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Well, break for me, meaning I still kind of follow the SC2 scene, and maybe play a few games each day.. but definitely not practicing multiple hours each day (which was needed for me to maintain rank/skill in high masters) like I was before. (Part of it is due to D3, I must say).
Why? The game feels extremely stale right now. Everything is near figured out, and every PvZ.. PvT.. PvP.. feels exactly the same in 80-90% of ladder games. The metagame has nearly stopped changing, and we are in limbo until HOTS. I will say, this makes for a BW-style landscape for progames which is awesome, but for myself on ladder, I don't prefer it.
For example:
PvT: Terran will do a 3 rax after 1 rax FE medivac aggression. He will have a ton of map control during that period and can deny nearly all of my scouting, while I play really defensively until I have a big army. Who makes the first little mistake like losing a nexus/ failing vs a drop/ running into a storm? That guy loses.
PvZ: 2 base all ins are really bad now vs really good Zergs, so the game will go fast 3 hatch no gas vs a semi-quick 3rd from Protoss. Max timings don't work vs really good zergs most of the time either, so I take a 4th and then we play the "get the strongest army game". Who makes the first little mistake like letting your broods get vortexed/ letting your mothership get neuraled? That guy loses.
PvP: Same deal. All ins figured out. Macro macro macro and more boring macro. Then we're maxed, attack eachother.. who makes the first little mistake like not getting the first Vortex/ not feedbacking his mothership/ not having perfect army positioning? That guy loses.
This type of gameplay can be tedious to play on ladder. Every game comes down to 1-2 little mistakes you can make and thus lose the ENTIRE 30 minute long game because (at least for protoss), you can not really lose your army once in sc2, along with the metagame being so figured out at this point that little mistakes have huge consequences.
And so I wait for HOTS. The metagame will be reset, and the game will be back to "who has better metagame knowledge and who can come up with the newer more refined build/micro/playstyle, that guy wins".. instead of the current "the game is mapped out until the 20 minute mark, now whoever makes the first little mistake will 90% of the time lose later on!"
 
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The game is not nearly close to figured out, if you're bored with it take a break but the game is fun and varied and that's it's strength and something that makes it hard to learn even at the highest level.
Take the last 2 days of GSL for instance, we've seen proxy double rax into a macro game into a base trade, and a 6 pool into 2 base sentry blink elevator. Those may seem like isolated examples but if you've played for any length of time on ladder they're not. There are ways that are non-standard but still viable that can force a reaction from your opponent that puts him in situations he's rarely been in, and likewise that your opponent can do to you and from that point you need to fall not back on to a build but back on your fundamentals and game sense.
If you're playing so safe and solid that you can't be messed with, but you simultaneously cannot mess with your opponent to the point where 1-2 engagement mistakes are all it takes to end the game, then your style might not be bold enough, mix it up, but it's on you.
If you think HotS will fix it, It wont. Strong styles will be figured out, it will put constrictions on the match-up but that's merely the beginning, a launching point for your exploration of the game.
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taking a break until blizzard starts banning all these hackers ...
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Just the opposite, I just started playing again. Although it has little to do with HotS and more I'm just bored of every other game that I own. I always had problems laddering before but so far I seem to be having no problems. I skipped the previous season so my MMR would reset and now I enjoy trying to get back into masters after being placed in diamond. I just hope my motivation doesn't die when I make it.
In response to what you're saying, I love the stable metagame. When it's so unstable and theres no real standard and everyone is doing their own thing, you can have so many stupid blind strategical losses whereas when everyone is playing 'standard' you will win/lose games by your own feats/failures making it much easier to focus on improving overall or just refining a build order.
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I'm delaying my laddering until that theCore hotkey layout is refined more 
Then I'm switching to Zerg from Terran. It sounds a lot like balance QQ, I know, but quite honestly I've always really liked the playstyle of Z. Fast-moving units, counterattacks, making tons of units at once... I just sucked way too much at ZvZ to get motivated at all. Some of that Swarm spirit kicked in because of HotS for me. Seriously, who can't like Lurkers, Defilers, and speedy Hydras?
Besides that, I agree with Dingo.
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United States17423 Posts
Hm I only get bored when I play vs protoss. I play zvt and even zvz are fun and I quiet enjoy it.
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If anything, I'm encouraged to play more so i can continue to hone my mechanics.
When HOTS comes out, new units or no new units, mechanics will still be important.
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I went back to bw and haven't touched SC2 n months. Will certainly buy HoTS and play it a bit, but dunno for how long.
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Well I am still playing it, but honestly not that much because I have been more into my PS3 games lately. I am very close to getting that 1000 terran solo win icon, nova. So I am trying to grind and get that. But I am frustrated with the game because I feel like I am not improving. I guess the short story is I am still playing it when I get in the mood, but I am not playing it like crazy anymore.
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playing alot of D3 lately, doing some games here and there on sc2 just to keep the some skill, not really motivated to get rank 1 masters again though. Just waiting until HotS and grinding D3 for the moment
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I still come back to the game every now and then. I've been playing a lot more D3 than SC2 at the moment. I still manage to maintain mid-masters somehow, even though my mechanics are way worse, and here is how:
The "metagame" isn't nearly as figured out as you make it out to be, at least at Americas NA master level. Most of the masters players aren't actually intelligent/strategic (they react horribly if they have to make in-game decisions), they are just really really practiced against the standard builds. I don't FFE against Zerg on basically any map. They still proceed like I did(super early 3rd, or sometimes they try for a bust), and I can kill them easily with a voidray or even heavy gateway timing that comes a lot earlier than they expect. I know terrans all do that silly marine thing around the 6-7 min mark, so I just go fast colossus, kill the marine push with gateway units and forcefields, and counter with 2 colo and win. PvP is still sort of odd, but I'm favoring robo openings again.
Would these things work against pros? Probably not, because most pros have much tighter builds and have pretty good decision making. Luckily I'm not playing against pros, and never intend to. The game gets a lot less stale when you start doing your own thing and stop doing the "standard" stuff every game. You don't need to do it, your opponents aren't that good, they just have a lot of practice playing against "standard" play that everyone does.
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EPT
