People don't seem to understand the make up of players on the ladder... As a crappy coach of low level players, this is how I see it:
0 Point Bronze: The players who lack any real know how, and do not comprehend basic unit counters, they play until they drop, but don't try to improve. Bronze - Gold (Fluke Plat): The players that have some semblance of game understanding, but can easily get swept by 0 point bronze. A Bronze - Gold Player is simply placed, and rushes or quadruple expands.... then prays 2400 Bronze: Obvious hyperbole, but there ARE Bronze players that should be in Platinum league, but are regularly put up against other high MMR Bronze players. Their level of play is generally high, with an understanding of static build orders and macro, but are just system screwed. MidPlat-MidDiamond: Basic game understanding, static build orders, trial and error based decision making. Generally pathetic against any strategy they've never seen before, they try to react, but do too much and lose what advantage a forward-momentum standard build gave them in the beginning. HighDiamond-Low Masters: No point in talking about these when mentioning AI.
In short, the casual AI is a 0 point Bronze Bronze-Gold is the every AI that isn't Very Hard or Insane 2400Bronze/MidPlatMidDiamond are all about the same in level, and should be considered Very Hard - Insane AI's simply because people only demolish the VeryHard-Insane AI's because they know a heavy early/mid push is going to come. Going but scout understanding, and expansion timing, a mid-diamond aggro-push into expand is almost exactly what an Insane AI's attack SHOULD be, instead it adds on a few more superfluous units that you've overprepped for anyway...
wow guys seriously? i'm middiamond and i've beaten both Terran and Protoss Insane AI's with my Z in a straight game, going for a normal FE build. It is a little hard, but doable. You just need to macro properly and secure your expansions while killing AI's ones.
I've played players that are worse than Hard AI's and that's saying something... The insane AI is pretty tough to beat and I wouldn't be able to do it with normal strats since they get a mineral advantage. But overall, the AI is worse since it is just an AI and can't handle situations as well as a human player.
OP, the game is difficult for anyone that is new to RTS. You shouldn't decide whether or not to buy the game on how difficult the AI is that's absurd. It's like saying....it's like....WELL I KNOW IT'S LIKE SOMETHING....Just play the game, everyone sucks when they start, then they get better, then they have an epiphany and take advantage of it until it stops working. Then they have another epiphany and love the game again. Then they get super frustrated when it stops working for them, then you stop relying on tricks to win you games and you realize that making a lot of units faster than ur opponent wins you games. Then you realize how fucking fun it is to have a lot of units to control with a lot of bases so you try and become what they call a macro player and produce units a ton. Then you realize that the units you are producing (probably the marine) doesn't do so well when they are countered by the opponents units. Then strategy starts sinking in, and you start thinking about the game you played a few hours ago what you did wrong, you realize how obvious your mistake was and how easy it really is for you to have won that game you lost. You go and remedy your mistake in the next game and feel like a bawss.
Then once you've played enough games you will reach a state of amazing power. You will lose your eybrows (if you haven't already) you will gain a blue tint in your eyes, and your hair will become blonde and will start sticking up uncontrollably. Electricity will spark in an upwards direction around your body, and your muscles will bulge obscenely. You'll have a tough time controlling your strength and pull a door from its hinge by accident. You may even pat your wife on the back and send her flying through a wall. People will call you punk, and laugh at you on the street, but a simple look at them with your steely blue eyed gaze will send them whimpering from whence they came. Yes you will have become, a swedish progamer
The AI is not a very good simulation of a real opponent, due to the fact that it generally does the same basic timing attacks, and fails horribly against cheese. The only thing the AI is good for is just taking up space, to allow you to practice a build. I guess it isn't completely useless if you just got the game, and want to learn how to play, but there's a point where the only way to actually improve as a competitive player is to seek out human opponents (preferably ones better than yourself).
Insane AI is hard to categorize. You can't really gauge the "skill level" of an insane AI 'cause it gets extra income and has maphack. It's strategic ability is still pretty terrible, but by virtue of the higher income and having all information possible it's still able to play decently well.
On May 17 2011 19:31 SnowyPsilocybin wrote: To those who say the AI dont cheese,
Very occasionally, they will DT rush or go early pool. When ive lost against that a few times i cant help but laugh. Dont think i've ever seeen the terran do a cheese though
It does in brood war, which I found out by playing a PvP Does it in sc2?? and if it does, what difficultly? Btw, on insane/very hard Terran sometimes goes fast reaper harass vs a Zerg.
I've seen it do DT rushes on very hard when I play as Zerg and delay my Lair for too long. It'll do one gate colossus if you mass zerglings, or one gate robo if you mass spine crawlers. I think it did 2 gate zealot push once aswell, which isn't that bad since it never proxies stuff.
Playing the AI won't really help you beyond gold level though, I think people aren't really giving players at that level enough credit.
I was watching a gold level caster playing some ladder on his youtube earlier today, and gold is just awful. I mean I don't claim to be a good player, I'm low diamond, but this was just absurd. He was on 2 bases.. then he says "ok.. 3000 minerals, gotta spend spend spend here.." and as he did that, he queued 5 tanks into his factory. He was also in the top 10 in his division. It seems to me people in gold have no clue how to play.
Wasn't TotalBiscuit by any chance?
He does a daily ladder stream of 1-2 hours and was in the top 10 in Gold last time I checked.
The Very Hard AI does do a lot of stuff better than him and probably other gold players. I don't think it queues units or gets supply blocked. It'll tech switch in response to the enemy's tech, although it maphacks instead of scouting properly. It'll also expand beyond its natural, its just terrible at actually defending expos. Seems to keep its army outside its ramp when not attacking.
Everything up to Hard AI is extremely easy. I'd say you should be comfortable playing against human opponents as you consistently beat hard/can beat very hard. That ofc doesn't mean you shouldn't play online before (I'd say the sooner the better). Also as someone already said, different matchups are (gasp) different and I'd guess TvT to be one of the harder ones, especially for a beginner.
Playing the AI won't really help you beyond gold level though, I think people aren't really giving players at that level enough credit.
I was watching a gold level caster playing some ladder on his youtube earlier today, and gold is just awful. I mean I don't claim to be a good player, I'm low diamond, but this was just absurd. He was on 2 bases.. then he says "ok.. 3000 minerals, gotta spend spend spend here.." and as he did that, he queued 5 tanks into his factory. He was also in the top 10 in his division. It seems to me people in gold have no clue how to play.
I think you can't really compare the AIs with actual players, best example: TotalBiscuit. He's a gold player and I don't really know why. He understands the game to a certain point and he surely isn't dumb, but his decision making and mechanics lack of common sense sometimes, just like the mentioned Tank queue. There are so different players in all the leagues, which are good or bad at one specific aspect - maybe they lose because they have 2 APM, but their decision making is so unbeliavably good, that they counter every unit composition perfectly.
Hard AI and lower: Little brother of a bronze player hijacking the account for the first time Very hard AI: Bronze - Gold Insane: Diamond and above (?)
Reasoning: Up to and including hard AI, you'd have to make an effort to lose against it, even as a bronze player. The reason is simply that the AI cuts production of workers way too soon, so once you've defended against a weakly executed, poorly timed one-base push, you'll gain such an enormous economic lead that it isn't funny.
Very hard AI on the other hand does not cut workers before a count of 100, so it's the first difficulty that doesn't become completely harmless after the eight-minute-mark. In my opinion, it is actually a decent training dummy/partner replacement for lower league players (i.e. bronze to gold).
I don't know whether it's possible to win against insane AI without abusing the "A" part of AI, but since several people stated that they did it, I'm going to believe them, even though I can't pull it off without some shenenigans. However, I think it's safe to say that if you're able to beat insane AI - without exploits -, you should do very well on the ladder.
On May 15 2011 05:40 Mafarazzo wrote: Insane can't really be compared because it cheats.
But let's say we release a Very Hard AI on the ladder, and make it show like it was a human player. People won't use regular cheese against it because they think it's a human player, so they will play a regular game. In that scenario, I think the AI could get to Gold league, maybe Platinum?
EDIT: Insane would go to GM in this scenario. Seriously, can anyone beat Insane AI without cheesing? Replay please?
I did beat a insain ai terran with some 3 gate robo when a friend wanted to see how to deal with bio. It have a lot of units and really bad micro so if you use units that can kill a lot in good possisions like colossus, tanks broodlords etc, then you can win pretty easy. If it was playing ladder most players would discover it was an insain ai with the firth scout. Then they can adapt, but not to super cheese. I think the ai would be somewhere in diamond because player in diamond understands basic macro and micro and adapts to what they scouts.
The fact that the insane ai suicides units trying to fight you makes it low gold at best in my opinion. Every time I play it I just trap units with ff's on my ramp until I have colosi range done and an expo down then I push and just keep on the pressure. So I don't think its that solid but if it knew to pull back etc. then I would probably lose every time without doing cheesy/rush style opening.
The Reason behind the Question is, that i just downloaded the SC2 Demo to see if my System can handle it, and you can play some TvT on Blistering Sands in the Demo, and the Computer on Hard is really... hard to beat;-) I can hold the initial push, but if i want to build an army after that my macro is always worse. I guess i wont buy it if its really THAT hard. i want to have some fun at least...
It really isn't that simple. I'm around mid-masters but I wouldn't be able to beat the insane ai with any standard 1v1 play. I have to alter my play to make the early game extremely safe against the first push from the AI since no player could have the same amount of units that fast. After holding the first attack anyone should be able to beat the insane AI. So it can't really be compared to human players.
I can understand where you're coming from though. Playing sc 1v1 can be very intimidating at first if you have no experience but the ladder system pretty much guarantees that you will be facing players around your level, whatever that level might be.
I've managed to beat ever AI except the insane AI which cheats. I managed to hold the Insane one off for about 40 mins while still sniping its bases.
I think the AI is easier then playing people on the ladder because the AI is so predictable. They always attack as set times and with certain units. The AI will next cannon rush a hatch first, or DT rush, 6 pool, 2 rax etc. People are unprdictable which makes playing them more difficult and overall more fun. There is not feeling of accomplishment when beatting a computer
I taught my friend to play starcraft. And on like his 3rd try he beat very hard AI. All he does is masses up a huge Terran army, waits for them to attack, when it fails he 1-a's across the map and wins.
EPT
