Bronze Part 3: Casually Cruel

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Gheed

United States972 Posts

March 09 2012 23:17 GMT

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Bronze Part 3: Casually Cruel

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Anyone who has ever played fetch with a dog will understand the following truth. If you pretend to throw the ball, but instead quickly hide it behind your back, the dog will faithfully run after the ball you did not actually throw, look for it, and then return, confused. You may repeat this process once or twice before the dog either figures out your trick or gets tired of your shit and goes to the corner to lick himself. After observing my pet and considering his small, but definitive display of intelligence, I came to a startling conclusion: Spaniels are smarter than bronzies. And more flexible.

Cuter, too.

When presented with the same situation over and over, bronzies do not adapt, yet a dog will. How did it come to be that my canine companion is a more levelheaded fellow than the frothing mongrels that inhabit the lowest tier of Starcraft 2?

I'm not familiar with that breed.

Do bronze players lack object permanence? Is that why they lift off their Command Centers with such startling frequency? Do they think that I, too, share their affliction and will forget that there was another person in the game with me? Could this explain why they often do not retaliate in the slightest? Do they periodically forget that they have workers, or are playing a game at all? Are they amnesiacs? Narcoleptics? Other experiments for other days, perhaps, because this entry has one primary focus: knowledge versus skill. As the maxim tells us, knowledge is power, and Starcraft is largely a game of knowledge.

Before we delve into the world of bronze, I would like to take a moment to discuss another game, a game that is almost universally agreed to be skilless. I am talking, of course, about the World of Warcraft. Specifically, WoW's PvE. As an on-again, off-again WoW player, I could have very easily written this blog series about the incredibly awful players I found in the game's dungeons and raids. No WoW community is as desirable to be a part of as TL is for Starcraft, though. Please bear with me if you've never played WoW; I hope you won't be too lost.

I had, for a time, begun taking screenshots of every male Blood Elf Hunter I found wearing strength gear, but eventually the frequency at which I found them rapidly became more depressing than interesting.

Just because you can wear mail doesn't mean… oh, fuck it.

Later, I decided to take DPS parses for the boss segments of my random heroic groups, marking down each player's race and class, to determine if Blood Elves really were the worst players in the game (trust me, they are). None of my projects ever came to fruition beyond a few screenshots and a large amount of mental anguish, though. The point of them would have been to document a group people who, similar to bronzies, are irrationally terrible at something that nobody should be so bad at. WoW PvE, for the happily uninitiated, is mechanically very easy. You are hard-capped on the number of actions you can take by a global cooldown on the majority of your abilities. So, assuming you hit a button an average of every 1 second (and most classes don't), the maximum possible effective APM you could have is 60. Sure, there is some movement, but it's generally nothing more complicated than running into or out of a circle, stuff 7-year-olds have been managing to do in Mario games for decades. Moreover, everyone has access to addons to tell them when they are standing in fire. Yes, many WoW players lack the situational awareness to know even when their own characters are engulfed in flames.

Hell yeah I'm da bomb.

The biggest challenge to any raid is herding all the nerds to attack the correct target and to stand in the right spot. Websites like Learn to Raid or Tankspot freely give out strategies for every encounter in simple terms that anyone can understand. So nobody should be taken off guard by the fights after seeing them in person once or twice. Everything after that is simple, rote, mechanical button presses. For example, as a Feral cat Druid, the biggest part of my personal rotation was… nothing—literally doing nothing. To play my class, I had to just sit there and auto-attack while waiting for enough energy to regenerate to allow the usage an ability. The only skill involved was knowing what button to press when the opportunity to press one came around. Not only is that not terribly difficult to do manually, there are addons that show you graphically what button to press. With the right tools, every fight is basically a prolonged Quick Time Event that you don't necessarily lose if you mess up. Imagine if in Starcraft 2 all you had to do was micro a single Sentry. That would be more challenging than being cat Druid is.

So how do people fail at hitting a series of keys for 5 minute stretches? Well, like bronzies, they don't want to learn, and that's all it really takes. Just a bit of time to learn. There has long been a battle in WoW between so-called "casuals" and "elitists." But, the truth is, "casual" players are just bad players who use their "real lives" as an excuse for performing poorly. They are unwilling to spend time learning what to do and then when nobody wants to play with them they cry foul. Anybody, from adults to children, can learn how to be successful in WoW. Playing WoW correctly and playing it incorrectly uses up the same amount of time and effort after those initial couple of hours invested in learning. The only "elitism" in WoW is players declining to play with people who refuse to put forth a reasonable amount of effort to learn. The knowledge they need to gain is readily available and enthusiastically given by anyone in-game; nobody wants their fellow players to be bad. WoW players are more than happy to toss a link to a help site like Elitist Jerks. Although it might not always be the simplest advice…

More man-hours have gone into marksmanship hunters than into autism research. Admittedly, there may be some overlap.

It's generally good enough advice. I remember vividly the first time I ever got my hunter into a raid. It was several months after Burning Crusade was released. I was geared mostly in dungeon set 3 blues and a few heroic purples. We had been clearing through Karazahn and having a nice time of it. A crossbow dropped for me and I got a couple other armor pieces. I was enjoying myself and things were proceeding rather smoothly, but after a few wipes to the final boss, a player left the group. We needed another DPS, so someone invited a hunter friend who was decked out in full tier 5 and, to be nice to me, didn't need any items. I remember being in awe of his Arcanite Steam-Pistol and gigantic Tauren tier 5 shoulder pads, which dwarfed my pitiful blue Troll ones. Knowing he was far more geared than any of us, he arrogantly said something to the effect of, "this should be no problem now that I'm here," and bragged about "carrying us." Fulfilling his own prophecy, we indeed downed the boss.

The problem? I did nearly twice as much damage as the guy 2 tiers above me in gear. Why? Because I had looked up how to play my class whereas he had not. I learned how spec (41/20/0), how to gear (cap hit and stack AP), which pet had the highest damage (Ravager), and, most importantly, how to make and use a Steady Shot macro. If you weren't around for BC, a Hunter could basically put all of his critical abilities into an in-game macro, bind it to a key, and then mash that key brainlessly for the entire raid and do respectable damage. The arrogant tier 5 hunter, however, randomly cast Arcane and Aimed shots, erratically weaved in between Aspect of the Hawk and Viper, and generally didn't know what the fuck he was doing. As a Hunter in those days, you were rarely required to do anything but DPS, so your job was pretty much just to stand there and act like a turret to dish out as much damage as possible. So I, the guy in mostly blues, contributed more to the raid than the guy in complete shiny epics who was touting his greatness to us. Not because I was more skilled (again, I was mashing a single button) but because I was more knowledgeable. The reason we defeated the boss was because of our continued practice and a little luck, not because of his underwhelming contribution. But to the braggart Hunter, he was the man. Like a bronzie, he either didn't want to learn or erroneously thought he had nothing left to learn.

SAPERE AUDE

How can we visualize a bronze player's level of knowledge? In WoW, it's not only very easy to point out gaps in player information, but to fill them. Standing in fire? Listen to DBM and strafe left when it makes a noise. Not capped on hit? Go reforge some of that crit into hit. Trouble keeping up with your Retribution rotation? Try using CLCRet. For every flaw there is some piece of information or some utility that can remedy it.

Starcraft is a great deal more complicated. Even if you could point out a specific flaw, there is not a downloadable addon to fix it. Well, not legal ones, anyway. How do we separate a bronze player's skill from their knowledge, then? How can we see if they are learning? If you look at a bronze player's normal game, it's a mishmash of poor macro, low micro, no scouting, and random decisions. You couldn't look at a bronzie's ZvT and tell him to "scout more," because even if he scouted, he wouldn't know what he was looking at or what to do about it if he did. There are so many things wrong at the low level that it's impossible to identify a single thing to improve. It's like looking at a head-on collision between two trains and labeling each bolt failure. It's not the bolts that are important, it's the fact that it's a fucking train wreck. This is why rather than give specific help, people advise simply to "macro better," because at the low levels knowing how to do basic things is more important than knowing more obtuse things like strategy.

To separate knowledge and skill then, one would need to strip away all the aspects of a normal game. Eliminate the need for macro and micro. Get rid of the need for scouting. Then, find a way to do it repeatedly. And, after thinking about it, that is precisely what I have been unwittingly doing. I have been testing knowledge, not skill. This is why I found it so difficult to come up with something other than worker rushing to do against bronze leaguers. Anything more complicated became a matter of me pitting my skills, even if handicapped, against the skills of a bronzie. Nothing could be gained from that other than the fact that I'm better than them, which isn't particularly unexpected or interesting. Therefore, the strategies I have been executing are designed to fail if someone knows how to counter them. Anyone who knows how to attack move will beat my worker rushing. Anyone who knows how to make a siege weapon will beat my Planetary Fortress massing. I am not 4-gating them to test if they have sufficient skills to defeat it; I am worker rushing them to test if they know how to defeat it. Regardless of how good or bad they are in the other aspects of the game, any player with the requisite knowledge will score an easy win from me. By that same token, any player who continually loses to such a tactic must not be learning.

Before testing their level of knowledge, we must first examine where that knowledge comes from. WoW lacks any useful in-game information, so all of it comes from external tutorial videos, written guides, and downloadable addons. Where does knowledge come from in Starcraft? A couple of places: the in-game tutorials (which do, in fact, tell people how to attack move), YouTube guides, and websites like TL. Unlike WoW, a player is not likely to teach another player how to play or direct them to a place where they can learn for themselves. Not that anyone ever asks. So, the question is: are bronze players aware of the greater Starcraft "scene?" Have they been given the same opportunities to learn as we have?

I don't think that counts.

While I did not quiz every opponent if they knew about Team Liquid, a surprising number of people proved to be aware of it. In fact, since this series has gotten some more exposure, I have been recognized on the ladder several times, both by the bronzies themselves and the visitors to bronze alike. Further, a large portion of the players who have been outraged at my experiments have self-identified as bronze. Therefore, those people clearly have the tools available for them to learn. Maybe those are the ones who I'm not defeating. Am I only beating the players who don't know about TL?

If the answer is "yeah," then why does this picture exist?

I'm not so sure. While conducting a postgame survey is out of the question, they certainly seem to be aware of Starcraft terminology that would otherwise be unknown to them if not for Starcraft websites. If they weren't aware of the outside Starcraft world, then why would they say "glhf" and "gg?" How would they know how to call something cheesy or imba? How would they know to use bronze as an insult if they had never strayed outside of the game itself? Maybe there exists a good amount of silent, confused bronzies, but how do we explain the loud ones who clearly have the knowhow to locate and use the utilities to learn and yet do not?

Maybe we could blame dubstep? It certainly doesn't seem to be doing IdrA any good, either.

Some have argued that bronzies do not want to learn, that they only want to play "for fun." I find this hard to believe. I need write little to respond to such a silly hypothesis. It is only necessary to ask the straightforward question: if they play for fun, why do they get so angry? Like this fellow, who greeted me with a phrase that indicates he is not only aware of basic Starcraft etiquette, but expects his opponent to understand it, as well. Things went south when the workers flooded into his base. He responded to the rush by not responding at all, as is somewhat typical in bronze. Then, he loaded into his CC and flew around, but there are no islands on Korhal Compound so he quickly found himself in a losing situation. Whenever my opponent insults me in a manner more conducive to conversation than "ur a fag," I try to ask them why they feel that way. Perhaps it could be seen as goading, but I genuinely do hope that one day I will receive an enlightening answer. I want to know what's going on inside the head of a person who loses to a worker rush and then rages about it. This was about as close I have gotten.

But… esports!

It has always struck me as curious that people assume that someone who worker rushes or cheeses must have no life. Who spends more time playing: the person whose games last an average of 8 minutes or the person who macros to an average of 30 minutes? On a game-to-game basis, the cheeser is definitely committing less time. You really can't divine anything about a player's lifestyle from their playstyle, though. Further, calling someone a virgin for playing the exact same video game as you are seems a little illogical, no? Yet these are the insults that get flung around incessantly with no hint that the insulters notice the irony of disparaging someone for partaking in the same activity as they are. Sometimes, I pose a series of other possible explanations for the bronzies to consider.

Hey, maybe she's into that sort of thing.

As always, I questioned why my opponent stayed in the game after it was clear not only that he had lost, but that he was not enjoying himself. It was obviously to spite me, but why would someone who only wants to enjoy a nice game of Starcraft stay in a game they have admitted to disliking being in just to spite someone? He didn't respond though, because he was busy reaching around to his internet cable. He must have pulled it out and quickly plugged it back in, because for the first time in the game he began lagging. He then said, while presumably bearing a shiteating grin:

Really. You don't say.

These "networking errors" continued for a few minutes. He would lag for 10 seconds and then stop. Then, just before finally lagging out fully he yelled:

If you say it 3 times in front of a mirror in a dark room, an idiot will appear.

No one can honestly believe that this person plays "for fun." I don't care what he claims, people playing games for fun don't go apeshit when someone beats them. Further, how long can someone play a game and use the fact that they are playing for fun as an excuse for their ignorance? 100 games? 200? Well, this guy has played at least 1600. Maybe even more, because someone who nerdrages this intensely at a worker rush almost certainly has more losses than wins.

Incoherent post-game messages after ignoring your opponent. For fun.

While there may very well be people who genuinely play for fun, that doesn't mean that improving and learning isn't fun, too. People who watch Jersey Shore do so for fun, but don't you think that they would be better off watching the National Geographic Channel? "For fun" is a cop out that only grants someone so much leeway and they pretty much abandon any of it when they get mad at someone for trying to achieve victory in a game where the stated objective is to win.

We must remember that a ladder game is not a friendly practice match; it's an outlet for competition. Just because it's easier to hit "Find Match" than it is to find a friend to play a custom game with doesn't mean that one should expect everyone in ladder games to play like that friend. People enter to win. This is why the lack of even the most basal knowledge combined with the most venomous hatred in bronze astounds me. It's not like I'm shitting on a little girl's make-believe tea party, a purely noncompetitive, for fun event where any attempts to derail it would be undoubtedly dickish. I'm playing a competitive video game. To be angry at me is like playing hockey and getting pissed that the goalie stopped your shot. What exactly are their expectations when they queue up for a match? If it's to have fun on their terms, then they probably should have picked a single-player game.

Since over time I've more or less established that a sizeable portion of bronzies do not have the knowledge required to beat a worker rush, the next logical step is to see what happens after they have encountered it once. Are they capable of acquiring knowledge on their own? Or is their lack of knowledge the result of an inability to learn rather than simple ignorance? Before I began telling them outright how to defeat my strategy at the start of the game, I would rush them normally and then ask them afterwards why they made the decisions they did.

This particular incident began normally. I arrived into my opponent's base with workers and he immediately shit his pants and lifted off his CC. Rather than attacking, he ran around and circles and let most of his SCVs die. Most interestingly, though, he had a 99% completed supply depot. His last desperate act was to send his final SCV, probes at his heel, to finish it. I found that odd, and inquired thusly.

Kind of refutes the "play for fun" hypothesis, huh?

After he departed, I queued again, not thinking much of the encounter. However, on the loading screen I noticed we had been matched up again. I had not told him how to beat my strategy yet, so this was an opportunity to see his emerging thought process. How would he try to defeat me this time? Showing more steely bowel resolve than in the last game, he attacked me straightaway. Unfortunately, he focus fired a single worker and I was able to micro it away while the SCVs futilely gave chase. He left showing hopeful signs of contemplation.

Some of these games need definitely need to be made into gifs.

In one game he had gone from a complete trouser soiling disaster to having a sort of an idea. It wasn't enough to win, but it showed some positive growth. I searched for another game and once again found my incidental protégé. To my surprise, he told me at the outset to try my rush again. As I had intended to do it anyway, I obliged, and this bout he almost beat me. Instead of chasing me around for long periods of time, he quickly adjusted his focus when I microed the targeted probe away. It was still not quite efficient enough, though, and I ended up defeating his 11 SCVs with 2 probes remaining. Feeling generous and happy to see someone who didn't call me a faggot, I decided to explain to him how to beat worker rushes in the future.

I never thought that a bronzie's problem would be over-thinking something. It's generally the opposite.

This incident proved that bronze players are capable of adapting, albeit slowly and not always correctly. Still, it was more than I had expected. I checked my impromptu student's battle.net profile and it showed he was still in the bronze league almost 2 months later, but maybe one day he will be able to climb out on his own. Certainly he seemed a more rational fellow than the average bronzie, although truthfully, that's not saying a whole lot.

To the point of not adapting correctly, I have another interesting case. I rushed a guy and won per the usual ways. He left the game and I thought nothing much of it. Completely standard. But, when I encountered him again, he had devised the most bizarre countermeasure to my rush. He had, it seemed, attempted to block his ramp with his Command Center.

2000 games later and I'm still amazed by the shit I see.

This was far more retarded than I felt should be allowed to exist, in bronze or anywhere else, so after the game I had a little chat with him. I explained how to attack move, and invited him into a custom game to see if he could beat me, having just been given the required information to do so. Strangely, once in game, he did not begin mining minerals. Instead, he took his workers and ran them to the smoke clouds in the back of his Metalopolis base. When I arrived, baffled, he ambushed me from the fog like some kind of idiot ninja.

I think you may have misunderstood something.

He had completely missed the point of the training exercise. I'm not quite sure how he came to the conclusion that he needed to trick me, or how that it would in any way simulate a real game scenario, but whatever. I decided not to press the issue. Upon reviewing the replay, it turned out that he won only because I had begun typing when his surprise ambush came. It was merely a case then of him attack moving with equal forces 5 seconds before mine did. He had indeed attack moved, though, and that was really the only point. Small victories. In a real game, he would hopefully have been producing workers like normal. At any rate, he left happily and hopefully a little more knowledgeable.

The whole ordeal was very weird. It was like watching a tribe who has no knowledge of numerals attempt to describe how many of something there is. Lacking basic sense, he had to go so far out of his way to concoct a scheme using methods that I would never have fathomed. Bronze is truly a world apart.

Many, many times have I rushed people 2 or 3 times in a row successfully. Given the regularity of such occurrences, it seems undeniable that they are incapable of learning even the most basic maneuvers without direct, detailed assistance. And that only applies to those willing to even attempt to learn in the first place. The final piece to this puzzle is the question, "can they retain knowledge?" Certainly they have all somehow not only figured out that a CC can lift off, but they also remember to do so at every possible opportunity. Even when they don't annoyingly float it to the corner they still lift it up, as if by some instinctual response. Could they assimilate something even more basic than CC lifting into their Starcraft skill set?

In my previous entry, I included a screenshot where I worker rushed a player who was purportedly a "competitive" bronze leaguer. He was, at the time, jockeying against me for position on the ladder. Sadly, he lost to my rush, but seemed pleasant enough about the ordeal. After explaining how to defeat my attack, he responded with "aiight," which I could only assume meant he understood and would follow my recommendation in the future. How wrong I was. I found him on the ladder several days later, and, to my great sadness, he had forgotten all about my instructions.

People who play on low settings are missing out.

Or, perhaps he had never really listened to them in the first place. An astute observer will notice this guy lacks the "z" at the end of his name. Both replays link to the same battle.net profile, though, so it appears he used his name change at some point. This is undeniable proof that they do not learn.

I don't know how much more clearly I can explain attack moving, the simplest of game mechanics. If they can't learn how to do even that with explicit instructions as to both how and when to do it, how are they ever going to learn how to play? Well, it appears that they can't, which is why they can be "stuck" in bronze for hundreds and hundreds of games with no sign of improvement. They aren't actually learning anything from those games. They're just… in them, thinking God-knows-what. Or, more likely, not thinking at all. The games just sort of happen around them and they never stop and take a moment to consider how they came to be. It's like they believe that bronze is some kind of happenstance, that it doesn't mean anything, that it is no reflection on their abilities. So they trudge on, obliviously taking their shittiness to logic-defying heights all the while never acknowledging or even grasping that they are shitty in the first place.

The final chapter of my current quest to understand how a bronze player learns came in the form of a chance visit from Uromacef. If you don't remember, he was one of the few people who not only learned how to attack move from my warning, but was nice about it. He whispered me to ask about something, I don't really remember what, but eventually the topic shifted to him improving at SC2. I asked him if he knew about Team Liquid or Day9. He informed me that not only did he know about Day9, but was avidly watching the dailies, even going so far as to mention "Newbie Tuesday." It mystifies me that anyone who is using such a resource could still be in bronze. What are they gaining from those lessons—or, more to the point, not gaining? Surely the "probes and pylons" spiel should be enough catapult anyone out of bronze, right?

It's on a t-shirt, for fuck's sake. How much simpler does it need to be?

He then went on to tell me that he thought his macro was "fine," and asked about other problems. This is an issue that seems to plague bronze leaguers. Nothing they do is "fine." Nothing anybody does is "fine" until they reach the pinnacle of the master league. I can't tell you how many bronze players I've seen lament that they "spend all their resources" or "hit every inject" and cannot fathom why they are still bronze. It is, of course, because they aren't actually doing those things. I'm not sure how such a large segment of the SC2 population suffers from the same shared delusion of competency when literally every statistic, in game and out, is telling them otherwise. It's a major problem in their development. They can't learn how to do something if they think they already know how to do it.

Eventually, Uromacef and I found our way into a custom game. I picked Protoss against his Zerg on Metalopolis. I proceeded to play the worst game of Starcraft I have ever played. No, more than that—the worst thing I have ever done. Worse than papers written hours before classes. Worse than my singing in the shower. Worse than that time I ran over a homeless guy and kept driving. After six months of worker rushing, concepts like building units and structures are tenebrous at best. I got supply blocked at every single pylon. I forgot to put probes on gas. I had the worst excuse for a build order imaginable. Everything felt sluggish and awful, like I was numb with sleep, just then awakening from some horrible nightmare where I had spent half a year worker rushing bronze leaguers.

Anyway, it didn't matter. My bronze friend did nothing but sit in his base and make some Zerglings. By the 5 minute mark, he had banked up 800 minerals. Finally, he remembered to expand and also constructed 2 Evolution Chambers, which eventually were used to upgrade melee and ranged attacks. He never did anything, though. He just sat there and made some more Zerglings and eventually hydras. In time, I started watching him with an observer, wondering when I should move out and kill him. At any given point I would have had enough stuff to do it, but I felt like I should see how the game would progress. I had been sitting on two bases, clumsily making some gateway units and Colossi. Eventually I moved out and rolled over him. I didn't micro or anything, I just a-moved. I made Sentries, but I didn't even bother Force Fielding or using Guardian Shield. He GG'd, a sight almost completely foreign to me at this point, and left the game.

What is it with bronze leaguers and hydras?

After the game, he asked me how to defeat the little bit of drone harassment I had done. He blamed his poor showing on the fact that my worker harass "screwed up his timings," which bronze players are physiologically incapable of having. Hell, I didn't have a timing, either; I had an anti-timing. I invested in 2 forges and upgrades, but I moved out before they were done because I got bored and tired of waiting. Not that it made the slightest difference, of course.

I'm beginning to think Day9 is not for bronze leaguers.

I played him again, but the only noticeable difference in his play was that when I showed up with a probe, he chased it off with a single drone like I had suggested he do. Of course, he ended up chasing it all over the map and finally back to my zealot who then killed it, but one thing at a time. This game I simply made 4 gates. I didn't 4 gate rush him, I just made 4 gates off one base and warped in things for a while. He went for the same bizarre ling/hydra/upgrade build he had gone for in the previous game. He didn't scout, he didn't move out, he once again opted to not do anything. At another randomly selected time I sent my army out, attack moved, and won.

At this point I thought I had identified his problem. Well, a few problems. OK, a lot of problems. Everything he did was basically a problem. Straining to find anything helpful to say, I first told him he absolutely needed to scout. In neither of his games did he make any attempt whatsoever to look beyond his base. He had no idea whether I was massing void rays, DT rushing, or AFK. He didn't even know where my base was. Secondly, I told him to make Roaches because he didn't have the macro required to keep up with the Larva Injects necessary to make Zerglings in useful amounts.

We went into one final game. I didn't feel like this was benefiting either of us, but what the hell. Maybe he would do something interesting. He didn't. This time, he made roaches as suggested, but just like the previous games he didn't do anything with his units. He didn't scout. He didn't take a watchtower. He didn't even move them after they were rallied a short distance off creep. The only thing he did before I attacked him was kill a nearby Mengsk statue. The only time he had moved out of his base was when his drone chased my scouting probe around the map because I had forgotten to tell him to not do that in between the games. I had specifically told him that if he saw a Robotics Bay he should make a spire and some corruptors, but it never got that far.

Wall offs: the bronzie's arch nemesis.

The most painful part of watching a bronze player play is the crippling, overwhelming idleness. I saw it in Warcraft 3, too, which was even more bizarre because WC3 has creeps to kill. For whatever reason, bronzies just don't do anything. They don't scout. They don't harass. They don't "poke" or "shark." They don't expand. They don't make any fucking sense. They just sit there in the general area of their base waiting for something. They aren't even macroing well during this time period, either, despite their protestations to the contrary. I don't expect multi pronged harass while never missing injects, but dear God, do something! Take a watch tower, send a ling to scout, spread some creep, anything. People in bronze are so inactive that they're almost not playing the game at all. I don't know how this could possibly be an enjoyable pasttime for them. I cannot understand why someone so disinterested in moving their units around the map would play an RTS and not a TBS or other genre of game entirely. No matter how hard I try, no matter how long I spend down here, I just don't understand these people. What are they doing? What are they thinking? Why are they here?

It's almost maddening trying to come up with solid pieces of advice for people so bad. Everything they do is so unnatural, so counterintuitive that I'm not sure anyone can actually teach them. Clearly even Day9's continued efforts have failed. If even Uromacef, who in all respects appears to be a nice, literate fellow, struggles to learn even the most basic ideas, what hope do the raging masses of the bronze league have? I fear they have none, for there is something innate in their character that holds them back and prevents their growth as Starcraft players. It's not that they are casual. It's not that they are bad. It's that they are bafflingly, unexplainably dense.

+ Show Spoiler [Bonus Pictures] +

This will be my last entry for awhile, so here are a bunch of bonus pictures to tide you over.

I have many leather-bound books… and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.
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I was just curious.
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Get on my level.
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Well then you weren't really tabbed out, now were you?
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Certainly not sex tips.
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And I thought we had some nice camaraderie going, too.
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He floated to the corner and BMed, so I coated the map in creep and built the sickest drone maze.
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Well, it's the only race that has queens.
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I'm just trying to broaden my cultural horizons.
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How can a person so clueless be so assertive?
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Is this what it's like to teach high school?
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Fair enough.
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Not the hero we need right now.
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Poor Billy.
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Standard.

Guess I'd have to go with bear.
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Hey, you asked.
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Worse than I thought, too.
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I say we make every Tuesday worker rush day. Shake up the bronze meta-game.
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I don't know, but something about this guy's story doesn't add up.
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Was that a ladder game or an Abbott and Costello routine?
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Since you're probably reading this, ♥.
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Part 4: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=328804

Gheed

United States972 Posts

March 09 2012 23:18 GMT

Aw, damn it. If a mod could change the title to "Bronze Part 3: Casually Cruel" I would be most appreciative.

E: thank you to whoever did it

Hyperionnn

Turkey4968 Posts

March 09 2012 23:27 GMT

Halfway through reading this, you are amazing man

I am simply cracking out of laughter :D

Angel_

United States1617 Posts

March 09 2012 23:30 GMT

I don't know how you do what you do. I think I would become so depressed I'd take up drinking, and see if I could get myself intoxicated enough to successfully ignite my blood before passing out, while hanging myself.

Truly, I must applaud your dedication, effort, and work, as well as your as always amazing posts of your results. You bring me joy and laughter, even if it is an extremely bittersweet feeling some of the time.

iSometric

2221 Posts

March 09 2012 23:32 GMT

I didn't figure out a-move ever after years of Wc3 lol.

Gheed

United States972 Posts

March 09 2012 23:35 GMT

On March 10 2012 08:32 iSometric wrote:
I didn't figure out a-move ever after years of Wc3 lol.

These kind of responses confuse me. Because not only does the tutorial with Thrall tell you how to do it, you would have had to never misclick. You would have to a-click a unit with flawless mouse accuracy for hundreds of games. Because if you messed up even once and clicked on the ground, you would have discovered what attack move is.

Roe

Canada6002 Posts

March 09 2012 23:37 GMT

*whew, I made it through all of that! Good blog, and cute dog!

back in my raiding days of WoW (vanilla) I used to watch my raid members as they stood in the fire and died, only to be speechless in vent when the guild leader asked what went wrong. Maybe one of the reasons people are so dense is because they have poor on-the-spot decision making and just get so flustered they can't think straight. Then there are some who probably play the game just to escape any thought or activity and regress into passivity. I think there's also a group of people who just don't understand the need to perform better in a video game, whereas we take to these things almost naturally. There are probably a lot of people who really are just dense, and just plain dumb.

thsteal

2 Posts

March 09 2012 23:37 GMT

Im not sure if you realise it, but back in bc the gear you wore didnt HAVE to completely match your class. for example warriors BiS DPS gear was actually leather gear, the Attack Power it gave outweighed the strength their own gear gave. Also back then agility scaled better for crit. Blizz has fixed this sort of thing now with class related buffs(Wearing a full set of plate on a warrior etc gives you a buff)Im not critisizing you just trying to give a reason why some people wear wacky gear. But overall an amazing and well thought out read.

sc2superfan101

3583 Posts

March 09 2012 23:39 GMT

this actually bothers me quite a bit. i'm not going to go into why it's false, but just say that comparing people to dogs.... yeah, that speaks wonders about you...

BadAim

Norway879 Posts

March 09 2012 23:39 GMT

#10

You know, I really like your posts and have read almost all of them. I appreciate the work you've done and the dedication you've put in. As I'm on the EU-servers I feel I can tell you to "keep up the good work" with your "research".

As always, a really funny and "educational" post, 5/5!

If we ever meet in person I'd like to shake your hand, and then I'll punch you in the face for not playing the game as it is meant to :D

Fission

Canada1184 Posts

March 09 2012 23:40 GMT

#11

I loved your bit on WoW. An old maxim that I had for making fun of the bronzie-equivalents in that game was "Crit goes in every slot".

Cause, like, more damage in the long run is whatever, but crits are like, RIGHT NOW. xD

LunaSaint

United Kingdom620 Posts

March 09 2012 23:43 GMT

#12

+ Show Spoiler +

Aww, this one was so sad.

Hyperionnn

Turkey4968 Posts

March 09 2012 23:55 GMT

#13

On March 10 2012 08:43 LunaSaint wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +

Aww, this one was so sad.

yeah he should have let him win but he knows these stuff better obviously

virpi

Germany3598 Posts

March 10 2012 00:04 GMT

#14

the one with the tautology is brilliant.

Turo

Canada333 Posts

March 10 2012 00:06 GMT

#15

made me laugh. =]

sometimes i wish i had the stones to do this, but i'm always afraid of not being able to get back into master league

iss

United States36 Posts

March 10 2012 00:06 GMT

#16

This is amazing. Gheed, your blogs make me want to drop to Bronze just to witness this shit firsthand.

5/5, needs a spotlight asap.

rolfe

United Kingdom1266 Posts

March 10 2012 00:10 GMT

#17

poor billy ;_;

Aetir

Canada21 Posts

March 10 2012 00:10 GMT

#18

More man-hours have gone into marksmanship hunters than into autism research. Admittedly, there may be some overlap.

You're an incredible writer. This line made me lose it, but there are so many other little gems in there. Please continue doing these.

Grapefruit

Germany439 Posts

March 10 2012 00:13 GMT

#19

This is getting old.

Dfgj

Singapore5922 Posts

March 10 2012 00:13 GMT

#20

On March 10 2012 08:39 sc2superfan101 wrote:

Show nested quote +

this actually bothers me quite a bit. i'm not going to go into why it's false, but just say that comparing people to dogs.... yeah, that speaks wonders about you...

It is also applicable to cats!

Rasera

Canada96 Posts

March 10 2012 00:20 GMT

#21

Always a great read Gheed. I don't know how you have the patience for it, so bravo.

And it's very true, the tutorials that people make in this game aren't for most bronze league players. They all work on the assumption that you know even the simplest of things, which you've definitely proved is not true of all players.

Using personal experience from way back when, I know when I was in bronze league, the main issue was never accepting the blame. It was always something they did, or that X unit is OP or heaven forbid they actually cheesed.

The thing that helped me the most was one of my classmates. He was a diamond zerg at the time (when diamond was the highest league), and he always hated ZvP. So he'd say to me, 'hey play this build'; he'd play protoss for a game, show me the build and what to do, and then we'd do lots of custom 1v1's to practice it while he played zerg. We'd both go over the replays at the same time, and nit-pick what could improve. By far and above, that was the best method for me and happy to say that 5 semi-active seasons later, I'm in high gold, laddering against platinums.

Best advice I can give? Meet someone better than you who's willing to help you. Swallow your pride and you'll be shocked what you'll learn.

Celestia

Mexico376 Posts

March 10 2012 00:20 GMT

#22

After seeing your blog I got matched vs a Bronze in custom and I was like: The Hell, why not? So I SCV rush him, it worked and he got mad and stuff =3.

CuteZergling

641 Posts

March 10 2012 00:22 GMT

#23

Oh man this is golden. I love you so much.

fusefuse

Estonia4644 Posts

March 10 2012 00:27 GMT

#24

<3

Your blogs are awesome
Even though they seem to be railed on sort of a sine wave of melancholy, this one definitely being on the low end apex, they're still a great read.
Also
Poor Billy, genuinely, fuck his life.

architecture

United States643 Posts

March 10 2012 00:28 GMT

#25

These blogs are stupid as fuck.

If MMA smurfed into plat, and played you over and over again, he could ask the same questions:
How come you can't multitask 3 fights, it's not that hard
How come you can't hit basic timings, even a dog can hit timing for dinner
How come you army control is so poor, just put hands on keyboard and hit 1A.

And bragging about retards in heroic dungeons. What a joke.

Grow up kid. Stop "educating" others and just prove yourself.

User was warned for this post

Endymion

United States3701 Posts

March 10 2012 00:28 GMT

#26

the cc by the ramp got me lol..

Sophron

Australia21 Posts

March 10 2012 00:29 GMT

#27

These are both hilarious and depressing at the same time. A roller coaster of emotion. 5/5 would read again.

Blazinghand

United States25550 Posts

March 10 2012 00:29 GMT

#28

These are always amazing. Thanks Gheed :D

fusefuse

Estonia4644 Posts

March 10 2012 00:31 GMT

#29

On March 10 2012 09:28 architecture wrote:
These blogs are stupid as fuck.

If MMA smurfed into plat, and played you over and over again, he could ask the same questions:
How come you can't multitask 3 fights, it's not that hard
How come you can't hit basic timings, even a dog can hit timing for dinner
How come you army control is so poor, just put hands on keyboard and hit 1A.

And bragging about retards in heroic dungeons. What a joke.

Grow up kid. Stop "educating" others and just prove yourself.

I have a strange feeling this guy is in your match history somewhere, Gheed

Raging over inane matters is always amusing

"you stupid piece of shit bird, why did you shit on my car window. how about i come into your nest and shit on youre kids, THEN WHAT BRUH. gg your shit"

is that really constructive?
why cant people take simple edumentaries at face value
D:
personal trauma i suppose

ArcticMuse

Australia93 Posts

March 10 2012 00:35 GMT

#30

mmmmmm.... ok i'm kinda over reading all these chat logs of you trying to get a raise out of people who don't know any better.
http://i.imgur.com/prQrc.jpg for example.
especially when you act like you are somehow better then these people.... they are in the bronze league for a reason - why would you be surprised when they suck?

you're a good writer, and all the pictures and neat layout show how high your production value is, but your content is getting stale and repetitive. just my 2 cents.

guN-viCe

United States687 Posts

March 10 2012 00:36 GMT

#31

I kinda agree with your "victims". You spend your time trolling bronzies with dumb strategies. Congrats I guess :x

You are like a 2010 E-Tom Green, lol(except without ingenuity, money, fame, or women).

Dfgj

Singapore5922 Posts

March 10 2012 00:41 GMT

#32

You sound pretty angry.

You're also wrong, because you've confused skill and knowledge in the exact way Gheed sets out - a player can simply not be able to handle that kind of multitask because he lacks skill. There is no way he cannot handle a-moving, it is a simple question of knowing or not knowing.

Silvertine

United States509 Posts

March 10 2012 00:44 GMT

#33

I really don't see a point or any humor in this. You play in Bronze and are shocked that people are terrible and stupid?

sc2superfan101

3583 Posts

March 10 2012 00:45 GMT

#34

on a side note: why do you care if they are "mad" or not? i don't get that with video game kids, the "u mad?" thing. let's for one second analyze this phenomenon:

1. are they actually mad? you have no real way of knowing. they could be laughing, or crying, just typing stuff bored...edly. it's a pure assumption on your part that they are mad.

2. it seems to imply that since they are mad (or rather, since you are telling them that they are mad) and you aren't, that you've won or something. maybe it's because them being mad proves they care more than you...???

3. if they care more than you, then why do you get such glee out of them being mad? in fact, i don't think it's glee so much as spite. and if you are better than them because you said they are mad and may, in fact, be right, are you worse than them because you're spiteful?

4. if you aren't spiteful, or mad, or just trolling (all of which are equal to or worse than being "mad") then why waste your time trying to convince someone that they are mad (usually by repeatedly asking "u mad?" and then giving a logical (lol) reason why they are)?

5. if they are mad, then you're simply stating a fact. nothing too insulting there, other than the intent (i would argue being insulting over a video game is worse than being mad). if they aren't mad, then you're basically saying: "it doesn't matter if you're mad or not, because i got the "better" of you because i am going to believe you are mad." which doesn't seem to make much sense... for a variety of reasons.

meh... seems like simple trolling to me.

edit: maybe it's the "i made you mad, and if not then i made you mad by saying you're mad" idea?? but again, what does that mean? does making someone mad actually mean anything? idk...

Blazinghand

United States25550 Posts

March 10 2012 00:47 GMT

#35

There are a lot of people in this thread who really don't get it.

Pimmeh

Netherlands120 Posts

March 10 2012 00:47 GMT

#36

This is incredible, every single time.

The lack of people's adaptability keeps surprising me...

Thank you for the blogs

sc2superfan101

3583 Posts

March 10 2012 00:55 GMT

#37

On March 10 2012 09:47 Blazinghand wrote:
There are a lot of people in this thread who really don't get it.

tbh, i actually don't get it. at all. can you explain it to me?

cause it seems that it's:

They are bronze and bronze is terrible, so I prove that with an experiment to show how stupid and terrible they are. And surprise surprise a lot of them get mad when they are faced with this attitude and lash out. I will then show how much better I am than them in both SC2 playing ability and in real life by taking screenshots and writing a verbose post about how mad I made them and how terrible they are. This implies that I'm intelligent because I am tricking all these people who are terrible and stupid and I'm also witty in how mad I got them. Did I mention how stupid and terrible they are?

am i on the right track here?

Dfgj

Singapore5922 Posts

March 10 2012 00:58 GMT

#38

But this has nothing to do with SC2 playing ability. Nothing except the ability to click on the ground and sit back.

This goes on to look at why people might be stuck in Bronze, and part of it is getting mad, inventing excuses. He's practically optimistic about the people who at least try to learn, but there's a group that simply refuses to do so. Instead, they blame the opponent and get mad.

Which brings us to our last point. Why are you getting mad?

architecture

United States643 Posts

March 10 2012 01:06 GMT

#39

How is that unique to bronze?

How is that different from Idra's ragequits and constantly repeating mistakes?
How is that different from the awfulness that is basically the entire foreign SC/2 scene?

architecture

United States643 Posts

March 10 2012 01:09 GMT

#40

There's a way to tie a shoelace in one motion.

If i told you hey all you have to do is this one motion, and you will be able to do this, what do you think responses in real life will be like?

Not very different I imagine.

Some people won't care, they don't see why they need to do it.
Some people will be mad that you are showing them something new.
Some people won't be able to do it the first time, even after you show them or tell them it.

Zariel

Australia1277 Posts

March 10 2012 01:16 GMT

#41

5/5

I completely understand the way you see bronze leaguers. Just like my friend who's played literally 5+ hours per day for the past 4 weeks, is still horrible. Staying on 1 base, floating over 1-2k min/gas, building like 5 stargates (and trying to fund it via 1 base btw) for void rays, cannons around his whole base border. Gets supply blocked for over 4 minutes then realising he needs to build more pylons. It's a real PAIN to watch him play.

I try to tell him what to do and he just says 'oh cbf'.

Strike_

Netherlands704 Posts

March 10 2012 01:24 GMT

#42

Amazing blog like always, 5/5

Carbonthief

United States289 Posts

March 10 2012 01:27 GMT

#43

This, is a 5 star blog. Have all 5 of the stars.

Chocolate

United States2350 Posts

March 10 2012 01:30 GMT

#44

On March 10 2012 08:39 sc2superfan101 wrote:

Show nested quote +

this actually bothers me quite a bit. i'm not going to go into why it's false, but just say that comparing people to dogs.... yeah, that speaks wonders about you...

Have you ever heard of Pavlov and his experiments? Also, it is a good comparison because those dogs are actually learning better than these people who can't for the life of them figure out how to press a and click on the ground.

5/5 gheed, it's always amusing to see people get mad about your blogs. That CC on the ramp was fucking hilarious.

TemujinGK

United States483 Posts

March 10 2012 01:32 GMT

#45

Hmm. I mean it was mildly amusing as always.

You keep using 'retard' as if it is synonymous with 'stupid'. As someone with relatives who are mentally challenged I find this extremely offensive and childish.

In addition, you come off as extremely arrogant and condescending, you can be funny without being mean. Even your screenshots in past blogs have shown YOU being the BMer.

People like you are the reason it is hard to convince friends to jump in and give the game a shot. Stop being a dick to new players. You could be just as funny and a lot nicer.

For sure the last time I read one of these.

I wish I could give negative points for this blog.

0/5

Jonoman92

United States9101 Posts

March 10 2012 01:36 GMT

#46

Going to go take a shower, then return and read this. Going to be the fastest shower ever.

Sc1pio

United States823 Posts

March 10 2012 01:52 GMT

#47

Someone once told me that managing programmers is like herding cats, because herding cats is impossible. Cats do whatever the fuck they damn well please. If you try to train a cat to respond to you in some way, the cat will ignore you even if its for its own benefit. Programmers often also do whatever they want even if they are told it's for their own good and this is proven to them.

From your blogs and analysis, it seems like coaching some bronze leaguers is like herding cats. They can watch Day[9] and read Teamliquid and intellectually understand what's going on; they can hear the arguments and pointers on how to improve and what is good, and there's some mental block that makes them refuse to implement it.

It's bizzare.

Invigoration

12 Posts

March 10 2012 01:57 GMT

#48

These blogs are so enjoyable to read, Gheed, hope you keep making them. Still laughing at the part about being ambushed out of the smoke with SCVs.

neoghaleon55

United States7434 Posts

March 10 2012 02:01 GMT

#49

haha
this one's my favorite
+ Show Spoiler +

Carbonthief

United States289 Posts

March 10 2012 02:02 GMT

#50

On March 10 2012 10:32 TemujinGK wrote:
Hmm. I mean it was mildly amusing as always.

You keep using 'retard' as if it is synonymous with 'stupid'. As someone with relatives who are mentally challenged I find this extremely offensive and childish.

In addition, you come off as extremely arrogant and condescending, you can be funny without being mean. Even your screenshots in past blogs have shown YOU being the BMer.

People like you are the reason it is hard to convince friends to jump in and give the game a shot. Stop being a dick to new players. You could be just as funny and a lot nicer.

For sure the last time I read one of these.

I wish I could give negative points for this blog.

0/5

The entire point of this blog, is that he's not just being a dick to new players. These are players with 1600+ games, that after being told exactly what do do, after repeated tries, still cannot beat a worker rush. Noone uses "retard" to describe mentally handicapped people, they use either the general phrase "mentally handicapped," "mentally challenged," or the specific proper name for their specific condition. "Retard" is not in any way meant to slander people who are legitimately mentally handicapped. In slang, it IS actually synonymous with "stupid."

And yes he's being very BM, if he wasn't, it wouldn't be funny. Sometimes being mean is funny.

Fromps

United States12 Posts

March 10 2012 02:02 GMT

#51

The more I read these, the more I fear for your sanity. This is like some detective trying to uncover the truth behind the Old Gods from the Sunken City, you'll go mad man!

boxman22

Canada430 Posts

March 10 2012 02:04 GMT

#52

On March 10 2012 10:09 architecture wrote:
There's a way to tie a shoelace in one motion.

If i told you hey all you have to do is this one motion, and you will be able to do this, what do you think responses in real life will be like?

Not very different I imagine.

Some people won't care, they don't see why they need to do it.
Some people will be mad that you are showing them something new.
Some people won't be able to do it the first time, even after you show them or tell them it.

It'd be more like, people join a shoe-tying competition with you. They lose to your one motion, then refuse to learn how to do it better even though they are still joining shoe-tying competitions with others...

DeLoReAn

United States81 Posts

March 10 2012 02:07 GMT

#53

I would love to get day9's response to your articles!

goldenland

Canada1 Post

March 10 2012 02:11 GMT

#54

Well written and entertaining post, keep it up Gheed!

ShadowDrgn

United States2497 Posts

March 10 2012 02:21 GMT

#55

Best blog post I've ever read on TL I think. Just fascinating.

affinity

United States266 Posts

March 10 2012 02:24 GMT

#56

On March 10 2012 11:02 Fromps wrote:
The more I read these, the more I fear for your sanity. This is like some detective trying to uncover the truth behind the Old Gods from the Sunken City, you'll go mad man!

I feel the same way. Your patience with simply worker rushing over and over is amazing...

Eatme

Switzerland3919 Posts

March 10 2012 02:25 GMT

#57

Amazing blog. I have briefly visited bronze and were amazed of the amount of lifting off that terrans do when you walk into their base and start to disassemble it.
I have no idea what you could possibly gain from doing that and it's really annoying to be zerg since you have no mobile units that can shoot air until you get mutas.

commiekaze

Canada31 Posts

March 10 2012 02:28 GMT

#58

Great blog! I would like to mention to those that are unhappy with this that Gheed did say he will not be doing any more of these for a while. Also, it doesnt look like he BMed anyone unless they BMed him. In fact, if you look back at his previous blogs, he would post "instructions" on how to beat the worker rush at the start of each game. He then takes time to talk to them, try to teach them how to beat it and even goes into custom games to show them. Just saying. O_o

I would say the MMa vs Gheed comparison does not work either simply because of the skill difference in an A-move (that he tells you how to do at the start) and the 400 APM madness that a top tier pro shows. But I can see how this wouldnt be popular with everyone. Hopefully he writes something else if not these blogs.

KSKaleido

United States16 Posts

March 10 2012 02:36 GMT

#59

Someone should do a case study on the people that come to Teamliquid and rage about these blogs.. .the only fathomable possibility is they are bronze themselves and lose to worker rushes, but don't manage to read far enough into the blog where it -clearly- explains how to defeat the "strategy"...

How is it possible you're even on this site if you don't understand the point he's making?

Jonoman92

United States9101 Posts

March 10 2012 02:37 GMT

#60

Maybe a lot of bronze league players are young perhaps? When asked they say 17 but they are really 12 or something.

Enjoyed this way too much as always. The cc ramp block was pretty uber gosu.

Bawert

United States16 Posts

March 10 2012 02:42 GMT

#61

Enjoyed, as always. But i just think the bronzies are just missing that click I think everyone gets at some point, where you realize if you have too many minerals, you don't have enough production structures. The second that clicked in my head, i got so much better. But man, I don't know how you manage to not go insane with the "strategy" of bronze players.

Zariel

Australia1277 Posts

March 10 2012 03:08 GMT

#62

Perhaps bronzies are players who like to see a particular scenario happen. My friend loves seeing void rays rip shit up, when playing against AI, he would mass up 200/200 void rays and kill off every single building/unit in the field even after the AI 'surrenders'.

A Terran bronze leaguer may want to mass BCs late game. Perhaps they aren't interested in absolutely anything else. They don't want to learn macro/micro, they just want to see 200/200 BC army, even if it is off 1 base with 5 starports.

bre1010

71 Posts

March 10 2012 03:10 GMT

#63

I was crying with laughter at the part where you talked about the SCVs hiding being the fog and ambushing you like idiot ninjas.

I love these.

Aqo[il]

Israel183 Posts

March 10 2012 03:20 GMT

#64

Disagree with a previous poster in this thread - This /doesn't/ get old.
I beg of you, please make more. Love reading this on weekends, it lights up my evenings.

Just a word though, a lot of people who play SC2 might not be able to read English. English isn't the main language in many countries, and I know of many people who get to ages 16-17 without being able to speak English well (or being able to read it fast enough to follow a chat before it disappears in-game).

It's okay if you mock the people who reply like retards, but take into account that some of your opponents might just be 11-12 year old kids that don't speak English and this is their first video game, and even skills like knowing where every key on the keyboard without having to look and search for it are difficult for them.

Obviously those kids are also unaware of the fact this game is 'competitive', and they just play to build their favorite-looking units. (might explain the hydras?)

---

Either way, for all the people who are capable of reading gheed's advice and yet still fail to follow it: please, by all means, take a long break from this game. Like, at least two months. And if you decide to return to playing, try to stop and think about what you do before doing it.

Bronze levels really aren't far from low masters anyway!
+ Show Spoiler +

stokes17

United States1411 Posts

March 10 2012 03:30 GMT

#65

I like your blogs but seriously detest how easily you throw around the word "retarded"

It would be extremely appreciated if you toned it down a little.

Anyways, great series ^^

Carbonthief

United States289 Posts

March 10 2012 03:34 GMT

#66

On March 10 2012 11:04 boxman22 wrote:

Show nested quote +

And even after 1600 shoe tying fights, they still can't do it.

whatthefat

United States918 Posts

March 10 2012 03:45 GMT

#67

You couldn't look at a bronzie's ZvT and tell him to "scout more," because even if he scouted, he wouldn't know what he was looking at or what to do about it if he did. There are so many things wrong at the low level that it's impossible to identify a single thing to improve. It's like looking at a head-on collision between two trains and labeling each bolt failure. It's not the bolts that are important, it's the fact that it's a fucking train wreck. This is why rather than give specific help, people advise simply to "macro better," because at the low levels knowing how to do basic things is more important than knowing more obtuse things like strategy.

Amazing quote.

Angel_

United States1617 Posts

March 10 2012 03:46 GMT

#68

On March 10 2012 12:20 Aqo[il] wrote:

Bronze levels really aren't far from low masters anyway!
+ Show Spoiler +

i feel bad. for how fucking long i laughed.

vOdToasT

Sweden2870 Posts

March 10 2012 03:57 GMT

#69

On March 10 2012 09:55 sc2superfan101 wrote:

Show nested quote +

No, you're not on the right track. Are you mad, bro? read the god damned op.

There's a difference between skill and knowledge. In order to deal with a worker rush, you need to know about attack move. That's it, no skill required - just KNOWLEDGE. An autistic six year old can deal with it if he KNOWS that he is supposed to attack move.

The funny thing is that people fail despite him telling them how to do it. It's not that they lack skill, it's that they fail at a task that takes no skill, only knowledge, when he provides them with the knowledge.

scarper65

1560 Posts

March 10 2012 04:00 GMT

#70

I love the bronze players that are getting mad in comments. I also feel extremely smart and proud at myself when I see what these bronze players do.

Artifice

United States523 Posts

March 10 2012 04:04 GMT

#71

I love you to death, and fear for your sanity.

AiurOG

United States98 Posts

March 10 2012 04:11 GMT

#72

I'm low diamond, and anytime I need to feel better about how terrible I am, I just have to read your posts Gheed.

metalshoes

United States11 Posts

March 10 2012 04:39 GMT

#73

This makes me laugh harder than anything I can think of... I love you sir.

ArcticMuse

Australia93 Posts

March 10 2012 04:58 GMT

#74

On March 10 2012 11:04 boxman22 wrote:

Show nested quote +

No, that's incorrect. You assume that all bronze level players consider playing sc2 to be a completely competitive event. This is clearly not the case, otherwise all these people would be taking the advice to heart and doing their best to improve. Just because you view this game like a hardcore gamer doesn't mean everyone else does.

And so the question is asked again... why is it ok to insult someone who is bad/new/not taking the game as seriously as you funny?

KimJongChill

United States6429 Posts

March 10 2012 05:05 GMT

#75

This actually made me really depressed for some reason..

AnachronisticAnarchy

United States2957 Posts

March 10 2012 05:06 GMT

#76

It seems you forgot what it was like to be bronze. Half the questions you asked can be easily answered by any bronze player, provided you didn't just piss them off with a worker rush.
That said, you were probably kidding.

JaKaTaKSc2

United States2787 Posts

March 10 2012 05:07 GMT

#77

"Everything they do is so unnatural, so counterintuitive that I'm not sure anyone can actually teach them."

I can teach them. And I will teach them. You will see.

BoxedLunch

United States387 Posts

March 10 2012 05:11 GMT

#78

as a fellow worker rusher, i have seen the epic failure of the bronze league.

and it is hilarious.

love you, gheed

Dyme

Germany523 Posts

March 10 2012 05:11 GMT

#79

On March 10 2012 08:17 Gheed wrote:
I had been sitting on two bases, clumsily making some gateway units and Colossi. Eventually I moved out and rolled over him. I didn't micro or anything, I just a-moved.

You just described every single Protoss.

... sorry.

Good blog, as usual! Entertained me once again.

endy

Switzerland8970 Posts

March 10 2012 05:25 GMT

#80

That was a very funny read as usual.
I always love the bonus part.

CosmicOsmo

United States2 Posts

March 10 2012 05:36 GMT

#81

Hilarious article, but what's the point, other than making fun of the apparent disability of others? I was expecting it to end with some progress in the area of training bronzies, but unfortunately all we have is some evidence that both experience and day9 don't work. Maybe custom maps could be tried next? Is there a "practice stopping cheese" custom map? Or a macro-101 with a scoring system to know how you're actually doing (that should put a stop to "I hit my injects")?

Dfgj

Singapore5922 Posts

March 10 2012 05:38 GMT

#82

On March 10 2012 13:58 ArcticMuse wrote:

Show nested quote +

They wouldn't be upset about losing if they weren't trying to win.

Pulselol

Canada1628 Posts

March 10 2012 05:56 GMT

#83

10/10, a shame that one of them had to use my username as well (extremely common, etc), but hilarious nonetheness.

L_Master

United States8017 Posts

March 10 2012 06:00 GMT

#84

So are worker rushes really that easy to beat in SC2? In BW it's actually possible to take damage and or lose to a worker rush (as can be even in pro level games such as here: Probe Rush) It's still a really terrible strategy but if things don't go well and the opponent makes some sloppy mistakes/decisions it can end up doing damage.

Basically I'm just curious if the way the sc2 ai is designed allows simple A moving to deal with a worker rush perfectly even if the worker rusher is trying to do micro target down workers and or delay mining time?

Fission

Canada1184 Posts

March 10 2012 06:05 GMT

#85

On March 10 2012 15:00 L_Master wrote:
So are worker rushes really that easy to beat in SC2? In BW it's actually possible to take damage and or lose to a worker rush (as can be even in pro level games such as here: Probe Rush)

Basically I'm just curious if the way the sc2 ai is designed allows simple A moving to deal with a worker rush perfectly even if the worker rusher is trying to do micro target down workers and or delay mining time?

Gheed isn't really trying to do damage with his worker rush, he's just 1a'ing, so its effectively just 5scvs on attack move vs 8-9 opponent workers, on attack move. There is an actual zerg drone-all'in that I've seen done at a pro level effectively, but this isn't it.

Edit: To clarify, Gheed isn't doing things like micro targetting down workers, delaying mining time, or mineral-walking hurt workers back.

L_Master

United States8017 Posts

March 10 2012 06:08 GMT

#86

On March 10 2012 15:05 Fission wrote:

Show nested quote +

Fair enough. Thanks!

Bijan

United States286 Posts

March 10 2012 06:31 GMT

#87

On March 10 2012 09:44 Silvertine wrote:
I really don't see a point or any humor in this. You play in Bronze and are shocked that people are terrible and stupid?

I see this blog as more of a study on how people learn within the confines of a game we all love. Countless players are being told exactly how to defeat the simplest tactic in the game and are still failing to prevail.

Tying laces isn't a game or activity that one might legitimately want to improve at, so yes, those responses make sense. If we were all playing ShoeLace Tying 2: Wings of Hermes, then it would be a different story. If the one-motion tie is as easy is as comparatively easy as the worker rush then it would be just as ridiculous for those players to be consistently losing to it.

I don't know why I'm replying to this, but this is a topic that mildly annoys me. What is wrong with using the word "retarded" as an insult?

Lets take a step back and say he had called those bronze leaguers "stupid". Should stupid people be offended? They certainly exist, its not their fault they're stupid and you're applying a negative stigma to being stupid. No one wants to be stupid and that's why its a good insult. I don't think I need to rewrite this paragraph with the word "retard", the point is easy enough to grasp.

On a similar note, why is it so awful to refer to the mentally handicapped as "retarded" or having a condition of "mental retardation"? I remember in college reading my biology textbook in the section on genetic disorders. The words "retarded" and "retardation" were both used to describe mental symptoms. Yes, it's super mean to call someone with Down's Syndrome "retarded" to their face, but it would also be quite mean to call someone "stupid" to their face when they legitimately are an idiot. Weirdly enough, I only ever hear the anti-retard spiel in response to an innocuous insult. Even the assholes in highschool who routinely fucked with the mentally handicapped had better sense then to call them "retarded".

I can understand your feelings though, I have friends with retarded relatives (sorry, couldn't resist), and they don't seem to take much stock in my opinions on the matter. I know its a challenge for both your family and your afflicted relatives and I hope you don't take my comments as disparaging towards them or their situation.

And to get back on topic and speak to the OP's BMing, I hardly see him as the instigator, unless you call worker rushing BM. Even then, he seems to be trying much harder then most people would to be cordial and sincere to his opponents.

On March 10 2012 13:58 ArcticMuse wrote:

Show nested quote +

I have to imagine that many people posting only skimmed the blog. Did you not see how many people responded with hostility and anger? I'll even quote the blog: "It is only necessary to ask the straightforward question: if they play for fun, why do they get so angry?"

Ashent

Korea (South)109 Posts

March 10 2012 06:40 GMT

#88

They aren't getting angry over Gheed's build, they're getting angry that they know they SHOULD be able to react accordingly but they do not. Whether or not this is willful is besides the point. They are seemingly too stubborn to follow instruction on how to improve, and thus proving the definiton of insanity: 'attempting the same actions while expecting a different outcome.'

FoeHamr

United States489 Posts

March 10 2012 06:41 GMT

#89

I love your blog. Honestly if I can give one single tip to anyone in bronze league it would be play faster. Once you can build marines and SCV's at the same time the game becomes so much easier. At least that's how I did it.

Hossinaut

United States453 Posts

March 10 2012 06:45 GMT

#90

These blogs make me want to take my alt account and do this shit...

So much confuse

Crazyeyes

Canada1342 Posts

March 10 2012 06:56 GMT

#91

I felt so proud when I read LuckyMachine's comments. HE SEEMED TO BE LEARNING!

knightwulf

Canada174 Posts

March 10 2012 06:56 GMT

#92

I really enjoyed the screen shots. um good job?

PineapplePizza

United States749 Posts

March 10 2012 06:58 GMT

#93

On March 10 2012 08:35 Gheed wrote:

Show nested quote +

Before SC2, whenever I did the tutorial for a blizzard rts, I would always assume that the Attack command was either silly and redundant, or a vestige of older games where you were forced to press a button or a hotkey in order to even move your troops. Being a CnC player, I simply right-clicked whenever I wanted to move or attack.

I'm still trying to figure out how I completely missed the part where they said, "Move to here and attack anybody along the way". I could just hit myself for that. I'm in low masters right now, at least. At least...

imPERSONater

United States1324 Posts

March 10 2012 06:58 GMT

#94

Good as always :D

And the need to spite others at one's own detriment is a philisophical idea (introduced to me in economics) called strong reciprocity. People want to do the "right" action and punish those they feel have acted wrongly or against traditional guidelines. Now you learned something today!

OmniEulogy

Canada6590 Posts

March 10 2012 07:05 GMT

#95

I have two things to say. 1) this was one of the best yet. I really enjoyed it gheed ^^

2) Uragan called you a n-word... Pitch forks!

xlava

United States676 Posts

March 10 2012 07:11 GMT

#96

Another outstanding and hilarious post. Well done

GenesisX

Canada4267 Posts

March 10 2012 07:27 GMT

#97

I love these blogs :D
helping bronze leaguers learn to attack move 1 worker rush at a time!

prplhz

Denmark8045 Posts

March 10 2012 07:38 GMT

#98

good stuff

galtdunn

United States977 Posts

March 10 2012 07:43 GMT

#99

This is the most hilarious thing ever. Please continue to do these. I love you lol <3 My hero!

Acritter

Syria7637 Posts

March 10 2012 07:43 GMT

#100

In all seriousness, what Bronze League players need is to have a solid, concrete build order to copy that they can mimic the timings for in every single game. For Protoss, that's the 4gate. For Zerg, I imagine the 7RR would be solid. For Terran, I guess a 3rax Stim timing would work. Just practicing that same damn build every game with absolute timings in mind sets the player up to start smoothing out their play. They don't have to worry about grand concepts like "micro" and "macro" and "map control", they just have to build the damn Pylon at 9, Gate at 12, Cyber@Gate 100%, and then chrono WG tech. The more they do that same stupid build over and over again, the cleaner their execution will get, until suddenly the concept of hitting timings becomes mindless. That's the end goal. Once they have that down, they can start branching out into other builds.

[AG]AggressionGaming

Canada43 Posts

March 10 2012 07:59 GMT

#101

Whats so darn depressing, was that I started playing BW when I was 4... The first thing I learned was how to build an scv, then how to build a depot, then how to build a barracks.

Upon doing so by myself as a 4 year old, I learned to be aware of opponents, naturally this happened in the first game. I learned how to attack these people because I was also aware that opponents were my "enemies" (or w/e I would of thought of as a 4 year old, "Bad guys" probably...)

14 years later I am depressed at the mental capacity of any sort of adult that is in bronze league... Its really depressing :|

Megaliskuu

United States5123 Posts

March 10 2012 08:01 GMT

#102

On March 10 2012 16:59 [AG]AggressionGaming wrote:
Whats so darn depressing, was that I started playing BW when I was 4... The first thing I learned was how to build an scv, then how to build a depot, then how to build a barracks.

Upon doing so by myself as a 4 year old, I learned to be aware of opponents, naturally this happened in the first game. I learned how to attack these people because I was also aware that opponents were my "enemies" (or w/e I would of thought of as a 4 year old, "Bad guys" probably...)

14 years later I am depressed at the mental capacity of any sort of adult that is in bronze league... Its really depressing :|

I just imagine its a bunch of 9-10 year olds playing their first RTS.

MichaelJLowell

United States610 Posts

March 10 2012 08:08 GMT

#103

I find it simultaneously reassuring and depressing that some of the most interesting games writing I've ever seen is in a community blog tucked down in the depths of a StarCraft fan site. This really is great stuff, and I'd like to stress the hell out of that. Come for the angry Bronze League players, stay for the narrative about "playing for fun" and other laughable phrases. Keep it up.

sc2superfan101

3583 Posts

March 10 2012 08:10 GMT

#104

On March 10 2012 12:57 vOdToasT wrote:

Show nested quote +

i read the OP, unfortunately. i've read his other blogs too. and yes i'm mad. i'm pissed. i'm so angry i'm punching a wall right now in pure, uncontrollable rage. everytime i read a word on this thread i'm superfly TNT, i'm the guns of the navarone. i'm like a racecar in the red. i could blow.

there is no real difference between skill and knowledge. he, by all accounts, provides them with "knowledge" that is completely unsolicited and does it in a relatively dick manner. and it's a big surprise that they don't necessarily take it to heart?

sc2superfan101

3583 Posts

March 10 2012 08:13 GMT

#105

On March 10 2012 11:02 Carbonthief wrote:
Sometimes being mean is funny.

this is the entirety of the OP, right here. i salute you sir, you've condensed the entire thing down into one, easy to read, sentence.

blackodd

Sweden451 Posts

March 10 2012 08:43 GMT

#106

Well done.. I enjoyed it

Divinek

Canada4045 Posts

March 10 2012 08:50 GMT

#107

i only had time to look at the pictures right now, will read the rest later, but god these are entertaining blogs (it's amazing but over time the replies have actually started adding entertainment value from all the people getting offended lol)

KDrake

Canada66 Posts

March 10 2012 08:52 GMT

#108

Gheed, you're an incomparable genius. I understand that you need time to recover from all your worker rushing and blogging, but please return to us some day, hopefully soon. My mood brightens considerably every time I find a new blog entry posted here.

riff

United States113 Posts

March 10 2012 09:12 GMT

#109

That was time well spent. Thank you, Gheed.

EdenPLusDucky

571 Posts

March 10 2012 09:13 GMT

#110

Wait a second.. SmoyBoy in your bonus pictures, wasn't he in the mothership before expanding funday monday? LMFAO

DivinO

United States4796 Posts

March 10 2012 09:28 GMT

#111

How could they be casually cruel?

OPL3SA2

United States378 Posts

March 10 2012 09:39 GMT

#112

I just want to play Gheed so badly. I want to play him 100 games and win 100 and make fun of him for not being able to adapt, cause i'll do the same build every game

vvv

13 Posts

March 10 2012 09:44 GMT

#113

Like the other posts this one was very entertaining, even if reading some of the explanations these guys come up with is a little sad.

I have a theory abouth their panic reaction when they see the worker rush. I don't know what a bronze game actually looks like, but I'm assuming it's something like build an army for 30 minutes, then meet in the center of the map and see who wins. By worker rushing you're introducing the element of surprise, which is something new and very unusual. You're frightening them and that's why they hate you so much. Also, fear hinders normal cognitive behavior, so they can only mobilize the most basic function, like reflex-lifting of the CC or escape response, or in some cases aggression.

Oh, and, if you've been playing for several month, several thousands of games, I'd like to know what is your motivation. I bet that'd be fascinating as well.

Aserrin

Uruguay231 Posts

March 10 2012 09:53 GMT

#114

On March 10 2012 17:10 sc2superfan101 wrote:
there is no real difference between skill and knowledge

Yes there is, the dude explained it to you in that post you quoted.

Do you have bronze syndrome, too?

blackodd

Sweden451 Posts

March 10 2012 10:28 GMT

#115

On March 10 2012 17:13 sc2superfan101 wrote:

Show nested quote +

this is the entirety of the OP, right here. i salute you sir, you've condensed the entire thing down into one, easy to read, sentence.

On the contrary he seems to be about the most helpful player I've seen

zarcel

Poland7 Posts

March 10 2012 10:34 GMT

#116

Sorry to spoil the fun, bo that will only work on NA ladder, EU and Korean dont suck that much. Try it even on the trial, I can give u the code.

Signum

Canada99 Posts

March 10 2012 10:48 GMT

#117

i never figured out A move in brood war, i would patrol my units everywhere to get them to attack while moving. -_-

Murlox

France1699 Posts

March 10 2012 10:54 GMT

#118

You could also go to a bunch of 7 years old and brag about having facial hair. Haha how stupid would they stand, they could just grow up.

You could go to a bunch a poor people and brag about having a car. Now that would be tons of fun, look at them with their bicycles, how slow they move. If only they knew it only takes a job.

You could go to a vegetarian meeting and choke yourself on meat. So tasty meat, look at what you're missing, greenies.

Make sure to take a lot of pictures and describe what you did with quadri-syllabus words, you should always appeal to a fringe of society. I rated it 1, for pathetic.

Waah

United States120 Posts

March 10 2012 10:56 GMT

#119

The number of people who aren't willing to get the point of these threads before posting is quite depressingly high. It's as if they post only to focus on making their point while disregarding everything else. Knowing that this kind of behavior somewhat corresponds with the actions of all these bronze league players the OP plays against, I can't help but sigh.

Read all your previous blog entries just now by the way, great read.

Belial88

United States5217 Posts

March 10 2012 11:06 GMT

#120

The funny thing is, is that how we look on bronze leaguers like this, there are people who look down at mid-masters like this.

Everyone in this game is so completely and utterly unaware of how incompetent they are.

deathly rat

United Kingdom911 Posts

March 10 2012 11:14 GMT

#121

No, we get it, but we don't think it's amusing to make fun of mentally challenged people. That the guy spends so much of his time trolling bronze league and then messaging them afterwards in the hope they say something lols-worthy to put in his blog, instead of playing for fun in the same way normal people do, is why it is so pathetic.

Signum

Canada99 Posts

March 10 2012 11:26 GMT

#122

On March 10 2012 20:06 Belial88 wrote:
The funny thing is, is that how we look on bronze leaguers like this, there are people who look down at mid-masters like this.

Everyone in this game is so completely and utterly unaware of how incompetent they are.

those people lack perspective, anyone above average is 'good' at this game because thats just what good means. people just have trouble accepting that that would mean that anyone in high gold and up is 'good' on the competitive ladder and anyone who plays 1v1 ladder at all is 'good' compared to the playerbase as a whole.

its just that people in the higher leagues don't consider themselves good either, so everyone worse than them must also be bad.

DarKcS

Australia1237 Posts

March 10 2012 11:27 GMT

#123

I lost to a worker rush in KR Plat (masters on NA). I tried to do some fancy repair micro trying to 50/50 the A-moving scvs. I was only 1 SCV up in my base at the time, as I had a scout out. Now I know that doesn't work

eu.exodus

South Africa1186 Posts

March 10 2012 11:42 GMT

#124

rofl! cc wall ftw! still can't believe this.

EvoStarcraft

United States24 Posts

March 10 2012 11:44 GMT

#125

This was rather hilarious to see. I myself am stuck at rank 1 of Bronze 1s (high gold 2s, still bad, but yeah..) but I'd never think people would have so much trouble with just the A-move thing. I always A-move unless I'm just sending an overlord or something. Good work sir, and well done exploiting the bronzies

BronzeBas

Netherlands76 Posts

March 10 2012 13:30 GMT

#126

Thanks for the laughs once again. Can't wait for the new series!

GheedW, honestly, how much fun is it for you to read the Bronze player comments on Reddit? Those guys are mad haha.

Hyperionnn

Turkey4968 Posts

March 10 2012 13:37 GMT

#127

On March 10 2012 19:34 zarcel wrote:
Sorry to spoil the fun, bo that will only work on NA ladder, EU and Korean dont suck that much. Try it even on the trial, I can give u the code.

Well i tried this morning and i went 14-8 on xelnaga, i even beat a master guy with worker rush rofl

Testuser

6469 Posts

March 10 2012 13:39 GMT

#128

I love this.

NoctemSC

United States771 Posts

March 10 2012 13:40 GMT

#129

"$%^#"
"you can say fuck, bro"
"fuck"
"There you go!"
"fuck my life"

Seriously though, great blog as always.
How are you not insane yet good sir?

Firesilver

United Kingdom1190 Posts

March 10 2012 14:08 GMT

#130

They just keep getting better and better, great stuff Gheed

Shock710

Australia6097 Posts

March 10 2012 14:17 GMT

#131

This is one of my fav blogs EVER seriouly i laugh so much while reading this, attack move lol
Thankyou Gheed for making my life better and letting me live longer, laughing is the key
thx bro

Grovbolle

Denmark3804 Posts

March 10 2012 14:33 GMT

#132

I love Radiss comment: "Bronze league is worse than I thought" :D

Love the blogs, 5/5 as always

jianming

149 Posts

March 10 2012 14:36 GMT

#133

You're such a condescending piece of shit, who thinks he's being smart and funny.

samuraibael

Australia294 Posts

March 10 2012 14:46 GMT

#134

Thank you gheed that was excellent.

GoatSwarm

Sweden63 Posts

March 10 2012 15:01 GMT

#135

This blog makes me so happy and sad. Happy because I love reading it - sad because I feel really sorry for those people. Yet at the same time I want to punch them and force them to a-move.

How do you keep yourself from going insane? I would be extremely frustrated from dealing with so much stupid. >_>

Anyway, 5/5, you're awesome. <3

dukem

Norway189 Posts

March 10 2012 15:15 GMT

#136

10/10 as always

Maybe we could blame dubstep? It certainly doesn't seem to be doing IdrA any good, either.

came

jabberwockzerg

United States294 Posts

March 10 2012 15:21 GMT

#137

I'm that last guy in the Bonus section.
♥♥♥

Glurkenspurk

United States1915 Posts

March 10 2012 15:28 GMT

#138

On March 10 2012 20:14 deathly rat wrote:
No, we get it, but we don't think it's amusing to make fun of mentally challenged people. That the guy spends so much of his time trolling bronze league and then messaging them afterwards in the hope they say something lols-worthy to put in his blog, instead of playing for fun in the same way normal people do, is why it is so pathetic.

Are you implying this isn't fun? Because this shit seriously looks way more fun than normal laddering.

Perseverance

Japan2800 Posts

March 10 2012 15:41 GMT

#139

I will never understand how people can be in bronze league (at the current skill level of bronze) without having some sort of horrible mental disorder.

deathly rat

United Kingdom911 Posts

March 10 2012 16:00 GMT

#140

On March 11 2012 00:41 Perseverance wrote:
I will never understand how people can be in bronze league (at the current skill level of bronze) without having some sort of horrible mental disorder.

Imagine you're 8 years old, or have never played an RTS game (or any game) before in your life, imagine you are 75 years old and can't manage more than 5 APM. Imagine you have terrible ladder fear and your mind goes completely blank every time you go online. Imagine you don't know what a build order is, what teamliquid is, and you have never watched another person play SC2 on youtube or any other place anywhere in your life. Imagine that you only use the mouse and no hotkeys.

Have an imagination.

iHirO

United Kingdom1381 Posts

March 10 2012 16:00 GMT

#141

I read Gheed's blogs as if he's David Attenborough attempting to get in contact with some undiscovered tribe deep in the Amazon.

Bippzy

United States1466 Posts

March 10 2012 16:03 GMT

#142

Hah I hope one day I can write things as interestingly as you do....

Oh bronze leaguers

ExorArgus

Canada46 Posts

March 10 2012 16:13 GMT

#143

Lol that part about WoW reminded me that there is no skill in wow, only time and knowledge XD

Good blogs, I'm still confused that worker rushing still works.

BTCOMM

United States25 Posts

March 10 2012 16:22 GMT

#144

One difference is that attack moving is so much easier than to tie it in 1 motion if you have never learned it before.

On March 11 2012 01:13 ExorArgus wrote:
Lol that part about WoW reminded me that there is no skill in wow, only time and knowledge XD

Good blogs, I'm still confused that worker rushing still works.

Well, I would say knowlege is very important in starcraft and in a way your knowlege can be seen as part of your skill.

docvoc

United States5491 Posts

March 10 2012 16:22 GMT

#145

I remember when i was like this, day9, husky all that didn't help because i had no idea how to play the basics of the game well enough, basically that all changed when i got out of bronze and started using 3 gate robo 1 base all in. The difference here is that what makes getting out of bronze hard is that the league doesn't reward playing well, it rewards knowing how to beat cheese any way possible, the league is either filled with people who cannon rush, 6 pool, or 5 rax that those who use a legit strategy that encourages a next step are at the WAYYY top of the bronze ladder, i think i was top 3 for idk how long before i made it to silver and then gold within a week span or so.

BTCOMM

United States25 Posts

March 10 2012 16:26 GMT

#146

On March 11 2012 01:22 docvoc wrote:
I remember when i was like this, day9, husky all that didn't help because i had no idea how to play the basics of the game well enough, basically that all changed when i got out of bronze and started using 3 gate robo 1 base all in. The difference here is that what makes getting out of bronze hard is that the league doesn't reward playing well, it rewards knowing how to beat cheese any way possible, the league is either filled with people who cannon rush, 6 pool, or 5 rax that those who use a legit strategy that encourages a next step are at the WAYYY top of the bronze ladder, i think i was top 3 for idk how long before i made it to silver and then gold within a week span or so.

I would argue that if you know how to beat cheese you are playing reletively well compared to other bronze leaguers and you will be rewarded for it.

HerpDerp

United States8 Posts

March 10 2012 16:32 GMT

#147

As the roommate of LuckMachine, I would like to point out how proud I am of his ability to NEVER (well, not often anyway) rage on ladder. Thanks for helping him out

From his perspective (we talked about this day it happened and I figured it was you who did it), he took it as a chance to learn and he won't be beat by worker rushes ever again.

Scarecrow

Korea (South)9172 Posts

March 10 2012 17:49 GMT

#148

Insightful and hilarious as usual.

Part of the problem may be just over-microing, which heaps of lowbie players do. Instead of simply a-moving they screw around with targetting and actually make their units less efficient. Stubbornly laddering on thinking that their knowledge/mechanics are 'ok' is probably the other.

When noobs lose it's to luck/imba/builds/timings/distractions/fags/cheese/lag etc They refuse to accept responsibility for their losses and until they do they'll never start learning from them.

da_head

Canada3350 Posts

March 10 2012 17:52 GMT

#149

5/5 as usual xD

Servius_Fulvius

United States947 Posts

March 10 2012 18:15 GMT

#150

My team was being bad-mannered in a 4v4 last night. One of the players told me personally to uninstall and play WoW because "it's easier". I blame this thread for that sentiment.

I mean, if you're looking for BM then team leagues are a great place to find it. I have never seen such foul language as that from an upset teammate. In all fairness, I never worker rushed in bronze...

TacticalBadger

18 Posts

March 10 2012 18:18 GMT

#151

The tragedy of bronze league stems from the fact, that most of bronze players believe that they are playing a "strategy game" and not a "make more shit than your opponent" game. Most bronze players will try to use "strategy" to beat their opponents. Some will cheese, some will go for some bullshit 1 base push or medivac drop and once that fails them, they don't know what to do. They fail to understand, that strategy is only an extension of macro. A way to turn your economical advantage into a game advantage, or a way to prevent your opponent from gaining such an advantage. By itself, strategy is worthless, unless it catches your opponent by surpise, which explains the popularity of cheese in lower leagues.

The matchmaking system is another culprit. No matter what idiotic strategy you use, the matchmaking system will always find you someone who will lose to it. It's safe to assume, that most bronze player have no idea how SC2 matchmaking works and therefore assume, that their chosen strategy is effective, because it lets them win. I believe that it's the only way to explain the fact, that there bronze players with 1000+ wins over several seasons.

Aalo

United States33 Posts

March 10 2012 22:56 GMT

#152

I never fathomed that the phrase 'some kind of idiot ninja' would make me laugh so hard in my entire life.

NonY

8748 Posts

March 10 2012 23:23 GMT

#153

Well written as always.

The WoW issue was something that made me really dislike WoW PvE because new content has to be balanced around the assumption that people are reading a bunch of out-of-game information from unofficial sources. Checking EJ for optimal spec, rotation and gear selection, watching videos and reading guides to learn how to do encounters, and customizing the UI in a million different ways to minimize your mistakes are all incredibly efficient ways to accomplish more in the game. But it's all cheating. I believe that reading a guide should be a last ditch effort and it should be done only to experience content that is otherwise off limits.

On the other hand, lines get blurred by the social aspect of MMO's. If a guy in your guild figures something out, it's not fair to call you a cheater for listening to him explain it. Players are supposed to work as a team. It's just that the web has made it far too easy for any player to tell every player what they know. 99.99% of the information being shared is between strangers. It's not social.

I won't push the cheating accusation but I think it's pretty clear that a ton of WoW players do not consider all that research as part of the game. But if they don't research then they are significantly worse than everyone who does, sometimes to the point that they get kicked out of groups and blacklisted. That's because, as you say, knowledge is so much more important than skill.

So I think there are three perfectly reasonable groups:
(1)Players who race to complete content (they naturally have no knowledge of uncompleted content but they do research everything that is possible to research)
(2)Players who copy everything group 1 does in order to accomplish as many things as efficiently as possible
(3)Players who just play the game, figuring things out for themselves

Of course there is a vast amount of gray area between these groups. Most players probably land between groups 2 and 3. They aren't trying their absolute best to optimize but they do use a lot of outside resources. Although most players aren't really making an effort to figure things out for themselves. They either copy something or they're bad at it.

Players in group 3 are more hardcore than those in group 2, even though they have worse gear and progression. Group 2's pride for being so much better than group 3 is bizarre. They must know how little skill it takes to play the game and how little knowledge they've gained by themselves. Their condescension is unreasonable because it assumes everyone plays only after they've consulted a guide. But then there's the catch: Blizzard makes the raids require an amount of knowledge that an average guild is not willing (or able) to figure out for themselves. So that assumption is not so unreasonable for WoW.

If Blizzard lowers the knowledge ceiling, hardcore players will be unhappy. Well, everyone might be unhappy if it makes the game less interesting. If Blizzard raises the skill ceiling, the average player will be unhappy. Heroics and hard modes could be a way to raise the skill ceiling without letting content go to waste. But I don't think they've been particularly successful at raising the skill ceiling because a lot of the skill problem is with the UI, not the encounters.

I land very close to a pure group 3 player. But it is nearly impossible to find a big enough group of people to form a guild under the condition that no one ever consults a non-Blizzard resource except each other. I'm sure some exist but I'm also sure that they knew each other before they formed the guild. Oh well!

P.S. For the record, I don't play WoW anymore.

johnnywup

United States3858 Posts

March 10 2012 23:32 GMT

#154

ill just have to take your word for it tyler since i never played WoW. dont plan to either :p

Risljaninasim

Netherlands228 Posts

March 10 2012 23:36 GMT

#155

Well written Nony, i've played WoW for a while and i only did PVE for fun. I PVP'd mostly and that relied way too much on the gems, reforging and enchantments you have. I didn't like copying other players, i'd rather be unique but then i would be 'bad'.

salvulant

United States2 Posts

March 10 2012 23:37 GMT

#156

Tyler, how do you feel about the same types of things in Starcraft? For example going online to look up build orders vs watching replays vs just figuring out what works on your own.

Vojjin

Sweden5 Posts

March 10 2012 23:51 GMT

#157

I am a WoW raider currently, and I've beenone fore several years. As such I have to disagree with you Tyler =)
The people in our Raid group (me included) all study EJ and several different sites to keep up to date on the best way to play in different encounters. For us it is a part of the game we enjoy. Saying it is cheating to look at an encounter guide is like saying Liquipedia's strategy sections shold be deleted, since it enables a player to simply look up what to do insted of figuring it out for himself.
In a similar fashion, players should stop copying what they see pro-players do if this was the proper way to look at things.

I can tell you from first hand experience that watching a strategy guide does not make you a master of the encounter. Just like reading a complete build order will not make you a master of whatever build you are studying.

Now, about the skill ceiling you talk about. It doesn't exist. instead there are several skill levels that can all be realted to "Time available". A person who has time to spend will (often) be more skiled than a player who has very small amounts of time to spend. Therefore Blizzard has introduced different difficulty levels for raids.
There are currently 3:

LFR (Looking For Raid) is the easiest, this mode requires VERY little skill to complete, but it enables people with very little time to spend to see the content they are paying Blizzard to create.

Normal Mode is simply Normal difficulty.

Heroic is for the people who wants to push themselves to the edge.

Imo, this is the perfect way for Blizzard to go about this, of course there will still be people who fit best somewhere between Normal and Heroic and so on and so forth. But with 10+ million players, it will be very difficult to appease all of them perfectly.

Thats my 2 cents =)

Gheed

United States972 Posts

March 11 2012 00:03 GMT

#158

On March 11 2012 08:23 Liquid`NonY wrote:
Well written as always.

The WoW issue was something that made me really dislike WoW PvE because new content has to be balanced around the assumption that people are reading a bunch of out-of-game information from unofficial sources. Checking EJ for optimal spec, rotation and gear selection, watching videos and reading guides to learn how to do encounters, and customizing the UI in a million different ways to minimize your mistakes are all incredibly efficient ways to accomplish more in the game. But it's all cheating. I believe that reading a guide should be a last ditch effort and it should be done only to experience content that is otherwise off limits.

On the other hand, lines get blurred by the social aspect of MMO's. If a guy in your guild figures something out, it's not fair to call you a cheater for listening to him explain it. Players are supposed to work as a team. It's just that the web has made it far too easy for any player to tell every player what they know. 99.99% of the information being shared is between strangers. It's not social.

I won't push the cheating accusation but I think it's pretty clear that a ton of WoW players do not consider all that research as part of the game. But if they don't research then they are significantly worse than everyone who does, sometimes to the point that they get kicked out of groups and blacklisted. That's because, as you say, knowledge is so much more important than skill.

So I think there are three perfectly reasonable groups:
(1)Players who race to complete content (they naturally have no knowledge of uncompleted content but they do research everything that is possible to research)
(2)Players who copy everything group 1 does in order to accomplish as many things as efficiently as possible
(3)Players who just play the game, figuring things out for themselves

Of course there is a vast amount of gray area between these groups. Most players probably land between groups 2 and 3. They aren't trying their absolute best to optimize but they do use a lot of outside resources. Although most players aren't really making an effort to figure things out for themselves. They either copy something or they're bad at it.

Players in group 3 are more hardcore than those in group 2, even though they have worse gear and progression. Group 2's pride for being so much better than group 3 is bizarre. They must know how little skill it takes to play the game and how little knowledge they've gained by themselves. Their condescension is unreasonable because it assumes everyone plays only after they've consulted a guide. But then there's the catch: Blizzard makes the raids require an amount of knowledge that an average guild is not willing (or able) to figure out for themselves. So that assumption is not so unreasonable for WoW.

If Blizzard lowers the knowledge ceiling, hardcore players will be unhappy. Well, everyone might be unhappy if it makes the game less interesting. If Blizzard raises the skill ceiling, the average player will be unhappy. Heroics and hard modes could be a way to raise the skill ceiling without letting content go to waste. But I don't think they've been particularly successful at raising the skill ceiling because a lot of the skill problem is with the UI, not the encounters.

I land very close to a pure group 3 player. But it is nearly impossible to find a big enough group of people to form a guild under the condition that no one ever consults a non-Blizzard resource except each other. I'm sure some exist but I'm also sure that they knew each other before they formed the guild. Oh well!

P.S. For the record, I don't play WoW anymore.

Some of the most fun I had in WoW was when Cataclysm first came out. I was one of the nerds who poopsocked my way to 85 within the span of a day. Because everyone who had also done so was a WoW veteran, the random dungeon finder was filled with people who, for the first time in years, were clueless about the encounters but knowledgeable about their characters. People were willing to stick around and work with the random group composition to eventually complete the dungeons. Raids, too, no longer required a link to a prior achievement because nobody had any. There were more external resources available with regards to the raids, but a great deal of time was still spent discussing strategies, like which dragon order to use on Halfus. Not sure if you quit playing before Cata came out or not, but you get the idea: a lot of people are willing to spend time to figure things out on their own, at least if they are forced to do so.

Eventually though, as more people leveled up the dungeon finder and the potential raid member pool filled up with impatient people who had been coddled by the previous expansion which was much easier. People became so frustrated at this group of people that the DPS queues for randoms reached the one hour mark at prime time. Nobody wanted to play with people who were deemed "Wrath babies." As you commented, the people who want to learn things on their own were thrown in with people who either a., already knew the fights by this point, b., would rather read a guide than learn on their own, or c., refused to put any effort to learning anything. In response, everyone retreated into guild runs or quit playing altogether.

In response to the complaining that things were "too hard," Blizzard responded by nerfing the heroics. Then they nerfed the raids. Nerfing tier 11 was one of the reasons why TB quit playing WoW, because it showed that philosophically Blizzard would rather just nerf things into oblivion than create content tiers that a group of people could progress through.

Their latest trend has been to just nerf everything, even the current content tier, which leaves the game in a completely whacked state. You have 5 man heroics/the new raidfinder which are so easy that they're boring. Then you have normal modes which are pretty easy, too. They're enjoyable at first, but they become stale once you get the fights down. Then you have heroic raids which are a huge rampup in terms of difficulty and commitment.

A few months after Cata's release, I wrote an very long piece from the perspective of a tank that discussed, among other things, how the community is largely intolerant of people learning things on their own.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1965624671?page=1 if anyone is interested.

turdburgler

England6749 Posts

March 11 2012 00:13 GMT

#159

in respect to the semi wow conversation here. there seems to be this same complete disconnect from reality in bronze league as the typical 'idiot' you see on wow. for example, a bad wow player will read up on EJ (same way a bronzey reads up on TL) about the strat for this boss, they will then in their mind execute this strat and then fail.

what actually happened, is they stood in the fire for 3 times as long as they needed (draining healer mana) were generally very slow selecting targets (the biggest problem i see, people taking 2 seconds to hit the tab key) and then sloppy execution of their rotation. in their mind, they have moved at the right times, attacked the correct mob, and used the correct rotation. but what really happened was everything took 2,3 even 4 seconds longer than it should. you see this same problem in low level starcraft. this guy will read up how to stop a 2 rax attack, and presume their play was exactly what they read up about. but its so sloppy, so lacking the give a fuck required to play as fast as possible, that its actually almost unrecognizable from what was written on the internet.

im unsure if its because they honestly dont see the difference, are unable to 'be' faster, or if their ego refuses to allow them to believe they arent as good as other people. i think it some mixture of the three, resulting in this cartmanesque problem of immense rage when confronted by irrifutable proof of their badness. this attitude is what stops them from improving overall. i think the wow pve'r and the bronze level starcraft player comparison is very apt.

box-killa

Australia13 Posts

March 11 2012 00:28 GMT

#160

I think it's somewhat the game's fault that people don't want to learn. If you look at a game like super mario, you die, you get a clear reason why. Just don't fall in that hole next time.

You also have to look at context. For some, having fun is getting kills (league of legends example), for others its showing off items (wow), and for others its winning(sc2). Having fun does not involve learning, or in other words, the only step in the goal, is to achieve the goal.

To sum it up, for a game like super mario, you don't fall in the same hole 100 times, because you remember the hole is there after the first few times. In a game like starcraft, this is not the case because learning is not clear, and because the true improvement is masked by the desire for items(wow) and for wins(sc2).

Max2Air

Germany92 Posts

March 11 2012 00:37 GMT

#161

I dont actually own SC2 yet, but judging from my own WC3 experience (first learing it when I was like a 12 years old, mous-only-using kid proceeding to see that kind of behaviour Gheed describes from others) I will try to give an explanation for the utter unwillingness to "learn".

I think the biggest thing about the low-low bronzies is thay play SC2 like they casually browse youtube. Left hand on their chin, right hand on their mouse. If you ask them to "hit the a-button" they first have to take a long look at their keyboard and look for it. The little more advanced players have about one to three hotkeys they use. They might Hotkey their Main building and use the Hotkey for producing a worker.

Walling off your base, defending it with static defenses and then eventually use air units to attack the enemy is probably the most standart way of playing most strategy games. Also I think many "newbies" have just fun in building stuff, finding out what buildings and upgrades you need to build certain units to proceed looking at them.

But I have no clue what "strategy" people use who have hundreds of games in bronze leauge. I really dont get those neither.

Vojjin

Sweden5 Posts

March 11 2012 00:38 GMT

#162

On March 11 2012 09:28 box-killa wrote:
I think it's somewhat the game's fault that people don't want to learn. If you look at a game like super mario, you die, you get a clear reason why. Just don't fall in that hole next time.

You also have to look at context. For some, having fun is getting kills (league of legends example), for others its showing off items (wow), and for others its winning(sc2). Having fun does not involve learning, or in other words, the only step in the goal, is to achieve the goal.

To sum it up, for a game like super mario, you don't fall in the same hole 100 times, because you remember the hole is there after the first few times. In a game like starcraft, this is not the case because learning is not clear, and because the true improvement is masked by the desire for items(wow) and for wins(sc2).

This is correct only to a degree. Goals are not the same for every person playing a specific game. I, for example, do not desire better items for myslef in WoW. Items are a means to an end for me and my raid group, we are after the feeling of accomplishment we get when we finally kill the boss we've been working on for weeks.
Some people undoubtfully DO want new gear simply to show them off, but saying that EVERY player is like that is a serious misconception that only serves to narrow down your point of viev to a dangerous Tunnel-vision.

OuchyDathurts

United States4588 Posts

March 11 2012 01:12 GMT

#163

At different points in my MMOing career I've been in all 3 of those camps to some degree. Way back in EQ1 doing hardcore raiding we were doing server and world wide firsts. The knowledge base of the internet wasn't nearly what it is now so finding guides for things was basically impossible. There were also virtually zero quests in the game so there wasn't much need for it.

People kept things close to the vest. Nothing was instanced so if you told another guild how to kill X raid mob you suddenly had competition for it. If some completely sick rare item dropped off a mob you didn't tell them which mob dropped it so you could farm it for your own benefit. The whole game was set up as a big ass competition to be the top dog. It was grindy, everything took forever, dying meant something, etc. Which all lead to people being more skilled on the whole.

The only real guides you could find for a quest was the "epic" weapon quest. A class specific weapon of complete ownage that took a lot of people collaborating to figure out what you did, then getting together to actually do it. The things they made you do were insane. Turning in super super rare items to an NPC, if you turned it into the wrong one that item was lost forever, go get a new one! It took balls of steel for the first people to complete them. Eventually the guides were out there and everyone could do it. But they still needed raids to accomplish the quest which did force people together.

The whole game being non-instanced with this old school harsh mindset forced people to socialize. Everyone knew everyone. People were generally nice with each other so you didn't get black listed. That to me is what is missing now days in MMOs. The social aspects.

As I played more games and got older I lost the time to be able to play 18 hours a day. To dedicate the immense time to figure all that crap out, to camp things to no end. But I never lost that competitive spirit, the need to push the envelope and do better than those around me. I'll look at guides, I'll consult others and sites to knock down on the time commitment. But I still do like figuring out things for myself. That new car smell of a new MMO, exploring and finding things for the first time. I'll always mod my UI too. I just can't stand the standard UIs of any game. They're poorly designed all around, give you worthless info, not the info you need, not clean enough. I want the info I want immediately and to get rid of the worthless stuff.

By and large in my experience if you find someone from the older school of MMOs like EQ1 you're going to have a more solid player than people from WoW. There are exceptions to the rule both ways of course. But I think when you dealt with the stuff that game would hammer you with, things now days are EZ-PZ.

I don't think your group 3 is dead, but having lived that figure it out yourself age and being more cramped for time than I was when I was a teenager it's nice to sometimes just go "F this, looking it up!".

(Played EQ1 pre-PoP. Virtually all major MMOs since either in beta or launch. Currently playing nothing, waiting for GW2 as my last hope)

Radiated11

United States32 Posts

March 11 2012 01:33 GMT

#164

Love these blogs. Keep them up!

HardlyNever

United States1258 Posts

March 11 2012 01:48 GMT

#165

This reminds me of the George Carlin quote: "Think how dumb the average person is, and half of them are dumber than that."

I think that is basically what is going on here. These people are just fucking stupid. There isn't really anything else to say. You see this crap in MOBAs too. People who do the exact opposite of what they want to do. They run from things that they want to kill. They buy random items, not to troll, but because they lack the cognitive capacity to actually figure out what they should get. These are the dumb people of the world, playing starcraft, mixed few with a few people that aren't dumb and are just new to the game/genre.

TSBspartacus

England1046 Posts

March 11 2012 02:14 GMT

#166

This is incredible, how one man can find enough time in his sad little life to go to the lowest level of a skill based game and then ridicule the people there. You realise they are learning the game right? They don't have the same time and dedication as you clearly do to sit and grind out hours of gaming and to learn the game. I find this sad and also amusing, how you still are able to find humour (to you) in playing people worse than you. You can't be more than gold yourself on a real account, but you think yourself big enough to give all these noobs shit about how they can't play? Poor show chap.

TacticalBadger

18 Posts

March 11 2012 03:06 GMT

#167

On March 11 2012 11:14 TSBspartacus wrote:
This is incredible, how one man can find enough time in his sad little life to go to the lowest level of a skill based game and then ridicule the people there. You realise they are learning the game right? They don't have the same time and dedication as you clearly do to sit and grind out hours of gaming and to learn the game. I find this sad and also amusing, how you still are able to find humour (to you) in playing people worse than you. You can't be more than gold yourself on a real account, but you think yourself big enough to give all these noobs shit about how they can't play? Poor show chap.

The "no life" argument doesn't really work when it comes to SC2. It took me about a month and a half and something like 80 wins to get out of bronze. I was winning against people who had HUNDREDS of wins and were terrible despite having played the game far longer than me. What takes more dedication: putting in some effort in order to improve, or playing 1000+ games and not improving at all?

And yes, I did lose to a worker rush. ONCE. And since I have no life, I spent the next 5 minutes on Google, looking up the counter and lo and behold, I now don't lose to worker rushes anymore.

Dfgj

Singapore5922 Posts

March 11 2012 04:43 GMT

#168

idk bro that guy with 1600 games in bronze sounds like he has a lot of time. Gheed's also said he was plat, as reading his blogs (the part where it says 'READ FIRST', fyi) will show.

I mean, at least go for accurate insults.

Captain Peabody

United States3088 Posts

March 11 2012 06:12 GMT

#169

Well, in regards to Nony's point, one of the things Blizzard has done recently with WoW to try to address the "knowledge gap" is to put some of the key information about PvE encounters (abilities, phases, etc) into the game itself in an easy-to-access format. That way, even if you don't consult an outside source, you're not completely gipped compared to someone who has; you still know enough about the encounter going in to theorize a little and come up with strats, even if those strategies will take a lot of ironing out in practice. I think it's certainly an interesting move.

Cham

797 Posts

March 11 2012 06:40 GMT

#170

I don't know what is more entertaining, your blogs or the people that rage about them. Yet another entry that makes me drop whatever it is I was doing just to read. Funny stuff Gheed :D

Nyctophobia

Canada99 Posts

March 11 2012 07:36 GMT

#171

That was a fantastic read.

Carbonthief

United States289 Posts

March 11 2012 08:37 GMT

#172

This is precisely why I don't like mmorpg's. People are always puzzled at why I don't like them, and yet love single player rpgs. To them it's the same thing only better because you play with friends, which of course makes every game better. And it does. It really does. But mmorpg's ruin every aspect of rpg's that I like. I want to explore dungeons, soak up a ridiculous over the top yet heartfelt story, listen to some wicked nobuo uematsu, and eventually find a point of conclusion. I do NOT want to stay glued to guides and walkthroughs min maxing all my fucking bullshit and making sure I don't miss a single sidequest. I don't give a shit... I just want to play the game. You shouldn't have to use a fucking guide of any kind to play a fucking rpg.

Daray

6006 Posts

March 11 2012 10:41 GMT

#173

Seriously if you can't imagine reasoning behind their play i think you lack a little imagination.

I understand that if there's a 'normal' 20-30 year old guy who has played 200+ games of sc2 and is still doing this stuff i'd be baffled aswell but i could most certainly imagine a person like my mother playing a game sc2 and it would look exactly like the ones you're describing. She is extremely slow with keyboard+mouse and she has to look carefully what is going on in the screen and i think the sc2 ui would be hard for her to understand and you typing instructions how to beat your worker rush would mean absolutely nothing. Obviously my mother would never play sc2 let alone hundreds of games but i can imagine there been people like her who play the game, older generation if you may.

CreatorGX

United States121 Posts

March 11 2012 10:55 GMT

#174

Glad that banner I made was put to good use.

The WoW analogy was a little long, but it got the point across. Great read as always. 5/5

Here's what confuses me though: The small mass of people that read this blog, that they fully know is a blog about the Bronze League, and see this as some kind of condescending, bad manner, lets-laugh-at-the-stupid-bronze-league blog. At this point, it's slowly become a how-many-people-cant-learn blog. The game has been out for a while now. If there are new players, they probably would have the capacity to learn, albeit very slowly, like Uromacef. But how people can consider Gheed condescending, when the majority of games end like this, or this, utterly baffles me. It's a wonder Gheed hasn't degenerated into a bad-mannered, worker-rushing robot.

I don't think it's "condescending" to tell people how to beat the worst possible strategy in a game, to (the majority of) people who would either ignore it completely or outright refuse to learn. Worker rushes are so common in NA Bronze, that learning how to beat it would guarantee at least winning half your games in Bronze. Would that not make the game more enjoyable? More FUN?

I could go on with how I disagree with the people who disagree with me, but odds are, like Bottom Bronze, those people would not change their attitudes at all.

Freye

Denmark14 Posts

March 11 2012 11:19 GMT

#175

On March 11 2012 17:37 Carbonthief wrote:

Show nested quote +

Ok, so i thought i'd give my two cents in reply to Nony's post and also address some issues pointed out by another reply.

I have played wow roughly since vanilla and i have tried my best to be at the top of pve raiding from the beginning (not always successfully, depending on guild). In later years i made friends with a lot of "high-skilled" people and we started playing more together and forming guilds to raid, which means we end up with a guild that is made purely for the sake of being a top contender (we managed to get top 25 in the world in icecrown citadel and firelands).

When you have a competitive environment (yes it is competitive, check WoWProgress) then you resort to any means necessary to win the race for first kill on a boss. Not only is this competition server-wide, it's world-wide. As another player pointed out, to not use Elitist Jerks / guides / forum posts for information sharing / efficiency optimizing, would be like for a pro-sc2 player not to look at replays of other players or with other players, or practice together.
Wow is at its core a singleplayer game, with multiplayer aspects, when it comes to raiding. Yes you are a "team", but there's very little teamplay invovled in a fight, compared to how much singleplayer gameplay there is. There are team consequences, so that if one player fucks up, you all die, but that still doesn't make it a teamplay based game (pvp is teamplay based for the record).
I don't want to go indepth with the why it's a singleplayer game, since that's not the topic, and yes there are encounters with more multiplayer than other encounters etc., i just want to point this out because it means that you cannot practice as a team and improve as a team other than doing encounters.
The problem with this is that you can't practice teamplay before an encounter is released, which means you can only practice your OWN singleplayer performance, and how do you do that? Well you spend hours hitting a target dummy to get your dps right, you use TOOLS to improve your gameplay (such as talking to other highskilled people of your class, checking optimization simulators for talent-tree improvements and gear optimization, min/max'ing your stats etc.). This is not frowned upon in any other competetive environment, why should it be in wow?

Therefore i cannot agree that it is cheating or ruining the game. In fact it's improving the game.
There are a LOT of people in wow, and a LOT of those people aren't very good at the game.
Consider this:
There are 25 people in a raid group. If any one of these fail at an encounter, all 25 people will get the consequences.
That means that if one player is bad or doesn't know what to do, then the rest will have to suffer for it.
In reality the BAD player who hasn't looked at a guide or tried to better his gameplay is actually ruining it for the 24 other people who depend on him doing an at least mediocre job correctly.
People are very quick to throw around the word elitist, saying we are jerks for requiring people to read up on how to play your class better, or to know the encounter, but in reality people who hate doing those things shouldn't expect to get into a group where most, if not all, of the other players have done the encounter before or put some effort into being good / knowledgeable enough to actually beat the encounter. Not unless the "ignorant" / "lazy" person knows somebody who can vouch for him or can "he's a friend" him in. It's plain pretentious and arrogant to think that people will put up with you ruining the game for them.

Especially with things like raid-finder / dungeon-finder can this be problematic. Luckily blizzard has made these things so ezpz that you won't be able to fail a dungeon if 80% of your team is mediocre, so people have stopped caring about it at that level. But in raids you can easily fail if one person doesn't move, which means you have to spend TIME running back in, buffing, waiting for people who randomly afk etc. all over again, then try again at beating the boss.

As another post pointed out, a lot of raiding people aren't that young anymore. They don't have time to play 10 hours a day, they have other real-life things to do. This means that the amount of TIME they have for the game is limiited, and when someone wastes their time it's annoying.

Ok so that was a bit of a rant :p I'm sorry if it sounds angry or arrogant, it's just annoying to constantly hear the bad player whining that people tell him he is bad when he doesn't want to improve or put effort into improving.
Anyway the point of it all is that everything that improves your gameplay is a TOOL for you to be better, which i cannnot in good conscience call cheating.
Blizzard realized that people used guides a long time ago, and has focused more on execution of than "knowing" the encounter for a long time. The "knowing" part is just the mechanics of an encounter (abilities, events), and it is much more the performance and execution of your players that are at the core of raiding now. If you know WHAT to do, you can easily fail still, because you are required to keep track of a lot of things (not as much as starcraft obviously, starcraft is a harder game, unless you cheese/all-in, imo), dodge a ton of things and still keep up your tanking/dps/healing so that everything goes smoothly.
Consider the ragnaros in firelands. That's a 17 minute fight on heroic. 1 mistake during those 17 minutes can make you wipe. I know this is the last boss so far, but it exemplifies the whole point. It doesn't matter how much you know, because if you screw up once in 17 minutes of playing, you might have to start all over. Of course it's not like you're CONSTANTLY dodging things or whatever, but it's often enough to put a pretty big strain on you, especially considering you have to be efficient as hell in your core-gameplay (nuking/healing).

In reality i don't actually consider WoW an RPG. Not for end-game anyway. It has no remarkable storyline, you aren't emotionally invested at all, and you have to repeat content constantly. These things violate my interpretation of what an RPG is. If you want a true RPG, go play Final Fantasy or chrono trigger, they are way better

Wow is not a game of knowledge, it's a game of execution. You need to be thrown timers and information in your head, because there's too much shit for people to forget in the spur of the moment, so you will end up failing a lot due to "sorry i didn't have the timer for lava explosion calculated in my head, so i was too far away" and such things.

However this is only true for the hardcore raiders (ignore pvp), when it comes to casual raiding, you don't need that much skill, because blizzard has made it ezpz when a key core of the raid has good skill and good items. The knowledge of an encounter has become an assumption in modern wow, because it's so easy to get (it doesn't take more than 5-10 minutes to get up to speed on an encounter). But because WoW is a game of item-progression, then it becomes exponentially easier the better gear you have. Which is the reason for people who do casual raids require the other members of the raids to have pretty good gear (better than required strictly), because it makes it waaaaay easier.
And STILL people fail and it causes wipes.

To nony:
i would not call group 3 the more hardcore. Group 1 is pretty clearly the most hardcore considering how much time is invested. Yes they don't stick true to the true RPG style of "don't read a walkthrough", but as i have pointed out, i don't consider WoW to be an RPG at endgame content.
At most it's an actiongame with item progression.

I feel that calling WoW "skillless" is a huge insult and plain wrong for the people who are top pve, but very true for the middleground raiding. The core issue is that it requires very little skill to be "good enough" to beat an encounter at some point, however to be 10% better than everyone else is where it requires a lot of skill. It means that there's a very small difference between really good players and mediocre players, just the same way as in SC2 compared to SC1.

TL;DR? gtfo =)

PS:
Okay, as another point as to why WoW endgame raiding isn't knowledge based. Every boss has a good amount of abilities, and they have quite complex rotational patterns, which are randomized because all abilities have a random delay before it's used. Therefore you CANNOT just get everyone to know exactly what to do when, you have to improvise and know what to do in a situation where you have to prioritize what to focus on: ability1, ability2, dps. Blizzard has improved the content a great deal and made it a lot harder to just "hardcode" how to perform an encounter. Mostly you'll do similar things every time you engage a boss, but it's usually different timings.
This also leads to annoying situations where you can acually straight up die because "your healer got linked twice in a row, so too bad".

Also, the randomization isn't "much". We're talking seconds here, but seconds is all it takes to make the encounter dynamic instead of static.

An example from firelands: Baleroc heroic
He somtimes gives 2 RANDOM players link and they have to run to touch eachother or the whole raid dies within 8 seconds. On top of that he REGULARLY spawns a pylon at a RANDOM location (near a player) and it gives a debuff that you cannot get too much of, but if nobody gets the debuff the whole raid dies.
If a player with debuff touches another player, that player gets a debuff too. If the healer gets the debuff he practically can't heal, so he must NOT get the debuff.
This requires you to dynamically make assignments to who stands at the pylon, and then switch them out with someone else before they die from the debuff. At some point the pylon disappears, and you usually have 3 people with debuff. They cannot stand at the next pylon, because the debuff doesn't wear off in time. So you have to assign 3 new players when the next pylon spawns.
ok so "why can't you assign fixed teams?", because of the LINK! you have to assign the 3 players WHEN the pylon is ABOUT TO SPAWN (you NEED a timer), because otherwise the person who was assigned may be linked to someone with debuff and get debuff himself.
Sometimes this link happens the same time as pylon is up, so you have to super fast assign someone to replace him.
The problem is when healer gets linked with debuff person twice in a row, he can't heal for a long time and you wipe due to other mechanics that i won't go into.

With that knowledge you now KNOW how to play the fight as a dps, but you can easily fail still, you need a shitton of dps on him. However the hardest part of the fight is healing which i won't go into, but the point is there, it's a dynamic encounter where you have to constantly re-evaluate the situation.

end of rant

PPS: omg took so long to write, it logged me out T.T

jianming

149 Posts

March 11 2012 13:55 GMT

#176

On March 11 2012 00:41 Perseverance wrote:
I will never understand how people can be in bronze league (at the current skill level of bronze) without having some sort of horrible mental disorder.

That's probably because you have some mental disorder of your own.

Sejanus

Lithuania550 Posts

March 11 2012 17:57 GMT

#177

You, Mr. Gheed, would be a perfect PR / advertising guy. Really. When I read your stuff it all sounds so fun and cool, I just keep laughing and so on. Yes, even if you explicitly stated that Bronze League is a depressing experience, it still seems to be fun.

Now when I actually get on the ladder and do shit in bronze league, there's nothing fun about it, just depressing. Today, for example, I have won twice building nothing but workers all game long. Once PvT and once ZvP. I am not talking worker rush, I am talking nearly maxed all-worker force (and nothing but workers all game long) while the guy does drops in your base(s) or constantly tries to cannon-wall you. But there is still hope. In the second game I asked the guy, after flooding into his cannons my workers 200th time, if he was aware that workers cannot attack air. He said yes so I asked if he knew protoss has air units to wich he responded by starting a stargate, alas it way too late already. So they are able to understand stuff and who knows maybe in ten years this guy will be a proud Silver leaguer!

Anyway. Another great write up, looking forward to more

PolskaGora

United States547 Posts

March 11 2012 20:36 GMT

#178

Unfortunately this blog tells the truth. On my offrace zerg account I wanted to start in bronze to work on my mechanics from the very bottom up, but I didn't want to simply leave my placements so I decided to worker rush every game. I won 3 out of the 5, one being bronze, one being silver, and one being gold... In any case I got placed into silver. It's actually scary how bad these lower players mechanics are. They always get defensive about it, I know, I used to be one of them and I used to think that my macro was fine and that the only thing keeping me back from plat+ was cheesers, but until they reach diamond+ they really don't understand that that's not the case at all. Take note sub-plats!

Anyway, I love your blogs Gheed, this one is no exception: 5/5

Gann1

United States1575 Posts

March 11 2012 21:52 GMT

#179

I can totally see the parallel between a bronzie and someone who blows up the raid on Geddon, haha.

KevinIX

United States2472 Posts

March 12 2012 03:15 GMT

#180

Reading this makes my brain explode. How is it possible to not even understand a-move.

Mazaire

Australia217 Posts

March 12 2012 05:50 GMT

#181

I fear the day we get a blog of gheed going insane from worker rushing.

kabar

United States616 Posts

March 12 2012 06:03 GMT

#182

hahaha, this had me laughing good. time to try worker rushing some of my shittier friends.

LagT_T

Argentina535 Posts

March 12 2012 20:54 GMT

#183

brilliant and well written! thanks for the good time!

Vronti

United States111 Posts

March 12 2012 23:12 GMT

#184

I love the conversation with Randiss in the bonus pictures, hope he gets out of bronze soon haha.

Gheed

United States972 Posts

March 12 2012 23:26 GMT

#185

On March 13 2012 08:12 Vronti wrote:
I love the conversation with Randiss in the bonus pictures, hope he gets out of bronze soon haha.

He's in silver now.

NarutO

Germany18839 Posts

March 12 2012 23:28 GMT

#186

You really crack me up T_T. Superb troll

Arisen

United States2382 Posts

March 13 2012 09:52 GMT

#187

Gj. I however would like to defend papers written hours before classes and ask you not talk shit about them anymore ;p

Umpteen

United Kingdom1570 Posts

March 13 2012 12:54 GMT

#188

Is it just me thinking there's a phenomenon of genuine significance lurking here somewhere?

I mean, I love these blogs purely because they're funny and well-written, but at the same time I can't help feeling that if someone could understand and cure the permabronze layer, humanity as a whole would benefit. I mean, what if I'm bronze at something in my life, and don't even realise it? What if we all are?

The problem is, snapshots of individual play - even the occasional accidental rematch - can only take the study of bronze so far.

Which has inspired me to offer the following challenge:

I want 50-100 consecutive 1v1 replays from a *genuine* permabronze player. Someone who's played loads of games but still measures their progress by the number next to the symbol rather than the symbol itself. The kind of guy or girl who's offended by this blog because he/she genuinely thinks Gheed 'doesn't get it'. If this is you, or you know someone who fits the bill, get in touch.

The best (and most honest) permabronze submission will receive - oh, let's say $50 via Paypal for their trouble.

I'll then sit through the replays and see if I can glean anything useful, and report back here (or in my blog).

Ghin

United States2391 Posts

March 13 2012 13:30 GMT

#189

Someone on ladder called me "the worker rush guy" and I felt a little sad.

Naturally I probe rushed him for bringing it up

Jayme

United States5866 Posts

March 13 2012 13:40 GMT

#190

On March 10 2012 17:10 sc2superfan101 wrote:

Show nested quote +

i read the OP, unfortunately. i've read his other blogs too. and yes i'm mad. i'm pissed. i'm so angry i'm punching a wall right now in pure, uncontrollable rage. everytime i read a word on this thread i'm superfly TNT, i'm the guns of the navarone. i'm like a racecar in the red. i could blow.

there is no real difference between skill and knowledge. he, by all accounts, provides them with "knowledge" that is completely unsolicited and does it in a relatively dick manner. and it's a big surprise that they don't necessarily take it to heart?

There is a huge difference.

Your inability to understand this difference is why you hate this blog.

OpticalShot

Canada6330 Posts

March 13 2012 17:39 GMT

#191

Nice read as always =) 5/5

Dodgin

Canada39254 Posts

March 13 2012 19:20 GMT

#192

I thought you were stopping the worker rush blogs and doing just " random play in bronze " ones.

Those are far more interesting.

Enjoyed it regardless, but your blog before this was much better IMO. The custom games with people who lose to worker rushes is the best part in this one, more of that would be more " original " I guess.

Then again most people probably read these for the funny chat windows.

Synwave

United States2803 Posts

March 13 2012 22:31 GMT

#193

Laughed so very hard Gheed at this latest installment. In particular your sidenotes for screen captured conversations were succulent.

Reading through the pages of commentary I can almost feel the wrath of some of the posters as they probably die to worker rushes and bring their attempt at intelligent criticism to bear on your blog in some sort of misplaced defense of themselves and others that can't grasp a basic concept like a-move.

So much enjoyment, thank you

CrazyF1r3f0x

United States2120 Posts

March 13 2012 23:20 GMT

#194

Excellent, and well written as always, you continue to impress Gheed; I feel like going and watching some Bronze replays haha :D

KillerSOS

United States4207 Posts

March 14 2012 00:02 GMT

#195

Well written blog. I really enjoyed it.

Lotsa_Spaghetti

Germany50 Posts

March 14 2012 01:38 GMT

#196

What do you mean "last entry for a while"??
I need your Blog, Gheed. I NEED IT!!!

Pandain

United States12979 Posts

March 14 2012 02:47 GMT

#197

Theres only so many times you can make fun of someone being in bronze....

It's getting to the point where your just being a dick.

Kyuukyuu

Canada6263 Posts

March 14 2012 04:32 GMT

#198

On March 14 2012 11:47 Pandain wrote:
Theres only so many times you can make fun of someone being in bronze....

It's getting to the point where your just being a dick.

I disagree. Genuinely stupid trash-talkers are the gift that keeps on giving. And the literate, nice guys bring a smile to my heart

It really is hard to fathom what some truly terrible players are thinking. I remember playing some of my high friends at LANs. I'm talking about intelligent kids that are now attending pretty prestigious universities, and still some of them exhibit the same tendencies of doing absolutely fuck-all and not realizing it. You really have to wonder sometimes...

-Celestial-

United Kingdom3867 Posts

March 14 2012 13:22 GMT

#199

To follow on from the MMO comparisons, there is a really good example of how lack of knowledge can be devastating in Star Trek Online.

The encounter in question is the one against the Crystalline Entity and it becomes available from a surprisingly low level given how different to everything else it is. In brief, the vast, vast majority of combat, especially grouped combat, to this point has been a case of literally hammering on your opponent until they die. However the CE is different.

It goes in three stages. To begin with it fires a beam and releases small shards which, if you aggro them, follow you until they impact your hull through the shields and you die. So you have to fly ahead of them and maintain sufficient engine speed to not get hit. The second stage (after it has lost a third of its health) simply releases more fragments. Fragments are aggrod and follow the closest destructible object (including fighter craft and high-yield torpedoes such as plasmas).

The real killer is the third stage at a third health left. Then it releases large fragments. These act similar to the small ones but do a ton more damage and, more importantly, if destroyed they produce small fragments which head back to the CE and heal it for 1% of its health per fragment. In addition to an inherent heal rate of 3% per 40 seconds. So you shouldn't kill them and you definitely shouldn't use boarding parties, fighter craft, tricobalt devices or anything else that might set them off or you'll just heal it right back up.

Its a simple enough kill in theory. People just need to draw the fragments off and kite whilst everyone blasts the hell out of it. In practice (because its a public area) people tended to end up suiciding into it and hitting a ton of large fragments, healing it and making it literally impossible to kill.

Theres really nothing very difficult about tweaking your engine power settings and using appropriate abilities to just kite. But its slightly different from most other encounters and therefore requires knowledge and planning; if anyone at all doesn't know how to do this you'll never finish. And god help you if you've got someone actively griefing in your instance.

JingleHell

United States11308 Posts

March 14 2012 13:44 GMT

#200

I am Bronze and I support these observations about my species. I make the same ones, and refuse to practice enough to mitigate the issue, because of these facts.

Nallen

United Kingdom134 Posts

March 14 2012 15:57 GMT

#201

Having read a few of these I am steadily coming to the conclusion you're a condescending dickhead. The fact that you had a 'project' in WoW along similar lines to this one goes a long way to reinforcing my opinion. Messaging pissed off or upset people after a game to demand they further subject themselves to what is essentially playground taunts doesn't help either.

Edit: "You must not know who I am" ahaha! why didn't you try telling him you're "kind of a big deal"?

User was warned for this post

Ahelvin

France1866 Posts

March 14 2012 16:06 GMT

#202

On March 10 2012 09:10 Aetir wrote:

Show nested quote +

You're an incredible writer. This line made me lose it, but there are so many other little gems in there. Please continue doing these.

Indeed, you are an incredibly talented writer. I don't know how old you are, but I love your style.

Synwave

United States2803 Posts

March 14 2012 16:11 GMT

#203

On March 15 2012 00:57 Nallen wrote:
Having read a few of these I am steadily coming to the conclusion you're a condescending dickhead. The fact that you had a 'project' in WoW along similar lines to this one goes a long way to reinforcing my opinion. Messaging pissed off or upset people after a game to demand they further subject themselves to what is essentially playground taunts doesn't help either.

I can only read this and think to myself "I bet someone's lost to drone rushes more than once..."

Its for humor and if you notice he generally messages people that said things that were way out of line. I feel no pity for asking someone that screams profanity at me over chat what exactly their problem is. I must be a heartless condescending dickhead too... maybe that is why this blog gives me a smile.

Nallen

United Kingdom134 Posts

March 14 2012 16:22 GMT

#204

On March 15 2012 01:11 Synwave wrote:

Show nested quote +

I don't think I've seen a drone rush in a year, I just don't believe in kicking people when they're down, then taking screenshots of it, then further mocking them.

I presume as Gheed is a multiple time GSL Champ he has forgotten what it's like to try hard and get crushed, to be angry or be frustrated. Or perhaps the reason he has forgotten this sensation is the considerable amount of time he spends sitting in the Bronze league beating people with a fraction of his skill then demanding to know why they made a poor decision.

Synwave

United States2803 Posts

March 14 2012 17:05 GMT

#205

On March 15 2012 01:22 Nallen wrote:

Show nested quote +

But you do believe in posting in humor blogs about how much you vehemently disagree and insulting the OP. You're cute and I hope you find something enjoyable somewhere. Might I suggest a warm and heart filling place I like to go for smiles and happiness Ponies are awesome, and no Im not being sarcastic
♥

Opallz

Canada4 Posts

March 15 2012 22:38 GMT

#206

I get worker rushed TONS!
But I just giggle

Free Ladder Points!

We have met on the Ladder Gheeds

<3

Only HUGE downside to what you are doing:
You have quite the following. People worker rush me all the time. They tell me they are doing it. They tell me how to defend it. I handle it when it comes. Then I make 2-5 marines and grab all but 5 of my workers with those marines and go kill them. Then 90% get pissed when I win......
I don't get it, but again, Free Ladder points

kittendealer

Canada4 Posts

March 15 2012 23:13 GMT

#207

wow,trolling bronze,classy.you come off like a dick.nice welcome for new players,i guess it makes you feel good/important.

User was warned for this post

ReturnStroke

United States801 Posts

March 16 2012 07:27 GMT

#208

These are so good.

Xenocide_Knight

Korea (South)2625 Posts

March 16 2012 07:50 GMT

#209

On March 16 2012 07:38 Opallz wrote:
I get worker rushed TONS!
But I just giggle

Free Ladder Points!

We have met on the Ladder Gheeds

Is that a huge downside? I feel like this is a step towards the right direction.

Mythal

Spain108 Posts

March 16 2012 21:05 GMT

#210

Great post as usual Gheed. I loved the "but you gave me a heart" XD

I would love if you kept on writing more blogs! As some people have already told you, your writing style is great ^^

Gann1

United States1575 Posts

March 16 2012 21:14 GMT

#211

On March 16 2012 16:50 Xenocide_Knight wrote:

Show nested quote +

Is that a huge downside? I feel like this is a step towards the right direction.

I don't think he gets it.

DGpriest

Canada74 Posts

March 19 2012 14:34 GMT

#212

If you people don't like it, then why the fuck have you read all of these blogs?

In my opinion, they're super funny and quite intriguing. Bronzies truly are the bottom of the food chain.

Clearout

Norway1060 Posts

March 20 2012 03:31 GMT

#213

On March 12 2012 06:52 Gann1 wrote:
I can totally see the parallel between a bronzie and someone who blows up the raid on Geddon, haha.

I blew up the main tank once

pedduck

Thailand468 Posts

March 20 2012 10:27 GMT

#214

I believe every people have something they are good at and something they are terrible at.
you might think they are suck because they don't learn anything or they are stupid but I think they just doesn't get it.
It is a combination of having no one to really teach them and lack of Strategy game understanding.

Bronzie is a result, not a type of a people.

JingleHell

United States11308 Posts

March 20 2012 10:34 GMT

#215

On March 20 2012 19:27 pedduck wrote:
I believe every people have something they are good at and something they are terrible at.
you might think they are suck because they don't learn anything or they are stupid but I think they just doesn't get it.
It is a combination of having no one to really teach them and lack of Strategy game understanding.

Bronzie is a result, not a type of a people.

My ass. I'm Bronze. I watch Day9, and tons of tourneys. I don't practice SC2. I play occasionally for fun, against my wife or friends, but I'm not willing to develop the skillset the same way I have other gaming ones.

There's more than one reason to be in Bronze, and Bronze is so bad it has it's own metagame.

dark0dave

179 Posts

March 20 2012 13:02 GMT

#216

Whilst your post is very well writen and brings up some good points, can we avoid the bashing of wow and bronzies.

People often find it hard to get out of bronze even when they learn a bit and practice hard. I would say that there are two tiers of bronze players people who are stuck in bronze (<3 for you guys) and people who are either playing the game for fun only or/and people who do not understand how to play. Don't foget you are worker rushing them, this probably causes them to panic and as such you can not relate them to a dog, human being are complicated things. That being said people who play for fun still like to win and when you do something that is "cheesy" in their eyes they are going to be a little upset with you. I find that personally alot of anger comes from within ie you are more frustrated with yourself than other people, meaning that he/she wishes that they could have stopped that or even worse they know how and they failed doing it. This means that they take that anger out on you, your comments don't really help either, its best to not respond I think when this happens, people that angry will not produce any useful answers. I don't know why you did respond to the angry ones, it just makes the situation worse. I am not sure what you hope to gain by antagonising them, but certainly looking for a useful answer is unlikely going to be fruitful.

Again well writen are carried out but tyler makes some good points as usual, wow is all about research and so is starcraft to some extent and often people find it hard to make time for either. So be a bit nicer to them k?
Much cake

Deleted User 61629

1664 Posts

March 20 2012 13:23 GMT

#217

--- Nuked ---

JingleHell

United States11308 Posts

March 20 2012 13:57 GMT

#218

Why is it that all these people who aren't in Bronze are getting offended on behalf of people who are? I really thought it was funny.

mrGRAPE

Singapore293 Posts

March 20 2012 16:06 GMT

#219

It was a pretty good read as always.

Lozos

United States36 Posts

March 20 2012 20:23 GMT

#220

Gheed, I played you the other day as Tyrael on my worker rush account. I randomed toss and you randomed zerg and my workers killed your hatch before you could kill my nexus. I was honored to the nth degree and I will never forget that match.

Endymion

United States3701 Posts

March 20 2012 20:46 GMT

#221

when i play on KR and the player BMs me i tell them they play like an NA bronze player and i send them to your blog.. they always laugh lol

G_G

Canada178 Posts

March 20 2012 21:13 GMT

#222

On March 20 2012 22:23 Inori wrote:
So much elitist downtalk & bashing on bronze players, you probably know a lot about the game. Oh wait, you never got past platinum level...

How about you play somebody masters/GM level and let them analyze your perfected timings, action-packed tactics and deep strategical decisions?

Show nested quote +

There's a huge difference between good humor and trying to pull a laugh off of somebodies misfortune. This guy is the equivalent of high school bullies. You know, the ones that beat kids then laugh at them and tell them it's their fault for being weak.

P.S. In before "u mad cuz u lost to worker rushes" - when I was actively playing I was mid-high masters, beating quite a few players that are now GM. I consider people below my level mediocre at best (myself included), that said I'd never think about abusing my skills to shove that opinion into opponent faces and even worse make an actual hobby out of it. That's probably the reason I got out of platinum league so quickly, as opposed to OP.
It's just that abusive people like him piss me off. A lot. World would be a much better place without them.

Hypocrite much?

Deleted User 61629

1664 Posts

March 21 2012 09:14 GMT

#223

--- Nuked ---

AiurOG

United States98 Posts

March 22 2012 01:10 GMT

#224

How is he taunting these people? In most of these blogs he has given them the one key to defeating his attack, one which is easily executable by anyone with the motor dexterity to even use a mouse and keyboard in the first place. Then, they do not follow his advice, lose, and many get angry at him and say incredible things along the lines of him using an 'unfair' or 'cheesy' rush.

Losing 8-12 Probes/Drones/SCV's, to 6/7 unmicro'd Probes/Drones/SCV's isn't due to a lack of skill or understanding of the game, it's due only to willful ignorance or malfunctioning mouse/keyboard.

Edit: people getting mad for no reason other than their own ineptitude is funny, I'm mid Diamond and when I lose I load up the replay to see what I did wrong/could have done better, or just move on to the next game and try to get my build order more streamlined and scout more efficiently. I don't call the guy who just beat me a loser because I understand what words mean.

WolfintheSheep

Canada14127 Posts

March 22 2012 01:21 GMT

#225

On March 21 2012 18:14 Inori wrote:

Show nested quote +

On March 21 2012 06:13 G_G wrote:

On March 15 2012 01:11 Synwave wrote:

Hypocrite much?

And the award for taking words out of context goes to....

Nothing out of context. You call him elitist, then spend an entire post ranting against him because his highest rank was Plat, and that he's nothing to a Masters or GM. That's elitism under any context.

Deleted User 61629

1664 Posts

March 22 2012 06:33 GMT

#226

--- Nuked ---

WolfintheSheep

Canada14127 Posts

March 22 2012 21:16 GMT

#227

On March 22 2012 15:33 Inori wrote:
I never mentioned that getting into masters/GM is something extraordinary or hard, in fact I stated the opposite - that I consider myself mediocre.
Sentence about getting out of plat much faster faster than OP is literraly the definition of taking stuff out of context, because if you'd actually read it in-context you'd realize that it was a "I didn't waste time on beating lower skilled players so I got out of plat", nothing more.

And I spend the entire post explaining that his relative skill is shit (which is a fact, not elitism), actually making him the hipocrite and a bully.
If I were to say that a bum is poor, would I be elitist too?
If I were to ask a school bully to pick somebody his size or bigger instead of beating up elementary school kids, would I be elitist too?

tl;dr: I'm ranting against OP downtalking on lower leaguers while being in plat, not for being in plat.

This blog isn't about Bronze leaguers being bad. It's about people who repeatedly bash their heads into a wall, and question why it still hurts. And then tell you to fuck off when you tell them exactly why it hurts.

The only hypocrite here is you, because you've spent multiple posts acting like you've got some moral high ground.

Hulavuta

United States1252 Posts

March 22 2012 23:20 GMT

#228

Yes, I have to agree with Wolf. He's not doing this just to say that they're bad, he's wondering why they can't realize they're bad, and why they seem unable to learn.

If he was just playing against bronze players and saying things like "lol ur so bad you can't even beat a worker rush" then I would agree with you. However he's not. He's telling them how to defend it, then questioning why they couldn't even take his advice. And why they don't even know why they didn't do it.

I guess another way to put it is if he was playing against other platinum players. Let's just say someone who was just as skilled as he was lost to something completely different, like a fourgate perhaps. And Gheed told him "I'm going to fourgate you. To beat this, do exactly X" (Let's just pretend for a second that beating a fourgate requires only instructions, like the worker rush does)

And then the guy has the same response and everything, yelling "Fuck you" to Gheed and being, when asked why he didn't follow the instructions, unable to articulate or even conceive his reasons in any meaningful way.

And as far as I can see, when he talked to the players he never used any condescending or insulting language to them. The only thing he did was question what they were doing using appropriate language, and telling them what to do in a polite manner. Yeah, in the blog itself he sometimes says shit like "Dogs are smarter than bronze players", but everyone has to use some exaggeration to make a point here and there. The purpose of the blog is to inform, not to attack.

PassiveAce

United States18076 Posts

March 23 2012 00:02 GMT

#229

Synwave

United States2803 Posts

March 23 2012 02:29 GMT

#230

Your logic is stunning. I just don't even know how to respond to it. It's like bronze logic. I would be tempted to pay cash money to listen to you analyze your own loss replays. Heck I'd be tempted to pay cash to listen to you analyze your own wins!

Esports is seriously missing out on an ad revenue opportunity here!

tomatriedes

New Zealand5356 Posts

April 13 2012 14:16 GMT

#231

I laughed so much my face is aching right now. Thanks again Gheed!

FireSA

Australia555 Posts

April 13 2012 14:49 GMT

#232

These are always a pleasure to read. Though I am amazed at the number of negative posts you get in reply to your very amusing blogs.

FakeDouble

Australia676 Posts

April 14 2012 06:16 GMT

#233

Abbott and Costello??? are you Australian? Woot!

JingleHell

United States11308 Posts

April 14 2012 15:04 GMT

#234

It's so true it's painful, for the most part. I think if I actually played more than a few games, I'd not be Bronze. I just played a placement match and definitely won against a guy who went one base roach into never fucking attacking until I was on my third. Around the second time I killed his (not mining ever) natural, he tried a "has left the game" chat. I almost killed his lair with 2 dropped tanks, and he finally quit after I killed his burrowed roaches with a scan and some marauders.

You ARE forgetting another subset of Bronze, though, Gheed. People who never found the motivation to play sufficient games to get promoted. Practice DOES actually help a bit. I probably know enough about the game to get promoted a bit, if I'd play a bunch of games, but playing badly drives me insane, and the skillset involves a type of practice that drives me insane.

pedostare

United States31 Posts

April 14 2012 19:04 GMT

#235

I can't believe you people are seriously applauding this guy for being a tremendous jerk to newer players. This post oozes elitism, and is really quite pathetic. So few people, especially newer players, learn from making a mistake once. If that were true we'd all only need to play a few games to get out of bronze. There's a reason most all of us have to play many many games before we are any better. If it were that easy OP would be GM by now and wouldn't have to harass lower tier players in order to get his jollies. Knowledge takes time and effort to obtain, and it's silly to over simplify playing ladder to harassing your dog. It's actually a pretty terrible analogy if we're being honest. Ignoring the fact that the OP is dehumanizing players, he also fails to see that the bronze players are behaving appropriately to the situation. Like the dog, most of these bronzes he toys with are smart enough to realize he's being a dick and leave/ ignore him. What the OP expects the bronze players to do would be the equivalent of his dog biting the ball hand so he doesn't try that BS again.

This is so infuriating. OP Is not doing this for the betterment of other players. OP is, as you are all very much aware, doing this to mock them; he is appealing to that disgusting unmerited sense of entitlement and elitism that's ruining the sc2 community. There are much nicer and less insulting means of helping bronze players improve, and none of them include posting screen shots to humiliate them/ compare their intelligence levels to that of dogs. If you're really interested in helping people get better, take a page from Day9. Look at what he's doing, and then take a very good look at yourself. Day9 has made himself very successful by providing non-insulting and friendly criticisms to everyone who needs it, and he has stepped over zero people to do so.

There is practically a new thread on BNET forums and here every day about sc2 losing relevance and it's player base declining, yet you guys are here supporting the mistreatment of newer players for 12+ pages. Have you considered that maybe this is why? Maybe it's not because of the game. Maybe less people are interested in playing this game because it's community is full of people who treat them like sub-human beings because they aren't good enough at a video game. I am thoroughly disappointed in you guys; I expected a lot more maturity from this place. I sincerely hope you guys do some growing up and realize how unacceptable behavior like this is. At the end of the day, those are real people you're writing off. Those are real people you're calling dumber than dogs and jerking to each other about. How about we try and have a little empathy here and imagine how terrible it must be to see a ss of yourself in one of these topics.

GARO

United States2255 Posts

April 14 2012 20:05 GMT

#236

On April 15 2012 04:04 pedostare wrote:
I can't believe you people are seriously applauding this guy for being a tremendous jerk to newer players. This post oozes elitism, and is really quite pathetic. So few people, especially newer players, learn from making a mistake once. If that were true we'd all only need to play a few games to get out of bronze. There's a reason most all of us have to play many many games before we are any better. If it were that easy OP would be GM by now and wouldn't have to harass lower tier players in order to get his jollies. Knowledge takes time and effort to obtain, and it's silly to over simplify playing ladder to harassing your dog. It's actually a pretty terrible analogy if we're being honest. Ignoring the fact that the OP is dehumanizing players, he also fails to see that the bronze players are behaving appropriately to the situation. Like the dog, most of these bronzes he toys with are smart enough to realize he's being a dick and leave/ ignore him. What the OP expects the bronze players to do would be the equivalent of his dog biting the ball hand so he doesn't try that BS again.

This is so infuriating. OP Is not doing this for the betterment of other players. OP is, as you are all very much aware, doing this to mock them; he is appealing to that disgusting unmerited sense of entitlement and elitism that's ruining the sc2 community. There are much nicer and less insulting means of helping bronze players improve, and none of them include posting screen shots to humiliate them/ compare their intelligence levels to that of dogs. If you're really interested in helping people get better, take a page from Day9. Look at what he's doing, and then take a very good look at yourself. Day9 has made himself very successful by providing non-insulting and friendly criticisms to everyone who needs it, and he has stepped over zero people to do so.

There is practically a new thread on BNET forums and here every day about sc2 losing relevance and it's player base declining, yet you guys are here supporting the mistreatment of newer players for 12+ pages. Have you considered that maybe this is why? Maybe it's not because of the game. Maybe less people are interested in playing this game because it's community is full of people who treat them like sub-human beings because they aren't good enough at a video game. I am thoroughly disappointed in you guys; I expected a lot more maturity from this place. I sincerely hope you guys do some growing up and realize how unacceptable behavior like this is. At the end of the day, those are real people you're writing off. Those are real people you're calling dumber than dogs and jerking to each other about. How about we try and have a little empathy here and imagine how terrible it must be to see a ss of yourself in one of these topics.

This blog isn't about Bronze leaguers being bad. It's about people who repeatedly bash their heads into a wall, and question why it still hurts

'Honk honk, I haven't read Gheed's previous blog about how he actually has tried to get these people to stop his worker rushes.'

pedostare

United States31 Posts

April 14 2012 20:29 GMT

#237

Honk honk it's still elitist drivel. Adding the caveat of "I'm not trying to be mean; I am not a mean person" after a wall of text full of mean doesn't make the post magically not mean or disrespectful. It's a post centered around someone poking fun at people who are not interested in his unsolicited advice and rightfully getting upset when he forces it on them.

And speaking of people not learning after repeatedly making the same mistake over and over, you'd think the OP'd have learned by now that his teaching methods are horrendous and ineffective.

Blazinghand

United States25550 Posts

April 15 2012 00:15 GMT

#238

On April 15 2012 05:29 pedostare wrote:
Honk honk it's still elitist drivel. Adding the caveat of "I'm not trying to be mean; I am not a mean person" after a wall of text full of mean doesn't make the post magically not mean or disrespectful. It's a post centered around someone poking fun at people who are not interested in his unsolicited advice and rightfully getting upset when he forces it on them.

And speaking of people not learning after repeatedly making the same mistake over and over, you'd think the OP'd have learned by now that his teaching methods are horrendous and ineffective.

I disagree-- this is hilarious. Worker rush isn't something that should require... "teaching methods"... I mean, it's worker rush. It's probably the easiest strategy to beat in the game, right?

dreamseller

Australia914 Posts

April 16 2012 13:09 GMT

#239

"I'm not sure how such a large segment of the SC2 population suffers from the same shared delusion of competency when literally every statistic, in game and out, is telling them otherwise."

genius

JingleHell

United States11308 Posts

April 19 2012 05:26 GMT

#240

http://www.twitch.tv/jinglehelltv/b/315440363

A VOD of me playing against someone who pretty much validates Gheed's point. Me, I just need to practice, I think most of what I did involved some level of thought. (The spores were a bit of a precaution since I know my reaction time sucks, but hell, I didn't throw down 20-30). My opponent had 25 SCVs at the 22 minute mark. He'd barely taken his natural with one worker there.

I didn't exactly play well, but I think everything I did a bad job of at least made some amount of sense.

Although I probably could have moved out roughly any time I wanted to and won anyways, but still.

I don't know why so many people get offended at these blogs. If anyone should, it would be people like me, who are Bronze due to laziness. But I laugh my ass off watching people act like he's so horrible wrong. Fact is, he isn't. Bronze is so fucked it has it's own metagame that people above Bronze wouldn't even understand, because it's based in logic that requires being objectively BAD at this game.

GhoSt[shield]

Canada2131 Posts

April 19 2012 10:45 GMT

#241

Great writing as always and hilariouness. Gheed you have such an enjoyalbe blog series you write. Thank you.

DAT cc by the Ramp almost choked me XD

radscorpion9

Canada2252 Posts

April 20 2012 21:31 GMT

#242

On March 23 2012 08:20 Hulavuta wrote:
Yes, I have to agree with Wolf. He's not doing this just to say that they're bad, he's wondering why they can't realize they're bad, and why they seem unable to learn.

If he was just playing against bronze players and saying things like "lol ur so bad you can't even beat a worker rush" then I would agree with you. However he's not. He's telling them how to defend it, then questioning why they couldn't even take his advice. And why they don't even know why they didn't do it.

I guess another way to put it is if he was playing against other platinum players. Let's just say someone who was just as skilled as he was lost to something completely different, like a fourgate perhaps. And Gheed told him "I'm going to fourgate you. To beat this, do exactly X" (Let's just pretend for a second that beating a fourgate requires only instructions, like the worker rush does)

And then the guy has the same response and everything, yelling "Fuck you" to Gheed and being, when asked why he didn't follow the instructions, unable to articulate or even conceive his reasons in any meaningful way.

And as far as I can see, when he talked to the players he never used any condescending or insulting language to them. The only thing he did was question what they were doing using appropriate language, and telling them what to do in a polite manner. Yeah, in the blog itself he sometimes says shit like "Dogs are smarter than bronze players", but everyone has to use some exaggeration to make a point here and there. The purpose of the blog is to inform, not to attack.

I can understand why people find this blog offensive. What Gheed is basically doing is trying to logically analyze stupid decisions. That's what he's doing when he repeatedly asks people why they chose not to make the simplest decision, over and over again. He must realize, at some point (certainly by now at least) that its pointless to ask such questions...that certain people simply aren't that bright, or that they get confused and panic easily by worker rushes, at which point all their thought processes fail and they do random things. Yet he continues to try to analyze stupidity...and one is forced to ask, why?

The only conceivable answer I can find is because he finds it fun to do so, and incidentally, so do many other people judging from the responses on this blog. Analyzing how far stupidity can go with regard to in-game decisions, and how stupid people respond to logical, intelligent questions, only heightens how amusing the experience is for him and those who read the blog. That's why many have concluded that this blog is just thinly veiled mockery, and that its truly helpful to no one.

I'm sure Gheed does genuinely try to help some people. But at the same time, what exactly is gained by posting screenshots of people's highly illogical thought processes for everyone to see, embarrassing the players further in front of the thousands who may read this blog? Is this meant to be a learning experience, that bronze players make poor choices? That there may be some dumb people in bronze? Is that supposed to be some sort of epiphany? Or are we all here to amuse ourselves by treating bronze players as lab rats, and watching all the funny things the particularly dumb bronze leaguers do when confronted with simple obstacles? Tell me, what do you think the realistic answer is to that question.

Seriously, would *you* post this kind of blog? Would you demote yourself to bronze, do worker rushes, then logically pick apart every decision they make in chat and ask them why they made such poor decisions while repeatedly telling them that there was an obvious answer? And then, would you post screenshots of the baffling conversations you had to team liquid, complete with a picture comparing certain bronze league players to dogs, and then suggesting dogs are superior to them? And then ending it with the *ingenious* conclusion that (and I quote) "It's not that they are casual. It's not that they are bad. It's that they are bafflingly, unexplainably dense"?

Tell me that he's being "helpful" or "informative". This is thinly veiled mockery of dumb people, nothing more nothing less.

Synwave

United States2803 Posts

April 21 2012 09:02 GMT

#243

Seriously, would *you* post this kind of blog? Would you demote yourself to bronze, do worker rushes, then logically pick apart every decision they make in chat and ask them why they made such poor decisions while repeatedly telling them that there was an obvious answer?

If I could be as remotely amusing as him then yes, yes I would.
I find it also highly amusing that you analyze the blog so in depth while completely missing the point.
It is in fact responses to Gheed's blogs that are in many ways more hilarious than his actual content. It is why the blog is pure genius, pure unadulterated genius!

-Exalt-

United States972 Posts

April 21 2012 09:14 GMT

#244

Good effort as far as blogs go but..hmm seems kind of.. hypocritical.. for a platinum player to shit on a bronze player and act elitist when talking about WoW players. I was once plat...in beta with no RTS experience pre-sc2.. hit masters more than a year ago.. but that doesn't mean I make threads about how stupid platinum players are.

Salazarz

Korea (South)2554 Posts

April 21 2012 11:27 GMT

#245

Being bad at a video game doesn't make a person dense, and writing this really serves no purpose but to laugh at other's expense. Sure this blog is a little funny, but also very mean and stupid - just like someone else said above, it's just a mockery of, not even 'dumb' people, but just people who aren't good at this game. And as for, "BUT I TOLD THEM WHAT TO DO TO WIN, WHY CANT THEY JUST FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTIONS!!!"... Would you seriously listen to someone saying, "do X to beat me" at the start of a match in SC2? I know I wouldn't. Maybe I'm stupid, but then again I did manage to get into Masters so I must be doing something right.

Blazinghand

United States25550 Posts

April 21 2012 11:28 GMT

#246

On April 21 2012 20:27 Salazarz wrote:
Maybe I'm stupid, but then again I did manage to get into Masters so I must be doing something right.

Indeed, but that something wasn't "humor"-- it was playing Starcraft II very well.

JWBS

England24 Posts

July 12 2012 12:40 GMT

#247

I've read all these threads up to this one now and I gotta say I laughed so hard at the idiot ninja waiting to ambush in the smoke clouds. Literally tears. I hope an old post bump isn't too egregious in the case of this thread.

Ansinjunger

United States2451 Posts

July 13 2012 17:26 GMT

#248

I'm not familiar with that breed.

This just killed me.

iSometric

2221 Posts

July 13 2012 19:04 GMT

#249

Tried this on my friend's account. 5-2 in Bronze lol.

Normal