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[Rant] Boomer plays SC after 15ish years

Blogs > GroT
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1 2 Next All
GroT
Profile Blog Joined January 2004
Belgium3003 Posts
March 22 2021 19:23 GMT
#1
So after making a blog post to promote my iphone game, I ended up buying starcraft remastered (RaGe told me to) and started playing ladder games telling myself I'd just play 2 or 3 games (I think I've played like 100-150 now...). I think it's been 15ish (?) years since I played. To put things into context, when I played starcraft people pretty much exclusively played lost temple, maybe also some "new" maps like Python. I had about 180 apm IIRC, which dropped down to 110 as I played again. As a terran player I enjoyed buildable terrain, cliffs to drop on, and islands to provide $$$. Compared to today's maps lost temple was insanely good for terran, but I remember getting my ass handed to me a lot on that map as well.

I decided to write this for fun and because I thought my way way out of date impressions might be amusing to some of you guys

Even though I obviously expected people to get better, it's SHOCKING to see just how much players have improved since 15+ years ago. I was initially ranked at D rank and assumed I'd swiftly climb up as I got used to the game - not so. I even got kicked down to E rank after a long series of losses, at one point I lost 12 games in a row to D rankers. People seem to simply have way much more units much faster, have a plan mapped out for way later in the game, sometimes have tremendously high apm (I run into D players with 250 apm in long games, WTF?), are comfortable with multiple maps, and seem to have no problem dealing with my rush builds (yes, I started out trying to gundam rush every tvp game like I used to - didn't work out), get supply blocked less often, etc. The only thing that people haven't improved at markedly seems to be scouting - a lot of opponents seem to be completely uninterested in what I'm doing.

Whenever I won a game, it seemed to be due to some extremely lucky factor. E.g. my opponent goes for a risky cheese and I stop it, I get vultures into a p's mineral line and kill their probes, enemy T never scouts my ridiculously greedy expansions, enemy player doesn't want TvT and leaves immediately, etc. In "honor & skill" type games I always got destroyed.

Anyway after playing a billion (100?) games my average apm is up to 145 and I cracked C rank for the first time (I'm sure I'll get demoted to D rank again swiftly, still happy). Celebration time!

Some of the things I've changed that helped me start getting my first wins against the other newbs without uber luck:

- Watch twitch.com/nyoken - amazing stream for tvp. He kept building walls and I eventually followed suit which really helps if you're a newb who can't micro vs zeals early.

I also had a tendency to think "this p is being greedy, allin" way too quickly, it's actually reasonable for them to be quite a bit ahead in economy because your units are very strong in the endgame, I never knew that. I've strangely been doing better since I started taking my time even if they are mining considerably more $$$ than me which was very counterintuitive for me.

I've also been leaving 1 tank in my main placed ridiculously far in the corner against recall (on top of the usual mass mines + turrets) because I was getting killed by recall over & over and that really seems to help. They never seem to figure it out where it is. I read somewhere that terran is supposed to max out in like 13 minutes but I've never even come close tot that, I think my fastest was around 15 mins but that seems to be good enough at D rank. I usually end up having a max/near max army only around 16 mins - I notice many other terrans at my mmr are better at macro.

- In tvz, when you have low apm and skill, IMHO you should open with goliaths every game. M&m is very skill intensive, but I think goliaths require much more skill from the z player. If you open with 3facts goliaths it seems like you can get away from mutas without building any turrets at all, whereas with M&m I was dying early game even with mass turrets. I like to start m&m upgrades early and switch to m&m when they go mass hydra or hydra/queen. I get to win some games against zerg players who are clearly better (faster, better micro, better macro, better understanding of the game) than me because this strat is so newb-friendly

Things that are better now;
- Matchmaking is great, playing against people 5x better or worse than you is just not fun
- It's great to see people playing many maps. The new maps are varied and interesting. I ended up vetoing the semi island thing (plasma?) after a while because I didn't enjoy it
- People are really quite good. If you are like A or even S rank in this era that's pretty insane imo, congrats to all of you degenerate sickos.
- That map 'optimizer' tells you how to make walls with highlights in the terrain, so helpful and prevents so much pointless losses, bravo
- People seem to use pretty much every unit and ability in the game now except protoss scouts. (back in the day we had the Stove...). Very cool to see


Things that seem worse now;
- Many seem pretty bitter / taking the game too seriously even at D rank. Especially in TvT where my play is quite unreasonable/greedy/cheesy I get a lot of hate when I get lucky. Well I can't read korean but I assume they're not writing sweet poems at the end
- People seem pretty obsessed with their rating, maybe they'd be better off if they played a bit less to win and more to improve or just have fun. I actually don't want my rating to inflate because C / B rank players will massacre me easily if they play safe & standard
- There's definitely more of a "hive mind" mentality with many players trying the same strats. I'm not even sure if that's a negative actually but in the old days everybody played wildly differently and were trying to figure things out as they went
- I can't get in touch with anyone! Is it me or is the friends function on the battle.net client really buggy?
- Back in the day we had WGTour and you could just download and watch the replays of anyone. It seems like replays are private now, that's a shame imo
- I'm old and my hands and eyesight suck



*****
DANCE ALL DAY
unit
Profile Blog Joined March 2009
United States2621 Posts
March 22 2021 23:07 GMT
#2
Welcome back to BW. I feel your struggles. When I first started and was using what I remembered of builds from 2010 era it was fairly awkward. Especially when trying to "punish greed" that wasn't actually greed. The skill level of players these days is insane.

Still best game ever made.

You mentioned not being able to dl replays of anyone. There is a website where people upload replays where you can see stats and dl their replays. https://repmastered.app/
Jealous
Profile Blog Joined December 2011
10137 Posts
March 23 2021 01:02 GMT
#3
Welcome back refreshing to read this new perspective.

Yes, the friends list is buggy, but the biggest obstacle is if you add someone who connected through a different Gateway (Europe, Americas, Asia). You can't see them if they are not on the same Gateway as you.
"The right to vote is only the oar of the slaveship, I wanna be free." -- бум бум сучка!
GroT
Profile Blog Joined January 2004
Belgium3003 Posts
March 23 2021 01:19 GMT
#4
On March 23 2021 08:07 unit wrote:
You mentioned not being able to dl replays of anyone. There is a website where people upload replays where you can see stats and dl their replays. https://repmastered.app/


dude that's super helpful! Thank you!!!

On March 23 2021 10:02 Jealous wrote:
Yes, the friends list is buggy, but the biggest obstacle is if you add someone who connected through a different Gateway (Europe, Americas, Asia). You can't see them if they are not on the same Gateway as you.


Ahhh im on asia gateway that explains everything. Thanks man!
DANCE ALL DAY
Cygnus
Profile Joined February 2004
United States845 Posts
March 23 2021 04:26 GMT
#5
Welcome back boomer!

Seeing your name brings back memories of the "RWA" days! Good times!

I've thought about giving BW a try again but your write up hardly instills confidence in me. Might stay in my SC2 safe space. xD

While I haven't played in ages I've found myself watching it a bit recently, amazing how well it still holds up.

LOL@Python shout out!
GroT
Profile Blog Joined January 2004
Belgium3003 Posts
March 23 2021 11:43 GMT
#6
Hahahaha yeah You totally should try it out though! I'm obviously having fun or I wouldn't have ended up playing 100 games instead of 3

The matchmaking system gets a lot of hate but I actually think it's pretty great and does a good job of getting you games that are closely matched which is really where the fun is at.

I would only really be worried for people who never played bw before and have to start from 0 now. I was matched up against an unranked player once who had 50 (!) apm, didnt make workers, made some cannons in front of my 3rd and died and I think he will just quit the game after a few losses and never find out how interesting it is...
DANCE ALL DAY
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland25073 Posts
Last Edited: 2021-03-23 12:40:42
March 23 2021 12:40 GMT
#7
Yeah I have zero idea how a legitimately new player can come to BW these days.

Good write up, really must get trying BW again one of these days before I’m too old!
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
Cryoc
Profile Joined July 2011
Germany909 Posts
March 23 2021 17:04 GMT
#8
Interesting perspective. Don't worry about not being maxed out as quickly as theoretically possible. Players, who can max out at13min are probably already A rank or better. Simply having decent macro is a big part of why they are A.
http://www.twitch.tv/cryoc
HaruHaru
Profile Blog Joined November 2009
United States988 Posts
March 24 2021 19:43 GMT
#9
Nice post, I mainly just okay 3v3 bgh but may try my hands at ladder
Long live BroodWar!
rel
Profile Blog Joined January 2005
Guam3521 Posts
March 25 2021 06:15 GMT
#10
Signed in just to say that GroT is RWA legend!!! Nostalgia hitting hard. Nice to hear from you, and see the rekindling of your bw spirit.
I'll tank push my way into her heart. ☮♥&$!
.gypsy
Profile Blog Joined October 2007
Canada689 Posts
March 26 2021 07:28 GMT
#11
Enjoyed reading your blog, keep at it good sir
https://www.twitch.tv/gypsy93
pebble444
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
Italy2497 Posts
March 26 2021 14:27 GMT
#12
that was a very enjoyable story, thank you for sharing; i' ve been getting into Halo, having a blast
"Awaken my Child, and embrace the Glory that is your Birthright"
GroT
Profile Blog Joined January 2004
Belgium3003 Posts
March 26 2021 20:24 GMT
#13
thx guys <3
DANCE ALL DAY
Jathin
Profile Blog Joined February 2005
United States3505 Posts
Last Edited: 2021-10-10 19:24:11
March 27 2021 23:42 GMT
#14
--- Nuked ---
Jathin
Profile Blog Joined February 2005
United States3505 Posts
March 27 2021 23:56 GMT
#15
--- Nuked ---
GroT
Profile Blog Joined January 2004
Belgium3003 Posts
March 28 2021 06:02 GMT
#16
Jathin I desperately want to & need to but I'm retarded and don't understand how - am I supposed to switch servers somewhere?
DANCE ALL DAY
GroT
Profile Blog Joined January 2004
Belgium3003 Posts
March 28 2021 06:04 GMT
#17
ah ok u can change it on battle.net client... you guys are on americas server?
DANCE ALL DAY
Jathin
Profile Blog Joined February 2005
United States3505 Posts
March 28 2021 12:44 GMT
#18
--- Nuked ---
GroT
Profile Blog Joined January 2004
Belgium3003 Posts
March 29 2021 00:16 GMT
#19
hahahaha :D spending lots of time in offices?
DANCE ALL DAY
Jathin
Profile Blog Joined February 2005
United States3505 Posts
March 29 2021 22:35 GMT
#20
--- Nuked ---
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