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On February 24 2012 03:49 SupItsG wrote:
PvR on a map like tal darim is absolutely ridiculous the random player has a gigantic advantage. If your opponent is zerg and you don't FFE you are far behind. If he's toss and you do FFE you lose. You can't 1 base because you can't properly wall since there is no ramp. You really only have 2 viable builds in this situation and those are cannon cheese and 4 gate
You know, your general choice involves playing random yourself. Suddenly they don't have an advantage, eh? Of course, you'll have to learn the other two races. So yeah, it's just a trade off. One guy learns 9 matchups, one guy has to live with a less than optimal BO. If you don't like disadvantages vs random, play random. If you feel that wouldn't benefit you, don't. Just don't cry about it (btw, Tal Darim = generally ridiculous map in any PvX matchup).
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When I used to play random I would avoid cheesing generally because people scout you sooner. Not every random player is a cheeser ><
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On February 24 2012 04:02 Innovation wrote:
A bunch of people have touched upon the reasons but I don't think anyone has really spelled it out.
- At higher levels of play opening builds are extremely important and can set someone seriously ahead or behind from the beginning prior to the ability to scout effectively. A decent random player knows what his opponenets safe build will most likely be and can dominate it by taking shortcuts or playing extra greedy.
- A zerg player is worst off against randoms and almost always needs to open with a pool first speedling expand build because if a random player gets zerg it's an auto loss. Pool first speedling builds are not very economical and can be dominated on many maps by a greedy terran or protoss. If the zerg decides to gamble on a pool first no gas opening (66%) chance of being ok he/she will auto lose 33% of games, be slightly behind 33% of the time and be on equal footing 33% of the time. This means that against a random you're always statistically at a dissadvantage as zerg.
- A protos player is slightly less affected because even though he/she cannot forge first FE against zerg there are forms of 1 gate expand or 3 gate expand that are still viable options against zerg. Against Protoss and Terran the build can be adapted by the time a scout is possible to not be significantly behind. A protoss player has a 66% chance of being on equal footing and a 33% chance of being behind.
- A Terran player can open standard baracks gas but will be somewhat behind vs another terran player that is able to pull off a greedy FE. Against zerg and protoss the builds can usually be adapted within scouting time. So this puts terran behind about 33% of the time against a random.
Either way a random player ALWAYS has an unfair advantage. Adding more injury to this is the fact that the vast majority of random players will utilize an all in thats really hard to defend without a specific counter build. Which of course is just the luck of the draw for you to scout it in time to adapt.
This is why random is not allowed in competition, it's also why people call random players newbs and scrubs and BM. Random players get wins through luck, and exploiting unfair advantages over players that have better game knowledge and better mechanics. Random players get to Masters and GM that would be stuck in Diamond if they simply picked.
In Broodwar random was outlawed in competiion and there were far fewer opportunities for build order losses. In Starcraft 2 this problem is amplified as there is already an element of chance even among two picked race players. A really good RTS seeks to minimize or eliminate pure chance and maximize the benefit of skill.
Random destroys the integrity of competitive play. For all those who play random and say, hey! I've played thousands of games and worked just as hard as anyone else at this game. That may be true, but you're always exploiting an unfair advantage and as a random player you can't be as good late game as a single race player. This is why most random players all-in, they lose in the late game. If you always play a straight up game then grats to you but you're 1 out of a hundred other random players that are simply trash players in leagues way above their actual skill
random is the fourth race. just because you cant deal with it doesnt mean they have an unfair advantage. you need to learn some vR builds and stop complaining.
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You know, if that pretty long rant was true then GSL should have 32 random players in it XD
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On February 24 2012 04:07 dAPhREAk wrote:Show nested quote +On February 24 2012 04:02 Innovation wrote:
A bunch of people have touched upon the reasons but I don't think anyone has really spelled it out.
- At higher levels of play opening builds are extremely important and can set someone seriously ahead or behind from the beginning prior to the ability to scout effectively. A decent random player knows what his opponenets safe build will most likely be and can dominate it by taking shortcuts or playing extra greedy.
- A zerg player is worst off against randoms and almost always needs to open with a pool first speedling expand build because if a random player gets zerg it's an auto loss. Pool first speedling builds are not very economical and can be dominated on many maps by a greedy terran or protoss. If the zerg decides to gamble on a pool first no gas opening (66%) chance of being ok he/she will auto lose 33% of games, be slightly behind 33% of the time and be on equal footing 33% of the time. This means that against a random you're always statistically at a dissadvantage as zerg.
- A protos player is slightly less affected because even though he/she cannot forge first FE against zerg there are forms of 1 gate expand or 3 gate expand that are still viable options against zerg. Against Protoss and Terran the build can be adapted by the time a scout is possible to not be significantly behind. A protoss player has a 66% chance of being on equal footing and a 33% chance of being behind.
- A Terran player can open standard baracks gas but will be somewhat behind vs another terran player that is able to pull off a greedy FE. Against zerg and protoss the builds can usually be adapted within scouting time. So this puts terran behind about 33% of the time against a random.
Either way a random player ALWAYS has an unfair advantage. Adding more injury to this is the fact that the vast majority of random players will utilize an all in thats really hard to defend without a specific counter build. Which of course is just the luck of the draw for you to scout it in time to adapt.
This is why random is not allowed in competition, it's also why people call random players newbs and scrubs and BM. Random players get wins through luck, and exploiting unfair advantages over players that have better game knowledge and better mechanics. Random players get to Masters and GM that would be stuck in Diamond if they simply picked.
In Broodwar random was outlawed in competiion and there were far fewer opportunities for build order losses. In Starcraft 2 this problem is amplified as there is already an element of chance even among two picked race players. A really good RTS seeks to minimize or eliminate pure chance and maximize the benefit of skill.
Random destroys the integrity of competitive play. For all those who play random and say, hey! I've played thousands of games and worked just as hard as anyone else at this game. That may be true, but you're always exploiting an unfair advantage and as a random player you can't be as good late game as a single race player. This is why most random players all-in, they lose in the late game. If you always play a straight up game then grats to you but you're 1 out of a hundred other random players that are simply trash players in leagues way above their actual skill random is the fourth race. just because you cant deal with it doesnt mean they have an unfair advantage. you need to learn some vR builds and stop complaining.
random would only be an acceptable forth race, if there would be a way to balance it. but like some poeple already pointed out in this thread, its not possible to balance random.
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On February 24 2012 03:41 intrigue wrote:Show nested quote +On February 24 2012 03:30 ZenithM wrote:On February 24 2012 03:26 intrigue wrote:On February 24 2012 02:55 ZenithM wrote:On February 24 2012 02:34 intrigue wrote:On February 24 2012 02:12 liberal wrote:
People have trouble accepting the fact that someone could be so much better than them that they can play 3 times as many matchups and reach the same league as they are in. They assume the person is not more skilled than they are, that the person must just pull it off by doing simplistic cheese builds.
I'll admit I've played quite a few randoms who did cheese me, so there are people out there who do that. But I'm top 25 master with random and I play 100% standard macro games, and when it comes down to a macro game I usually win. The reason I can win with random is BECAUSE I can macro, not because I wasted my time memorizing a bunch of build orders and gimmicky strats. exactly this. i play random exclusively because i think it gives me a more complete experience of the game, and because i'm confident enough in my skill level to not care if i lose. even after getting outplayed badly in standard macro games, people still attribute it to me being random. anyone i beat randoming zerg (not specifically) with any of my races is probably going to lose to my terran and protoss too, even if they picked beforehand for me. also as random i rarely get cheesed. if you can't stand all this alleged cheesing on ladder (only reason anyone loses, right?), maybe you should consider being random yourself. random vs random is an incredible matchup. See, this is what I don't like with random players. The non-cheesy ones are even worse than the cheesers. They think of them as some kind of big shots because they "master 3 races" and beat scrubs who only know 1 race in "macro games". Well, you're fooling yourselves guys, plain and simple. You don't know what it's like to play vs forge fast-expand, for example. How can you claim being some kind of macro gosu if you don't even play against PvZ's most standard opener? I played a bit of random myself. When I spawned TvZ, guess what, the other guy didn't even hatch first, for fear of some ZvZ build order loss (why would he risk hatching first against a most likely lesser Z?). So all the TvZ I played were against pool first. What's the standard in ZvT guys? Hatch first, that's right, not the crappy build you're always playing against in TvZ. Nexus first in TvP? I bet you didn't ever see that one with your T right? "Normal scrub" Terrans scratch their heads trying to know how to keep up with/punish it. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples in all matchups. Please don't come at us with that "I know 3 races and I'm the shit" kind of attitude. You know 9 lesser and distorted versions of all matchups, is all what you know. It's good, but it's not the full game. You might be a good player, but you're a good ZvWankyGatewayExpands player, not a good ZvP player, and won't ever be acknowledged as such, with Blizzard's current system. wait what WHAT i don't even know how to respond to this. you are using quotes inappropriately, implying that you've watched every single one of my random games for the past decade, and assuming your "bit of random" experience in whatever scrub league you're in gives you complete understanding of my starcraft skills. how did you come up with this style of argumentation? are you for real? only thing that's correct in that entire post is that i know 3 races and i'm the shit. Well, way to dodge the argument. Fine, you know 3 races, and you're the shit, I get it. You should rest and meditate on your "starcraft skills". the argument? k i will respond to your paragraph of gibberish i know how to play vs forge FE because i played zerg for about 500 games and zvt was my best matchup. before that i played terran for even more games, where tvz was my best matchup and where i got raped by nexus first more times than probably all of your games combined. you sound really bitter, and you shouldn't be. why is it so hard to accept that there are decent random players?
You seem to hold yourself in high regard, that's for sure.
I'm not bitter anymore, now that I know how good of a Random player you are. You really opened my eyes. And as you've confirmed, I have not played as many games of Starcraft 2 as you have losing TvPs against Nexus first, that's a fact. Thank you for reminding me.
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On February 24 2012 04:10 tztztz wrote:Show nested quote +On February 24 2012 04:07 dAPhREAk wrote:On February 24 2012 04:02 Innovation wrote:
A bunch of people have touched upon the reasons but I don't think anyone has really spelled it out.
- At higher levels of play opening builds are extremely important and can set someone seriously ahead or behind from the beginning prior to the ability to scout effectively. A decent random player knows what his opponenets safe build will most likely be and can dominate it by taking shortcuts or playing extra greedy.
- A zerg player is worst off against randoms and almost always needs to open with a pool first speedling expand build because if a random player gets zerg it's an auto loss. Pool first speedling builds are not very economical and can be dominated on many maps by a greedy terran or protoss. If the zerg decides to gamble on a pool first no gas opening (66%) chance of being ok he/she will auto lose 33% of games, be slightly behind 33% of the time and be on equal footing 33% of the time. This means that against a random you're always statistically at a dissadvantage as zerg.
- A protos player is slightly less affected because even though he/she cannot forge first FE against zerg there are forms of 1 gate expand or 3 gate expand that are still viable options against zerg. Against Protoss and Terran the build can be adapted by the time a scout is possible to not be significantly behind. A protoss player has a 66% chance of being on equal footing and a 33% chance of being behind.
- A Terran player can open standard baracks gas but will be somewhat behind vs another terran player that is able to pull off a greedy FE. Against zerg and protoss the builds can usually be adapted within scouting time. So this puts terran behind about 33% of the time against a random.
Either way a random player ALWAYS has an unfair advantage. Adding more injury to this is the fact that the vast majority of random players will utilize an all in thats really hard to defend without a specific counter build. Which of course is just the luck of the draw for you to scout it in time to adapt.
This is why random is not allowed in competition, it's also why people call random players newbs and scrubs and BM. Random players get wins through luck, and exploiting unfair advantages over players that have better game knowledge and better mechanics. Random players get to Masters and GM that would be stuck in Diamond if they simply picked.
In Broodwar random was outlawed in competiion and there were far fewer opportunities for build order losses. In Starcraft 2 this problem is amplified as there is already an element of chance even among two picked race players. A really good RTS seeks to minimize or eliminate pure chance and maximize the benefit of skill.
Random destroys the integrity of competitive play. For all those who play random and say, hey! I've played thousands of games and worked just as hard as anyone else at this game. That may be true, but you're always exploiting an unfair advantage and as a random player you can't be as good late game as a single race player. This is why most random players all-in, they lose in the late game. If you always play a straight up game then grats to you but you're 1 out of a hundred other random players that are simply trash players in leagues way above their actual skill random is the fourth race. just because you cant deal with it doesnt mean they have an unfair advantage. you need to learn some vR builds and stop complaining. random would only be an acceptable forth race, if there would be a way to balance it. but like some poeple already pointed out in this thread, its not possible to balance random.
its balanced around the fact that nobody has the time to learn every single matchup perfectly, so when they play random they are at a disadvantage against people who specialize in one race.
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On February 24 2012 04:03 Hummingb1rd wrote:
As a GM/Top Masters random, I don't get much hate on the NA ladder. It's actually mostly the reverse, as I get some respect for playing random at the top of ladder.
EDIT: And I personally believe random should be treated as a fourth race. As alot of people have "one build for each matchup" on ladder, a fourth build is needed to dedicate to vs random.
Please explain to me how you prepare 1 build vs 3 potential races.
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On February 24 2012 04:10 Timerly wrote:
You know, if that pretty long rant was true then GSL should have 32 random players in it XD
seriously. and the only true random player eventually chose terran.
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On February 24 2012 04:12 Cloud9157 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 24 2012 04:03 Hummingb1rd wrote:
As a GM/Top Masters random, I don't get much hate on the NA ladder. It's actually mostly the reverse, as I get some respect for playing random at the top of ladder.
EDIT: And I personally believe random should be treated as a fourth race. As alot of people have "one build for each matchup" on ladder, a fourth build is needed to dedicate to vs random. Please explain to me how you prepare 1 build vs 3 potential races.
Presumably, such a build is safe against aggressive openings from all three races but can transition into either aggressive tech or good economy depending on the race and build scouted. I think each race is capable of this; it just doesn't let you start your build knowing that you will go macro mode, or be aggressive.
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On February 24 2012 04:12 Cloud9157 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 24 2012 04:03 Hummingb1rd wrote:
As a GM/Top Masters random, I don't get much hate on the NA ladder. It's actually mostly the reverse, as I get some respect for playing random at the top of ladder.
EDIT: And I personally believe random should be treated as a fourth race. As alot of people have "one build for each matchup" on ladder, a fourth build is needed to dedicate to vs random. Please explain to me how you prepare 1 build vs 3 potential races.
play safe, not greedy, and scout faster.
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just played random "for the lulz"
first game:
Haraldur: learn to play a 1 race nub
Haraldur has reconnected.
You: wow
says the onebasing protoss
Haraldur: or play wow on RP realm
oor gtfo
You: what?
The player is ignoring you.
this is going to be mighty fun
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On February 24 2012 04:12 Cloud9157 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 24 2012 04:03 Hummingb1rd wrote:
As a GM/Top Masters random, I don't get much hate on the NA ladder. It's actually mostly the reverse, as I get some respect for playing random at the top of ladder.
EDIT: And I personally believe random should be treated as a fourth race. As alot of people have "one build for each matchup" on ladder, a fourth build is needed to dedicate to vs random. Please explain to me how you prepare 1 build vs 3 potential races.
Scout fast.
Ok u will get a little bit late, but dude, your opponent has to learn how to play 3 different races .... HUGE DEAL HU ?
I dont understand people who cry "ooohh noees my pylon is on the wrong position"
Seriously ..
I swear there are new breeds of stupids coming in to TLeveryday.
Uuuhhh yes
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I dont hate on random players at all, i love to play against them. You can relax and dont scout since u know whats coming, im zerg and all i have to do is check my half of the map for proxy and if there is none i make units for 6-8 minute 1 base all in  . We should all love random players.
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As a random player, I find ZvP a lot easier against protoss who FFE. It lets me take a quick third and drone up and I only have a couple specific timings I need to look out for to check for an early pressure and then some sort of two base timing attack. Against a 1/3 gate expand toss, you have to ovie scout around 5:30, constantly poke with a zergling to check the sentry count, make sure the expansion doesn't get cancelled once it starts, and if you make one round of drones too many an all-in or even just a simple pressure build has the potential to kill you. When I switched to Zerg on ladder for awhile (My ZvX was my worst at the time and I was trying to make it into masters). My ZvP winrate jumped from <45% to >60% according to SCGears.
I think the hardest part about playing random is learning all the timings. This is especially hard as Zerg, where just about every timing is necessary to know since you simply die if you don't know them (when to make spines vs reactored hellion, when to scout for 4 gate, ect), but also true for protoss and terran (i.e. when to scout zerg's main in case of Roach-ling all-in when you FFE / 1 rax gasless expand). I have a tendency to use pressure openings to make up for this because pressure openings force my opponent to reveal what they are doing (for example, reactor first 2 rax against protoss lets me see sentry count, unit composition, tech if they got it and whether or not they got an early expansion). A lot of players call me out for "all-ins" and say I'm a "cheesy noob" when they die to a simple 2 rax pressure.
Also, I start every game by saying "gl hf I'm <race>". I'd say about 50% of people believe me, while another 30-40% are skeptical. It's pretty rare to meet the person who doesn't say anything back and cheeses me, and the fact that they don't say anything gives them away as a cheeser and I enjoy the free win and cries of "imba". I assume that random players get cheesed about as much as any other player as long as they tell their race at the start of the game.
I don't feel like I have a significant advantage over other players because I'm random. In all honesty, I often feel like I'm mechanically the superior player but lose because I don't know the specific timings to the newest all-in / pressure build or dont have experience playing against some obscure strategy. But I'm sure just about every macro player feels that way :D
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On February 24 2012 04:11 dAPhREAk wrote:Show nested quote +On February 24 2012 04:10 tztztz wrote:On February 24 2012 04:07 dAPhREAk wrote:On February 24 2012 04:02 Innovation wrote:
A bunch of people have touched upon the reasons but I don't think anyone has really spelled it out.
- At higher levels of play opening builds are extremely important and can set someone seriously ahead or behind from the beginning prior to the ability to scout effectively. A decent random player knows what his opponenets safe build will most likely be and can dominate it by taking shortcuts or playing extra greedy.
- A zerg player is worst off against randoms and almost always needs to open with a pool first speedling expand build because if a random player gets zerg it's an auto loss. Pool first speedling builds are not very economical and can be dominated on many maps by a greedy terran or protoss. If the zerg decides to gamble on a pool first no gas opening (66%) chance of being ok he/she will auto lose 33% of games, be slightly behind 33% of the time and be on equal footing 33% of the time. This means that against a random you're always statistically at a dissadvantage as zerg.
- A protos player is slightly less affected because even though he/she cannot forge first FE against zerg there are forms of 1 gate expand or 3 gate expand that are still viable options against zerg. Against Protoss and Terran the build can be adapted by the time a scout is possible to not be significantly behind. A protoss player has a 66% chance of being on equal footing and a 33% chance of being behind.
- A Terran player can open standard baracks gas but will be somewhat behind vs another terran player that is able to pull off a greedy FE. Against zerg and protoss the builds can usually be adapted within scouting time. So this puts terran behind about 33% of the time against a random.
Either way a random player ALWAYS has an unfair advantage. Adding more injury to this is the fact that the vast majority of random players will utilize an all in thats really hard to defend without a specific counter build. Which of course is just the luck of the draw for you to scout it in time to adapt.
This is why random is not allowed in competition, it's also why people call random players newbs and scrubs and BM. Random players get wins through luck, and exploiting unfair advantages over players that have better game knowledge and better mechanics. Random players get to Masters and GM that would be stuck in Diamond if they simply picked.
In Broodwar random was outlawed in competiion and there were far fewer opportunities for build order losses. In Starcraft 2 this problem is amplified as there is already an element of chance even among two picked race players. A really good RTS seeks to minimize or eliminate pure chance and maximize the benefit of skill.
Random destroys the integrity of competitive play. For all those who play random and say, hey! I've played thousands of games and worked just as hard as anyone else at this game. That may be true, but you're always exploiting an unfair advantage and as a random player you can't be as good late game as a single race player. This is why most random players all-in, they lose in the late game. If you always play a straight up game then grats to you but you're 1 out of a hundred other random players that are simply trash players in leagues way above their actual skill random is the fourth race. just because you cant deal with it doesnt mean they have an unfair advantage. you need to learn some vR builds and stop complaining. random would only be an acceptable forth race, if there would be a way to balance it. but like some poeple already pointed out in this thread, its not possible to balance random. its balanced around the fact that nobody has the time to learn every single matchup perfectly, so when they play random they are at a disadvantage against people who specialize in one race.
no its not, becauce you're not matches against better players. the match making system only cares for your mmr, and not for your race. if you are in gold league, you are not 1/3 as good as other people on gold league in a particular match up, you are AT THE SAME LEVEL AS THEM, it only took you 3 times as long to get there. so if a random players queues up, he will play a player of the same skill, but he will have the advantage of knowing his race. the disadvantage of playing random is the time it took you to get at this level, and it has no influence on the match you are about to play.
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On February 24 2012 04:02 ZenithM wrote:
Okay, so I get the "just play a little safer and learn to scout, it's not that hard!".
Indeed it's not, put like this.
Now I'm going to bring you a common case of PvR, just tell me how to crack that.
I'm on Tal Darim, he's Random, I will scout with my 9 pylon probe, earlier scout timings I deem irrelevant and plain silly. Let's say he spawned at the last position I'll scout. Where do I place my first pylon and what is my first building?
I have basically 3 options for the placement:
1) At the main's choke.
2) At the natural's choke.
3) Next to my nexus.
2 options for the building, 1 more if I want to go Nexus first, but let's cross that off:
1) Gateway
2) Forge
Now what are the outcomes?
- Okay, I made a Forge, but he's Terran. I'm pretty fucked, don't you think? What do I do? Cannon-rush? vs Terran? Forge expand? vs Terran? Let's give up on the Forge idea.
- Gateway it is then. I chose to make it at spot 1) or 2). He is Protoss. Tal darim is 4gate vs 4gate (it is, don't try to deny it), so it'll be a 4gate. A forward gateway can be abused by stalkers, and so can be the pylon. Losing a gateway is really bad in 4 gate wars, and it doens't require that much experience to 4gate. I would say the random is ahead, without doing anything, in a matchup that is micro based and doesn't require much Protoss lategame experience at all.
- Okay, so I put my Gateway in spot 3), next to my Nexus. I'm fine in PvP. I'm fine in PvT. Oh, he's Zerg. I see he hatched first. I'm now with a gateway first build, on a map without a main ramp, against the most economical Zerg build. Did you ever see any theorycrafting for this situation? No you didn't, because it doesn't exist in any PvZ game. And this situation is actually strictly worse than every opening you can think of in traditional PvZ. A great start indeed.
- Note that even disregarding PvP, a gateway build on Taldarim vs Zerg, no matter the placement, is not at all optimal. It's not actually playing safer, it's taking huge risks at the start of the game, because your opponent made the good decision of... picking Random.
Ask every Protoss, this situation is real, it's not something I invented. It's only for one ladder game, yes, but most likely a game we won't learn anything from.
Could I have scouted earlier? Well no, what do you want me to do? Send one of my 6 starting workers? Might as well proxy something in the middle of the map then.
Could I have played safer? Well, you'll note that it's not even my build yet that I'm talking about. It's my fucking first pylon and my first building. There are not that many combinations, so you can just try them all.
THIS is why we don't like playing against Random.
Not because you're all cheesy.
Not because you're all better players than us.
Not because you're all assholes.
Because the game just doesn't make any sense against Random, no matter how good you are, or how good your Random fellow is...
Build gate at nat choke. Prepare for 3 stalk rush. If you scout zerg, build zealots. Done.
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I view Random as the "optimal" choice -- like how perfectly micro'd marine-ghost is better than perfectly micro'd marine-marauder-ghost in PvT against zealot-archon-HT, but marine-ghost is infinitely harder to pull off, and that people who don't play random are only doing so because they haven't gotten good enough at the game to play Random.
Random raises the skill ceiling, so to speak, which is a good thing. If you're intentionally handicapping yourself by picking a race, that's your own fault.
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For me its always annoying playing a random player because i like to know when to wall off or not. Sometimes when i don't wall off, and he gets zerg and does a 9 pool, its hard to hold off without a wall. If i do wall off and hes terran he just scans my buildings from ramp and kills them.
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EPT
