Some players have very fragile mentalities that are easily disrupted. A tilted player is easier to defeat. Many of these players are so called scrubs. A scrub is a player who makes excuses for his losses (glossary.infil.net). It's easy to identify this weakness, but how can we exploit it?
I have one idea: If you're playing a best of 5 and you're up a game, spend one game on a strategy that may or may not win, but that is very likely to tilt the opponent. For example: You're against Artosis and you're up a game, so you go carriers without robo, like Stork did against Light. Stuff like that.
My second idea is that, if you're ahead in a game and you know that you will win, instead of winning right away, pretend to be weak and drag the game out, making your opponent think that he has a chance.
Lower your apm, slow the game down, and play a tilting style that will piss the opponent off, sub optimally.
Throw away a carrier or two. Pretend you can't keep up and let your scourge chase his vessels to their death. If you have 8 full energy arbiters, mess up a recall attempt and pull a Jaehoon. This will make players like Artosis get angry at how much easier your race is, for you to be able to play that poorly and still win while not doing anything, setting you up for success in the next game in the series.
However, if an actual threat is presented, like an expansion attempt, you go tryhard for a while and shut it down. After that, it's back to sitting around and doing nothing. A plague here, some lings there, etc.
Of course, different scrubs get tilted by different things. Psychological warfare depends on the target to some extent. If I'm against someone who is prone to thinking that people maphack, I might hunt things in the darkness hoping to catch something, because I know that when I finally do, he'll get tilted. If I'm against someone who hates cheese, I might go for more of that, etc.
These ideas are ok, but what I really want is a way to cause mental damage in a best of 1 format.
Look at this, for example:
In fighting games, I can pretend to be bad by doing a bunch of silly stuff, some of which isn't even very risky to me, but then hit the opponent with a 100% serious tryhard meaty safejump crossup the next round. If I'm ahead on health, I can wake up with DP over and over like a fool, so that when we're both low on health and the round is coming down to one last mixup, I can wake up with overhead or walk up grab, when my opponent expects the reversal.
Is there a way to do that in StarCraft? What do you think? Do you have any other techniques for tilting scrubs? How can we exploit weak mentalities in StarCraft?
A related question: How can we appear weak, without actually weakening our position in the game?
Actual cheating like lagging on purpose is unacceptable, and I also find rude remarks to be distasteful. I want to win, but not while being too much of an asshole. Sure, I could bully someone before the match to make him feel bad, and that might help me win, but I don't want to do stuff like that. Other than the above, give me your ideas.
On December 02 2022 07:47 vOdToasT wrote: These ideas are ok, but what I really want is a way to cause mental damage in a best of 1 format.
Careful mate, you might get what you wish for.
You never know in what situation your average ladder-scrub is if he/she compulsively acts like he/she does. You might not know even if you know the person. I understand the urge, but I don't think these people should be game for the retributive sadism you describe. Just stomp them over and over, seems sweet enough.
edit: I'm not saying there is no place for it whatsoever. If you know the person can take it and they know what they're doing. In moderation to strangers who are really a pain in the ass. But I think the danger of abuse should be pointed out if you're talking about finding ways to tilt mentally weak people. You never know who might get inspired by this how-to.
On December 02 2022 07:47 vOdToasT wrote: These ideas are ok, but what I really want is a way to cause mental damage in a best of 1 format.
Careful mate, you might get what you wish for.
You never know in what situation your average ladder-scrub is if he/she compulsively acts like he/she does. You might not know even if you know the person. I understand the urge, but I don't think these people should be game for the retributive sadism you describe. Just stomp them over and over, seems sweet enough.
edit: I'm not saying there is no place for it whatsoever. If you know the person can take it and they know what they're doing. In moderation to strangers who are really a pain in the ass. But I think the danger of abuse should be pointed out if you're talking about finding ways to tilt mentally weak people. You never know who might get inspired by this how-to.
I only want to use it to win at StarCraft, because mentality is part of the game, and it's an exploitable weakness that I see in several players, some of whom are otherwise quite good. It's also a part of the game that I recognise that I have an advantage in, so I want to use it.
Can tilting someone at StarCraft also tilt him outside of StarCraft? I suppose it can, yeah, but I think limiting my actions to within the game (so no out of game remarks etc) is a reasonable standard that people should be able to deal with when they agree to play the game, especially considering that the only reason these tactics are effective, is because the people they're used on are themselves ruder than any of said tactics.
If they get depressed irl from losing at StarCraft, then that's more their fault than mine and they need to improve their psychology, more than their opponents need to baby step around their fragile egos.
How about a good 5 minutes of latency war - this can tilt even the strongest mentally players.
If I honestly disagree on what the latency should be, sure, I'll do this, but if the game is clearly playable on low and I keep setting it to extra high, then I am actually just sabotaging the game. The game is supposed to be like it is on a LAN. When it can be, but you prevent it from being that, then you're a saboteur. This behaviour is comparable to stream cheating, or looking at your opponent's monitor if you're playing in the same room, for the same reason: You're not supposed to see what your opponent sees in StarCraft.
On December 02 2022 07:47 vOdToasT wrote: Some players have very fragile mentalities that are easily disrupted. A tilted player is easier to defeat. [...] It's easy to identify this weakness, but how can we exploit it?
I dunno, when training or when playing "serious" games in leagues and such, my main goal was to win, not to troll. How would I know the weakness of anon-ladder players beforehand?
My second idea is that, if you're ahead in a game and you know that you will win, instead of winning right away, pretend to be weak and drag the game out, making your opponent think that he has a chance.
Are you serious or is this some meta post? What keeps you winning is playing better. Playing better means you end the game when you can, not whenever you like to do. If you are ahead, get more ahead.
If anything, people who got upset over me not leaving a quite bad game siutation got so pissed that they decided to "play mindgames" or whatever and did what you described. This way I was able to win a lot more games than I should have. Therefore, not tilting yourself is all you need to do.
I used to troll opponents when they wouldn't leave clearly lost ladder games. Not to abuse them mentally or tilt them but to show them they are wasting time and don't understand the flow of the game. Spending an extra 30+ minutes in a game that was decided in the first 5-10 minutes was always annoying.
Have your scouting worker be annoying af and then leave their base at <6 hp. Fake drops. Playing around giving false info in general. Buildng that one gimmick unit or using that one spell.
I think to have success with any of this already requires you to be the better player, so basically you're just trolling a bit. You're playing with your food rather than killing it and eating it. Which in the bigger picture ultimately stimulates a more toxic community imho. Do you really want that?
I can see extending the game and just mining out the map when you feel like attacking might throw the game. Otherwise it all seems unsportsmanlike and a waste of time staying in games you can easily end vs an obviously weaker opponent. Just 3-0 them and move on to next opponent. Not to mention weaker players will gain more confidence hanging in a game longer vs a better player than if you end it quickly.
I have personally tilted players who have also beaten me, so it's not as simple as this only working on weak opponents I never lose to anyway. I won't name any names (except for the one I already named, whom I have not actually played in tournaments), but the players I am considering are a threat to me, but also get tilted easily. One of them even demanded, in the middle of a finals, that I stream the final game because he was so certain that I maphacked. That's pretty tilted. I have lost to this player.
On December 05 2022 19:36 MineraIs wrote: Build hatcheries in their base.
That's more of a flex... kek
Jumperer Profile Blog PM Joined July 2005 United States1341 Posts December 03 2022 15:22 EET #11 if they play terran. just pick protoss.
So tru!
EndingLife Profile Blog PM Joined December 2002 United States1487 Posts December 02 2022 16:24 EET #7 I used to troll opponents when they wouldn't leave clearly lost ladder games. Not to abuse them mentally or tilt them but to show them they are wasting time and don't understand the flow of the game. Spending an extra 30+ minutes in a game that was decided in the first 5-10 minutes was always annoying.
Sounds like they were trying to tilt you. I ALWAYS stay as long as possible. The winning condition of the game is eliminating a player or them dropping out before you do... And a surprising number of people would leave prematurely to show their moral superiority in their mind. ^_._^
I have to say this can backfire if the person is in fight mode... Maybe tilting attempts will make them play at their absolute best when they intended to play casually.
While this is not enforced AT ALL to my knowledge all kinds of verbal abuse are against Blizz's code of conduct:
A lot of new branch strategies - mental strategies - would be used
my favourite list:
-Direct scout with probe -Fake drop with zerg -Fake exp version simple (build outside, or accumulate 300 while you kill enemy scout) -Fake exp sending probes -Mind control dark archon, nobody wants to be stolen specially speed shuttle (you steal upgrades too) -Show fake arbiter and send very fast into terran base, then you stasis his ramp, prison break mode -Stasis scvs --> send message "im stronger than you"
well, the background is not to tilt the enemy just play with their minds
@ IvaNioX_twitch - Add fake cannon rush vs 12 hatch expand from zerg. As long as the zerg is going 12h and hasn't scouted you, you can fake cannon rush to force a drone pull. You don't even have to make the pylon behind the hatchery as the zerg player won't see it either way if the hatchery isn't complete. I liked doing this with 9gate instead of forge fe as zergs economy would be especially shit while you non stop pressure with zealots. This strategy worked at every rank and forced a drone pull almost every time I tried it. At lower ranks, you'll NEED to 'accidentally' attack the hatchery with your probe to ensure the opponent gets the attack ping and sees the probe going behind his expansion hatchery.
On December 02 2022 07:47 vOdToasT wrote: Some players have very fragile mentalities that are easily disrupted. A tilted player is easier to defeat. Many of these players are so called scrubs. A scrub is a player who makes excuses for his losses (glossary.infil.net). It's easy to identify this weakness, but how can we exploit it?
I have one idea: If you're playing a best of 5 and you're up a game, spend one game on a strategy that may or may not win, but that is very likely to tilt the opponent. For example: You're against Artosis and you're up a game, so you go carriers without robo, like Stork did against Light. Stuff like that.
My second idea is that, if you're ahead in a game and you know that you will win, instead of winning right away, pretend to be weak and drag the game out, making your opponent think that he has a chance.
Lower your apm, slow the game down, and play a tilting style that will piss the opponent off, sub optimally.
Throw away a carrier or two. Pretend you can't keep up and let your scourge chase his vessels to their death. If you have 8 full energy arbiters, mess up a recall attempt and pull a Jaehoon. This will make players like Artosis get angry at how much easier your race is, for you to be able to play that poorly and still win while not doing anything, setting you up for success in the next game in the series.
However, if an actual threat is presented, like an expansion attempt, you go tryhard for a while and shut it down. After that, it's back to sitting around and doing nothing. A plague here, some lings there, etc.
Of course, different scrubs get tilted by different things. Psychological warfare depends on the target to some extent. If I'm against someone who is prone to thinking that people maphack, I might hunt things in the darkness hoping to catch something, because I know that when I finally do, he'll get tilted. If I'm against someone who hates cheese, I might go for more of that, etc.
These ideas are ok, but what I really want is a way to cause mental damage in a best of 1 format.
In fighting games, I can pretend to be bad by doing a bunch of silly stuff, some of which isn't even very risky to me, but then hit the opponent with a 100% serious tryhard meaty safejump crossup the next round. If I'm ahead on health, I can wake up with DP over and over like a fool, so that when we're both low on health and the round is coming down to one last mixup, I can wake up with overhead or walk up grab, when my opponent expects the reversal.
Is there a way to do that in StarCraft? What do you think? Do you have any other techniques for tilting scrubs? How can we exploit weak mentalities in StarCraft?
A related question: How can we appear weak, without actually weakening our position in the game?
Actual cheating like lagging on purpose is unacceptable, and I also find rude remarks to be distasteful. I want to win, but not while being too much of an asshole. Sure, I could bully someone before the match to make him feel bad, and that might help me win, but I don't want to do stuff like that. Other than the above, give me your ideas.
Recognizing that the game is flawed is not being weak mentally though? It’s just being adult and annoyed that the game you love could be much better but is not, thus that you are kinda wasting your precious time playing it. Your psychological tactics make sense in competitions since being abusive might help you win (depending on your opponent), but in training it’s a complete waste of time imo -> you can shadow do it so you don’t have to trigger random people on purpose.
In Halo 2 competitive era, there was a highly gifted player named Naded (iirc, might be another one, gotta find the video later on and link it to you if you are interested in the PoV of his opponent) that was destroying everyone in practice. Team CarboN was strong at the time but not necessarily top 1 during this particular tournament, and they managed to completely destroy his mental by shouting (it’s an FPS lan so people hear you, at least back then they did) « oh Naded is dead we have a shot! » « oh no Naded killed us he is too good » and stuff like that. That crushed his confidence and he performed sub optimally.
On the other hand, I think they tried on another player StrongSide who was a former teammate, but since he was a big adderall addict he didn’t talk much even to his teammates and was oblivious to any form of trash talk around him. Therefore, they stopped doing this tactic as he was focus on pure slaying (because of adderall making him tunnel vision) so it was pointless. But I wouldn’t say that he had a strong mentality, since he was useless to his former team being not talkative enough.
His new team Final Boss had the OGRE twins and Walshy the clutch captain, so since the OGRE brothers were the whole package and could play top tier in any role -> main slayer, secondary slayer, support, objective, whatever. They adapted their gameplay to be able to let StrongSide slay without talking, and managed to dominate Halo 2 once again.
On December 02 2022 07:47 vOdToasT wrote: Some players have very fragile mentalities that are easily disrupted. A tilted player is easier to defeat. Many of these players are so called scrubs. A scrub is a player who makes excuses for his losses (glossary.infil.net). It's easy to identify this weakness, but how can we exploit it?
I have one idea: If you're playing a best of 5 and you're up a game, spend one game on a strategy that may or may not win, but that is very likely to tilt the opponent. For example: You're against Artosis and you're up a game, so you go carriers without robo, like Stork did against Light. Stuff like that.
My second idea is that, if you're ahead in a game and you know that you will win, instead of winning right away, pretend to be weak and drag the game out, making your opponent think that he has a chance.
Lower your apm, slow the game down, and play a tilting style that will piss the opponent off, sub optimally.
Throw away a carrier or two. Pretend you can't keep up and let your scourge chase his vessels to their death. If you have 8 full energy arbiters, mess up a recall attempt and pull a Jaehoon. This will make players like Artosis get angry at how much easier your race is, for you to be able to play that poorly and still win while not doing anything, setting you up for success in the next game in the series.
However, if an actual threat is presented, like an expansion attempt, you go tryhard for a while and shut it down. After that, it's back to sitting around and doing nothing. A plague here, some lings there, etc.
Of course, different scrubs get tilted by different things. Psychological warfare depends on the target to some extent. If I'm against someone who is prone to thinking that people maphack, I might hunt things in the darkness hoping to catch something, because I know that when I finally do, he'll get tilted. If I'm against someone who hates cheese, I might go for more of that, etc.
These ideas are ok, but what I really want is a way to cause mental damage in a best of 1 format.
In fighting games, I can pretend to be bad by doing a bunch of silly stuff, some of which isn't even very risky to me, but then hit the opponent with a 100% serious tryhard meaty safejump crossup the next round. If I'm ahead on health, I can wake up with DP over and over like a fool, so that when we're both low on health and the round is coming down to one last mixup, I can wake up with overhead or walk up grab, when my opponent expects the reversal.
Is there a way to do that in StarCraft? What do you think? Do you have any other techniques for tilting scrubs? How can we exploit weak mentalities in StarCraft?
A related question: How can we appear weak, without actually weakening our position in the game?
Actual cheating like lagging on purpose is unacceptable, and I also find rude remarks to be distasteful. I want to win, but not while being too much of an asshole. Sure, I could bully someone before the match to make him feel bad, and that might help me win, but I don't want to do stuff like that. Other than the above, give me your ideas.
Recognizing that the game is flawed is not being weak mentally though? It’s just being adult and annoyed that the game you love could be much better but is not, thus that you are kinda wasting your precious time playing it. Your psychological tactics make sense in competitions since being abusive might help you win (depending on your opponent), but in training it’s a complete waste of time imo -> you can shadow do it so you don’t have to trigger random people on purpose.
When did I imply that recognizing flaws is mental weakness? I recognise flaws and I don't get tilted by the game.
I never said I'd do it in training. I specifically mentioned tournament sets. I would obviously never train with someone who berates me for beating them in a particular way, or accuses me of cheating, and neither would such a player train with me.
I actually use this tilting strategy vs fish Poker players on pokerstars. I throw emotes at em non stop when they have to act, after a few rounds they usually shove Bluff to my value 3bet and I profit, is very successfull imo...
Never used tilt strats in bw, cause I was mentally weak myself specially pvz, good zerg players roflstomped me every time with his tilting shit,9p speed runby into 2h mutas and stuff like that... I recall very vividly a 5pool that Castro pulled on me in the 1st game of a bo5 series, even tho I won that game, that shit threw me off for the rest of the series... Rip castro
btw, Ivaniox is the king of the tilting shit, seriously, he made like 3 or 4 dM players retire after practice vs him, i remember this crazy af game on a weird ass map that ivan played vs a very solid protoss named NgNear, aka apm150, ngnear had the game won for like 40 minutes, ivan keep ninja expanding and cannoning up, finally after like 1hour long game, ivan came out with like 10+ +3 attack carriers from an island LOL...NgNear went into a 3 months break after that game... i recall models also retiring after playing vs Ivan in STPL... mother fucker is a legend
EPT
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