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Playing greedy, safe or both: What`s the formula? - Page 2

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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Mrvoodoochild1
Profile Joined June 2011
United States1439 Posts
April 23 2012 16:48 GMT
#21
It should not be your goal to play greedy. Your strat is situational based on the map and the player you are against. If you are playing on Metrapolis against a player that does not have an agressive playstyle, then you want to play as greedy as possible.
For the most part, you want to play as safe as possible.
"let your freak flag fly"
Micket
Profile Joined April 2011
United Kingdom2163 Posts
April 23 2012 16:59 GMT
#22
Ret and Idra play safe but on the borderline of greed, ie still safe. They only properly greed if they scout and think it is possible to do so or because of the player they are playing against. Idra plays very greedy vs Bomber, but very safe vs Boxer. Stephano plays super greedy vs Protoss, but safe vs Zerg.

The real greedy players are generally the Terran players, as their triple orbital builds into double engie bay builds often have a unit count of 9 marines, 4 hellions at the 9 minute mark. However, they do everything based on scouting too. You will get some players like Marineking mix in absolutely everything to basically get free wins if his opponent cannot scout him properly. For Terran, this is the best way to play, as long as you got the fundamentals (which Marineking has in abundance). Zerg have to play greedy to keep up because safe Zerg is very bad in all matchups except v Z. Against Terran, 2 base all ins are very very uncommon and aren't very good on large maps anyway. Against Protoss, you have to be exceptionally greedy to beat 2 base all ins anyway. You just need to know when to stop droning. Against Zerg, stuff is different.

Talin
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Montenegro10532 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-04-23 17:04:44
April 23 2012 16:59 GMT
#23
On April 24 2012 01:44 Zarahtra wrote:
Personally I'd rather play greedy and learn what I can get away with, what/how I need to scout and force myself to defend with bare minimum. This is ofcourse just mostly for ladder, as when people get to know you, you have to mix different strategies in.


This only works at the pinnacle skill level of Starcraft (which for all I know you may be at, but most people reading your post won't be).

Doing this on ladder doesn't teach you much at all, as the inferior execution of your opponents prevents them from being able to effectively identify and punish you for the risk you're taking. Therefore initially it's impossible to estimate how much you can realistically get away with.

Compared to playing conservatively, it tends to lead to more easy victory or easy defeat scenarios, neither of which tests your mechanics hard enough regularly enough for you to maintain and/or improve your effective skill level. Which in turn means that once you hit a ladder level where your opponents will actually test your strategy's weaknesses and you need superior mechanics to get away with the bare minimum, you will not be able to play it out perfectly. Which then at best negates any strategic advantage you gained from playing greedy in the first place.
PiGStarcraft
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
Australia1003 Posts
April 23 2012 17:10 GMT
#24
Greedy is a bit of a misleading term. It's only greedy depending on what you scout or what you know about your opponent. Idra and Ret scout nonstop and then choose what they believe is the maximum amount of drones they can get away with in that situation. This works a large portion of the time and so is it really greedy play? Or did they build the correct amount of drones? Well It's obviously the correct amount except when they lose.

'Greedy' players tend to lose when they get tricked or misread their scouting information. And therefore that's a problem with their gameknowledge or scouting, not greed.

Also referring to Stephano as 'safe' because he builds alot of units tells me you're looking at the game from a purely defensive standpoint. He isn't looking to be 'safe', he's building units to potentially be aggressive. Sure that's just semantics, but the point is that if you want to play safe you have to always be looking for opportunities to be aggressive or playing 'safe' is just a mixture of not macroing particularly hard, and not punishing greedy opponents either.

Now if you then factor in how players like stephano play you realise that they can just build units a lot earlier and get away without having such a huge economic lead by always looking for opportunities to be aggressive and punish his opponents whereas the Ret/Idra style players normally will not be heavily aggressive AT ALL until a certain point in the game that they pre-decided.

So ultimately it is a stylistic option. What do you enjoy playing and feel you're strongest/most confident with?

Personally I find it's much easier to handle just playing defensively rather then playing a mixture of macro and aggression. I learnt to play the game in this order:

1) Greedy macro play
2) All-ins/timing attacks
3) Mastered multitasking and mechanics as well as game knowledge so could play a mixture of both.

Progamerwww.twitch.tv/x5_pig | pigrandom88@gmail.com | @x5_PiG | www.facebook.com/pigSC2
Lazzi
Profile Joined June 2011
Switzerland1923 Posts
April 23 2012 17:20 GMT
#25
The all point of the game is to be as greedy as you can as long as you don't die, that's why top players are greedier, they can hold harder push with less than us.
It's good to be back
Rassy
Profile Joined August 2010
Netherlands2308 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-04-23 17:28:53
April 23 2012 17:27 GMT
#26
Safe.

You should try to play in such a way that when your opponent would make all the right counter moves you would still have an equall or at least playable game.
Playing to greedy is counting on the opponent to make mistakes, same with most of the cheeses.

Arcanefrost
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Belgium1257 Posts
April 23 2012 17:27 GMT
#27
You basically identify your opponent's possible attack timings and play as greedy as possible until the point that you need to defend vs those. If you try to be safe vs every possible all-in you will lose to a "greedy" player. I don't like the word greedy because it's rather smart play, and not just blindly taking risks.
Valor is a poor substitute for numbers.
eviltomahawk
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States11135 Posts
April 23 2012 17:31 GMT
#28
Sometimes I like to play greedy since I don't get as angry when I lose since I can easily trace back my mistake to a BO loss due to my greed. When I play safe and lose against something aggressive, then I might get frustrated at my lack of skill when attempting to hold that aggression off. However, if I play really greedy and lose to aggression, I can easily brush it off.
ㅇㅅㅌㅅ
FLiP491
Profile Joined November 2010
United States124 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-04-23 17:36:12
April 23 2012 17:33 GMT
#29
It's not really a matter of playing greedy or all inning, it's about taking what your opponent is giving you and getting ahead.

There are specific cases where you don't have all the information you need to make a perfect decision, but in general that's not the case.

Unless you're practicing specific builds, I don't think it's a good idea to go into games with the mindset of 'i must macro up to 3-4 bases before anything' or 'i must kill him with x all in before y minutes'

Pigstarcraft above me got it right. Although you can mix 1 and 2, the idea is to get to 3.

Zarahtra
Profile Joined May 2010
Iceland4053 Posts
April 23 2012 17:51 GMT
#30
On April 24 2012 01:59 Talin wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 24 2012 01:44 Zarahtra wrote:
Personally I'd rather play greedy and learn what I can get away with, what/how I need to scout and force myself to defend with bare minimum. This is ofcourse just mostly for ladder, as when people get to know you, you have to mix different strategies in.


This only works at the pinnacle skill level of Starcraft (which for all I know you may be at, but most people reading your post won't be).

Doing this on ladder doesn't teach you much at all, as the inferior execution of your opponents prevents them from being able to effectively identify and punish you for the risk you're taking. Therefore initially it's impossible to estimate how much you can realistically get away with.

Compared to playing conservatively, it tends to lead to more easy victory or easy defeat scenarios, neither of which tests your mechanics hard enough regularly enough for you to maintain and/or improve your effective skill level. Which in turn means that once you hit a ladder level where your opponents will actually test your strategy's weaknesses and you need superior mechanics to get away with the bare minimum, you will not be able to play it out perfectly. Which then at best negates any strategic advantage you gained from playing greedy in the first place.

But surely, if I get a lot of easy wins playing greedy, I will eventually be playing above my true skill level, where at worst I will be fighting against superior players which will require me to stretch my own skills to the limit or at best be at a level where people can read my greed correctly and try to punish it.

In any case, my point wasn't so much about my opponent having the game knowledge to read my build correctly, but rather that any allin/timing that gets thrown at me while I'm playing greedy, in theory in the least, I should be identifying what went wrong and what I can do to prevent it next time, be it with better scouting, better scout denial, less greed, scraping the build altogether or the least favorable one, accept it as a risk and a build order win for my opponent.
Cascade
Profile Blog Joined March 2006
Australia5405 Posts
April 23 2012 17:52 GMT
#31
A FINALLY found that post I made back in 2007, that addresses this issue! That was sc:bw back then ofc, but the point stands for any RTS.

On February 19 2007 16:22 Cascade wrote:
It depends on HOW MUCH more you power then the other guy:

[image loading]

Or at least that is how I look at this. Not that I can tell a zergling from a battlecruiser...

EDIT: ok, it quite hard to read the text. right click --> show image (or w/e it says in english OSs...) makes it better for me.

Skwid1g
Profile Joined April 2011
United States953 Posts
April 23 2012 17:57 GMT
#32
The best way to play is always be slightly greedier than your opponent. That's how macro games work. The problem is that it's often hard to know exactly how greedy your opponent is being, which is why people have developed "safe" styles.

NaDa/Fantasy/Zero/Soulkey pls
Fueled
Profile Joined October 2011
United States1610 Posts
April 23 2012 18:00 GMT
#33
Like many have said its all situational and depends on the map/race of the other play. I'll normally open greedy unless its a mirror. Then I just have to wait for the other guys 4 gate to come in and fail D:
The Wood League - Where a double gas opening can still mean a Marine/SCV all-in
K3Nyy
Profile Joined February 2010
United States1961 Posts
April 23 2012 18:02 GMT
#34
In my opinion, playing greedy is the same as cheese, but to the other end. It's basically hoping your opponent doesn't respond correctly.

I'd say always play safe but solid (which includes punishing them if they are greedy and attack when you know you can win). Sometimes though, you're up against a much better player and you might need a slight edge to come out ahead so it might be better for you to take that risk.

Overall though, I don't like plays that rely on your opponent being bad so I'd vote for always play safe.
1st_Panzer_Div.
Profile Joined November 2010
United States621 Posts
April 23 2012 18:04 GMT
#35
The higher up you go, I think the greedier we see players go, wether it's economical or all-in or what not, eventually you have to cut corners, or the people that do will beat the safe standard play every time. That said, the higher you go, the more information players garner from scouting and are better at actively watching the map for timings and drops.
Manager, Team RIP ZeeZ
Kimaker
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
United States2131 Posts
April 23 2012 18:06 GMT
#36
I like setting the pace. Whenever I lose control of the game it's because my own forcing has fallen apart. I don't know what category that would fall under though. I basically just try to play according to Nony's philosophy about making builds.
Entusman #54 (-_-) ||"Gold is for the Mistress-Silver for the Maid-Copper for the craftsman cunning in his trade. "Good!" said the Baron, sitting in his hall, But Iron — Cold Iron — is master of them all|| "Optimism is Cowardice."- Oswald Spengler
Aratan
Profile Joined October 2010
United States90 Posts
April 23 2012 18:07 GMT
#37
I generally like playing greedy and then simply defending. Unless its PvZ where i feel forced to try to kill the third
Wrathsc2
Profile Joined March 2011
United States2025 Posts
April 23 2012 18:20 GMT
#38
be as greedy as possible without dying
A marine walks into a bar and asks, "Wheres the counter?"
TeeTS
Profile Joined June 2011
Germany2762 Posts
April 23 2012 18:20 GMT
#39
Play as greedy as possible and as safe as needed. That has to be the rule for a SOLID longgame-build. If you tune your build after this principle, you'll have the most success on a longterm basis.
QNdie
Profile Joined June 2011
Poland210 Posts
April 23 2012 18:28 GMT
#40
Mixing it up is really necessary, your play can't become too predictable if you want to be a real tournament contender. Look at all the champions: Mvp, NesTea, MC, MKP, DRG; they will never go the same style every game.
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