Short Story: I'm new, I suck and I was placed in platinum because I can beat a cheese. Now I just lose a bunch, and the game is not fun at all for me. How do you enjoy the game while learning essential skills? Key point: I want to have fun. Spending 6 hours a day practicing macro against a very easy computer so I can have fun a month or so down the road is not my idea of fun now.
Long Story: I have had Starcraft for a very long time (since BW), but I just recently decided to start multiplayer. I got sick of rocks in practice league, so I decided to work on a solid opening and macro and then jump into some real games. I lost one of my placement matches to a legitimate player. I won the other four because they cheesed and my solid opening saved me. To my simultaneous surprise and dismay, I was in platinum.
I can beat cheeses, but I hate playing against them. I like to play real matches. The problem is that I can't win any games that go past my opening because I just don't have good macro or multitasking yet. But it's not that I don't want any challenge, it's that the game isn't fun for me. It's even less fun because all of my friends are afraid of Starcraft, so I'm flying solo.
I am so sick of losing every single game. I don't feel like I'm improving very much at all when I prolong a game by building a futile army, but at the same time I don't want to just give up every time my macro falls apart. Sure, practicing would help me stay in platinum eventually, but I started multiplayer because I just want to have fun now.
Is there any way to enjoy the game while learning the ropes?
I would really like any suggestions you have. Not just legit suggestions like "practice your macro with a buddy" or "Develop your own build order". There are no stupid answers, because I want silly, fun things to do. If you think I should play Toss and spell words with my zealots until I'm in bronze league, I'll try it.
Edit: My additional information got lost in a sea of responses, so here are two key points I want to add.
1. My friends did not buy Starcraft and then become scared. They just ARE scared. They all play console exclusively, as in I suggest a PC game and they scoff and go back to codbops. Starcraft is something that they never want to get in to, because all they think about is 400APM and losing to Koreans (obviously the only people who play Starcraft). I'm not giving up, but I literally do not know a single person who plays. Once again, I request proxy friends/2v2/3v3/4v4 partners if you are willing.
2. I am not proud of being the worst Platinum Starcraft player (until the placement system screws over the next one). The silver leaguer that beat me a while ago wouldn't stop sending me messages about how awful I am at this game. I'm sorry, but telling me to swallow my pride does not help me. Allow me to say that again. I am not proud of making it into platinum. My 7 loss streak will attest to that. Telling me that I need to let go of my connection to my rank will not benefit me, because no connection is there. If you have legit suggestions, carry on. If this is all you have to say to me, your concerns have been addressed. Thank you for your time.
Its extremely difficult to play this game and actually have a good time, unless you're playing team games with friends. As for 1v1 I don't think there is much fun to be had while learning.
All I play is 1v1 and by the end of the day I feel like going into baby punching mode, but yet I do it again the next day...
As the above said, playing this game and purely enjoying it is hard for many. I enjoy the feeling of tournaments however: it has the idea of it being legitimate, on the line and worthwhile, but also absolving all feelings of anger, frustration or resentment (especially when you go in knowing you won't possibly win and it's more of a carnival strength game -- seeing how far or high you can get).
I think just play 1v1, since youre new to ladder, your MMR should drop rapidly. Also playing against good opponents is good practice. And also save your replays and use sc2 gears to anaylze your stats, i think you would be surprised at your win %, when you feel shit, you will tend to notice your losses more.
Your best bet is to just spell things with your zealots until you get into silver. After just grind your way back up till you can play in platinum. Once you get a hang of the game and play more things will come easier over time and your skill will increase and you will have more fun.
Drop yourself to a league where you can have fun with someone of the equal skill level IMO.
Should take about a solid half hour to 45mins to drop ranks...
EDIT: OR... just play all your games out and still lose but improve in a way? (but then again LOSING is not fun, right ?)
practicing AI just got macro O.o? Eh I think you can just keep playing games and eventually you'll be playing people more your level?...Not sure if ladder works that way but ya.
attack all the time, expand every 5 minutes, work on a standard build order, mass your favorite unit, do some cheesy proxy building rush, play another race, invent your own build order, copy a build order you saw in a stream or replay, play customs, find a practice partner
choose one or more of the above. whatever you do, your win rate on ladder should converge to around 50%, so get used to that.
Starcraft is a tough game, I guess unlike most games that come out today. There's no instant gratification for the new player, it'll beat you down until you get good. You should know this by now.
Since you are in platinum already, maybe you are just being too hard on yourself? Platinum is by no means horrible.Try to take a more relaxed attitude to losing, while still trying to improve at the same time.
You could try practicing your multitasking + mechanics in team games as well, those are alot more relaxed.
This games not fun. If you want to have fun, Starcraft isn't for you. It's for people who want to live the dream of e-sports so if that's not your goal I personally don't know why you play it.
To answer your question though, if you want to improve watch a replay of a pro doing a "solid" opening, note the timings he gets things and try to mirror it in an empty game with yourself(create a game without an opponent and just hit return to game after you win). You'll see how far your shit is off. Keep trying to mirror that pro until you have it down. Note what he does after he gets past the opener safely and mirror it. That's the only way to improve in SC2, massing games does nothing if you have no direction or goal with it.
Team games with friends, customs, free for alls, etc. Anything that is pressure free. 1v1 can be demoralizing and unfun, but if you switch it up once in a while you'll enjoy yourself more.
I stick mainly to 1v1 but I think I've been improving lately and I'm enjoying seeing situations where I would have lost easily before become more and more manageable. For example, my PvT has been greatly improved because of more active scouting, better unit movement/control and other measures to stop medivac drops. Before this, PvT made me want to punch a wall. If you can pick apart your play and find one thing to improve on, you'll be less frustrated in games and enjoy them more.
In terms of having fun, the best thing I can suggest is to watch a bunch of SC2 casts, and find a playstyle that makes you say, "THAT looks like fun." If that means a race change or whatever, do it. Possibly the problem is the race/style you've been using just isn't for you.
That's where I would start, though, personally. Other than that, try some custom games, as mentioned. Phantoms is a really fun one you can try. Also, any of the various macro-oriented custom gametypes like Fastest Map Possible and Kulas Extreme are great for learning to macro, because they basically give you unlimited resources and the way you win is just by building more shit faster than anyone else.
The thing that always brings me back is playing in those casual lower-league tournaments that are going on all the time and getting a nice repertoire of casted games to look back on.
On June 29 2011 14:42 shadowboxer wrote: This games not fun. If you want to have fun, Starcraft isn't for you. It's for people who want to live the dream of e-sports so if that's not your goal I personally don't know why you play it.
I have a ton of fun playing Starcraft, yes even 1v1.
No other game can give me the satisfaction I get from a well executed macro game.
OP you suffer from the same problem I have . I got around it a few months by trying out the different races and different builds such as fast expands or spanishwa's build.
I gues try custom games but I've never done them (mainly due to the horrible interface)
I highly doubt you are losing more than 50% of your games. The match making will keep you around 50% win/lose unless your in the bottom league and are simple bad at the game. Your MMR will constantly change depending on who your beating or who your losing to. Then you will face people with similar skill level. You face worse people the more you lose but it evens out fast.
Playing people with the same skill level can one the best ways to get better but you have to play a decent amount and not be scared to lose half the games you play.
I'm sure you know how to get better at the game. Watching VODs, streams and replays slowly adding things to your game it just takes time. Gain skill and you will find enjoyment and satisfaction in that unless strategy games aren't for you.
On June 29 2011 14:42 shadowboxer wrote: This games not fun. If you want to have fun, Starcraft isn't for you. It's for people who want to live the dream of e-sports so if that's not your goal I personally don't know why you play it.
To answer your question though, if you want to improve watch a replay of a pro doing a "solid" opening, note the timings he gets things and try to mirror it in an empty game with yourself(create a game without an opponent and just hit return to game after you win). You'll see how far your shit is off. Keep trying to mirror that pro until you have it down. Note what he does after he gets past the opener safely and mirror it. That's the only way to improve in SC2, massing games does nothing if you have no direction or goal with it.
Swing and a miss. Playing a game to enjoy it and because it entertains you is not a possibility?
the system tried to make a statistical conclusion of your skill off only 5 placement matches. in statistics, at least 30 samples is usually required for a strong conclusion. basically, the system can't make very good predictions after only seeing you play for 5 games.
Since you lose mostly all of your recent games, you probably don't belong in platinum. yes you win the 6 minute games versus cheesy players, but your platinum opponents are probably beating you in anything past that.
i know you may be proud of a high starting rank, but dont let it give you a false ego where you fear getting demoted.
not all hope is lost, as the system knows its conclusion of platinum is a risky conclusion, and u will be properly re-categorized within enough games played. eventually, u and the ladder will get to a point where u win/lose 50/50.
Learn some 2-base all ins or some other long build olders, they are not so easy to execute but quick to learn (if you know what i mean). Also when when you see you have too much money, just throw multiple extra buildings down and queue alot of units, its not that much worse than playing correctly, but doing that you stedily learn
If you really did get placed higher than your actual skill you should just keep playing ladder. Your MMR will drop rather quickly and you should get replaced in a more appropriate league.
With regards to having fun while playing, I believe it is all in the mind. You need to learn not to get angry at your loses and think of each of the as a learning experience. Next time you face that tactic you will be a little bit better.
Its definitely hard for you to have fun in 1v1 if you aren't improving or striving to improve IMO. I would suggest playing customs or something else that is less stressful, then go back to 1v1s or get practice partners so you are above the skill for your league and have fun crushing the players in your league.
You should try "multitasking observers" on sc2 custom game list. Its a custom game where you have to manage a bunch of different things at the same time like keeping money low, macro energy ect ect.
I found it fun because of how stupid hard it was when I started, maybe thats just my sense of humor haha.
You could also learn cheeses that are fun like cannon rush, inbase hatch, marine scv all-ins. And just badmanner once you know you won.
You could also look around for practice partners, they can make the game fun. Some channels with lots of people I know of are "tangstarcraft", "starcraft 2 armory", and the zerg or protoss strategy channels.
On June 29 2011 14:36 Xova wrote: Its extremely difficult to play this game and actually have a good time, unless you're playing team games with friends. As for 1v1 I don't think there is much fun to be had while learning.
All I play is 1v1 and by the end of the day I feel like going into baby punching mode, but yet I do it again the next day...
The anger in losing vastly out weighs the fun of winning. When I win it's like, "cool, I played kind good that game" When I lose it's like "where's the razors"
Really reminds me of when I was a kid. I would get so pissed off, miss a jump in mario, die before a save point in FF, losing the playoffs in Blades of Steel (best hockey game ever) I would whip my controller at the wall, the tv, my sister. The console would come flying off the tv stand and land hard on the floor. Maybe that's why I had to blow in the cartridge or turn the power button on and off really fast till it worked again. Ya when I was a kid I had a temper when it came to video games.
I grew older, still playing video games, only the anger wasn't really there anymore.. if i died, whatevs, I would just hit continue from last save point and go my merry way, no throwing controllers anymore, consoles lasted longer, my sister wasn't afraid to come around the TV anymore.
I'm married now, have three kids.. still continue to play video games. Really only play SC2 now, anger has returned... controllers graduated to keyboards. consoles to usb ports, and my poor wife....
These are the things I'm looking for! I'm making a list to remind myself in game. Allow me to clarify a few things:
1. I don't mind losing. I can't find my W/L ratio and I never intend to do so. However, being beaten into the ground over and over again is not fun. My games don't end with "oh darn, he got the drop on me with that strat," they usually end with "I cannot keep up with him at all." Sure, it'll happen occasionally, and I understand that. But I don't think it should happen every single time.
2. I don't want to just quit games over and over. That makes me a quitter. Word zealots can still attack.
3. I understand that normal people aren't in happy mode when they are in the thick of an intense game. I just want more games to end with me actually meaning gg when I say it.
4. I know that customs aren't ranked, but preserving my ranking isn't exactly my highest priority right now.
And, if you're willing, I have a few more in-depth questions regarding some suggestions:
-My concern about tournaments is that the whole "seeing how far or high you can get" part will end up with me getting knocked out instantly. Should I wait a bit, or jump right in?
-How good of an opponent should I play? Right now I'm playing great opponents, but they're owning the crap out of me in absolutely 1-sided games. Should I just go with a gold practice partner or stick with platinum?
-I've heard a ton about how team matches don't help you get better at all. Is that really true, or is it just angry people being angry?
These suggestions are awesome! Please keep it up! (Especially anything crazy)
If you want to have fun, do some unorthodox builds and sneaky stuff. I find it quite fun to surprise your opponent and see him raging because you play cheesy
You can also play some 2v2 and 3v3 with friends on skype, it's a ton of fun.
If you are a competitor, you should have fun to get better in 1v1, think on how to get better, on strategies, etc. and reach your goals (Master, top Master, GM, etc.)
1v1 can be fun too, just seems as your veiw is a bit wrong when it comes to 1v1. Losing may not be the most fun at all, but seeing the improvements happening over time and how you yourself get higher and higher in skill is always really fun. At least for me.
We all get pissed when we get cheesed or something, or lose in general. I tend to be really pissed for a couple of seconds after a loss. But sounds like you just need to work on those basic stuff, scouting and getting a really safe opening down and follow up. Dont sit with the computer and train macro, it can work for small parts of it. But if you dont really think it's that fun sit on the ladder and train. + when you're training vs a computer your never afraid of somethng and often tend to focus hard on macro. Rather vs a player where you actually can sit worried about an allin and mabey focus more on your army movement or micro and miss stuff in your base or macro slip ups.
Get a practice partner, play more 1v1, it's darkest before the sun rises Or just watch casts/vods and just enjoy the game without playing it ^_____^
You could try playing certain customs - such as team monobattles. These are very fun, yet will (hopefully) give you some basic macro skills so you can be better in the long run .
If you find some friends to play 3v3 with, I think you will find your macro and mechanics end up improving a good deal after a while. There is much less pressure to win. Also, you will get to do the placement matches all over again, and if you are really concerned about being placed too high, just lose all your placement matches, and start with your friend(s) from the bronze. When my friends and I 3v3, I do dumb things like broodlord rush off one baes, or some other nonsense. Or sometimes I just practice my 1v1 build and don't care what the other team is doing. Either way, make sure you are on Skype or some sort of voice chat with your friends while playing, and don't take it too seriously. It will be lots of fun.
Everyone have difference taste in fun, I don't think you are competitive enough to enjoy Starcraft. I take loses as fun, because it show that I have much to learn so it keep me wanting to play more to get better.
But to answer your question, ya just keep playing and eventually you will be put with people your skill level and have fun winning and losing.
Well it seems for you that winning is fun but you don't want to take the steps required to win. Perhaps have fun by just messing around with friends in customs and obs maps? It seems a bit perplexing that you want to stop losing but you don't want to do what is required to stop losing.
you are in platinum, so you probably don't have enough game sense to make "reliable" creative strategies to play around with and have fun with
A great way to have fun is to play with friends and practice with them. It's infinitely more fun than playing on the ladder, which can be stressful and tiring
Here's a mistake a lot of new players make: just because your league says "Platinum" that doesn't necessarily mean you're in Platinum. If you keep losing games, the system will adjust (and since you presumably have so few games at this point, it will adjust rapidly). You need to give the system a good 30 to 50 games to figure out where your skill level lies.
Remember that a part of SC is also losing streaks. I have about 1000 games behind me and my MMR (hidden skill rating) is firmly established, but I regularly still hit 5+ game losing streaks. It happens and always will, just don't get discouraged by it.
I would suggest either get into streaming because it can help alot or play some fun games like monobattles or whatnot to devellop mechanics while not being too serious
Further clarification: -My friends are just plain scared of starcraft. It's not like they bought it, tried it and then became scared, they just caught on the the whole "Koreans play it, 400APM, massive battles" aspect of it and decided that it wasn't worth the effort to play a single game. At one point I handed one of them the computer with the game running and invited them to try it. In other words I have no Starcraft friends. Me adding every gold random on the US practice buddy thread that has "will use skype" in their description will hopefully remedy the situation.
-I'm not proud of my platinum rank. The reason I say that is because I know that I'm not platinum material just because 4 people cheesed me and I used my eyes to see it. This is not me being concerned because I'm not going to be in platinum much longer, its me being concerned because I might be stuck in platinum too long.
-I am not afraid to lose. The act of losing does not upset me because it is impossible for me to always win. An upset loss does not upset me because upsets happen. A loss in general does not upset me because I am not good at this game. What I am upset about is the potential for me to just lose a ton of games until I'm at my proper rank. What upsets me even more is that I can lose 4 games in a row and go down 11 rank, but then win one game and go up 30 rank, because surely this prolongs the arduous journey to my proper rank. Also, I am aware used the word upset far too many times in this paragraph.
-Throwing away tons of games just to get to silver will cost me the following: a ton of valuable replays that I could watch, a ton of people that I could possibly add to my friends list and learn from, and a ton of opportunities for me to practice against an opponent who exposes my greatest flaws so that I can hopefully learn how to fix them. It is, however, possibly the most tempting proposition I have ever had to consider in a video game.
On June 29 2011 15:24 DesertedPanda wrote: Further clarification: -I'm not proud of my platinum rank. The reason I say that is because I know that I'm not platinum material just because 4 people cheesed me and I used my eyes to see it. This is not me being concerned because I'm not going to be in platinum much longer, its me being concerned because I might be stuck in platinum too long.
-Throwing away tons of games just to get to silver will cost me the following: a ton of valuable replays that I could watch, a ton of people that I could possibly add to my friends list and learn from, and a ton of opportunities for me to practice against an opponent who exposes my greatest flaws so that I can hopefully learn how to fix them. It is, however, possibly the most tempting proposition I have ever had to consider in a video game.
1. Again, just because you have the Plat icon doesn't mean you're playing Plat players. Each league has a wide range of skills and from what I remember of Platinum there was a clear distinction between low/mid/high plat just as there is a huge distinction among low/mid/high diamond and masters. SInce you have so few games played, it will not take the system long to figure out where you should actually be. The placement matches don't lock you in at all and it's really the next 30-50 matches that will have you placed correctly.
2. I don't understand why reiterate that you're concerned about being "stuck" in Platinum (even though, as I explained before, your League icon is meaningless) but then come up with a list of reasons why you like to be in Platinum. What are you really trying to get from posting here?
I don't really understand how nobody here does not feel satisfaction and joy in winning haha, StarCraft, and tons of other games, are fun when you WIN. Start getting better and improving, do some customs, and when you dominate people, you'll smile and grin like a chessycat when you win matches.
Pick one underused cool unit and try to make a strategy around it. you will lose a whole bunch and that will accomplish the task of getting you out of platinum.
When I started that unit was templar (back when nobody realized KA was broken and tosses only ever built colossus). I would only go templar tech in both non pvp matchups and try to figure out how it worked because warping in storms was the most fun I've ever had in starcraft. Then you will be unexpectedly ahead of the metagame, which is another bonus :D.
edit: as people have said, though, part of what makes starcraft the game it is is that it is REALLY REALLY hard.
You are taking the game too seriously. I personally think the game is more fun when I'm playing with my friends, regardless of the game type (1v1, 2v2, FFA) Do I really improve? I don't play nearly enough to improve but I have tons of fun doing things like mass queen nydus play and blink stalker builds. If you're not having fun just stop playing.
1. Again, just because you have the Plat icon doesn't mean you're playing Plat players. Each league has a wide range of skills and from what I remember of Platinum there was a clear distinction between low/mid/high plat just as there is a huge distinction among low/mid/high diamond and masters. SInce you have so few games played, it will not take the system long to figure out where you should actually be. The placement matches don't lock you in at all and it's really the next 30-50 matches that will have you placed correctly.
2. I don't understand why reiterate that you're concerned about being "stuck" in Platinum (even though, as I explained before, your League icon is meaningless) but then come up with a list of reasons why you like to be in Platinum. What are you really trying to get from posting here?
I was addressing people suggesting that I should just join and quit games until I'm a silver leaguer. That is not a reason why I like to be in platinum. That is me trying to say that I want to at least learn from my mistakes (if possible) and learn how other people play as I gradually descend to whatever rank I end up at. My starting and ending points are irrelevant, its how I handle the next 30-50 games that I am concerned about.
My concern about being 'stuck' in platinum is not me failing to consider the difficulty of opponents that I face. It was me saying that I notice how a win seems to shift the balance of things quite drastically. The ideal path to my true rank would be me losing every single game until I reach my true rank and proceed to establish a W/L ratio of 1. That isn't likely to happen, obviously. It appeared to me that a win against someone who is the same rank (ish) as the four people I just lost to seems to sway things rather substantially in the opposite direction. Clearly, as many people have pointed out both before and after I brought it up, this is not the case. I apologize for being an idiot and not understanding what people were saying. As you can probably tell, the gameplay isn't the only thing that I'm unfamiliar with.
eventually you'll be able to get a better tasting product after many times. there are 2 kinds of motivation in sc2, short and long. long is watching yourself get better and getting promoted etc. short term is winning. you need to satisfy those to have fun
If you want to improve, you need to embrace the fact that you suck. This mindset made me recover from horrible loss streaks. Without accepting this, you will continue to blame the game, the people who cheese or anything else. The people who cheese win because we failed to defend it.
Get on ladder 1v1 and start playing. Your rank, position, league does not matter to anyone but you. Watch tourneys, streams and other shows that talk about the game in a useful way. Try to understand what pros do and why they do it. Check for threads in the strategy forum.
On June 29 2011 15:47 shawster wrote: everygame you feel yourself get better.
losing is ripening the fruit
winning is eating it
eventually you'll be able to get a better tasting product after many times. there are 2 kinds of motivation in sc2, short and long. long is watching yourself get better and getting promoted etc. short term is winning. you need to satisfy those to have fun
i would suggest you play team games rather than just 1v1 games. A teammate can often buffer your mistakes and it's also less lonely. You can eventually develop some mechanics that can be used in 1v1. I also love playing against sucky opponents so if i was placed into a lower league with a noob friend, i would still be having a lot of fun because I can do crazy shit that normally wouldn't work.
I have three suggestions, but first I must say that there are times when I feel that SC2 isn't fun. It's for different reasons (getting cheesed every other game), but you just have to push through it and learn to not let it affect you.
First, is keep playing. If your MMR is too high for your skill, you WILL be readjusted quickly. If I don't play for a long time and come back, I will lose a lot of games while I readjust. Usually, I will then have a long and happy winning streak as my skills catch back up. Then it's pretty much 50/50 from there.
Second, plan your builds out further. Having a solid opener is critical, and you say you already know how to hash a good one out. Take it a step further and plan out the next step. It might take you an hour to figure out the next steps in your build, but it will make a huge difference. For example, in TvT (I didn't catch what race you play), you might choose to do a tank/marine push (but I don't suggest it :p). Then you say, okay, my next step is to expand before I do anything else (assuming you're not about to die). Then you might say, okay, I want 2 factories making tanks, 1 reactor and 2 tech lab barracks making marines and getting stim and shield, and a reactor starport making vikings/medivacs. Then you figure out how quickly you can get to that point without cutting units or economy and practice it a few times. In a real game, you have a plan and you know what the end result looks like. It doesn't matter if you get there sloppily, as long as you get there. From there you can just wing it until you can get there consistently. Then you plan the next step for further games. Watch pro reps just to see what they look like at specific points in a game, or figure it out by trial and error.
And third, watch your replays. If you use the reps as a learning tool, you can find something you could have done better every time, I promise. Then you can isolate it and work on it briefly, or remember to react better the next time, etc. This might take a while at first as it takes a while to learn what to look for, but eventually, you'll be able to blast through replays and say "I did this wrong, I could have done that better, I should have scouted then, etc." It's valuable for two reasons. First, you can never say "I don't know what to do better," if you can always find something in every game. Second, it actually becomes satisfying to say "I was that close, all I had to do was do this differently. I'll know to do that next time." When you start getting satisfaction out of the act of improving, as slow (or as fast) as it might be, you'll begin to have more and more fun.
If you haven't already, definitely should check out Day9's archives ( day9.tv ) for all the Newbie Tuesday stuff, which can give you a lot of different tips on how to improve, which, hopefully, will put you back into having fun.
On June 29 2011 15:34 OSM.OneManArmy wrote: I don't really understand how nobody here does not feel satisfaction and joy in winning haha, StarCraft, and tons of other games, are fun when you WIN. Start getting better and improving, do some customs, and when you dominate people, you'll smile and grin like a chessycat when you win matches.
Ty for this. You and the others who brought this up (Thanks Torte!) really turned things around. I was kinda getting bummed out seeing all this "Laddering is unbearable time to slit my wrists" stuff (I can understand that, though). I feel like I'll have more fun in Ladder once the turbulence from my noobishness is ironed out and I get a few legit wins. I also feel like this game will be awesome if I somehow manage to never look at my profile.
Thanks for all of your suggestions so far! As I expected, the 'legitimate things to do in order to improve' outweighs the 'completely not feasible things to do that are fun', but thats okay. I like suggestions. Please?
I also like having friends. So if you can get past the fact that I'm a noob, I probably can't help you hone your strategies too much, and that I'm a noob (as well as all the other stuff I've said which may have angered tons of people) then perhaps friends?
Practicing for 6 hours a day against a computer? I don't think anyone's ever done that. Just watch huk's stream and note the basics of what he does in his games, and try to incorporate them into your future games
Well, since you said that you are constantly losing, I would say take the loss of pride and just keep losing down to silver or so, to a point where you can comfortably play versus your opponents. Then grind your way back up, which will help you improve your skills more gradually. Should help, but ladder does get depressing. Try SOTIS or some other custom, or take a break and play an FPS or something for a while.
On June 29 2011 16:02 Grr Arr Rawr wrote: If you haven't already, definitely should check out Day9's archives ( day9.tv ) for all the Newbie Tuesday stuff, which can give you a lot of different tips on how to improve, which, hopefully, will put you back into having fun.
<3 Day9. Newbie Tuesday and TB's series are the whole reason that I was able to get my solid opening by just playing against the AI. They are also the entire reason why I decided to play multiplayer (in addition to the fact that walling off an AI basically puts it into shutdown). Funday Monday is where I kind of latched on to this whole "I want to actually have fun in this game" thing that I've been going on about. Watching them play before I played helped me solve tons of problems before they started (to think that queued up units are just wasted money!). Of course I'm still a massive noob... but let's gloss over that minor detail for the time being.
I found this dude's blog entry and tried his method: http://brotosterone.blogspot.com/2011/02/how-i-learned-to-macro-and-go-from.html I used to play protoss, but I got bored and switched to zerg and started doing this for practice. I thought the #1 goal was really easy, so I just did it a few times and got on the ladder with one idea: macro. It felt so good to actually win games due to superior mechanics. Just concentrate on mechanics and practice a decent build for each matchup. At least that's what I do, I don't know, I get a kick out of seeing my improvement.
BTW, I started at exactly the same spot as you. I bought the game at release, got to platinum through placement matches and ended up playing bronze-gold leagues very fast. I fell to silver and bronze and am now back to silver again.
EDIT: Oh and watch streams and vods. You'd be surprised how much you learn by just watching good players :D
I've been stuck at top diamond for a really long time now. I'm not enjoying myself at all, only 20% of my games are a challenge to play against. the rest are just faceroll bullshit against other diamonders.
I have fun when I get rolled, that's where I learn and that's where I can see myself improve. It's hard to keep me motivated, but the more masters and the more challenge I get the more motivation I get. I think it's a good mindset to have
It's very hard for me too to stay motivated to play a game where I get stomped most of the time...However, I find it pretty fun to play unladdered games, just relax and play Win or lose, you won't feel bad when a build doesn't work 10 times in a row :D...and it's good practice too.
1v1 is pretty much struggling to get better in ladder.
I can agree that Platinum/Diamond ladder pretty much sucks because there aren't any really good games spare few. Mostly it's just ball against ball and 1a to see whose ball is better.
I'm in the same situation as many of you: Platinum/Diamond level. I was on the verge of getting promoted to Diamond but I decided to change my race to Terran and practice it because it seems like far more exciting than Zerg.
And so far, it is.
I love the amount of APM I can put into Terran macro and micro. I love the aggressive feeling of Terran. TvT is totally awesome because it's NOT a matchup of ball formations. It's a matchup of "Special Tactics" and Tactics in general.
On-topic: Custom 1v1s on ladder maps are much more exciting and fun than ladder and cheeses feel allowed.
People don't threat to kill you when you cheese your practice partners. It's not good to cheese the first game you play against someone, but I have cheesed in practice games and I will continue doing so from time to time. Custom games are much more relaxed.
You can also try playing some custom maps that aren't necessarily "Starcraft 2", like Star Battle and stuff like that.
The higher you get in the ladder/the more skill you have, the more fun you might have. At least this is true on my part and I want to struggle to get better to achieve this fact.
Team games are like the setting to develop good macro. This is where I first started. I didn't even bother to ladder 1v1 games until I was diamond league in 2's, 3's, and 4's. Once I hit the ladder, I just thrashed the opposition until I made it to diamond league.
The pressure is still on when you play with your friends, but you always have help from your allies if it gets too dicey. I think of it as training wheels until you can ride solo. Your multitask is also tested more in team games. You have to be aware of so much if you want to play at a high level.
For me SC2 hasn't been fun to play in the last couple of month (In season 2 I have made about 10-20 ladder games and about the same amount of custom games). My problem was that I just hate every map in the ladder pool and playing custom games on fun makes is most of the times boring (either you are way worse or way better than your opponent) - also it's not as easy to find opponent on iCCup or GSL maps.
So I stopped playing for a while, but after watching GSL ST, Dreamhack and HSC3 last weekend I found some motivation and played a few games and even though I still hate this fuckin old and/or bad maps I kinda enjoyed it again.
I personally think: if you dont enjoy sc2, dont play it!
On June 29 2011 14:47 Kfcnoob wrote: the system tried to make a statistical conclusion of your skill off only 5 placement matches. in statistics, at least 30 samples is usually required for a strong conclusion. basically, the system can't make very good predictions after only seeing you play for 5 games.
Since you lose mostly all of your recent games, you probably don't belong in platinum. yes you win the 6 minute games versus cheesy players, but your platinum opponents are probably beating you in anything past that.
i know you may be proud of a high starting rank, but dont let it give you a false ego where you fear getting demoted.
not all hope is lost, as the system knows its conclusion of platinum is a risky conclusion, and u will be properly re-categorized within enough games played. eventually, u and the ladder will get to a point where u win/lose 50/50.
This person put it the best. My friend got placed in Gold and then managed to win a couple games somehow and got promoted to Platinum without even knowing the standard Terran opener when I had to crawl up from Bronze to get to that level. The placement system is not entirely accurate because it bases you off of such a small pool of games.
The best option for you in my opinion would be to swallow any pride and intentionally tank your league down to Bronze or Silver. The people there might seem *really* easy and if so you'll move back up, but the system will eventually have an easier time evening out your MMR so that you're placed against opponents with a similar skill level. This is being said with reading that you're new to the game, so if that's the truth you really shouldn't be up in the Platinum league anyone. Also keep in mind that realistically no one cares about what league you're in until Masters, so don't feel like people are going to judge you in any way when being in anything other than Masters really means "I'm still learning!"
Laddering by far is the best way to improve macro and mechanics, so don't waste your time playing custom games or something like that if your goal is to improve. When you spend lots of time laddering you'll discover things that you'll think were previously impossible to stop and after learning the proper response seem trivial, and along with that you get the constant practice of keeping up with your macro.
Day9 made a good video about how to get into Starcraft 2 that I think might interest you. You obviously seem interested in the game already, but he lays down some rules about how much to play and what to aim for. You can find that here.
Don't be afraid to take breaks every 5 games or so with a fun custom map as well. The last thing you want to do is burn yourself out grinding out 50 games a day, so take it easy on yourself and when something frustrates you take a little time to learn what happened and what you could have done to prevent it. Knowing the cause of why something happened and what I should have done in response always calms my nerves slightly because I can at least recognize that it's something I can fix instead of being an intangible loss.
The last thing I could recommend to you is finding a friend that you can play with. Whether it be someone you know in real life or someone from the teamliquid channel in-game, having someone with similar goals that you can talk to and practice with makes a large difference. When I got started my friend absolutely dominated me because he had far more experience than myself, so it drove me to learn and improve until I could finally start taking games from him. Having that person who can be there along the way can make the experience much more enjoyable. Starcraft 2 is a social game, so finding someone who is wanting to get into Starcraft 2 as well will be mutually beneficial.
On June 29 2011 14:32 DesertedPanda wrote: I can beat cheeses, but I hate playing against them. I like to play real matches. The problem is that I can't win any games that go past my opening because I just don't have good macro or multitasking yet. But it's not that I don't want any challenge, it's that the game isn't fun for me. It's even less fun because all of my friends are afraid of Starcraft, so I'm flying solo.
I am so sick of losing every single game. I don't feel like I'm improving very much at all when I prolong a game by building a futile army, but at the same time I don't want to just give up every time my macro falls apart. Sure, practicing would help me stay in platinum eventually, but I started multiplayer because I just want to have fun now.
Good.
Try out teamgames, even with your friends who are afraid of Starcraft. Don't boss them around in the game, ask them to do a certain thing but tolerate poor execution. Be open to their strategy suggestions even if you know it won't work out well. Sometimes, let them even be in command and just act as an asset to them. Party and get excited if you win.
Also watch replays / VODs together (in person or via Skype.)
On June 29 2011 14:36 Xova wrote: Its extremely difficult to play this game and actually have a good time, unless you're playing team games with friends. As for 1v1 I don't think there is much fun to be had while learning.
All I play is 1v1 and by the end of the day I feel like going into baby punching mode, but yet I do it again the next day...
This.
But i don't play alot of 1v1 because of the baby punching, i play alot more team games
honestly.. it's like working out to me. Working out isn't always fun, but improving and seeing the end results are the reason I do it. I keep playing SC2 to improve and get better (and win more). Winning is fun. Also having a buddy or two along helps.
Whether or not starcraft is fun depends completely on your mindset. If you are in a mindset where losing frustrates you then you are going to hate the game.
Just change your goals of playing and it will be fine. There was a point where I just was not enjoying the game and hadn't played in weeks, but now I have played roughly 400 games this season (Cannot see loses so I assume in going at 50/50). All that changed was why I was playing.
I don't know if it's already been said, but you should really get YABOT. The AI is harder and actually does builds (sometimes correctly) that you can practice against. I do it all the time to hash out a new build I saw or thought up and when I don't feel like laddering. It really will improve your macro game because those attack waves come fast and often. It's a good base to start with for practicing and If you lose, oh well it's just the AI
smoking weed does the trick for me. high = starcraft is awesome. sober = i don't play starcraft at all. edit: at the guy 2 posts above who said if you hate losing you're going to hate starcraft... not exactly true! I used to have 0 frustration tolerance, but that just made me want to try harder back then so I'd lose less.
Every time you, you should rip off a small birds heart and eat it right there. That should keep you entertained for a while. If you win, the bird shall live.
If you like earning your victories and winning because of the decisions you make against other players who are also trying to win a decision war of atrition, stick with sc2. It will reward you in a way no other game will.
If that's not the case and you just want an easy game you don't have to work too hard at but still requires some effort and practice, check out an MMO like WoW.
the biggest part about learning in this game if you are a social person though is playing with people who are learning with you or friends who are teaching you. I can't tell you how good it felt after i played 200+ games against my friend the first time i ever beat him. I didnt play him for 3 days though after that cause i knew i still had a long road ahead of me lol
Well when i first started getting frustrated, instead of hitting the ladder, i would just 4v4, or free for all, or custom VS random people. no real points are on the line, and you can just chill and get better mechanics, or just play custom games all day, youl get a mix of shitty and decent players. and you can try new builds, or things youd like to work on, without worrying about the ladder taking your points. GL
I HIGHLY recommend playing in tournaments targeted to your skill level. Tournaments are super fun and help break up the monotony of endless ladder games, plus they give you something to work towards even at a casual pace (e.g. "This month, I want to make it one round deeper than I did last month").
If you want to play without stressing over ladder rank and stuff, play 1v1 in custom games. It really lets you focus on a goal other than just winning the next match and you never know the type of opponent you're going to run into.
Lastly: banelings. If you're getting bored, you're probably not building enough banelings. There's nothing more satisfying than that sizzling sound on a bunch of marines except maybe watching their mineral line explode.
Team games + race switch. I started playing random 2v2s as terran (my main race is zerg) and it was absolutely wonderful. Of course, you lose a bunch of games, but you expect to, it's not your main race, so there's much, much less pressure. Also, you improve waaaaaaay faster playing a different race than you do your main race, which feels great. And all the fun of figuring out builds and all the nuances of a new race are there.
Making 1v1 fun is about setting the right goals. Your goal should be to win, but it should simultaneously be to improve. The way to enjoy improving is to set specific goals for yourself every game, like, "I want to execute my build perfectly up to 40 food" or "I want to scout so well that I'm cheese proof, every game" Don't be content with losing, but be proud of the little accomplishments each game.
On June 29 2011 17:32 Darksoldierr wrote: Every time you, you should rip off a small birds heart and eat it right there. That should keep you entertained for a while. If you win, the bird shall live.
I'd say it depends a lot on your personnality, and how hard you take losses.
First of all finding a team helps a ton. Watch GSL/TSL/NASL/HSC/Dreamhack with people you enjoy playing with, get to know the game, debate the builds, and socialise. People tend to neglect the social factor in video games, with is what is at the root of the explosion of e-sports and MMORPG games. Try team games, as many people have said, but preferrably with people you know, try monobattles, funky buildorders, ridiculous drops and stupid harassment. I like to play random in team games, even though I suck in T and Z, just because I like nukes and making a billion banelings at once.
For 1v1, I like to see it as a sport, at least in terms of mentality. You train to get better. If you lose you feel frustrated, all the more so because this game is to a certain extent a competition of skill, and it hurts your ego to feel less skilled. On the other hand if you have a team, you can imbarage, get all hot-headed, and get a good laugh as well as the knowledge that you're not the only one struggling.
If you win, you feel great, superior to your opponent. Eventually you'll progress and go on winning streaks, get promoted, and feel a lot better about yourself. Once you get a team, there are a billion clanwars you can participate in, where you'll feel all the better about winning, and have a team to console you if you lose.
So I'd say to summarize, getting into a team that you feel good in is the best thing you can do to make the game fun. If you have IRL friends to play with that's great, if not that's fine. Don't neglect the social aspect of SC2, that's where the fun lies.
You have to change your mindset. Instead of getting mad of losing to a much better player, think about what you learned/improved during the game. Ladder doesn't mean shit, so don't be afraid to use it for practice. You should look for custom games in a channel, might be a good place to find Bronze/Silver players.
You know, similar threads pop up every once in a while, and my first thought is always to wonder why are you (the OP, or anyone really) playing Starcraft?
Is it because it's a (fairly) new hit game that's getting increasingly popular and you're just trying it out? Is it just a random thing you picked up and decided you want to get good at? Is it because you're a fan of SC2 as an esport and want a taste of gameplay for yourself?
If you don't find the time you spend playing Starcraft rewarding in some way already, and you haven't had fun in the first week you played the game while you were still learning, then I don't think there's much you can do to "make it" more fun and rewarding in the long run either.
You seem to think that becoming a better player will somehow make it less frustrating, but I honestly don't think so. Sure your games might become more eye-candy good from an observer's point of view, but as a player you'll always feel the struggle and anxiety, and if you're prone to being frustrated, that just won't go away at any point. In fact it will likely get even worse because you're taking the game more seriously when you're somewhat good at it. It's just what Starcraft is.
The last thing I want is to discourage anyone from playing the game, and I'm only writing this after reading through many similar threads so far and I see so many people being so frustrated with the game. But this is my honest opinion - you NEED to enjoy the activity of actually playing the game and thinking about the game, regardless of the skill level, opponents or results. If you don't just enjoy playing, then it might not be your thing.
I don't think there are such players that don't ever get frustrated, but to make up for that and to make your time playing Starcraft rewarding, you need to love and enjoy the game on a fundamental level. Unlike many other games, Starcraft isn't addictive - you'll only get into it if you really really like it.
I actually understand him perfectly, as i actually prefer watching streams ( i assume i watch more than 5-6 games daily), then playing the game - (max 2 games daily)
Play team games to improve your mechanics, i find team games to be less stressful than 1v1's. Also you can watch pro streams and tournaments to get the strategy part of the game naturally, you'll pick up the basics and then when you feel confident enough try the 1v1 ladder again. I was pretty terrible when i started sc2 and never played 1v1's because i found it too stressful, a couple of months of watching sc2 and playing team games pretty much made all the difference, i was destroying everyone from gold to diamond and the games weren't even close.
Best tip is play to random race and/or start playing 4v4 and 3v3. This will make you confident and curious of the potential of the builds you use in 1v1. Also Cheese a lot if. it's very fun xD.
I remember when I got into diamond and thought I didn't belong since I kept losing. I started to watch pro's of my race and see how they understood the game. you will naturally improve with the more games you play. Don't let losing demotivate you. If you want to get better start with the basics, it doesnt have to be against an easy computer. Just build workers and try not to get supply blocked.
Tallin got it alright in my opinion. The game is being played and talked about in an atmosphere of constant improvement and competitiveness which might be uncomfortable for many people. You may want to think if you are one of those people, and if so, try to shake it off and look at SC2 from a different angle, as in maybe try to focus on a different aspect of gameplay or try out some totally new stuff. Be creative, that way you will find what you enjoy the most about the game and stick to it. I also believe that team games are serving as a mean of relaxation very well, really like to play a match or two with my mate after laddering.
purposely lose until you get demoted to a league that suits your skill, then you'll enjoy getting better and playing players of your skill.
Thats what I tell all my nubs friends who placed into plat cuz they know how to cheese. I myself got placed into bronze and worked my way up, and I deeply enjoy playing the game.
Life is short. Don't waste your time doing things you don't feel fun doing, when their main purpose is to be fun. It's like marrying a woman and trying to change her to what you want her to be. Or a friend giving you a toy and you forcing yourself to like it just because your circle of friends like it. Not everyone enjoys the same things. Just because you are on the boat of this community, doesn't mean there aren't a lot more out there where you could actually have fun playing the game. Also think whether you're playing this because you want to prove something to yourself, be it make it to X league or whatever, or to have fun, which doesn't seem to be the case.
If you're playing this just for the sake of being good, i suggest you look at other things that are much more useful in life, like proving to yourself you can like learning a language in 2 months, master some other useful skill, be it parkour, swimming, tennis, getting X grade average in college chairs, etc.
I'm saying this because i was wasting my time with this game for nothing. Yes it was fun - specially when i changed from Protoss since beta, to Zerg a while ago, and i was improving very fast, got back to Diamond, droppped to Plat due to change race, in less than a month going for masters. But then what? In some years i'll look back and this will be time i'll never get back, and there are so much better things to do, that you can also feel like you accomplished somthing and had fun at the same time, at whole greater levels.
On June 29 2011 14:45 ReaperX wrote: Definitely get practice partners. StarCraft is fun, but I actually suggest you demote yourself to Silver by leaving games.
How is playing meatheads that he's already outskilling any fun? If he can't find the game fun by practicing/laddering or even playing teamgames then perhaps Starcraft 2 is not the game for him.
If you're not in the mood for competition then this game isn't for you.
Maybe its just your fear of losing, or the thought that your opponent didn't deserve to win that's holding you back. Lighten up a bit. Just remember that its a win/win after every game that you play - if you lose, you learn; if you win... well, you win.
Its very simple .. if you dont like the game dont play it.. you must feel it , there are manygood other games , some ppl play sc2 some play COD or other games
On June 29 2011 14:32 DesertedPanda wrote: Short Story: I'm new, I suck and I was placed in platinum because I can beat a cheese. Now I just lose a bunch, and the game is not fun at all for me. How do you enjoy the game while learning essential skills? Key point: I want to have fun. Spending 6 hours a day practicing macro against a very easy computer so I can have fun a month or so down the road is not my idea of fun now.
Long Story: I have had Starcraft for a very long time (since BW), but I just recently decided to start multiplayer. I got sick of rocks in practice league, so I decided to work on a solid opening and macro and then jump into some real games. I lost one of my placement matches to a legitimate player. I won the other four because they cheesed and my solid opening saved me. To my simultaneous surprise and dismay, I was in platinum.
I can beat cheeses, but I hate playing against them. I like to play real matches. The problem is that I can't win any games that go past my opening because I just don't have good macro or multitasking yet. But it's not that I don't want any challenge, it's that the game isn't fun for me. It's even less fun because all of my friends are afraid of Starcraft, so I'm flying solo.
I am so sick of losing every single game. I don't feel like I'm improving very much at all when I prolong a game by building a futile army, but at the same time I don't want to just give up every time my macro falls apart. Sure, practicing would help me stay in platinum eventually, but I started multiplayer because I just want to have fun now.
Is there any way to enjoy the game while learning the ropes?
I would really like any suggestions you have. Not just legit suggestions like "practice your macro with a buddy" or "Develop your own build order". There are no stupid answers, because I want silly, fun things to do. If you think I should play Toss and spell words with my zealots until I'm in bronze league, I'll try it.
Edit: My additional information got lost in a sea of responses, so here are two key points I want to add.
1. My friends did not buy Starcraft and then become scared. They just ARE scared. They all play console exclusively, as in I suggest a PC game and they scoff and go back to codbops. Starcraft is something that they never want to get in to, because all they think about is 400APM and losing to Koreans (obviously the only people who play Starcraft). I'm not giving up, but I literally do not know a single person who plays. Once again, I request proxy friends/2v2/3v3/4v4 partners if you are willing.
2. I am not proud of being the worst Platinum Starcraft player (until the placement system screws over the next one). The silver leaguer that beat me a while ago wouldn't stop sending me messages about how awful I am at this game. I'm sorry, but telling me to swallow my pride does not help me. Allow me to say that again. I am not proud of making it into platinum. My 7 loss streak will attest to that. Telling me that I need to let go of my connection to my rank will not benefit me, because no connection is there. If you have legit suggestions, carry on. If this is all you have to say to me, your concerns have been addressed. Thank you for your time.
play team games, 3v3 would be probably what your aiming for, untill you can get a handle on things. They are always fun and dont require much in the way of skill.
On June 29 2011 18:45 Talin wrote: You know, similar threads pop up every once in a while, and my first thought is always to wonder why are you (the OP, or anyone really) playing Starcraft?
The last thing I want is to discourage anyone from playing the game, and I'm only writing this after reading through many similar threads so far and I see so many people being so frustrated with the game. But this is my honest opinion - you NEED to enjoy the activity of actually playing the game and thinking about the game, regardless of the skill level, opponents or results. If you don't just enjoy playing, then it might not be your thing.
I have owned BW for about 7 years. I did/do not play that often because I was/am busy with a ton of things and I don't exclusively play Starcraft because I have to play alone. I bought SC2 after it had been out for a few months because I liked the story and gameplay and wanted to continue it. I also really wanted to get back into in-depth RTS games because the only thing I had recently done multiplayer on was Halo Wars (console-only friends ftl). Plus it doesn't require a subscription and I had a computer that could run it. That always helps too.
I had a great time in the campaign (played it between class or when I was out of town or stuck somewhere) and I liked beating the AI. I was super excited when I finally beat the very hard AI for the first time, or when I got some "impossible" achievement like finishing all the challenges on gold.
Put simply, I like this game. I like controlling a bunch of units, I like tactics, and I like the whole economy, expand, turf war sort of feel. I'm not good at doing most of those things against another person, but I like the concept and I see it as having the potential for being fun.
I am not frustrated with the game. I'm frustrated with me. Blizzard knows what they're doing, and they do it well. I on the other hand am borderline incompetent. Example: I lost to DT today. That doesn't mean they're imba, that means I'm an idiot and didn't get detection. I was, however, frustrated with the state of my experience after placement. I didn't know why I ended up platinum, and I didn't know how to fix the problem (I was of the impression that people who had only played 6 games could never be considered for anything higher than gold). I did some googling and used my brain a little bit, and between the two I figured that I was going to be in for a pretty rocky experience in Starcraft for awhile. My hypothesis was confirmed upon being decimated multiple games in a row by experienced players.
I knew that I wanted to get better at the game, but I also knew that I was going to get tired of nonstop one-sided games pretty quick. I also knew that I didn't have hours to devote to the game, but that I wanted to see if I could enjoy the multiplayer without being a super pro.
The reason that I said I 'was' frustrated is that I have tried a lot of the suggestions that I have gotten from this thread. I have now race switched to Protoss. This has not improved my W/L ratio but I've had a great time roasting marines with colossi (PAYBACK). I met a silver leaguer who was willing to sacrifice many a probe to continue the conversation we started at the beginning of the game. I'm looking for a team partner. I played some practice matches with a new buddy. I played an hour and a half ladder game because I could. I went from wanting to throw my keyboard at the wall to having a great time.
Sorry, but you went a little overboard with the ol' assumptions there. As of right now, I'm a statistically worse player compared when I started but the game is much more fun.
Side note: Next time someone has a concern about the game, I would recommend not telling them they'll never enjoy it.
Being curious, not linking a win to your ego, actually, enjoying SC2 is all about letting go of your ego, which is why I love sc2 so much. SC2 is a "fight" against you, more then it is an opponent.
Let me give a quick example how my mind goes:
I just want to do my best, and I focus on being relaxed and it's not important if I win or lose, really its not, you only need to win yourself over. I pick a few things I want to achieve in a match, like I want to drone hard, and rather die to overdroning, then to having too much larva caused by indecisions.
I would also advice not to look too much at SC2 streams, GSL etc. It only causes you to try to do what the pros do, and then be greatly disappointed by your lack of skill. Admit that you suck, and work on one thing at a time, and be proud of that when you see it in a replay, wheter you lose or win.
Team games (2v2/3v3/4/4) is not the way to go. Although its fun, it doesnt help you get the fun back into 1v1 games, because its completely different.
What I enjoy is playing KOTH Metalopolis Obs on Europe, NA surely will have a similar map. You watch and get to play people of all different leagues. And while you watch you can discus the game with others. If you lose a game you can ask others what your biggest mistakes were. I like that a lot better than watching my own 1v1 replays.
I enjoy Starcraft for many reasons, but the primary reason is winning. That doesn't mean when I lose I don't have fun. I recommend you play custom and team games to loosen up, especially when you are on a losing streak as you are now. I'm assuming that you hate cheese, but if you want some early excitement and possibly ridiculous games, try it once in a while. Cannon rushing and proxy double-Gateway are good for Protoss, 6-pool and worker rush is good for Zerg, and 2-rax all-in and Planetary Fortress rush are all good . Also try going off-race in customs.
If Blizzard made unranked automatching making then SC2 will be a 1000x more fun. Right now I don't ladder because more ladder = crapper stats. Sad but true.
Theres a reason why casual games are sooo popular, having every game ranked does not appeal to casual players at all.
I would also advice not to look too much at SC2 streams, GSL etc. It only causes you to try to do what the pros do, and then be greatly disappointed by your lack of skill. Admit that you suck, and work on one thing at a time, and be proud of that when you see it in a replay, wheter you lose or win.
You might also be hoping that I didn't notice you give me a summary of Day9's advice
In poker I learned early on that the feeling/emotion you get from losing a pot is x2,5 as negative as the positive emotion you get by winning. I assume it's the same in every game.
Knowing that, and not really being affected by losing, becoming aware of it should help a great deal.
This part here "I can beat cheeses, but I hate playing against them. I like to play real matches. The problem is that I can't win any games that go past my opening because I just don't have good macro or multitasking yet. "
Is you bullshitting yourself, rationalizing (we as humans like to do that a lot). You beat some extremly bad cheeses, I'm high rated Masters, and my biggest problem is strong cheeses, but like irl cheese, in sc2 they also come in all forms, and are only as good as the player executing them. Cheese are a huge part of the game, an in general they are easier to execute than to defend if done properly. If you "don't like cheeses" that's just a rule you made up and won't really help you.
Good way to get better is using monetary goals, not "i have to win" just learn to love to try shit, make only blink stalkers, every game, and you'll get a better feel for things, try to never stop making workers, ever. When you play a game, you feel uve lost, then focus only on microing, or surviving at silly odds.
Some people just have the drive to improve get better learn, and ain't miserable at the plateu, some "hate" it and so used to "instant gratification" they make excuses, and only "want to have fun" which is a shame for them.
On June 29 2011 20:06 edc wrote: I enjoy Starcraft for many reasons, but the primary reason is winning. That doesn't mean when I lose I don't have fun. I recommend you play custom and team games to loosen up, especially when you are on a losing streak as you are now. I'm assuming that you hate cheese, but if you want some early excitement and possibly ridiculous games, try it once in a while. Cannon rushing and proxy double-Gateway are good for Protoss, 6-pool and worker rush is good for Zerg, and 2-rax all-in and Planetary Fortress rush are all good . Also try going off-race in customs.
I'll give cheese a chance every once in awhile, but I do like to play macro games just because I feel like less of a jerk. And possibly like less of a noob, though that's really just an illusion.
It has some good ideas about how to make playing SC2 more fun while learning at the same time. What you want is a practice regime that lets you improve without being as repetitive and monotonous as simply "practice macro, macro, macro" for hundreds of games. You need to mix it up a bit with some teamgames, playing against friends you meet online, doing crazy strats sometimes, etc.
Imo, take pride in being a starcraft player. No matter your rank or how you perceive your performance, simply playing the ladder and trying to play the game the best way you can makes you awesome; just look at your friends too scared to even try it. Never despise yourself or the opponent that beats you, instead look up to him and see that he is full of experience; learn from him and you can beat him.
I think the thing that makes any game fun is variety. When standard 1v1 gets boring, I think of stupid all ins (my 2 base carrier chargelot archon is pretty sick vs zerg). If I get even more bored/frustrated I go team games or ffa. If I find my team mates to be absolutely brainless, I just cheese the shit out of everything that moves.
On June 29 2011 20:16 TheSubtleArt wrote: Being able to take your losses well is the most important thing in my opinion.
This. I don't really care if my friends see what league I'm in or if my match history shows a slump... but every single loss feels like a punch in my face, especially if I don't find my opponent worthy of the win, which is common since I'm just playing platinum players and they often do horrible mistakes which I fail to punish.
It has pretty much stopped me from playing ladder even though I find 1v1 to be the only really enjoyable mode (in team games, I can blame losses on others... but what's the point, it's still a loss and what I want to do is win).
Bob Rotella is a sports psychologist that writes mainly about golf mentality, but his concepts can be taken very broadly. I think his books will actually give you the right mentality to not hate losing and start loving winning/improving.
But it's more likely that SCII just isn't your cup of tea.
I have three solutions to your fun problem: 1. Start over: - set yourselve on a losing streak... run sc2 in windowed mode - watch a movie and simultaniously click Find Games in SC2 as soon as you have a match quit it and lose... reapeat that until you are back to bronce - start to play with a new race or random, enjoy doing "speacial tactics" that actualy work because you are playing noobs 2. start playing 3v3 (2vs2 puts to much responsibility on your shoulders, and 4v4 feels too chaotic) 3. buy a second account and use it for cheesing or learning a new race
First of all you don't HAVE to play starcraft2. If playing it is not fun just watch it. If you don't even like watching it then don't, because watching it would make you a muppet that goes with the flow.
There are cerfainly less popular and more fun/more challenging games to play.
Let me tell you this: Starcraft requires good strategy also micro and macro are the MUST HAVE too.
A friend of mine has quite a similar idea of how "fun" a game is like you. He was a genius playing Cossack 2 (just position and strategy, not much macro or micro). But he sucks so bad at Starcraft 2, reason? He can't macro or micro efficiently. He was good at BW but still placed Bronze in SC2. I told him to practice, which he refused to 1v1 but 3v3. He then got up to Gold 3v3. But then still no fun for him, so he kinda quitted SC2.
What I would suggest you is: 1. find partners, real friends would be better than online friends. 2. find an opening that's versartile to do many stuff. I play Protoss and I enjoy opening with 4 gates (even you're not going all-in or hardcore push, just to scare the opponent to play safe) then continue with some other stuff like DT (which is a hell of fun), Mothership 3 gate (HuK's style), and so on. Have fun in your game, but still play safe.
If you get stressed out after games you really have the wrong mentality for 1v1, in team games you can just blame it all on your teammates lol.
My advice would be to play to some good music, relax and try to change the way you view the game, maybe take some drugs like some of the previous posters mentioned xD
If that doesn't work just play team games, custom games or just watch replays. Or maybe this game just isn't for you, you don't HAVE to like this game.
Good luck however you go about it
edit:
I can beat cheeses, but I hate playing against them. I like to play real matches. The problem is that I can't win any games that go past my opening because I just don't have good macro or multitasking yet. But it's not that I don't want any challenge, it's that the game isn't fun for me. It's even less fun because all of my friends are afraid of Starcraft, so I'm flying solo.
haha I agree with you here man, best bet is to thumbs down the small maps or the ones with close spawns. The problem with sc2 ladder is "cheesing" is pretty standard because you can do it and rebound off it pretty easily which is something you couldn't really do in broodwar.
I don't know why your friends are afraid of starcraft 2, the (only) thing it does better than broodwar is make it more accessible to the masses imo.
you should definately let go of your connection to your rank (yeah i read the OP)- focusing too much on that takes the fun out straight up - play FOR fun, because you enjoy jamming upgraded marines into medivacs and sending them to enemy cliffsides or spamming banelings so you can bust light armies with ease.. whatever teh case may be, play to play (not to be grandmaster#1 or "the best")
ive never attained 400 apm (more like 150-250 tops tops ever) and i am on two teams (2s,3s) that play at masters level for this reason..(below)
playing the game is fun --> i play more because i have fun --> i get way better because i play more
Around my 1/3 SC2 tenure, i switched to RANDOM (oh noez!!) for fun, as well as practice learning opposition end of the game, and after around 300 random matches, i finally settled with ZERG (started as TERRAN) and this whole journey thru the races, never actually stopping in protoss, climbing and fighting and making teams, all centered around playing b/c we like to play, is like a self-fueling jet engine.
what i mean to say is, if you can let go of thinking of the opponent too much, or your rankins too much, and just focus on the game itself, not only will you improve, but you will have more fun in your success, and learn more from your losses, which arent the end of the world (im just now getting to around 60/40)
day[9] <------ godly free advice nonstop (and its funny) streams [gsl tsl homebrew] <------ pros making it happen (WATCH THIS)
---and if i am saying something dirty about someone important, sry--- shokz guide and other guides like that X-->avoid<--X filled with step by step 'cheese plays' like
"how to go straight voids in 6m" "11Rax million marine tactic" and seem crap to me
EDIT: and as someone said while i was posting, join Looking for Team channel or msg ppl after game who worked well together with you and make sc2 friends list (put it to use rather)
I mentally tell myself to work on certain things some days. I'm mid masters but I still need to work on mechanics and I think I'm going to have to ignore ladder rating for a while until I can smooth things out.
I have been in this boat for a long time.. wanting to play more but after about 5 games I get bored.. some say its because I play protoss and have to go about the same BO every time. Well I have tryed to do different BOs with toss and with great success but still I find the gaming to be boring after 5 games. SO i still dont have the answer and its sad because if I could get over the hump of getting bored.. I feel that I would be a great player.
I suggest joining a clan. The one I am in (eXe) gave me a load of friends to play with, who won't cheese the crap out of me, who are bother better and worse than me, and some guys who even struggle with the same things I do. We sit on our dedicated TS server, play a few games and have a good time.
On June 29 2011 18:45 Talin wrote: I don't think there are such players that don't ever get frustrated, but to make up for that and to make your time playing Starcraft rewarding, you need to love and enjoy the game on a fundamental level. Unlike many other games, Starcraft isn't addictive - you'll only get into it if you really really like it.
I agree with much of what you said, except the part where Starcraft isn't addictive, I beg to differ on a grand scale .
I suck by any definition (gold player), and get frustrated to the point I would have quit another game. But I CAN'T. ijustcant...
I do enjoy the process for the most part. Some people (most) learn best through failure and frustration, and that journey is fun for me. I'm nearly 40 now and the process of learning a young mans game and seeing how I stack up against these young wippersnappers is fun.
To the OP: deep breaths man, the game is fun if you let it be. You will always be able to find faults with your game. Analyze those faults when you are in a good frame of mind, not when your on tilt. Be sure to pick out things you do RIGHT too, and don't be too consumed with the negative.
But, if you can't have fun with the game, then as Talin wrote, the game may not be for you...
Not being able to see your MMR is personally what makes me lose motivation the most - if you are one of those people who are 'high' in your league (whether bronze or diamond) being stuck forever on the feeling that you are getting promoted soon just sucks. You are already top of your division/league, not seeing that glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel is demoralizing, because you aren't sure if your wins are showing improvement in your skills (since you could just be beating/losing to the same levels of players over and over). Just piling on points gets old fast =/
i'm a master player and as the OP i can get quite frustrated when i loose, especially to cheese.
So here's a bad advice but i'll give it anyway because it helped me:
-Don't say gl hf, don't say gg: to be manner in word does create an expectation to a manner game without cheese. You'll be often disappointed in that matter
- if the guy cheese you and win, flame him and tell him he needs to learn to play (even if you need it more than him, it doesn't matter)
-if he cheeses you and lose, just laugh at him and flame, you'll enjoy your win even more.
-if the game was even and you lose/win, just don't say anything because it's good either way.
I used to be manner and i just couldn't play more than 3 game a day, now my limit is up to 10.
I use to waste the time of the cheeser as well, like don't leaving the game until my last building is destroyed etc etc.
I'm aware it's not the nicest thing to do to other person, but being kind is overrated anyway. Anger management take whatever it takes !
The thing I enjoy is losing and my improvement. I dislike constant all the time perma loss streaks (which it sounds like you are on) but in the end the Bnet system will find people at your skill level and youll win a few. Then youll improve and you will win more.
So thats how the game works, and if you can stick out the MMR balancing phase you will be fine don't worry about it. Then you can enjoy the game by winning games on ladder here and there
i'm a master player and as the OP i can get quite frustrated when i loose, especially to cheese.
So here's a bad advice but i'll give it anyway because it helped me:
-Don't say gl hf, don't say gg: to be manner in word does create an expectation to a manner game without cheese. You'll be often disappointed in that matter
- if the guy cheese you and win, flame him and tell him he needs to learn to play (even if you need it more than him, it doesn't matter)
-if he cheeses you and lose, just laugh at him and flame, you'll enjoy your win even more.
-if the game was even and you lose/win, just don't say anything because it's good either way.
I used to be manner and i just couldn't play more than 3 game a day, now my limit is up to 10.
I use to waste the time of the cheeser as well, like don't leaving the game until my last building is destroyed etc etc.
I'm aware it's not the nicest thing to do to other person, but being kind is overrated anyway. Anger management take whatever it takes !
How does that help make the game for fun?
IMO if you get bored of 1v1 cheese, play customs. I personally like 1v1 obvs maps, phantom mode and sotls.
i'm a master player and as the OP i can get quite frustrated when i loose, especially to cheese.
So here's a bad advice but i'll give it anyway because it helped me:
-Don't say gl hf, don't say gg: to be manner in word does create an expectation to a manner game without cheese. You'll be often disappointed in that matter
- if the guy cheese you and win, flame him and tell him he needs to learn to play (even if you need it more than him, it doesn't matter)
-if he cheeses you and lose, just laugh at him and flame, you'll enjoy your win even more.
-if the game was even and you lose/win, just don't say anything because it's good either way.
I used to be manner and i just couldn't play more than 3 game a day, now my limit is up to 10.
I use to waste the time of the cheeser as well, like don't leaving the game until my last building is destroyed etc etc.
I'm aware it's not the nicest thing to do to other person, but being kind is overrated anyway. Anger management take whatever it takes !
Haha yeah I agree, flame is a little necessary to let off steam and just to relax. We all need to let out our inner troll sometimes(most of you do it on TL.net, but I do it on ladder )
I don't know about you op but when i started playing brood war i was losing ALL THE TIME. But i didn't give a fuck cuz the game was fun, its just the way it is, it was (is) also very hard game and challenging game, and i liked that. I liked the game so much, losing was not a problem and watching progamers was and still is a pure inspiration. If you don't find the game fun, if you find your rank bad, if you get driven off because of 7 losing streak dude, cmon, you can't succeed in sc2 in instant if you are total noob from the beginning. If you don't find a game fun, then well, maybe its not the game for you? Or maybe you should try playing brood war, and you will see how hard it is, and losing will be natural because everyone is just so damn good.
There is no recipe for enjoying the game while you suck at it imo. You just have to find it fun, if you don't, then the game is not for you i think...
starcraft 2 is just competitive, its not meant fun as blizzard decided to take any fun (aka makes the game more imbalanced) and implements macro as skill barriers.
Team games feel incomplete and are compared to wc3 just a waste of time as there is no reward at all for a single player when the rest of the team is bad. Just a rush feast on every level.
Ah, I feel for you man. My friend got the game new, and during his placement matches he went 3-2 just because the people he played tried cheesing like cannon rushing. He was placed in gold, but right now is playing only silver and bronze and going about .500. Too bad blizzard doesn't demote quicker in some cases.
Either way, on to your question on how to make it more fun. The first thing i'd recommend doing is determining your race 100%. If your currently playing 1 race but haven't tried the others out, or even have a slice of interest, i'd try the new ones out. That should give you some interest, and macro is fairly universal. Each race just needs a few minor adjustments such as hotkeys to macro well. The other thing I'd recommend is just play ladder, and if you start getting bored play customs.
Watch others play, get the chance to play, chat with others while doing so.
This gives you a chance to try the three races against familiar opponents--which makes them less scary and stress inducing.
I would then play a few 3v3 games and aim to just mass low tier units. Marines, Maruaders, Stalkers, Zealots, etc... It's an easy way to practice your macro because you simply let your allies do the scouting and strategy for you. Be like "I'm going to mass stalkers" and just focus on massing stalkers. When your allies say attack--attack. When your allies need help--help. But put almost all your attention into not getting supply blocked and not forgetting to build units all the while you don't sacrifice the "strategy" part of the game, you simply let someone else do the thinking for a game or two until you feel more comfortable.
Here's the thing. Macro and Micro should not be things you need to think about. They should be reflex more than anything. Until you get to this point, it will seem frustrating. So doing customs like the 1v1 Obs games or doing team games allows you the time and the leeway to practice your macro.
If you are good against cheeeses you can reach masters league in a short time.After masters league most people dont cheese (pick large maps) You dont have to practice vs computer much because sc2 macro is easier.You can develop macro while laddering. If you just want to have fun i guess play more casual games.Sc2 is not all about fun it is about improvement, competition and perfection.
u need to get fun about improving, get nice games, and play better day after day.. u can enjoy playing with practice partners too, but essentially u need not tu suffer about lose!!!! Starcraft its for the manliest gamers in earth!!!
The game's matchmaking is very good, but things like that have to happen sometimes for people who start to play long after the release. The thing is, while your league stays with you for quite a while, your (hidden) matchmaking rating is very volatile, so you will naturally meet players you can beat in a very short time.
You will then play against guys who are learning as well, and you will win some games. You will not only learn the (tedious) macro aspects of the game, but also figure out what unit compositions and tech paths you want to use, a few tricks, some micro as well, and you will probably have fun because the game is very good.
Platinum and above represents something like the top 25% players, so picking up this (very competitive) game and expecting to win is ridiculous. You were just unlucky to be placed against guys who've played this game for litterally hundreds of hours.
I guess i almost read everything here and still cant find what race you play. but if you are not playing zerg i would advice you to switch to more aggressive stuff. and i dont mean cheese. because a big part of your frustration is always about HOW you lose. it feels less painful when you were the active part of the game. if the enemy dictates the game and wins, it will feel as twice as bad. im talking about stuff like 2 rax builds vs Z and P. or if you are protoss stuff like 3 gate pressure into expand vs T. just be active, try to make it YOUR game. it will help at least a bit.
Dude, Im in High Diamond and I went on an eight loss streak, and at that point the game was not very fun for me at all. I'm a zerg player, so what I stopped doing was trying to furiously outmacro my opponent and beat them with waves of units, and instead just play really aggressively, like roach-ling, proxy hatch, baneling bust, nydus, and drops. It's not a cheesy style of play, just one that is more aggressive and utilizes timings, rather than playing 30 minute macro games for every win, while losing to 6 min T/P one basing all-in's or whatever. This let me relax a lot more when I play, and feel much less aggravated and victimized than when I would get attacked while getting a fast third and pumping out waves of drones and just barely scraping by with units haha. I guess what I'm saying is find a fast paced, aggressive style of play, because that style is usually more fun. Even perfecting one base play will lead to good macro, and slowly you will be able to handle 2+ base. Gl.
You can always hook up some players in the lower brackets to play custom 1v1s against, to improve you skills. Get others to observe your game to give you some pointers. If you play on the EU server, feel free to PM me on TL and we could play some games, both 2v2 and 1v1s. (not like I'm good or anything, just offering to play you, help out any way I can )
If you keep losing, you should soon enough get demoted to lower leagues, right?
Something that helped me a bunch when I was "new" and had a really hard time winning games was looking at streams, ESPECIALLY streams where people got coached by pros. You pick up so much from that!
Just keep on man! You'll soon get demoted to a proper league, at the same time as your skill will improve, you'll start to balance your w/l rating, and find it more funny = improve even more rapidly.
Hey mate, People are gonna hate :D but to have fun try something ridicioulous. Get a team of 4 and all go mass carrier. Maybe play a 2v2 and cannon rush. Just be social, maybe even find a team, or just cheese alot
If you're looking to have fun in this game... Pick protoss and cheese to your heart's content. I do this in 2v2 when I get bored and I laugh every game as they rage against my inbase 2 gate or cannon rush or void rays. You'll win some games, but if you're in plat you should lose at least some and eventually get dropped down to a lower league. Hopefully with this in combination with some of the other suggestions will help you get better and put you in a league that you can have fun in.
You have to LIKE the process of learning and improving for its own sake. Thats the key. It sounds like you don't. You mentioned "Oh, I don't want to have to practice so I can enjoy it in a few months" (paraphrasing). There is your problem. The key to enjoying Starcraft is to enjoy the *process* not the *result.*
If you aren't interested in that, stick to team games, custom games, etc., and if you still don't like it, you may just want to choose another game.
On June 29 2011 14:36 Xova wrote: Its extremely difficult to play this game and actually have a good time, unless you're playing team games with friends. As for 1v1 I don't think there is much fun to be had while learning.
All I play is 1v1 and by the end of the day I feel like going into baby punching mode, but yet I do it again the next day...
i feel exactly like this..i have the most fun in customs with friends, doing ghosts rush etc:>
This game sucks if you don't immerse yourself in the community. Play with regular practice partners you can find right here on TL, join a team that is recruiting players of your league, play in an online cup for players of your league. The best thing about blizzard games themselves is not the actual game, but the fact that there are so many people that love them and want to share the game with you. Then you have combatex.
There a couple things you could do. 1. Throw a bunch of games until you reach a lower level league. 2. Learn how to have fun learning.
It sounds like you focus on the end result of each game. Did I win or did I lose? Try focusing on one aspect of your game. (ie. Macro, Scouting, Building placement, a certain builder order etc). You can lose and still not get that sour "loser" feeling because you accomplished what you set out to do that game, either it being better macro, better/more scouting, good creep spread, shaving a few seconds off your timeing attack, etc. Now you can look forward to the next match to improve that aspect even more and eventually stop worrying about losing. The fear that you talked about is popular in lower leagues.
The thing I helped my friend improve the most was playing 2v2's with him. He started 1v1 in bronze and now hes in diamond. We would give each other control and also have a ton of fun doing 2v2's. I did also help him some in 1v1 but I feel a lot of it was the 2v2's. Looking in the practice partner retail thread for 1v1 practice with someone of your skill level and even some 2v2 partners can help you get better.
The game is not fun for me either. I love watching competitive play and a spectacle, but, for me this game is just no fun.
I would say I've played in the vicinity of 500 ladder matches and am a mediocre player. How good or bad I am should affect my enjoyment of a game to be honest. I also try to practice to become better and I can focus elements to improve, however, there is no fun involved in this. I think it's because ladder are games are too focused on winning (see heaps of all ins at my level - probably about 3/4 of my games).
I still follow the community and tournaments but don't play. I would suggest trying some other RTS based games, eg: HoN / DotA. Might be less stressful and has worked for me.
Ladder games are competitive and people are playing to win. If you got placed in Platinum and have no clue what you're doing you're going to get killed.
If you want an environment to practice your macro mechanics and just learn different things in general, I suggest you play a custom game called Phantom Mode. Basically 8 players start all allied with vision of eachother, but there are 2 players who are 'phantoms', basically the bad guys, who get extra income and extra food count, which grows over time. Its up to you to determine who they are, unally them, and kill them, before they become overwhelming.
Generally most people will sit back and macro to 2 bases, 200/200 armies before making any shots/calls. It'll give you a lot of room to practice your macro mechanics and use different units all the way up to 200/200, without being bored because you are still playing a game and get to fight in a big battle.
Edit: This game gets fun when you aren't fighting against your macro mechanics; you aren't fighting against yourself to perform well. Just constantly build workers, keep expanding for more gas and to avoid oversaturation, and make sure you keep your money low. After that, the game becomes really fun as you can focus more on unit types and the actual attacks; right now you're just struggling to build an army.
Its like hockey. It can be fun to play but its frustrating when you can't skate. Once you learn to skate properly the game becomes 100x better because you aren't fighting against yourself to perform well.
I would suggest you take your time and listen to your feelings, understand them, how do you truly feel about this and what do you truly want and why.
Choosing the optimal goal is more important than just having a goal. In fact, I think its better to not have any goal than to waste your time and energy in pursuit of something you never really wanted in the first place.
There is a reason why you do not enjoy it and you need to understand this reason if you desire to have fun playing SC II. No one here will be able to tell you this, you know yourself better than what anyone else can tell you there. You can find useful hints, suggestions and the like but thats about it. Trust your self-knowing and take your time to get to know yourself better, your feelings, your thoughts, your beliefs, your perceptions and all that is connected to this. For example, you can start by asking yourself what you think the game should be like and what it is like. If can`t accept the game for what it is, then that is one of the reasons.
This is a generalization but people who enjoy playing 1v1 usually enjoy learning. They enjoy getting better, they enjoy seeing their input of time and energy into it as rewarding them with more skill and better results, they enjoy being able to execute certain strategies and see them work like they are supposed to. They enjoy being able to beat someone they perceive as good, knowing that it isn`t easy and not many people can do this.
However, in most cases it really has to do with recognition and being appreciated, this is what usually stands behind all of this. The "holy shit, hes freakin good o.o" kinda thing.
The game is certainly very challenging, it requires you to shift your perceptions, adjust your perspective, be observant and isightful, be resourceful, it requires preservation, discipline, patience, it requires you to be able to manage your emotions, it requires you to understand your motivation, your intentions, your habits, your reactions.
The learning process is very complex in itself, there are a lot of unknows, there is a lot to be discovered, there is a great amount of possibilities; there is a lot to learn about this and there is a lot one can apprecaite about this. It certainly can be enjoyable. I would suggest listening to Day9 Daily #100, this guy has a real passion. You might also find worth in his podcasts, they are really insightful, you can find them in this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=89581.
One can truly have genuine appreciation and love for this game, one can certainly learn a lot from this game and this can be a very motivating and enjoyable experience.
Play for fun. Getting better isn't going to make your win ratio increase. If all you care about is your W/L you'll never have fun since you're going to be sitting around 50% like everyone else (except the very top and very bottom of the ladder).
The learning is supposed to be the fun. This is like someone saying I want to enjoy grandmaster chess but I don't feel like grinding and learning the theory.
This IS the game.
I think you should try to get a more competitive outlook on the game (and life!)
I suggest finding a friend that plays and trying to out do him. Always a good motivator.
I had that issue, laddered for a bit by myself on release, was high diamond when it actually was an accomplishment, but it simply wasn't too fun for me.
Then I started playing Marine Arena, which was really fun, but now that is boring due to lack of challenge and terrible patching by a clueless dev team. Now I just play other games and follow the scene.
Prolly just not your type of game. Why try to force something to be fun? Most games that I have gotten good at were fun right out the door, I didn't have to force myself or do anyting special to have fun.
2v2ing with a friend until you pick up the basics skills is what i did - you should try it. It's going to be way better if your friend is just as new as you though.
If you aren't having fun now, you will never really have fun. I think everyone who is good at this game sucked at first but had fun. It wasn't about getting pro in the beginning. It's a bit different for SC2 because so many people from other RTS games came over and were immediately good but in the beginning of their first games of BW, WC3, etc, they were newby but played for fun.
Also I think a big part of it is age. It's a lot easier when you are young without any real purpose in playing the game other than fun to get good. I relate it to learning a musical instrument, a couple years back I tried teaching myself the guitar. I've played piano since a kid but trying to learn the guitar was horrible, I ended up just not doing it. I didn't have fun, I think when you're a kid you don't realize that you suck at it so you can just keep playing and learning for fun. But when you're older you suck and you know you suck so for some you lose motivation. I think it's the same for gaming.
I'm GM now and was A- on ICCup in broodwar, naturally I'm good at SC2 but I remember way back when I first started playing BW. I was terrible, I had 50 apm, didn't know any build orders, I was just young and had fun playing. I'm a competitive person but even back then I just liked playing, I liked being in a clan, playing with friends. Yeah, I had real life friends who played but even without them I would have had the same amount of fun.
I think it was probably like that for most of the people who are "pro" now. It's really hard to get good at something you don't like.
The way I have fun in Starcraft is by not caring about my rank. Sure, I'd like to get into gold, but if I lose, it's part of the fun. When players, cheese, there is not much you can do to practice macro/mechanics, but as games get longer just focus on getting better. Don't focus on winning, or you'll always be sour when you lose.
One of my friend actually just doesn't play 1v1 yet. He just does 3v3s so he can focus on his mechanics, and then he'll just jump right into 1v1 when he thinks he's ready, so he can get placed higher.
Both of these strategies work for both of us. They may work for you, but they may not. Just try to find something that suits you and you'll be fine. The biggest note I can say is just don't worry about ladder points/rank. You'll get better as time goes on.
On June 30 2011 02:32 Bladgrim wrote: The biggest note I can say is just don't worry about ladder points/rank. You'll get better as time goes on.
Also understand that you will lose ladder games, no matter what. The ladder matches you up such that you will have about a 50% winrate, so if you get angry or frustrated when you lose, you will become angry or frustrated whenever you ladder, without fail.
Unfortunately that's one of the problems I also have with the ladder, even if you are improving there is little reward to show for it, since you are still playing opponents designed to beat you 50% of the time. Compare it to FPS, since everyone has experience with them: if you are pretty damn good at the game, and join an average game (server), you are going to do very well against the other players.
If you are "pretty damn good" at SC2 (top 5%, let's say high diamond/masters) there is almost nothing to indicate that when you play. Oh boy you get some cool icons I guess? Then you just load up a match and its very possible you get stomped. It's an aggravating experience either way, like a hamster on a treadmill. Obviously this problem isn't present at the very highest spectrum of the ladder, but those players are the minor exception.
The best way for you to improve your micro/macro right now would be playing 3v3/2v2! Just queue up and play on a random team. I used to play lots of team games when I didn't want to ladder because they feel less stressful because they are unranked and it made me MUCH better pretty quickly. After a couple weeks of playing team games I went back to the ladder and won like 18/20 matches.
Is it fun to ride a bike when you don't know how? No you fall every time
So you learn with training wheels, then that gets boring so you move on to the real thing.
Sounds like you are stuck between your training wheels and the real thing. Keep playing! You'll eventually start having fun when you start winning the occasional game.
you say you keep losing, it's probably because you just started online and you're getting abused by timing attacks. This is what the entire mid game is about. Timing attacks with compositions and upgrades that bring out the best in your race. Learn to beat those, and then you might make it to the late game! Where once again you will need to learn how to balance the macro/micro requirements of your race.
I was promoted to Gold league in placement then went down to Bronze. Just play more games and you'll be put in the right league. Or if its not fun and you don't like the competitiveness, play Halo.
Uh, if you aren't having fun, don't play the game. It's as simple as that. I would have fun learning stuff and watching replays on how I was beaten and learning from the other players. Sounds like it's not your cup of tea.
On June 30 2011 02:45 Trizz wrote: By not taking the game so serious, rather play relaxed and try not to care if you lose/win.
This is awesome advice. As long as you play the game with an intent to win, but don't get frustrated from a loss, you will improve. It will take a long time, but it isn't stressful, and it can make the game fun. If you're still not having fun, maybe you just don't think SC2 is a fun game??
Agree on just instantly leaving a few games, so your matchmaking is lowered. Gonna cost you 20 min and will make you get fitting opponents. Dont try it till you get demoted or something though - the actual matchmaking doesn´t care about league. Just go quit 10 games and then start playing again. 7 games loosing streaks isn´t super rare though, especially with things being more volatile in lower leagues. Dealing with those is something you are going to have to learn, because its going to happen once every hundred games.
You not dying to cheese is kinda funny though :D. Most people who want to play macro, have 80% of their losses to cheese (which is probably why you loose macro games).
You could also try find some custom maps that help train some aspects while still being fun. Micro arena by Morrow for example.
On June 29 2011 14:35 Carush wrote: try playing another race that's what got me remotivated
This is true. I switched from terran to toss, and while it feels hard to beat terran, zerg feels like a much better MU. Either way, it helps you understand how the other races work as well
Find a good practice partner. That's the best way to work on the late game in lower leagues. Ladder opponents aren't going to let up on you just to let you practice macro. They will push their advantages to victory, as they should. Practice partners are more willing to let off a bit and give you a chance to improve your late game skills Tesomas.900 if you need one
There was a point where I was getting frustrated to the point of not wanting to play anymore. My solution was to use another account and just off-race, I played protoss, because it requires very little effort to win and It brought me back.
I think everyone at some point needs to play casually to feel more relaxed and comfortable about the game.
I'm a random gold player and I can speak only from personal experience, but these are my suggestions, because I do have a lot of fun with this game:
- Play random for a while. You get cheesed less, have much more variety and you get to learn from every strategy used against you. And whenever someone uses something fancy to beat you (only marines and medivacs in TvT, phoenix builds, spellcaster or air builds) you can try to copy it. The con is that you improve slower, but skill does translate in some degree between all races: learn to use mutas and then you can use banshees like them. Expand like a zerg with the protoss. This sort of stuff. It's fun.
- Focus on getting an early economic advantage. Say to yourself something like "i will fast expand and i will hold anything they throw against me". Don't shy away from trying it and do it every game, you will die A LOT but eventually you will be able to hold anything. It's more fun to play like this because you can tech to fancy micro intensive units faster. It's a lot more fun to defeat people with templars that with 4gates, for example. More money= more potential to explore the tech paths and strats.
- Forget about the deathballs. Go for micro intensive high risk/high reward units or styles: heavy spellcasters or flying unit styles where one mistake costs you the game are very fun, so is staying on a lot of low tech units while being very agressive and trading armys constantly. There's nothing more anticlimatic than staying in your base for 20 blizz minutes and then a-moving to victory.
personally i absolutely hate losing, but i also have fun by improving
when i lose a game i don't like it, but i do have "fun" by realizing that the game was practice, and that i just learned one way that i should never lose to again
if you want to become good at a game like starcraft you are going to have to lose, but making something out of the losses to make them not as bad, as well as enjoying the wins and getting something out of them as well, is what makes the game fun for me
but then again all i really care about is improvement, the game being fun to play is almost irrelevant to me, because i get the fun when i do something good or improve no matter if it was fun to execute or not
i was mid-high level diamond about 6mo ago when i stopped playing to teach full time. i take it fairly easy & just got back in to the game last week. i mostly 2v2 with random guys while i work on mechanics, scouting, macro, and reading build orders. late game is a weakness for me, at least 2v2. my advice is just take it easy. play a few games, take a break; drink a few beers and cheese in custom games or something--as long as you practice playing smart, everything will help you.
anyway, the point is add me if u want and we can 1v1 or 2v2.
I don't find playing SC2 fun either. I enjoy watching a lot more. Then I see a cool strategy and try go try it on ladder. Then I rage 'cause the other player didn't play like he 'was supposed to' and I got hard countered. Then I go play WoW.
One thing I do to minimize frustration is to take a break after 2 consecutive losses. Not a long break, just some time to go watch some matches on YouTube, maybe play a round of Team Fortress 2.
I find that if I keep playing after 2 losses, my own frustration starts to kill my play and I end up doing worse, which just compounds upon the already bad situation.
And actually, I apply the "2 game" rule to wins most of the time, too. If I win two games, I take a breather. It's nice to end things on a good note sometimes.
Basically, I find that by limiting myself to two games per "session", I avoid those wild swings in mood.
Also, I find the best way to keep improving is to dedicate yourself to playing daily, even if it's just a match or two. If you take time off from this game, it's very frustrating coming back. Every time I've taken a week or two off because I'm busy, I regret it. Even a single game before bed keeps you sharp.
Honestly, this game is not that difficult to play pretty well. For me, thinking about the game does more for me then actually playing. I can never play more than a few games at a time but I still have made it pretty high in the ladder.
Also, APM is not that big of a deal. Once you get past the basic mechanics I believe that this game is way more of a thinking game than a move really fast and do a lot of things at once game.
On June 29 2011 14:32 DesertedPanda wrote: Short Story: I'm new, I suck and I was placed in platinum because I can beat a cheese. Now I just lose a bunch, and the game is not fun at all for me. How do you enjoy the game while learning essential skills? Key point: I want to have fun. Spending 6 hours a day practicing macro against a very easy computer so I can have fun a month or so down the road is not my idea of fun now.
Long Story: I have had Starcraft for a very long time (since BW), but I just recently decided to start multiplayer. I got sick of rocks in practice league, so I decided to work on a solid opening and macro and then jump into some real games. I lost one of my placement matches to a legitimate player. I won the other four because they cheesed and my solid opening saved me. To my simultaneous surprise and dismay, I was in platinum.
I can beat cheeses, but I hate playing against them. I like to play real matches. The problem is that I can't win any games that go past my opening because I just don't have good macro or multitasking yet. But it's not that I don't want any challenge, it's that the game isn't fun for me. It's even less fun because all of my friends are afraid of Starcraft, so I'm flying solo.
I am so sick of losing every single game. I don't feel like I'm improving very much at all when I prolong a game by building a futile army, but at the same time I don't want to just give up every time my macro falls apart. Sure, practicing would help me stay in platinum eventually, but I started multiplayer because I just want to have fun now.
Is there any way to enjoy the game while learning the ropes?
I would really like any suggestions you have. Not just legit suggestions like "practice your macro with a buddy" or "Develop your own build order". There are no stupid answers, because I want silly, fun things to do. If you think I should play Toss and spell words with my zealots until I'm in bronze league, I'll try it.
Edit: My additional information got lost in a sea of responses, so here are two key points I want to add.
1. My friends did not buy Starcraft and then become scared. They just ARE scared. They all play console exclusively, as in I suggest a PC game and they scoff and go back to codbops. Starcraft is something that they never want to get in to, because all they think about is 400APM and losing to Koreans (obviously the only people who play Starcraft). I'm not giving up, but I literally do not know a single person who plays. Once again, I request proxy friends/2v2/3v3/4v4 partners if you are willing.
2. I am not proud of being the worst Platinum Starcraft player (until the placement system screws over the next one). The silver leaguer that beat me a while ago wouldn't stop sending me messages about how awful I am at this game. I'm sorry, but telling me to swallow my pride does not help me. Allow me to say that again. I am not proud of making it into platinum. My 7 loss streak will attest to that. Telling me that I need to let go of my connection to my rank will not benefit me, because no connection is there. If you have legit suggestions, carry on. If this is all you have to say to me, your concerns have been addressed. Thank you for your time.
You have to lose to get better at 1v1.
If you want to have fun, play team games, where the win is enjoyable, but the loss isn't nearly as bad if you share it with a team.
I see a lot of comments say: "it doesn't matter if you lose or win as long as you improve" well those people need to re-read the OP message, he says that because he is losing all the time he doesn't feel any improvement and the game is boring.
To the OP I have to say: 7 lose streak is not bad at all, everyone have lose streaks, my masters friend had about 13 lose streak or something, but right after that he got 14 win streak, if you are at the right level the score will just balance itself, don't worry too much about it. I don't know if you ever heard TotalBiscuit but one of the point he is really trying to pass is that if a game is boring or not fun - you don't have to play it, Witcher 2 is very boring for me and although i know it is a good game I DON'T PLAY IT. It's all about patience play it until you either run out of patience or you start to have fun, which ever come first, once you run out of patience you don't have to play it anymore.
IF A GAME IS BORING YOU DON'T HAVE TO PLAY IT, EVEN IF YOU PAID FOR IT, THERE IS NO REASON FOR YOU TO PUNISH YOURSELF, STOP PLAYING! MAYBE, COME BACK TO IT LATER.
I would also advice not to look too much at SC2 streams, GSL etc. It only causes you to try to do what the pros do, and then be greatly disappointed by your lack of skill. Admit that you suck, and work on one thing at a time, and be proud of that when you see it in a replay, wheter you lose or win.
I think this is the worst advice you can give. Watching the GSL made me so much better even when i didn't play for 6 months. When I came back other than the 20 games or so of terrible mechanics from my extended vacation i was so much better because of the GSL. Maybe you tried to do stuff and didn't understand why, and if that's all you're going to do, then maybe it won't help. But if nothing else it helps you find ways pros are dealing with things that you are having trouble with.
I dont really know what to say. Win or lose I still have fun. Its the thrill of trying to out think your opponent and constantly be a step ahead. The skills you talk about will most definately will not come over night, it takes months or even years of playing to develop that muscle memory which makes the pros play so fast and flawless.
Its just like anything in life, as long as you find something to love about it you will gradually grow into a better person (player).
It doesn't take THAT many wins to bring you down to playing those of equal skill. Just get through maybe 10 more games and by then, you'll probably be pretty close(idk, just guessing... I just can't imagine it taking more than a total of like 30 games). I do hope you realize how often we ALL lose though...
It honestly sounds like SC2 isn't for you. I'm not trying to be a dick at all but part of the thrill, fun and challenge of the game is losing, learning, adjusting, struggling and (sometimes) triumphing. If that seems boring, well, that's unfortunate because that is what SC is. You will get better if you continue playing, studying and reading, this I promise you.
On June 30 2011 04:55 IPA wrote: It honestly sounds like SC2 isn't for you. I'm not trying to be a dick at all but part of the thrill, fun and challenge of the game is losing, learning, adjusting, struggling and (sometimes) triumphing. If that seems boring, well, that's unfortunate because that is what SC is. You will get better if you continue playing, studying and reading, this I promise you.
This is what I also wanted to say. My question is : Why do you play starcraft ?
EDIT : If the problem is that you are in a league that is way too high for you to practice ; get demoted. It's quite easy. Just have to lose. You can quit games if you feel like you on't want to waste time.
EPT
Or just watch casts/vods and just enjoy the game without playing it ^_____^
