|
(Warning! Non-laddering but much-practicing rubbish player posting!)
When it comes to the repetition of approaches to match-ups on the ladder, I'm very much of the opinion that the cause of this is the ladder system itself. The best way to illustrate this is to do a quick "compare and contrast" with the approach taken in other situatons.
"Expanding Search".... "Player Found".... up pops a screen with our own heroic, beloved name on one side, and that of some other bugger we've never seen before (or if we have, we've probably forgotten them) on the other accompanied by their race. So what do we know at this point? Apart from their race, and maybe their favourite anime character, not an awful lot. We've then got about a minute* or so to decide on the approach to take. We've got one minute to decide "how do I handle a protoss?".
So how is that decision made? In my case, it's pretty simple. To pick on Protoss again, I know he'll either 4gate or NgateNStargate about 90% of the time. Consequently, I'd be mad to decide on an approach that I didn't know to be potentially effective against those two (14 hatch, yada yada). So, yep, it's a boring approach from me to a boring approach from him, not because we're both intrinsically boring, but because we're facing opponents who're anonymous in all but race.
Now compare that situation to a match, or series of matches, against a known opponent. Unless your opponent is known, for definite, to always do the same thing, you're obliged to mix it up a bit. In series of matches there's enough time and background information to base decision making on more factors, so the answer to "What am I going to do?" goes from "He's protoss, what do I do against protoss?" to "He pressured me early with zealots last time, then followed up with DTs and was late getting his natural... will I see that again, will I get something totally different, I know he likes to put a lot of early pressure on, so what do I do to mess with it? Am I behind, is this a must-win, did I mess the last one up by just arsing it up or was that just an approach he's comfortable in dealing with?". All these extra factors give our brains so much extra to work with when it comes to planning the next game, thereby reducing the need to go for the safe gamble, and increasing the chances of us being able to play on a percieved weakness.
In short, repeated games against a single opponent** force creativity through the Gift of Extra Knowledge on the part of both players, whereas anonymous BO1s strongly encourage safe, repetitive play in the same way that a daily weather forecast of "90% chance of rain" means you always take a jacket to work.
(Note : I'm completely biased against anonymous BO1s as I think they take the fun part out of the game - working out your oppponent. Clearly this colours my reasoning.)
* Assuming we're not going for some sort of outright cheese that involves a start other than start mining, make worker, set up the hotkeys, make another worker etc.
** I'm assuming opponents of roughly equal ability here. Clearly, if you're roflstomping someone utterly despite them adoping a reasonable approach against you then the need to change approach for the next match is radically reduced and, clearly, vice versa.
|
Okay interresting post. It is true that we can all notice a behaviour of players copying the latest gsl matches and other pro replays. Personally this often works to my favour as my opponents will be very predictable.
That being said, there is nothing wrong with doing a fastexpand with zerg. It is the same thing as if all the pros were onebasing, and the metagame revolved around that, there would be players doing that for the sole reason of becoming good, and they would learn different skills from that too.
There is popularity which influences trends in everyone's play. It dosen't matter if it's good or bad, but for the individual player, it is always always better to actually have imagination. Experiment on your own, I can't stress how many games I won on simply doing something unorthodox.
Many people focus too much on the metagame and dismiss strategies and tactics that are extremely valid not only at this level, but if trained could be extremely useful if that imaginative player became pro.
Use your own imagination and compile a style that fits you, and you will get alot better now and even better in the future. Actually, even avoid doing popular strategies and buildorders since they will only give you an insight into how another player would do things.
|
There is a reason why Zergs open with FE all the time: Wall-in.
Every single offensive build gets destroyed by ability of Toss/Terra to block with their buildings. Yes, when the guy expands he is vulnerable. When he one-bases for a while he is not.
Macro openings are the way to go. By all means, if you see the terran walling with 2 depots go banelings bust him and kill him. But unless he's stupid he won't do that anymore.
Go learn your defend and macro. You learn multitasking, you get more experience, you see the state of the game after the 8th minute, you simply get better at the game. I'm all for questioning the builds pros do, but every single zerg opted for the fast expand. Through Reapers, 2-Rax-Marine, Marine-Hellion, Marine-Marauder-Stim pushes, FE is what you do and how you open your game as Zerg unless you 6 pool. It's not greed, it's simply the most reasonable build for Zerg. I've had 15-0 against Ts for a while on ladder, simply because i knew how to defend their all-ins and then beat them by simply outmassing them. Feels way more satisfiying than a baneling bust.
And@OP: You write WAY too much for way to little information. Cut down the elaborations and side-notes and get straight to the point.
|
And@OP: You write WAY too much for way to little information. Cut down the elaborations and side-notes and get straight to the point.
It's actually nice to see someone being thorough. It's verbose, sure, and I might not want to read through 10 pages of posts like that, but as a vessel for creating meaningful and directed discussion on a given topic, I don't think it's particularly out of place.
Moving on...
Hatch first builds are as popular as they are because Zerg's ability to put pressure on their opponent isn't just the Zerg's decision: if a Terran or Protoss player (and increasingly, a Zerg player) plays competently and along certain paths, there's no standard or otherwise "solid" way of being aggressive that I'm currently aware of.
On the other side, I'm also not currently aware of any kind of aggression that a properly executed hatch-first build isn't capable of dealing with. Playing hatch-first in the typical "greedy" Zerg style is playing in a style that can't possibly be ineffective if you do it correctly, while the effectiveness of Zerg's currently popular aggressive builds depends largely on matters out of your control. The only particularly compelling reason I can think of to avoid a hatch-first build is susceptibility to pylon-blocking, and even then, your primary motivation would be to switch to something more stable in the first few minutes to get you that fast expansion with fewer bumps.
|
Imo, the 3 race are separated like that : Terran have to harrass, protoss have to tech, zerg have to macro.
As a protoss, i'm fine on 1 or 2 base while teching until i get my top unit (Colossi, templars etc etc)
As a terran, i'm fine on 1 base doing early push and try to take the win in the early stage of the game (or at least take the edge on my opponent), or i try to expand (but late) and then do drops to catch up economically.
As a zerg, i'm fine when i'm 1 base or 2 ahead of my opponents and trying to outmacro him. Sitting on my defense and droning as much as i can until he moves out.
That's why as a zerg, i (almost) always FE.
|
wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
when i watch pro replays
and compare their builds with mine
its me learning why my build is bad
not just copying theirs
besides if copying theirs makes me better, why wouldn't i do it?
|
I agree with you on some points but I think the thing you are overlooking here is the 'indirect' pressure Zerg put back on T or P. When your FE goes up, it puts pressure on the T or P to respond because if they don't they will be crushed. They can either macro up themselves or try to punish u with early aggro before your economy kicks in. You may not be putting direct pressure on them with units but there is definetley pressure on them (I am a Zerg play btw).
With good scouting though u should b able to prevent/answer back either answer they throw at you. If their response is to FE right back and macro, what is stopping you from taking a 3rd? How will they stop you while focusing on their own economy. Remember they are reacting to you so you can always stay 1 step ahead with proper intel. Zerg is also the fastest race to macro up with which you should keep in mind. Again always be scouting and stay one step ahead. Of course you can cut drones and pump a ton of lings off 2 base when you see them FE, but this is always the riskier play (it is def smart to mix this in to your playstyle however, so that you keep players on their toes, hurting their macro just because they know in the past you are willing to go all in). If you scout early aggression then you prepare some light static defense and cut most drones for units and you should be fine.
Reacting to super early pressure is all a matter of practice controling drones and keeping your cool/knowing how to respond. Also maps dictate which BOs are safe, don't 14 hatch on steppes or on metalopolis if your Ovie doesn't scout them close air (as they may be close distance, so why risk it?). In my opinion Zerg is the most reactionary race and thus intel is the most important for us. It can be difficult to scout but if you learn all the trick you should be fine most games (ex: many P will move their zealot out to hit my speedlings if I attack the core, so I run by). If you for some reason cannot, make an educated guess based on your experiance, it's the best you can do in that scenario (eventually even on a player by player basis if you play enough). I hope this helps some.
|
sorry for the inactivity people, i had those tourney games today so i was prepping for those.
will be reading all your posts now.
ps: i won!
|
As a player that's stayed in Bronze for almost 600 matches now, with > 90% as zerg, I see the OP's point and agree with him.
First off -- I'm in Bronze still because my philosophy is to learn the race I chose to play, and not worry about winning every game... to the point which ZvZ games annoy me, and I'll normally quit in 5 seconds (giving a win to my opponent) if my w/l ratio is > 60%.
Over the my last 3 months of playing, I've seen a consistent "flavor of the month" play style in the lower leagues, and my best guess is that the average person comes into SC2 ladder play with a quick evolution of thought towards playing.. which goes like this....
1.) WTF i just loss how do i win as X race?
2.) let's Google!
3.) copypasta what the pro's do without understanding the dynamics of why they do it.
"Who is the form, following the function of what, and what I am is a man in a mask." - V
The above quote is relevant - just replace who with how, and what with why. My experience against Bronze/Silver players, has been against people always asking and looking at the "who/how" of SC2, without much thought of the "what/why" of said strats. As of right now, the common knowledge strats when going against zerg are: FE and >10 pool. Most players know that if they put pressure on their Z opponent early enough, they'll win the match. Even though most of the community looks down on BM, i don't, and will call a player out on their lack of understanding, creativity, and blindly following a posted BO/rush strat. Normally these folks couldn't win a game that goes beyond 10 minutes -- unless they spam X unit into an army large enough, that as a Z player, we can't react to that army.
Over and over, i've proven the 10 minute statement by getting players a 2nd time and stomping them after the 10 minute mark because I'm aware of their charge strat and can counter it with ease then toy with them the rest of the match -- i have some 90% map control replays from some of these matches.
I suspect these strats, and army compositions, are not common in the higher leagues, but i see them >50% of the time in bronze, and feel like it's directly attributed to players who have a goal of "zomg imma get to diamonds, lulz. wat?" without even looking at, or knowing, anything about the mechanics behind the scenes.
|
the perception of a zerg being greedy because of early hatches is ridiculous. Among allot of the best zergs on the planet, they agree that against a 2 rax opening, you NEED to be opening hatch first else you get overrun. It's just how you have to play ZvT at the current point in time. It's simply the most effective way of dealing with the 2 rax which is so popular in the matchup. This is equal parts terrans responding to economically focused zergs and zergs responding to aggressive Terrans.
That being said, there is alot to be said for an agressive zerg playstyle. In Brood War, who was to say Jaedong's or July's in your face style was any better than Savior's more defensive style? It's a preference issue. Allot of the current zerg style was derived from 3 players, oGsCool(fruitdealer) and Artosis/IdrA. All three prefer the management style of play, so the whole scene got developed around that. Eventually, I'll wager to say there'll be a zerg superhero who favors the aggressive style of play, but he hasn't emerged yet. Until then, the current trends will continue, and if you want to be aggressive, don't let anyone tell you you're wrong.
|
On January 20 2011 10:27 Signum wrote:
still to clarify: this is not a 'what build order should i go' thread. its more of a, why DON'T people commonly go 14 hatch 20 drone speedling allin when a t or p fast expands. I believe the answer is that players condition themselves to emulate games beyond their level and that their understanding of the game might suffer because of this.
I believe this is the kind of reaction that simply comes with experience. I used to play a macro game against a fast expanding toss on most maps and at one point I realized I could very well punish him instead. I won't use speedlings though, roaches are more to my liking.
The best example I can give you is on scrap station where the overlord scouts the opponent's ramp at 15 supply and at that moment, if I see he's walling off for 2 base play, I'll go roach all in through the center rocks(very important for quick reinforcement even though the first roaches get there later than they would otherwise). If the opponent goes for a one base wall off, I 15 hatch and go from there. My results against toss have gone up really quick. Against terran I will sometimes do a speedling build but I feel it's not as strong.
The big problem I have with your topic is the way you limit it to Zergs. Every races at the 2000 diamond level will make the same mistakes. I'm a 2700 zerg and started playing toss on my new account(didnt have a clue) and I'm simply roflstomping 2000-2600 protoss in PvP after 15 games because they don't have a clue, they do their thing and most of them have no idea why they scout. I went 3 gateways before gas/cyber on steppes at my natural, the opponent scouted it and still went for a 4 gate build. I'll let you guess how it went... (hint: a stalker will kite a zealot all day, but the others were rallied to his mineral line or pylons). So yeah, it's not just Zerg mimicking what they see better players do and being stuck in a single way of doing things, it's pretty much every diamond player below 2500.
|
On January 21 2011 17:02 Arisen wrote:
That being said, there is alot to be said for an agressive zerg playstyle. In Brood War, who was to say Jaedong's or July's in your face style was any better than Savior's more defensive style? It's a preference issue. Allot of the current zerg style was derived from 3 players, oGsCool(fruitdealer) and Artosis/IdrA. All three prefer the management style of play, so the whole scene got developed around that. Eventually, I'll wager to say there'll be a zerg superhero who favors the aggressive style of play, but he hasn't emerged yet. Until then, the current trends will continue, and if you want to be aggressive, don't let anyone tell you you're wrong.
You have RootCatZ and KyrixZenith.
Catz has some funny builds with inbase hatches against (mostly) FE protoss, and agressive openings on shorter maps where he does 11pool-> hatch cancel into evo chamber on their ramp so they cant wall in. From what i gather, his build is fairly easily countered by either not making a wall in and/or going 2 gate or blocking the hatchery with a probe - if the build caught on most people would probably just block with a probe like zergs have to do with cannon wall ins.
Kyrix used to do 2 base baneling agression in ZvT with some success in the GSL, but as the metagame has progressed it seems like the strategy has had some diminishing returns - afaik terrans started making their wallins with rax/factory because of such baneling play.
So theres certainly people TRYING to do the in-your-face builds as zerg
|
The thing is, going for early aggression against terran is a semi all in situation with bad luck. I've experienced with proxy hatch for spinecrawlers to take down walls, banelings, roaches, etc - and thing is, if scouted, you do near zero damage. A good wall with bunkers and later tanks, is proof against both roaches and banelings.
Against protoss, I've had a fair amount of success with early speedlings and just powering through the 1 or 2 zealots wall most protoss have before they get warpgate tech. Thing is, it's easily countered by cannons - and then you are dead.
Terran and Protoss can go for early aggression, while building economy. They lose some, but not that much - and don't really sacrifice safety for it, because if they fail, they can wall in. A zerg have to sacrifice so much economy for early aggression, and is so cheaply stopped safely - at least by terran.
Good Terrans can build in their base, scout me going one base, lift and drop their production buildings near their ramp and be safe. Most protoss that are decent use the pylon - gateway + cybernetics + zealot (with room for another gateway or forge if block is needed) style. Going early all in against them is just a big failure.
|
Sorry about my english. I want to say that is very good idea to copy,use and learn from the pro replays.
Information is very important to be a better player, if idra and ret tested 14 hs a day what is the best build order to stop a 2 rax early preassure preparing for high level competition, and you just play 2hs a day in the ladder it s pretty obvius they will find a better awnser to that problem. Of curse you can test it yourself but your opponents are not perfect so you have to understand that your strategy work in your level of play but migth not work in a high level.
I'm not saying "don t use your builds" but if you really want to improve fast, its better to use and practice a better strategy than an average one. When you face better players you will be more confortable, even if you loose you are quite sure you made mistakes.
If you choose to use your own strategy, you have to test it and get confortable. When you climb on the ladder and start loosing then you have to test a build that you already tested, thus wasting time. And if you loose your are not sure if is a strategic problem or you made mistakes, thus -again- wasting more time.
Information is power: if we could't see the pro replays then i think we all use our own super-secret-build order whit nuclear misiles and carriers, but ladder have that problem, you just play one game, so maybe you are worse but win the game.
So watch a lot of replay, learn from the pro and then make your own builds.
On January 20 2011 23:45 osten wrote:
There is popularity which influences trends in everyone's play. It dosen't matter if it's good or bad, but for the individual player, it is always always better to actually have imagination. Experiment on your own, I can't stress how many games I won on simply doing something unorthodox.
The problem is that winning do not mean getting better!
|
The argument would be that if you are one of those zergs that roach or ling allins upon seeing a fe then it is you who does not understand the matchup. Well at least that is what players like odra and artosis would say. This is because those allins assume that the other player does not know the appropriate response to your allin. If he does then you are screwed. However because the game is so young its likely they wont. The poster previously makes a great point with his 3gate no core pressure build. Its complete garbage but a protoss who doesnt know the correct response, a 2gate core with wall, or matching the 3 gate, will get killed even if he is a high diamond.
I was watching morrows stream a few weeks ago where he kept encountering a forge expand build zvp. In the friendly banter during the game he said that it was no good cos a roach allin would bust it. He tried. His roaches failed. The toss had found some placement or possibly a timing where it could be defended. This shows that even allin builds that play to the metagame get solved themselves.
Anyways its a pointless discussion ladder and even allin buiilds need to be practiced and tweaked before the correct time to use them has been found. Ggs
|
On January 21 2011 19:29 explicit wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2011 17:02 Arisen wrote:
That being said, there is alot to be said for an agressive zerg playstyle. In Brood War, who was to say Jaedong's or July's in your face style was any better than Savior's more defensive style? It's a preference issue. Allot of the current zerg style was derived from 3 players, oGsCool(fruitdealer) and Artosis/IdrA. All three prefer the management style of play, so the whole scene got developed around that. Eventually, I'll wager to say there'll be a zerg superhero who favors the aggressive style of play, but he hasn't emerged yet. Until then, the current trends will continue, and if you want to be aggressive, don't let anyone tell you you're wrong. You have RootCatZ and KyrixZenith. Catz has some funny builds with inbase hatches against (mostly) FE protoss, and agressive openings on shorter maps where he does 11pool-> hatch cancel into evo chamber on their ramp so they cant wall in. From what i gather, his build is fairly easily countered by either not making a wall in and/or going 2 gate or blocking the hatchery with a probe - if the build caught on most people would probably just block with a probe like zergs have to do with cannon wall ins. Kyrix used to do 2 base baneling agression in ZvT with some success in the GSL, but as the metagame has progressed it seems like the strategy has had some diminishing returns - afaik terrans started making their wallins with rax/factory because of such baneling play. So theres certainly people TRYING to do the in-your-face builds as zerg
The key word is trying, though. Yes, CatZ and Kyrix are both good players, but not the zerg icons. If you look at a list of zergs who are currently really considerer a threat to any tourney they enter
-IdrA
-Ret
-Nestea
-Fruitdealer
-Morrow
-Sen
-Dimaga
None of these players play this agressive style. Eventually there will be a zerg player who is going to be very agressive and turn into one of these icons, and IMO you'll see a shift in the metagame where zerg will become much more aggro for a good period of time.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
