On December 02 2011 16:41 RedJustice wrote:Last night I was watching Anna Prosser play SC2. She just recently was promoted to silver, and her stream is a lot of fun. Something I observed when new people entered the stream was a lot of reactions like: "omg why are mineralz so high? why is she so bad? why hasn't someone in the house coached her?"
It's true-- there were plenty of games where she had about 10 drones mining at one base, or forgot to mine more than one gas when building mutas, forgot to creep spread, or didn't know that corruptors are >>>>>>>>> better than mutalisks vs battlecruises. But that's ok; I personally found it really refreshing to watching someone playing for fun and learning through the process of playing (and then finding out advise in the chat afterwards).
This also led me to consider that TL can really have a discouraging affect on players, especially people like Anna. A lot of people come here searching for ways to improve (Why did I lose to these BCs after I made 40 mutas?!). That's great and TL is certainly a place that can offer that.
BUT I think sometimes people who enter into the environment of TL can be caught up in the drive for tangible improvement, and maybe that causes more harm than good in some ways. There are lots of frustration blogs and threads that get posted-- I am stuck in ____ league and I'm so sick of this game and hate losing and hate being bad at it, and I just want to quit cause I'm scared of ladder, etcetcetc.
I think TL directly feeds into this anxiety in many ways. I think players spending time here start to develop a feeling that if they aren't getting better-- moving up the ladder, higher w/l ratio, winning small online tournaments, using the latest and greatest build of the week-- there is something wrong with them. But I don't think there really is. If
you want to improve for
yourself, and you aren't meeting your goals, then that's something to be fixed. But dicking around in teamgames is a perfectly valid way to experience SC2, and it's a lot of fun! Going 2-port banshees every game cause you like the sound cloak makes, and you like microing, and are ADHD and hate long games-- that's fine too.
I don't think TL needs to change. The focus of this community revolves around improvement and competition. But I think people should remind themselves that TL is isolated from a whole other way of experiencing the
game of SC2. If you are discouraged, take a step back from trying to find a solution in the strategy forum, from beating yourself up for your less than perfect macro, comparing yourself to pro players, and feeling your experience isn't legitimate enough until you hit (grand)masters. Find a way to play for fun.
+ Show Spoiler +People who say the only way to have fun is winning-- I really think that's a legit personal issue. It may be the way you have the most fun, but if you can never experience fun in something without 'winning'-- GET HELP.
Gonna play some random 3v3s and only build carriers. Come chill if you want. :D
http://www.twitch.tv/hotred_streak 
EPT
