I've taken it upon myself to play and learn first-hand Brood War to help me understand the game mechanics, strategy and mind-games to improve my ability as a caster.
At this point I have completed my first 100 online competitive games as a milestone with a record of 12 wins and 88 losses. I believe all but two games were played on iCCup.
Keep in mind this is the first hundred game I actually sat down to ladder with the purpose to improve. I must say my experience was quite stressful and unrewarding. I do acknowledge that part of this reason is because I practice all match ups as I am a random player.
Brood War is a very entertaining game to...watch. I've learned from this two or three week period of laddering is that I really don't like play competitive brood war to put it simply. The constant losing (because of playing random) and my biggest problem is the UI. Goons rally to defend my natural walk in place, marines freezing, tanks not being able to simply walk down my ramp ect.
Being a player of both SC2 and BW I'm gonna be biased to the awesome UI of SC2. With that said I always understood briid war was a extremely difficult game to play but I never imaged how fricken difficult it can be. Getting my workers to even mine is a struggle. There are times where I try throw down three factories and two if them don't start the production cycle because the SCV making the one to the right if it is obstructing the building process. I'll have a dozen marines with one or two medics and ill stim and behold the marines ram into each not attacking and instead glave worms to the head. High Templar sent to the top of the cliff to storm with enough range now has to be manually do trolled to the top of the cliff then to storm, When it is a battle of simply throwing down production facilities there is a fundamental issue with ths game IMO.
Also coming from playing and enjoying games of SC2 the gameplay is faster. The early game of micro managing your whole main base feels like a major chore. This is not because I don't mind building up tech, macroing ect but that its like 9 straight minutes of myself to make sure the wall tight, the buildings are actually thrown down after they are instructed to do. The worst of all is the scouting worker. My god this thing is evil. People can micro the dickens out of these little guys. I'll go tell an SCV to a-move that probe you know what happens? It sits there, ponders the idea and then will chase the worker but will get caught up between each pixel of the ground. So a-moving is not the answer so I try to make a wall, nope that does not work. Finally I get a marine or goon or speedling to finally kill it off. It happens every game the frustration of not being able to kill a unit with 40 HP with no relative ease. It is these taunting long moments is why I hate the early game right now.
I've really only enjoyed one game from that one-hundred a ZvT on Wind and Cloud that I won. The reason? I "survived" the early game and I was able to to actually control an army around the map. It happened only happened once out of 100 games!
I will continue to play in the hopes that I will become accustomed to this horrible UI this game has created. I next milestone will be the 250 games. The hope by that time I will have the ability to fend off a 3 Hatch Muta and a 5 Hatch Hydra push,
Brood War I love watching, specating and being part of your community but you yourself have far too many problems for me to have an enjoyable experience playing you. Hah! At least this how I feel one-hundred games in.
if you're talking about getting 1-2 idle workers within a field of already mining workers, you can just box select and then shift+right click onto a mineral patch, and only the idle worker will move to mine that patch. If you're talking about automine, welp ....
There are times where I try throw down three factories and two if them don't start the production cycle because the SCV making the one to the right if it is obstructing the building process
I'll have a dozen marines with one or two medics and ill stim and behold the marines ram into each not attacking and instead glave worms to the head. High Templar sent to the top of the cliff to storm with enough range now has to be manually do trolled to the top of the cliff then to storm
Not really sure what you're doing here, did you a-move after you stimmed? and second one not really sure what you mean.
IMO I like how BW has a "slower" pace. There's an actual early game in most match ups, there's a deeper depth to the game by allowing players more opportunities to prove themselves (whether its by early game harassment/engagement via probe/whatever, or better optimization through timing and macro), and battles progress at a reasonable pace where you can judge what's going on and make a difference mid-battle via your own control abilities. There's simply more for the better player to prove himself with at BW's pace
Honestly I don't know why you are playing random, you're simply doing yourself a huge disservice by doing so. It's like trying to learn a virtuosic piece of music by just playing the entire thing over and over in hopes you'll eventually get it right, instead of breaking it down into bits and pieces for focused practicing. You're much better off picking one race at a time, and choosing one build to practice until you know it inside-out and fully understand the strategy and concepts of the build, how it works within the match-up and how it plays with the race's characteristics.
If you wanna play to improve, do it in a smart, efficient way .. focused practice is the way to go, instead of just charging at it broadly and bluntly. Study specific matchups in VODs (I watched PvX VODs/replays and took notes on builds, timings, overall strategy and tactics when I wanted to understand it), practice specific micro techniques (Dragoon control, Muta, etc), map out how you're gonna lay out your base and practice it (PvT), practice multitasking in UMS (one where you keep worker alive while doing something), practice mouse accuracy in UMS, practice perfecting the basic timings of your builds (against nobody), etc etc ... that way you lose less games in order to improve those things, and win more as a result.
I'm going to echo Arvick's comments. I watched one of your replays, a PvT. You executed a 1 gate core, and died to some marine medic tank push.
That is not a good layout. It seems like you just threw down buildings without thinking about placement at all. It's 6 minutes into the game, you're already floating 750 minerals, and still only on a single gateway. That 750 is enough for an additional gateway and 4 additional goons. You engaged 5 marines, 1 medic, and 2 siege tanks with 4 goons. All 4 goons died, killing only 2 marines and 1 tank. Had there been 8 goons, you would've crushed that attack.
You see that 5? That's your gateway hotkey. You didn't use it once in the entire game, and it shows. There were long stretches of time where no goons were being built in that gateway. You can't even blame this on the UI since you had a single gateway, and pressing 5d to macro isn't any more difficult than in SC2. In fact, failing to macro in SC2 gets you killed just as quickly as in BW!
Playing random is fine if you just want to have fun and screw around. But since you want to claim to want to improve, I don't know why you choose to play 9 matchups instead of 3. You even admit that it contributes to your losses, and yet you still do it! It boggles the mind.
In conclusion, your problem in surviving the early game is less the UI, and more a lack of game knowledge and basic skills. Stop bitching about the interface, learn how to actually execute a build, and learn to macro.
Congratulations on reaching your milestone of 100 games. It's sad to hear that you are less than impressed with the gaming experience. I can understand how losing is discouraging because a lot of the alure of brood war is the "I DID IT" feeling. But if it were easy, then the feeling would be more hollow. Sadly, if you are not at a certain level of skill, the game will not have a lot of strategic depth. And I think you are in that spot right now. You end up in a bad place where you switch between strategies and look at the game in a "rock-paper-scissor"-like fashion.
I would say that you should let go of the "random crutch" for a while, just like Arvick said, if you want to get better and to get to the meatier parts of the game. It is not only about having one race to focus on. It will yield a more stable early game because you won't encounter as many weird anti-random openings. So then you'll only ever have to face a handful of situations and you'll over time be able to have a pre-planned response to each one. The alternative is to constantly face new unfamiliar situations and be forced think on the fly.
isn't all of that (stupid goons, freezing units, etc) just what we love about BW? Gosh, if BW isn't the greatest and most enjoyable game of all time, then idk what is suppossed to be. You must become one with the game before you are able to fully love it, maybe, something that was easier for us who started playing more than a decade ago as we weren't spoiled by better programmed units yet, but oh well.
I have to agree with Spazer, though, blaming so much on the UI is really not what is losing you games at your level, not having the map awareness over your own base to let SCVs block each other, not having a proper build and macro, those are alot more crucial than any of the struggles BW itself gives you.
Oh man I remember that game my god. Macro is important but I Blake the horrible UI. If my commands would actually be excited with a single click instead of five than I would have focused more on the macro. Thus why in SC2 I never go over 450 in either gas or minerals. But year It was a simple thing to do,
I'm also disappointed how people don't believe the core of this game. I could be wrong of course. I've watched over 500 repays over the last year alone casting them.i think I know how the core of all MU go but rather executing again in a whole another topic hah.
I play 9 MU because in the greater scheme is fun and don't forget I try to learn from all PoV to help my casting as an effort. I ladder as random because you'll get cheesed regardless on iCCup a ton. In practice games I ask my opponent what they want to work on. So I'll do 3 to 10 of a constant MU.
Yeah, I too abandoned all pretenses of being anything but faithful spectator (well I guess I can join occasional E rank tourneys like Carnival Tour and so ) when it comes to BW. Nice to hear you are making the effort but I know it's not for everyone- at least it wasn't for me.
Sorry to be the elitist guy, but I really don't think you have any business casting if you've only played 100 competitive games of Broodwar. Virtually 100% of everyone listening has played more games than you and knows more about the game than you.
That said, I'm glad you're playing and I hope you keep at it! The game gets more fun the more you play!
watching games before you've even laddered to a c- ish level means very little. i know people who have watched korean BW from its inception and still suck ALOT. playing bw is about effective practice. There was a good reason koreans always beat foreigners. It wasn't their genes, it was their practice. they practiced their builds so much more. the precision with how they implement their strategies is what makes their performances so good to watch. I've been playing bw on and off for like 4 years now and my terran is still at a straight D level. I've probably played it in at least like 500+ competitive games. But its always been as a "playing against someone i know i can beat on my main" or "randoming because i'm tilting" setting, and theres a good reason its never improved. When i first started i looked up 3 builds on liquipedia and i started trying to play them out till the 40 or so supply mark. honestly you need to wake up and try that rather than just convincing yourself the UI makes it too hard and you should just give up before you've started or you wont get anywhere
i mean no offense but you consistently make blogs and stuff that seems to be some "struggle" of you with bw (UI, game, whatever), and you even said in previous blog that you wanted to only go to hots when that is released: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=379545
if you constantly complain about something and don't enjoy it don't force yourself to play/commentate/whatever bw. just let it go.
On February 20 2013 03:51 N.geNuity wrote: i mean no offense but you consistently make blogs and stuff that seems to be some "struggle" of you with bw (UI, game, whatever), and you even said in previous blog that you wanted to only go to hots when that is released: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=379545
if you constantly complain about something and don't enjoy it don't force yourself to play/commentate/whatever bw. just let it go.
Love hate relationship to ^_^ the best part of these blogs I learn on how to fix my issues.
@Kiante So I'm confused, are you saying even if I have a fundamental understanding of each MU it still requires much practice to hammer them out to be effective no? So your saying just saying practice more? I can do tht
Edit: Most likely when HoTS comes out I will no longer play BW yes.
On February 20 2013 02:19 Pucca wrote: I'm also disappointed how people don't believe the core of this game. I could be wrong of course. I've watched over 500 repays over the last year alone casting them.i think I know how the core of all MU go but rather executing again in a whole another topic hah.
I think there are levels of understanding when it comes to BW. The deeper ones are pretty unaccessible unless you've dealt with them as a player. The problems and solutions that you run into as a player teaches you things about the game that a replay never will. You don't know what details to look for. They don't show what could have happened, but didn't.
Even if you have a person with you who knows everything about BW, he isn't going to be able to convey that knowledge to you using only words while you look at replays together.
That is why I and probably many others are so convinced that a low ranked player can't have a "core" understanding of all the matchups. Maybe we also have higher standards when it comes to defining what core understanding is.
On February 20 2013 02:19 Pucca wrote: i think I know how the core of all MU.
In that screenshot, you have a forge in a PvT before you've even transferred workers to your natural. Without watching any of your other games or any of your casts, I already know that you have no understanding of that matchup. Or did BW's hard UI make you build a building at a completely nonsensical time?
On February 20 2013 02:19 Pucca wrote: i think I know how the core of all MU.
In that screenshot, you have a forge in a PvT before you've even transferred workers to your natural. Without watching any of your other games or any of your casts, I already know that you have no understanding of that matchup. Or did BW's hard UI make you build a building at a completely nonsensical time?
he needs +1 armor asap so his zealots take less damage from bio
one legit thing that might not be obvious to you that feels very different from sc2 is that in bw only one key can register at a time. you can sort of mash 1a2a3a or hold down z +click warpin in sc2, but if you press 1 and a simultaneously and then left click nothing happens in bw, or if you click on a gateway and press z at the same time nothing happens. you have to make sure you let go of the key you're pressing. if you ever watch a video of a pro playing bw you'll see that when they click their mice it's this really exaggerated whipping motion with their fingers; that's to make sure they only click once and as briefly as possible so they can hit the keyboard quickly without having overlapping commands.
its worth slowing down to 80 or 90 apm from your 150 to make sure that you're using your hotkeys as cleanly as possible. i dropped down to 190-200 from 250 because i noticed i was having a lot of dud 1a2a3as where half my army didn't move, or where half my rax didn't make units, and tried to focus on not having to waste time redoing my actions by doing them right the first time.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Duv7rbT.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/KMcapiS.jpg)
) when it comes to BW. Nice to hear you are making the effort but I know it's not for everyone- at least it wasn't for me.
