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A precursor; I've found that early pools are the most exciting thing to watch, the fierce micro battle between players with small pockets of units is always the most entertaining due to amount of micro potential you can put in when the DPS is so low.
So I embarked upon a quest to gain a further knowledge of early pools and micro, In doing so i've opened up a can of worms. (A very angry can of worms)
Define:Cheese
My definition of cheese may vary to others, but I would put it simply as an attack that lands as fast as possible and if scouted is nigh on useless.
Why do I define cheese as that and not something more of a catch-all because the later the "cheese" the more likely the term "timing" or "all in" are to be used. You could also define cheese as a timing attack or an all in, both of which describe it perfectly but cheese is in its own category according to the community.
My challenge on ladder has been to put down a pool before my first overlord and to get to masters with it. (Currently hovering around diamond)
So I've been doing a fair amount of 6 pools, quite possibly the most famous build in the game.
Alas in doing so I've garnered a fair amount of rage directed towards me. This is not only slightly soul sapping and demoralising but also has made me ponder about why "cheese" has such a bad name and why players feel that they can treat the "cheeser" like excrement.
Summary of most common things directed at me after a successful "cheese":
Piece of faecal matter
%*$& you
Stupid cheeser
&%^£*%$ garbage
L2P
Why do you play SC2?
Insert various other "offensive" comments.
These don't phase me too much, losing can be frustrating for some people even more so when it's such a well known and fast loss.
What I want to more talk about is when they defend the attack, I get the same treatment as when I win, which astounds me. They've held on they defended the attack the made the right plays so why the need to insult me?
I will post the chatlog of the most recent game I played in; I opened with a 9 Pool with a 7 Drone pull leaving 3 behind and he opened with 14/14 the safest build in ZvZ.
I send the attack which he spots with an overlord, he builds 3 sets of lings and a queen whilst researching speed he defends the attack with a queen and 6 drones to spare, behind this I have 7 drones.
The first message reads; Rekt (I can only assume this illiterate twelve year old has written wrecked) Next message reads; hehehehehe followed shortly by "don't pool" then "fgt"
My first response was "Why do you think that is acceptable behaviour?"
His reads; Brother then How's with the Autism
If this was said in the real world this would promptly end up with this child (for I can only assume he is one) being severely reprimanded by society, for that sort of behaviour is frowned upon.
I respond with "Why do you think you can say things like that?"
"Yeah" "I do" my response is "You're such a bigot" - "whats a bigot?"
At this point I've left the game, for my base has been ravaged by speedlings from his counter attack.
I just can't comprehend why people feel this an acceptable thing, in this case I would chalk it down to my opponent being a narrow minded child but that isn't the root of the problem but the start.
Now lets look at some of the most adored and favourite players of SC2 and the humble beginnings.
Flash, now one of the gods of macro wasn't always a macro dominant player at the start of his career as a pro gamer he eliminated Bisu using cheese and was hated by the community, he was considered a boring player to watch and was not very popular.
Skip forwards some years, Flash is now the highest earning starcraft player and people adore watching his games.
MarinekingPrime the undisputed god of micro at his peak and even now, known for strong 2 Rax plays and 3 Rax stim "timings" he was not afraid of using cheese to win and is now another solid macro player who almost always goes for a CC first build.
So what happened? Why did some players who were good at cheesing suddenly turn into hyper macro players? The simplistic answer is this; If you know your cheese inside out then how can someone with a perhaps inferior knowledge of said cheese beat you with it? Someone will hold a cheese at some point for no build is unbeatable. If you learn from that hold and you pick it apart you can learn easily on how to hold when you make the transition to macro. Likewise you know the state of mind of the player executing the cheese. That's the simple version, people can go into whole pages of discussion on that matter alone but I don't want this to be even more of a TL;DR
So why is cheese frowned upon and treated with such hostility, we've established that it's a strong stepping stone into macro play and for strong early game understanding.
Answer one: We hate to have our plans messed up and we hate to lose.
Answer two: Welcome to the Internet we have socially inept people.
Answer three: The community has ingrained a deep hatred of cheese in everyone and nobody has ever addressed this.
Answer three is the path I would like to take a look at:
According to Liquipedia the term "cheese" originated from the word "cheater's" (words in Korean are sometimes shortened by the middle syllables, so 치터즈 [chi tuh zu] would become 치즈 [chi zu]). So cheese originally was a term for cheaters or people who others thought were cheating.
So did the word cheese get corrupted much the like the word hackers?
Lets take an objective look, if we assume that you got two players with no prior knowledge of the community or strategies and told one to 6 pool would that player get upset for for any other reason than losing?
If we got the same two players to play again and this time let them do whatever they wished and the guy who had just been 6 pooled lost again would he be more annoyed or the same?
Now lets get two new people both of which who know the game well and got them to play the game, they play whatever style they wish and one of them wins. They usually gg and leave the game with no bad word prior and perhaps on the odd occasion some praise for the worthy opponent.
Sit them down again and get one to 6 pool the other, the person who 6 pooled wins the response from the lost player has changed into the responses I list at the start of this post. So what happened?
What happened is the community and it's attitude, your mind is warped towards the collective brain of the community. The human brain strives for belonging and thus you do almost everything you can to fit into this group. The community tells you cheese is bad and you accept it and frown upon anyone that cheeses. But why? Cheese is a vital part of the game and is exhibited in at least one of the game is any BOX series yet know one thinks any less of the player.
So why can Flash and Marineking get away with it buy Joe bloggs cannot? I would theorise that it's because of the conflicting message that puts us into our own mind again, the community says cheese is bad and Flash and Marineking are good thus the two cancel out and we get our own thoughts again.
Anyway I will stop my ramblings and musings here, I hope some semblance of sense is here.
 
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my view on it: win is win
stop crying if you get cheesed, you lose.
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Bosnia-Herzegovina72 Posts
I don't think there is a universal answer to it, everyone has their own reasons..
I hardly ever cheese but am of firm belief that if you lost to cheese, you simply got outplayed.
In case i die to cheese i always say "gg wp" and mean it, but i do like to make remarks such as "lol nice try" in cases where i do hold it. Even though i respect and almost encourage the choice of cheese, it's still an attempt to secure a quick win that relies more on your opponent not doing the right thing and as such can be seen as a "low blow".
I'm sure plenty of people who flame you think the same and likely cheese themselves, but using insults you mentioned is simply the common gamer culture now i suppose..
Quite a few people don't enjoy it when the game takes them out of their comfort zone as well, which you can notice by all the QQ posts we've head over the years.
I think what happens very often is that when people get cheesed, they assume the other guy cheeses all the time or at least a lot. In your case, that seems true.. and even though you are basically providing rest of the people opportunities to practice holding the cheese, that does not compare to the example of Flash and Marineking that you mentioned.
Where their attempt to secure a win by cheese, whether it is ladder or tournament match, is a result of preparation, map choice, playing the opponent or something else.. it can be seen as gamble with effort put in to think of the odds.
The player who simply always cheeses holds no care for the odds and just gambles away. I guess that fact might anger someone or make them think a cheeser is an inferior player.
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cheesing in a tournament situation makes sense, cheesing constantly in ladder just seems like a pointless venture to me. is it fun to play a 6 pool and just lose because your opponent picked a certain build? or because he scouted you in time? are you learning anything?
it's pretty obvious as to why people will flame regardless of whether your rush works or not; it's boring as hell to play against. grats, you 6 pooled and I micro'd my reaper and killed your lings, what a mind-blowing experience. I don't say anything besides gg but I can see why people get annoyed.
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I'm not saying I 6 pool every game if at all against Terran.
Usually against Terran it's a 10 Pool macro build that STLife uses.
6 Pool is usually against Protoss but heh.
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
I like cheese
Eshez, dont cry 
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I think it's because as pro players, they've already established themselves as "great" and play to entertain and earn money, so cheesing is acceptable because we know they're skilled
In ladder though, the opponent you're playing against nobody knows if he's skilled or noob so seeing a cheese just creates te assumption he's some loser looking for an easy win if that idea makes sense...personally I get annoyed when I lose to cheese but I don't rage
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The backlash comes from a couple things:
1) It's usually mechanically easier to play a cheese build than a late game build. This is not always true, but typically controlling an entire army is more difficult than microing a small group of units.
2) It creates a lot of build order wins. Nobody is playing starcraft for an elaborate rock paper scissors simulator. Honestly, most strategy games are better off allowing build orders to leverage small advantages for the late game than having lots of build order wins. Of course, that's a lot easier said than done.
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On October 11 2013 06:05 Targe wrote:I like cheese Eshez, dont cry
did you not read a single thing I said? still crying about protoss?
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The hatred towards cheese has made Sc2 quite a boring game to play and watch.
When Sc2 first game out, pro games and ladder games alike were full of clever 1 and 2 base builds that would often have a unique timing or unit composition, and the battles would come down to micro and intense decision making.
Now, all Sc2 games are alike - players take 3 bases ASAP and build up until they have the ideal composition (with admittedly a little bit of harassment alongside it) and then they smash faces in the middle of the map for a few minutes until someone emerges the winner.
At first, macro games in Sc2 were amazing, as they were so rare and so different from the standard cheese. Now, it's the other way around - macro games are the norm, and I know I'm not alone as the only one getting tired of it.
Most of this, I think, is due to maps - they've become so much bigger that rushes are difficult to pull off, as defenders advantage has increased so much. However, I believe much of this increase in map size has been influenced by a community of complainers who have asked, again and again, for free macro games. It's that same large community who complains every time you cheese them with a six pool.
There also exists a negative mindset towards cheese with the attitude of "if you cheese a lot, you will never learn to play the game". However, the more I've "learned" to macro the less fun I've had, and also, the more my mind has lost its ability to handle situations that require crisis management, which is something cheese teaches you (scrappy games often come out of cheese).
As such, I applaud you, Mr. OP, for standing up and cheesing a lot on the ladder. Thanks for taking the heat and playing the way you want to. Cheers, and may many more 6 pools get you to Masters.
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I've got nothing against cheese. It's a legitimate way to play. That said, if you get repeatedly cheesed then it can get annoying. But, that is more the vagaries of playing on ladder, where some days are more cheesy than others. You then become a lot more particular about scouting earlier (say on 9 rather than 13 or at core), and checking the inside of your base and proxy locations (at least for a while). To quote Major Payne, "War has made me very paranoid."
I find it hard to cheese, though. I keep telling myself it is something I should try more of, but it does not fit me at all.
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There just needs to be a good mix of short cheesy game, great midgame timings, and explosiony late game macro fests
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Simple fact: Cheese is extremely frustrating to play against and is so insanely common that it can lead the game to be very boring and frustrating.
Why try to convince your opponents that your cheese is legitimate? Let the win be enough. People are never going to be pleased or gracious when you cheese them.
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Honestly, the thing that made people so in awe of players like Boxer is that he could do things with micro that were extremely difficult to do and very innovative. That's really what I think SC2 is missing - not a lack of "balance", not "staleness", or "not enough tournaments" - it's missing a factor of awe. There should be more cheese, in my opinion.
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@Therapist
Is this Austin Smith?
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Sometimes its a culture thing, i brought some nice expensive mature chedder over from england a few times now and no sri lankan will touch it, they hate the stuff. Different customs, food and whatnot leads them to dislike my cheese.
Its a shame really, its some quality stuff.
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
On October 11 2013 07:16 Eshez wrote:did you not read a single thing I said? still crying about protoss?
Eh?
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On October 11 2013 11:43 ninazerg wrote:
Honestly, the thing that made people so in awe of players like Boxer is that he could do things with micro that were extremely difficult to do and very innovative. That's really what I think SC2 is missing - not a lack of "balance", not "staleness", or "not enough tournaments" - it's missing a factor of awe. There should be more cheese, in my opinion.
Blizz felt the urge to make every single unit "awesome" - removing the opportunity to, by amazing control or w/e, make an average, boring, unimpressive unit achieve the unimaginable. It's not so much about excelling anymore, but rather about not fucking up.
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Cheese simply leads to boring matches. There's a huge different between a pro player using cheese tactically in a bo5, and a douchebag who can't play the game and only does the same boring cheese over and over on ladder to brag about his points to his friends.
Cheese itself is not a problem, either you scout it and win or you don't and lose. The problem is that it's extremely strong with no effort required, so it's perfect for people who just want wins on ladder and don't care about improving, and these are the kind of people who are often boring to play against.
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EPT
. Lots of rage that week. Lots of people wanting to make oracles, but dying 
