attention after his thread. He did get a D9 Daily though, so I guess he was one of the luckier ones.
That being said though, I think some people honestly deserve to have builds named after them. If you played hundreds of games to perfect one build that makes an impact on a matchup, then why shouldn't you be recognized? It's called the Bisu Build for a reason: it was Bisu's build that changed PvZ.
And by the way, Sc1pio you should stream more.
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The unfortunate thing is that in reality only the pros can really discuss finer points of strategies but there is a big enough skill hierarchy on TL.net that helping newbs can work. Also, helping a newb in general is a lot more useful than telling him that his built order is slightly sub optimal when in reality theres 1000 things he's awful at after 5 minutes.
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EPT
