As many of you know, there's been a lot of fairly heated debate (though sometimes just heated air) about the play of TSL_Rain, particularly in his series against Nestea. On one side, people decried Rain as a poor player relying on all-ins and luck who sucked out several better players to the top. Others have contested that Rain found a weakness in Nestea's play and played to win, noting that a strategy is a strategy and that if Nestea was the better player he should have stopped the rush. This was sadly accompanied by typical balance whines, counter whines, accusations of bronze league play, etc.
That's a bad way to make any point.
Personally, I think SCBW and SC2 are games of decision making, and longer games allow for more decisions and more interesting play. Hence I prefer more macro-oriented styles, and am kind of put off when a series is mostly comprised of rushes or all-ins. I was displeased with the Rain/Nestea series as a fan, but not out of hate for rain, terran players, or something like that. I just didn't like the games. It happens. I would probably skip a Rain vs. BitbybitPrime best of 9.
That really should be the end of it.
Other people were much more offended. They called Rain terrible, were profane and generally awful. Of course, people who thought Rain was doing what he needed to win (a valid point, even if as a fan I disagree) were often just as rude to the initial posters and zealous in their desire to counter-post and mock people.
It was sad to see all this happen. Snark here and there is funny. InControl is hilarious on state o the game, in part due to his rants and faux bad-manner. But people really go too far in their internet dick-measuring contests sometimes instead of sitting back, thinking about how two different points can have their merits, and respectfully disagreeing. People often talk about how awesome the community is for this game. I bet all of you on some level enjoy SC2 because of how inviting and interactive players and fans are. A community like that, however, requires respect, and we should keep that in mind when getting in a debate.
Yes, it's the internet. People are awful on the internet. That's what mods are for. Please, don't be part of the problem. Debates are great, flame wars are terrible.
*This was kind of heavy handed, so here's a picture of a cute bunny to lighten things up
It's the bunny of peace On a more serious note, what did you expect? It's the Internet. On the Internet everybody has an opinion, and theirs is always the correct one. While the Internet is huge, most people on it are narrow minded....
But hey, whatever. Cheese games are just as valid as long macro games. And I don't believe it's easy to pull a cheese against a progamer, so I'd say if you win with it, go for it. And it won't be a viable strategy to winning a tournament, as once you cheese once, other players will be ready for it, so you'll probably fail in the next few rounds anyway.
TLTR: Agree, I don't get what all the noise is about.
i feel cheese and all in builds are something that we will see less and less of over time because when everything is balanced and the players are of similar skills, those sorts of attacks have low success rates. Builds that get called safe are called safe for a reason. reactionary macro play is ultimately what will come out on come, so when people are allining all over the place it feels like bad play, because it is. Those builds have no long term success. they are also no fun to watch. I just wish players would do basically what Jinro has done, which is practice strong safe builds, reacting to the info he gathers, rather than allining all the time.
OK guys I feel like I should start posting, I've been lurking the forums for a while.
I can't see the obsession of people calling early game tactics "cheese" or even more, disliking them. I come from a different planet of gaming called DotA (8 years player) where it's quite the opposite: There is a general hate towards turtling/farming because its mostly boring. Early game is quite important and it's what usually decides the flow of the game. That goes for most strategy games SC2, DotA, chess....[..] hell even backgammon!
I can understand though if you hate the poor show of a "cheese-attack" which for me is not poor at all. Take for example Rain's SCV all-in today: it was 7-8 marines microing against 3-5 stalkers. I loved that! It was intense and breathtaking! What's the difference seeing 8v8 units and seeing 50v50 units?
TL;DR= Since when is it lame to early attack at SC2? and why is it not lame to tech/expand? ..... Moreover, when trying to tech/expand without building the right defenses and eventually losing why is it OK to whine? Who defines what is lame and what is not? Anyone played DotA before? It's the equivalent to getting all +dmg items to farm and not getting boots - You are bound to lose and you should give opponent ALL the respect for winning you.
I'd counter that a long, macro game does not require turtling up and not attacking. Indeed, harass, timing pushes, early pressure and the like can be quite awesome. The difference is the overall plan. If someone pushes out with 6 blink stalkers while expanding or chronoboosting probes, I consider that pretty great. Blink micro is exciting, and the use of the attack isn't only damage but also containment to protect the expo. Early pressure is something people plan for, and the pros have counter builds and contingencies built into their overall game plan.
This particular debate was born out of the perceived reliance of the all-in/rush. For many, it felt as though the other features of planning and timings were denied by a build which is either crushed in gg or a instance lost. While that doesn't account for all the rushes (indeed, Rain's rushes weren't always all-in), it does help explain why Broodwar fans might not enjoy those games. Timings in broodwar were well developed; they were constantly interesting and fun, and there were lots of minor battles, harass, and large clashes over the course of one game. That dynamic is lacking in all-in rushes, and some people really miss those. You many prefer a more aggressive, in your face style, but I'd posit that as the game develops you'll get that and more without a reliance on all-ins. Time will tell.
Again, this is not at all to say Rain is bad. He's quite good. It's only to say that a style that many crave seems to be missing.
On December 09 2010 22:37 AfouToPatisa wrote: OK guys I feel like I should start posting, I've been lurking the forums for a while.
I can't see the obsession of people calling early game tactics "cheese" or even more, disliking them. I come from a different planet of gaming called DotA (8 years player) where it's quite the opposite: There is a general hate towards turtling/farming because its mostly boring. Early game is quite important and it's what usually decides the flow of the game. That goes for most strategy games SC2, DotA, chess....[..] hell even backgammon!
I can understand though if you hate the poor show of a "cheese-attack" which for me is not poor at all. Take for example Rain's SCV all-in today: it was 7-8 marines microing against 3-5 stalkers. I loved that! It was intense and breathtaking! What's the difference seeing 8v8 units and seeing 50v50 units?
TL;DR= Since when is it lame to early attack at SC2? and why is it not lame to tech/expand? ..... Moreover, when trying to tech/expand without building the right defenses and eventually losing why is it OK to whine? Who defines what is lame and what is not? Anyone played DotA before? It's the equivalent to getting all +dmg items to farm and not getting boots - You are bound to lose and you should give opponent ALL the respect for winning you.
Your misconception is the misconception that people hate cheese.
It's a legit part of the game for sure, but when it consists of 75%+ of the total games played, something is terribly wrong.
I think the huge majority of us enjoy a 'complete game' as opposed to anything else. A lot of people are associating macro with turtling, but this isn't some bronze league turtle terran situation with no harass and just a giant ball 1a move once everyone is maxed. You (usually) get to see much more of the complexities in longer matches than a lot of the 'cheese' sets.
No one can be blamed for cheesing on Delta, Steppes, or Blistering. The worst thing that happened to the GSL this season was removing the veto of such terrible maps.
On December 09 2010 22:56 FOUTWENTYSIXTY wrote: It's the maps.
No one can be blamed for cheesing on Delta, Steppes, or Blistering. The worst thing that happened to the GSL this season was removing the veto of such terrible maps.
I hear this a lot, but without much explanation. Could you maybe elaborate?
Rain is not terrible. People do all-ins because they are strong. Don't blame the player, blame the game. Weaken all-ins, and the number of all-in-ers will fall.
Reason why people are against rushes/all-ins? Simple. It takes less skill to rush/all-in than it takes to macro. "Oh foxer is so good, foxers micro is so baller" Pooi! A player like MVP can micro just as good and play pass the MMM all-in phase of the game. People don't want to see a less skilled player beat a better player. Eg, Ret, Haypro and Nestea losing.
Also, all-ins are also much much much much much much less entertaining to watch compared to macro games. Rain vs NesTea or Cliiiiide vs Leenock.
On December 09 2010 22:56 FOUTWENTYSIXTY wrote: It's the maps.
No one can be blamed for cheesing on Delta, Steppes, or Blistering. The worst thing that happened to the GSL this season was removing the veto of such terrible maps.
I hear this a lot, but without much explanation. Could you maybe elaborate?
Those maps are so small and rush distance so short that doing anything OTHER than making a huge army is extremely dangerous.
Couple that with the fact that every race has very scary units once they tech up to them (Banshees, Mutalisks, Colossi) and you have all the ingredients of a cock-tail game where you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't, you might as well just cheese and get it over with.
On the cheese-hating argument, I think IdrA hit the nail on the head with his Artosis interview posted earlier today. The game favors cheese right now. There is no way to play past it. Cheese in general is just so strong, everything else is optional. You can end any game in the first 5 minutes and have a 50%+ win rate out of the deal, the only race that can shut cheese down right now is Terran. Something needs to be done balance wise to make anti-cheese stronger in general (probably buffing static defenses) if we want to see macro play on a regular basis.
I'm trying to learn to control myself and be easy on stuff mentioned in OP. But its damn hard sometimes.
Most of posters here are nerds. Nerds typically a little socially-awkward and have experienced some unfairness in their life, they become touchy/sensitive about this. When something unfair happens their defense mode activates and they start complaining/raging/whining about it. Thats what I think is the problem.
I don't blame players for cheesing. Its definitely game-design issue. And I don't like it. That's all I can tell.
a lot of RTS games have some sort of "cheese" or Timing Attack as a way to punish a player who go for expanding very early, but if they were to hold it off at the same time, they'd have a major advantage 5 minutes later
if they weren't in the game, a lot of people would probably blindly expand early
I hear this a lot, but without much explanation. Could you maybe elaborate?
Let's be charitable and say that certain maps are badly designed relative to professional maps in Brood War. On these maps it is more difficult to hold an expansion than to play a purely one base game. Since these maps can't be removed a higher percentage of players who prefer one base play have come through the tournament and a higher percentage of macro orientated players have gone out.
This has meant a higher percentage of protoss going through since they naturally benefit from games being decided by 4 gates or fast voids or hidden tech. It has also meant that one base all in terrans have done well. Zerg who were asked to qualify on Metal, Xel' Naga and Scrap, suddenly walk into maps that punish any kind of expansion.
So you end up with no Zerg, a disproportionate amount of Protoss, and the worst kind of terrans. And Jinro, but Jinro is awesome.
As long as the GSL is on Blizzard maps, and especially if it's on all the Blizzard maps we can't expect a professional level tournament.
Here's the bottom line for me, in a bo5 or bo7 you need to switch it up sometimes with all-in builds because it's an important part of being an intelligent competitor. On the other hand, when someone does nothing but all-in builds then they are being extremely risky and as a result are not being a smart competitor. That's about it.
Remember this game is still relatively new, and these all-in/cheesy builds are still being figured out. Once things settle down then methods to counter these builds will become well established. If there's an all-in that turns out to be too powerful I would imagine that it'll eventually get patched.
Most of posters here are nerds. Nerds typically a little socially-awkward and have experienced some unfairness in their life, they become touchy/sensitive about this. When something unfair happens their defense mode activates and they start complaining/raging/whining about it. Thats what I think is the problem.
I don't think that accounts for everybody. I'm a huge nerd (psych grad student who loves stats and methodology) who can be kind of weird and has very much had my share of unfairness. But overall I try to see people as people, not as abstracted opponents or obstacles. I understand frustration, totally, but there are times where this is just silly. All-ins vs. not all-ins isn't someone cutting you off in traffic where your adrenaline is pumping; it's another person on their at 4:30am who thinks differently about a video game. People can be insecure sometimes, but a 5 second pause would make all the difference and as a community we should really encourage that pause.
As long as the GSL is on Blizzard maps, and especially if it's on all the Blizzard maps we can't expect a professional level tournament.
Would a solution to this be for the GSL to post a map pool in advance and let people practice? Or does the lack of LAN support make that impossible? I worry that with battlenet being the only way to create games, tournaments are kind of stuck using blizzard maps since getting players the maps in time for them to plan strats on them is a bit prohibitive.
Maybe someone at blizzard will address this someday.
While I think people should be worried about the fact that there are so many cheese/all-in builds that are working at a high level, I don't think it's fair to lash out at Rain. I'm a firm believer in playing to win, and if that means cheesing and all-ins, then so be it.
If the game doesn't evolve and people don't figure out ways of defeating these things, then obviously something should be done about it- but I think it was wrong of rain to apologize. Play to win, if the opponent can't get over the all-in, why stop doing it?
http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/ <--- highly recommended to everyone that thinks cheesing is unfair/cheap/would never use it
people just didn't figured out how to properly deal with allins (totally the wrong word for it but oh well). Well because of the short maps and the super fast zerg units and the warp in system for toss. Its really hard to stop these early attacks, because the stream isn't going to slow down. terran uses his workers as a replacement for the instant there units.
And if you prepare for an early push the opponent can simply play macro rocket, because its really easy to sky rocket away in macro.
People prefer this open battle thingie in sc2, because its so much easier then a macro game filled with harassment, because its so easy to get vision everywhere and stopping harassment is ultra easy.
Also there is this trend where one race says we can't win a macro game against this race. Making people to frustrated to even try something new. (maybe also because if we cry enough we are getting buffed by blizzard) Well in my opionion zerg was pretty fine with the old roaches, because they were not working that well late game anymore, now they work perfectly fine lategame and became a trade your army cost effectiv against the opponent unit. (well people have another opinion on that and i am aware of it, my experience were different though) But because the zergs didn't even tryed something new except a few, blizzard patched something and the people started to play without this i am underpowered stuff. And soon it was zerg is op can't win a macro game against them. I think if this patching because one side cryes and doesn't try something new will continue, its even pretty hopeless to try and make balanced maps.
I will just go with the flavor of the month tactic after blizzard patched a unit thingie, because it will probably go on for a few more years. And i saw some entertaining matches until now. But ended up prefering vods or whatching casters i like. Since Live games can become really not worth watching.
Part of the difference stems from the stalker and dragoons being very different units now. In BW (according to liquipedia) marines had range 4, upgradeable to 5. Dragoons had range 4, upgradeable to 6. As such, it made it very easier to kite marines if you were upgraded and they weren't.
After seeing that, my comment to blizz is "Give me back my shield battery darn it!"
My preference is to play macrotoss and my pet peeve is when a zerg decides after scouting my FE, rather than get into a macro game switches gears into a 2 hatch speedling / baneling all in. (Hard to scout too b/c they just kill all your scouts w/ speedlings)
Unfortunately, except with Terran and in mirror matches, there's really so little of an in base advantage. Proxy pylons / warp in neutralizes much of an in base advantage versus toss, and MM balls are so efficient that they can just stutter step you to death while waiting for reinforcements to come in. Plus the high building killing DPS means that bases just don't last very long anymore. The high burst damage of mauraders or roaches makes mismicroing against them very punished. For base defense, Protoss lost one of their greatest defensive mechanics between SC:BW and SC2: the shield battery. The shield battery enabled a lot of protoss units to be incredibly more efficient simply because they could retreat, recharge and come back to fight again. Defending against a roach allin for example would be quite different if you could retreat your stalkers and recharge half their life.
I'm only 1900 diamond, so I'm not qualified to suggest how to fix the all inning problem. Certainly the maps make a difference: less all-ins on Jungle Basin / Shakuras / LT / Metal and more on Steppes / DQ. I do hope that the additional mechanics they bring in in HotS and LotV tend to encourage more macromanagement play rather than 1 base all inning.
I don;t understand why people are making such a big deal about this. Boxer was praised for his creative all-in and micro heavy builds, yet Rain is being torn apart for it. Yeah I do hate the 1900 stage of ladder because you play people who mostly all-in or cheese but it is still part of the game. Any game will go through this in the early stages, but once people figure out builds that allow an economic advantage while protecting from cheese, the game will move into macro mode.
Blizzard patching the game is pointless, Terran before Boxer is the same Terran Flash uses.
If the game needs to be patched to be a real game than why are people playing hundred thousand dollar tournaments over it.
If GSL use a professional quality map pool and after six months Zerg win every match or Cheese is still as rampant I'll eat a whole crow but constantly patching a perfectly fine game around how professionals play maps designed for amateurs is an amazingly poor way of continuing for professional and amateurs alike.
Something to consider is that Rain admitted to not really practicing his TvZ before his set with Nestea. While he said there were personal reasons, the fact that he brought it up added some fuel to the fire. I think there was a case to be made that he was under prepared and thus used the early aggression, which even talented zergs admit can be a coin flip for them (meaning sometimes they hold and sometimes they don't despite having a 'counter' plan for it), as a crutch. Granted, there is a case to be made that Nestea could ahve done more, but the worry remains that the marine/scv bunker rush is simply too easy to execute given the difficulty in defending.
As an unskilled player, I can't really speak to that. But that seems to be a sentiment shared by many across skill levels (idra and ret would agree to an extent, maybe?). I dunno. My impression.
As for why this is a big deal; it really shouldn't be for many of us. Fans have opinions of what they want to see. It's like getting mad that your favorite tv sucked for an episode. Programers, on the other hand, have more at stake.
Just wanna state, to those who say: 'LoL, Nestea and HongUn should have defended well, Rain did everything to win. It's not his fault... etc'
We are not discussing whether cheese was justified or not, whether its imbalanced or not. Lets be honest, cheese is horrible to watch, especially when it wins games. It makes games less entertaining and its bad for SC2 viewership, which basically means it will fail as competitive esports. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't say completely eliminate cheeses. Its ok to have them here and there. But cheese needs to involve high risk and easily countered if scouted.
On December 09 2010 22:37 AfouToPatisa wrote: OK guys I feel like I should start posting, I've been lurking the forums for a while.
I can't see the obsession of people calling early game tactics "cheese" or even more, disliking them. I come from a different planet of gaming called DotA (8 years player) where it's quite the opposite: There is a general hate towards turtling/farming because its mostly boring. Early game is quite important and it's what usually decides the flow of the game. That goes for most strategy games SC2, DotA, chess....[..] hell even backgammon!
I can understand though if you hate the poor show of a "cheese-attack" which for me is not poor at all. Take for example Rain's SCV all-in today: it was 7-8 marines microing against 3-5 stalkers. I loved that! It was intense and breathtaking! What's the difference seeing 8v8 units and seeing 50v50 units?
TL;DR= Since when is it lame to early attack at SC2? and why is it not lame to tech/expand? ..... Moreover, when trying to tech/expand without building the right defenses and eventually losing why is it OK to whine? Who defines what is lame and what is not? Anyone played DotA before? It's the equivalent to getting all +dmg items to farm and not getting boots - You are bound to lose and you should give opponent ALL the respect for winning you.
Your misconception is the misconception that people hate cheese.
It's a legit part of the game for sure, but when it consists of 75%+ of the total games played, something is terribly wrong.
No, people do hate cheese. There are some who hate that it's so frequent but some people just hate it no matter the situation.
ie. guy above me lol
On December 09 2010 23:52 bokeevboke wrote: Just wanna state, to those who say: 'LoL, Nestea and HongUn should have defended well, Rain did everything to win. It's not his fault... etc'
We are not discussing whether cheese was justified or not, whether its imbalanced or not. Lets be honest, cheese is horrible to watch, especially when it wins games. It makes games less entertaining and its bad for SC2 viewership, which basically means it will fail as competitive esports. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't say completely eliminate cheeses. Its ok to have them here and there. But cheese needs to involve high risk and easily countered if scouted.
Sorry, but I hate it when people speak for others when they don't. I don't hate cheese, I think it's very entertaining. WHAT NOW
These players who perform well in tournaments by cheesy/all-in play should, if anything, be praised for their ability to adapt to the new game that is SC2. I find that macro-oriented SC2 players who were known Brood War players are too often labeled "better SC2 players" even if they perform worse in SC2 tournaments.
It seems that the macro-oriented players are labeled "better SC2 players" because their playstyle more closely resembles what tended to win games in Brood War.
I agree that too much cheese isn't fun to watch. I also agree that cheesy play is significantly easier to execute that macro-oriented play. The blame here should go to Blizzard, not to players who play to win.
On December 09 2010 23:08 nalgene wrote: you kinda need to "cheese" them or Timing Attack them once in awhile or they'd FE every time to keep them in check
No more shield battery. =( In all honesty I think that was the anti-cheese building for Protoss. Of course Terran never had an infantry unit that beat a gateway unit straight up...on that note the reason Protoss have a bit of trouble holding off cheeses is because they don't have the Dragoon anymore.
It may sound silly and almost imbalanced, but there is no Terran or Zerg unit that beats a Dragoon 1v1 except for Battlecruisers, Ultralisk, and I think Guardian (?). The same can be said of the Zealot I think, but more so the Dragoon. Although it seems weird to have a unit that beats everything 1v1, Protoss needs it for balance because of the relatively low unit count.
Note: I know that some Terran units can beat a Dragoon 1v1, but hey require micro (vulture) or high ground advantage (tank).
Okay, so you saw a discussion about Rain doing all-ins to win. Then you decided "Wait, wait guys. Even though there's 44 pages of discussion about this, I will open my own thread summarizing how you should all act.
Why would you possibly do this? Why would you think this is a good idea?
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