How strong is the Blizzard AI compared to Players on BNET? The Blizzard AI has levels like Casual, Normal, Hard, or Brutal, the Battlenet has leagues like Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master and Grandmaster and what i want to know is if you can compare the AI levels to Bnet leagues.
My first thought is NO, AI is always worse then players.
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 doesn't matter which league you end up in you should be using some asap. Find one build for each matchup you like, possibly getting a pro replay/vod will help. Don't be too stuck in your ways though you do have to react to what you scout from your opponents tech.
You should absolutely buy SC2, it's so more much fun than you realize, and the single player missions are very entertaining and help you learn the basics at the same time.
The Blizzard AI is very well designed and is actually better than a lot of players. Also, the online ladder gameplay is extremely well designed... it detects your skill level and only matches you with players with similar skill levels. If you're still learning, you'll only play other beginners and you'll still be able to win quite a few games. Once you start to get better, it will see that you're winning a lot and promote you to the next higher league, where your opponents will be a little bit stronger.
I think the previous poster's league comparisons are inaccurate. Here's how I see it:
Very Easy - no one is this bad, my grandma could beat this on her first time playing Easy - low bronze league Medium - mid bronze league Hard - high silver league Very Hard - high gold league, possibly platinum Insane - this AI cheats by getting extra income. can only be beaten by exploiting early game AI weaknesses, would otherwise be in grandmaster league
You will have a LOT of fun if you buy this game, and with a little bit of practice you'll find that you'll be able to produce a lot more units (probably almost double what you're currently making) once you have the early game a little more figured out. Hint: make a LOT of workers to get a strong income, then focus on making as many production buildings as it takes to spend all of that money. Unspent money is your enemy. Learn to mass a lot of units first, then move on to specific strategies.
On May 15 2011 03:48 Chocobo wrote: You should absolutely buy SC2, it's so more much fun than you realize, and the single player missions are very entertaining and help you learn the basics at the same time.
The Blizzard AI is very well designed and is actually better than a lot of players. Also, the online ladder gameplay is extremely well designed... it detects your skill level and only matches you with players with similar skill levels. If you're still learning, you'll only play other beginners and you'll still be able to win quite a few games. Once you start to get better, it will see that you're winning a lot and promote you to the next higher league, where your opponents will be a little bit stronger.
I think the previous poster's league comparisons are inaccurate. Here's how I see it:
Very Easy - no one is this bad, my grandma could beat this on her first time playing Easy - low bronze league Medium - mid bronze league Hard - high silver league Very Hard - high gold league, possibly platinum Insane - this AI cheats by getting extra income. can only be beaten by exploiting early game AI weaknesses, would otherwise be in grandmaster league
You will have a LOT of fun if you buy this game, and with a little bit of practice you'll find that you'll be able to produce a lot more units (probably almost double what you're currently making) once you have the early game a little more figured out. Hint: make a LOT of workers to get a strong income, then focus on making as many production buildings as it takes to spend all of that money. Unspent money is your enemy. Learn to mass a lot of units first, then move on to specific strategies.
I believe these league comparisons are highly inaccurate especially since you'll be on EU ladder. Like I said very hard AI stomping only got me top 2 bronze placement, mind you I am zerg. Everything else stated though is true. You will have fun.
On May 15 2011 03:07 Heimatloser wrote: guess thats answered which league do u usually start to use build orders?
A build order is just to help you mkae sure you build the buildings you need to and not miss them, so you should find one you like and use it as soon as possible, it will only help.
And yeah, while in Bronze league I could beat Very Hard AI's (or Insane if I cheesed) so I wouldn't use that as a scale at all.
On May 15 2011 03:48 Chocobo wrote: You should absolutely buy SC2, it's so more much fun than you realize, and the single player missions are very entertaining and help you learn the basics at the same time.
The Blizzard AI is very well designed and is actually better than a lot of players. Also, the online ladder gameplay is extremely well designed... it detects your skill level and only matches you with players with similar skill levels. If you're still learning, you'll only play other beginners and you'll still be able to win quite a few games. Once you start to get better, it will see that you're winning a lot and promote you to the next higher league, where your opponents will be a little bit stronger.
I think the previous poster's league comparisons are inaccurate. Here's how I see it:
Very Easy - no one is this bad, my grandma could beat this on her first time playing Easy - low bronze league Medium - mid bronze league Hard - high silver league Very Hard - high gold league, possibly platinum Insane - this AI cheats by getting extra income. can only be beaten by exploiting early game AI weaknesses, would otherwise be in grandmaster league
You will have a LOT of fun if you buy this game, and with a little bit of practice you'll find that you'll be able to produce a lot more units (probably almost double what you're currently making) once you have the early game a little more figured out. Hint: make a LOT of workers to get a strong income, then focus on making as many production buildings as it takes to spend all of that money. Unspent money is your enemy. Learn to mass a lot of units first, then move on to specific strategies.
I am in masters as Protoss and can beat zerg easily in late game vs insane. But the stacking effect of terran with the mules and increased income is just too much. PvP can also be won.
On May 15 2011 03:48 Chocobo wrote: You should absolutely buy SC2, it's so more much fun than you realize, and the single player missions are very entertaining and help you learn the basics at the same time.
The Blizzard AI is very well designed and is actually better than a lot of players. Also, the online ladder gameplay is extremely well designed... it detects your skill level and only matches you with players with similar skill levels. If you're still learning, you'll only play other beginners and you'll still be able to win quite a few games. Once you start to get better, it will see that you're winning a lot and promote you to the next higher league, where your opponents will be a little bit stronger.
I think the previous poster's league comparisons are inaccurate. Here's how I see it:
Very Easy - no one is this bad, my grandma could beat this on her first time playing Easy - low bronze league Medium - mid bronze league Hard - high silver league Very Hard - high gold league, possibly platinum Insane - this AI cheats by getting extra income. can only be beaten by exploiting early game AI weaknesses, would otherwise be in grandmaster league
You will have a LOT of fun if you buy this game, and with a little bit of practice you'll find that you'll be able to produce a lot more units (probably almost double what you're currently making) once you have the early game a little more figured out. Hint: make a LOT of workers to get a strong income, then focus on making as many production buildings as it takes to spend all of that money. Unspent money is your enemy. Learn to mass a lot of units first, then move on to specific strategies.
I believe these league comparisons are highly inaccurate especially since you'll be on EU ladder. Like I said very hard AI stomping only got me top 2 bronze placement, mind you I am zerg. Everything else stated though is true. You will have fun.
I actually think hes pretty accurate in his assesment. I am a platinum player and when i am a little greedy the v hard AI can beat me with their initial push. (mostly vs zerg that tend to go a roach rush) mind you i always play vs Random v Hard AI. so i cant always know whats coming at me. the AI tends to do very few builds against me. in bronze i was able to beat the v hard AI as well but not consistantly.
Drawing a comparison between the AI and certain league levels is pretty misleading. Playing against an AI is nothing like playing against a human opponent. The AI does one of a few different strategies every time. It always does a 1-base timing attack, guaranteed, for example.
The AI also has insanely terrible micro. If you get some splash damage units (e.g. tanks) you can easily slaughter an insane AI army that should be able to dominate you.
The AI does not cheese you, does not fast expand, is predictable, etc.
I've been teaching one of my friend's to play SC, and he started off playing just against the AI on my account, and could beat a very hard AI pretty much every time. However, this did not translate into being able to beat human opponents who did builds he had not seen before, or cheesed him. He had some decent fundamental macro from being able to play against the AI, but how he did against human opponents really just depended on how much they played like the AI (e.g. he could win against a platinum player who does a 1-base roach attack, but lose against a bronze league player who cannon rushes him).
On May 15 2011 02:56 TheAwesomeTemplar wrote: Difficulties are very easy, easy, medium, hard, very hard, and insane. Very easy: rank 85 bronze Easy: rank 50 bronze Medium: rank 30 bronze Hard: rank 30 silver Very hard: rank 10 silver Insane: rank 5 gold
You got it all wrong mate.
Very easy: Everyone can beat it (unless you are 80 in Bronze after playing 50 games) Easy: Bronze 95 Medium: High Bronze/ Low Silver Hard: Mid Silver Very hard: Top Silver-Mid Gold Very Hard: Mid Gold-Low Platinum Insane: >Mid Platinum
Insane AI does cheat and even if you are in Diamond you still have difficulty beating it.
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?
Unfortunately, as with many games of this genre, the developers didn't make the AI as good as it could be. Giving the computer extra resources or map vision often serves as a method for making the AI seem more difficult than it really is. I am actually a bit disappointed in how blizzard went about designing the AI for this game. It seems like they cut a few corners here and there. This is especially apparent with the zerg AI, which seems to be the dumbest of the three. Overall, the computer seems to do the same build order almost every time and doesn't seem to make intelligent choices in unit composition.
Winrate against insane AI is 99.5%, if you know how to do it. If you don't your Winrate will be close to Zero because if you try to play a macro game it's probably insanely good (because it cheats), unless you can hold out to a point where you can again abuse the AI's weaknesses.
I'd bet most of the Grandmaster League players would lose hard against insane AIs unless they already know how to beat them or after they figured it kinda out after a few games.
@Mafarazzo: Turtle. Then counter attack with a few units every time he's attacking you which will make him return with all his units immediately... but what's the point, just cheese him right away to safe time.
Theres really no way you can beat an Insane AI unless you 6 pool, 2 gate proxy, cannon rush, 2 rax proxy or some other cheese.
On top of that, you pretty much have to abuse their aggressiveness towards buildings being on the same level as their workers. Building a Pylon, Depot, or Extractor and canceling it will slow their economy down a significant amount and make yours surpass theirs.
They expand like crazy. I played a few 2v2s with 3 Insane AI. I cheesed one of them while I relied on my ally to do well enough to kill the other one.
After about 15 minutes, my ally took about 4 or 5 expansions and had a huge army.
On May 15 2011 06:00 Cloud9157 wrote: Theres really no way you can beat an Insane AI unless you 6 pool, 2 gate proxy, cannon rush, 2 rax proxy or some other cheese.
On top of that, you pretty much have to abuse their aggressiveness towards buildings being on the same level as their workers. Building a Pylon, Depot, or Extractor and canceling it will slow their economy down a significant amount and make yours surpass theirs.
They expand like crazy. I played a few 2v2s with 3 Insane AI. I cheesed one of them while I relied on my ally to do well enough to kill the other one.
After about 15 minutes, my ally took about 4 or 5 expansions and had a huge army.
yes you can, by playing passive, overly turtling and then massing units that punish the ai for its lackluster unit control and below optimal unit mixtures.
As zerg this would be something like massing spines at the front with zergling baneling defence into a 2 base mass mutalisk against protoss.
The AI will ram units at your front that die while mutalisks travel around raping all his bases.
On May 15 2011 02:56 TheAwesomeTemplar wrote: Difficulties are very easy, easy, medium, hard, very hard, and insane. Very easy: rank 85 bronze Easy: rank 50 bronze Medium: rank 30 bronze Hard: rank 30 silver Very hard: rank 10 silver Insane: rank 5 gold
You got it all wrong mate.
Very easy: Everyone can beat it (unless you are 80 in Bronze after playing 50 games) Easy: Bronze 95 Medium: High Bronze/ Low Silver Hard: Mid Silver Very hard: Top Silver-Mid Gold Very Hard: Mid Gold-Low Platinum Insane: >Mid Platinum
Insane AI does cheat and even if you are in Diamond you still have difficulty beating it.
Yeah I totally agree with this, it does depend on the race though. The Zerg insane AI's initial attacks are not hard to stop at all, unlike the Terran's initial Marauder push followed up by a bio/tank/preigniter helion push. Zerg will keep expanding and possibly outproduce you if you are not in Diamond yet, it could be a lot more stronger if the AI gets evolution chambers earlier. Terran just keeps streaming in units with Medivacs, it gets kind of annoying. I can easily beat all three as my main, Protoss, but when I offrace as Zerg (mid-diamond), I have problems dealing with the Terran Insane AI. There is a huge difference between Very Hard and Insane.
Another thing to add, it is almost impossible to beat the Insane AI in ZvT for the FIRST TIME. You pretty much cannot make over 8 drones after the first attack, no matter how much you steamroll it by.
I actually wonder sometimes if Blizzard actually has a few bots playing their AI on ladder. Would be relatively easy to do, and would provide a gauge of the performance of each level. That said, they clearly see AI as a lower priority for development, and probably rightly so.
Still, I think it would be a great experiment for them to allow a handful (just a few dozen or so) of special game licenses for AI programmers to play on ladder with bots to test the limits of AI against human players.
I dont think these are very accurate. I find players in High Bronze to generally be more difficult than 'very hard' AIs.
So I would say that all AIs up to Very hard are bronze league, of increasing difficulty. Even Hard AI would be low bronze, only very hard gets into upper bronze.
I'd say that if you can consistently beat the Very Hard AI, you're most likely good enough to get to silver (and maybe gold) entirely on the strength of your macro. I was scared to ladder for a long time and just practiced against AI until I could crush it every time, and I shot up from low bronze to high silver in about a week with relative ease. 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.
edit: to respond to the post above me, I agree that players in Bronze are "harder" than the Very Hard AI, but that's because a human plays reactively and is more likely to try something abusive. The AI is better mechanically than most Bronze players, though, and that's really what matters at low levels.
On May 15 2011 07:31 Alexfrog wrote: I dont think these are very accurate. I find players in High Bronze to generally be more difficult than 'very hard' AIs.
Mate, I don't want to sound mean, but I think you might have a problem then...
If you can beat Very Hard AI, but have trouble beating Bronze up to Gold, then your multi-player skills are just bad.
Very Easy: Not really meant to challenge. They only build like 2 marines the whole game. Easy: Practice League. Also not really meant to be a challenge. Maybe just for people experimenting with how units work, tech trees, etc. Medium: Bronze league on the lower tier. People who are just starting the game. Hard: Mid-Bronze league. Very Hard: Mid-Bronze league. Insane: Cheats.
On May 15 2011 08:56 KevinIX wrote: I think it's like this:
Very Easy: Not really meant to challenge. They only build like 2 marines the whole game. Easy: Practice League. Also not really meant to be a challenge. Maybe just for people experimenting with how units work, tech trees, etc. Medium: Bronze league on the lower tier. People who are just starting the game. Hard: Mid-Bronze league. Very Hard: Mid-Bronze league. Insane: Cheats.
Imo it would be more like this:
Very Easy - Sim City player (pretty much the same thing as you said tho) Hard - Mid to High Bronze Very Hard - High Bronze to Low Silver Insane - Silver using every cheat they could imagine
I agree with your description of easy and medium tho.
i can only choose the above stated ai levels. "hard" and "brutal" are the highest ones. i dont understand what easy, medium, ... very hard, insane means. sorry.
btw, im not a total noob, as a forum regular i ofc watched a lot of vods already
so some ppl state that when you cant beat brutal, you wont get out of bronze, others say that you can get into platinum after beating hard... i guess one just cant say. but i am aware of the fact that i dont learn reactive playing or even scouting when playing the tvt demo on blistering sands. but i cant even secure a second base vs hard, so i guess im not sc2 material.
ps: the ai always makes an initial tank/marine/marauder push which is only stoppable by getting units early that can snipe tanks behind marines quickly, like banshee or battlecruiser. otherwise he simply sieges my wall-in, kills all units near the cliff and beats me afterwards.
On May 15 2011 09:11 Heimatloser wrote: i can only choose the above stated ai levels. "hard" and "brutal" are the highest ones. i dont understand what easy, medium, ... very hard, insane means. sorry.
Brutal is the hardest difficulty in single player where as Insane is the hardest in multiplayer. Brutal in single player changes the number and type of units that spawn and their upgrade levels and the like. In multiplayer Insane AI gathers normaly mineral patches as if they were rich patches and so just builds up faster, or in other words it's the Very hard difficulty with cheats.
I don't know if the demo uses the term brutal as the difficulty level instead insane for it's multiplayer (based on you saying you can play a TvT on Blistering Sands) but the basic point that being able to beat the AI doesn't in any way prepare you for playing real players still stands. I used to do a warm up game against a Very Hard AI when I was in Bronze before laddering and that's the highest it goes without cheating, so it'd be very difficult to make any realistic guess where it'd place you just from that information.
As stated by people earlier, the insane AI cheats, so i find you have to play silly strats like cannon rushes etc and abuse the AI. I'm high plat and I cant beat the insane ai in a straight macro game, i'd be surprised if anyone can.
Back when I was being coached ages ago, my coach told me that "once you are consistently beating all 3 races of Very Hard AI without cheesing or doing gimmicky strategies, you will be playing at a very low diamond level."
And to be honest I still agree with him, but i am willing to believe that as the game develops even more, this curve can change.
If you want to beat the AI, build workers through, barracks on 12 supply gas on 13 and build a factory when you can. Get tanks yourself. 2 Tanks with siegemode and some marines and marauders and you will hold the push. The AI will go low on siege tanks and hard on marine Marauder. That means you can have more tanks, even if the AI cheats.
Btw, in TvT you don´t wall in, you build Tank/Marine.
On May 15 2011 10:25 TuckerX wrote: Back when I was being coached ages ago, my coach told me that "once you are consistently beating all 3 races of Very Hard AI without cheesing or doing gimmicky strategies, you will be playing at a very low diamond level."
And to be honest I still agree with him, but i am willing to believe that as the game develops even more, this curve can change.
I don't think this is accurate, I can crush Very Hard in a straight macro game with my offraces, and I'm still plat. It macros pretty poorly, and takes its second and third bases really late, so all you really have to do is hold off its first push and you're basically fine.
edit: and it's worth mentioning that its initial push is typically pretty weak, you can easily hold it with a 2rax/2gate FE, which puts you WAY ahead.
It's not comparable. Any unskilled player can beat AI 100% of the time once you learn how to exploit how predictable they are. You cannot apply the same skills on bnet.
The AI does not keep a strong economy and tends to put on as much early pressure as possible, like 3rax. Insane will see everything you're doing by cheating and will counter it hard, it's pretty hard to beat Insane without cheesing. If you ever wanna practice against early pressure, play Very Hard :D
When you start out, the biggest thing I can recommend is to practice scouting and early pressure, the practice matches take those factors out and it's super important that you understand it going in to real matches or else you'll get stomped.
I managed to win a PvZ on Shakuras vs. insane AI without any cheese. I am high diamond. It took a few tries, but basically, we spawned cross positions (I was bottom left) and I went this order:
Forge at natural entrance + 4 cannons which holds off the 5minute-ish roaches
Expand into 3gate + sentries + robo: the zerg attacks again but very stupidly and it's held off with extreme efficiency by FF+cannon zoning.
Double forge upgrades
Then I went into colossus and DT's. Used the DT's to deny the AI's third, and meanwhile expanded into the 9pm position. The AI has trouble dealing with more than one DT at a time... doesn't want to split its army unless it is doing an attack on your base. I afforded this by being very light on gateway units because zerg kept attacking up the ramp and it was easy to roast everything with sentry/colossus/cannon. This build is heavy gas, and the extra minerals went into rebuilding a total of maybe 12 cannons before taking a third.
Then just good old 200/200 deathball of colossus/immortal/stalker/sentry. Engage in the center, take a 4th, and crush everything.
Insane zerg has the following disadvantages as I saw:
1. Poor upgrades (only 1-1 melee and ranged by endgame while I was on 3-3) 2. Directionless endgame composition... the comp invested into literally every tech path but none of them were well developed or well-used (i.e. infestors with no NP, ultras without plating, only 2 brood lords, it was weird stuff).
Most importantly:
3. They will engage in terrible spots with their main force. Just keep you army near ramps/chokes and the battles can be won with high efficiency, nullifying the zerg's economy cheat. Yes, it's 'taking advantage of the AI,' but lots of real life diamond zerg players are just as dumb with their armies
So basically, turtle like a motherfucker. I found that the game got easier and easier as it went on, because the more cost efficient the protoss ball gets, the worse the AI is at handling it. And I don't see this so much as a way to beat the AI unfairly, it's actually a very good strategy against zerg in general (at least on maps with easily defended nats and thirds)
Edit: I did not expand into the 9 o-clock position as a third, but rather the second natural right below the main's right high ground. This worked well because the zerg tried to attack through the choke by the watchtower several times.
Taking their low defense against cheese into consideration, even brutal would only be like gold league.
And even without cheese, knowing that an opponent is AI (as brutal difficulty) makes it really easy, at least as terran which can easily do one-base tank counterpushes after defending first push to win a game. As Zerg it's tougher most definitly, it seems that here also the way to take a win is a spinecrawler defense into a counter push, or distracting the opponent with mutalisks. AI totaly can't deal with that, because they never split their army. Have three mutalisks harassing his base, and you can go and kill all his expansions you want, because he'll run around in his base..
As for protoss, Iron_booger already posted a way two posts above. Well done four-gating can work, too! - well, probably not anymore after the patch.
On May 15 2011 06:00 Cloud9157 wrote: Theres really no way you can beat an Insane AI unless you 6 pool, 2 gate proxy, cannon rush, 2 rax proxy or some other cheese.
On top of that, you pretty much have to abuse their aggressiveness towards buildings being on the same level as their workers. Building a Pylon, Depot, or Extractor and canceling it will slow their economy down a significant amount and make yours surpass theirs.
They expand like crazy. I played a few 2v2s with 3 Insane AI. I cheesed one of them while I relied on my ally to do well enough to kill the other one.
After about 15 minutes, my ally took about 4 or 5 expansions and had a huge army.
yes you can, by playing passive, overly turtling and then massing units that punish the ai for its lackluster unit control and below optimal unit mixtures.
As zerg this would be something like massing spines at the front with zergling baneling defence into a 2 base mass mutalisk against protoss.
The AI will ram units at your front that die while mutalisks travel around raping all his bases.
Voidrays do the same thing only better.
On May 15 2011 06:17 Cloud9157 wrote: Doesn't it map hack though, and pretty much auto counter your unit comp?
It does not have the unit control to auto counter anything and even if it made phenixes it would never scoot and shoot with em nor place high templars at its bases.
I just have to add that the Very Hard ai cheats too. Or well it maphacks and changes it's build depending on what you are doing. And it's a big difference how to view the ai skill if you play vs it as if it was a random guy on the ladder or play like it is an ai and prepare to counter it's initial push or abuse it in some way.
So the question should be, if you let these ai's out on the ladder, what rank should they get?
On May 15 2011 06:00 Cloud9157 wrote: Theres really no way you can beat an Insane AI unless you 6 pool, 2 gate proxy, cannon rush, 2 rax proxy or some other cheese.
On top of that, you pretty much have to abuse their aggressiveness towards buildings being on the same level as their workers. Building a Pylon, Depot, or Extractor and canceling it will slow their economy down a significant amount and make yours surpass theirs.
They expand like crazy. I played a few 2v2s with 3 Insane AI. I cheesed one of them while I relied on my ally to do well enough to kill the other one.
After about 15 minutes, my ally took about 4 or 5 expansions and had a huge army.
Non-Cheesy ways of winning: -Terran: Marine-Tank, perhaps Banshee if you like, on one base. Defend first push (and perhaps even second push), then counterpush. This is a fail-proof way of winning. If going for Macro Game: Multi-prong harass, Siegelines, Battlecruiser-Viking. Ravens with HSM can pay off, too. On small maps this is pretty easy win by just sieging forward, such as Steppes of War. -Protoss: 3 Base Deathball, or 4-Gate (pre-patch). Good counter-pushes can also work sometimes. -Zerg: Going for lategame-strong armies on 3-4 bases while harassing the opponent with Mutalisks and thus keeping him at his base.
However, apart from The Tank-Counterpush these tactics indeed require approx Master level, and are not foolproof. I think it's fair to say that Insane AI beeing cheeseproof (and if it was better against Terran) would make it into Master League.
As long as you can hold the first push without sacrificing your economy too much, you're in AMAZING shape for the rest of the game. Except against insane (brutal) AI. The only way to beat insane AI is to abuse his stupiditty. Whether through cheese, unit placement, forcefields, mass tanks, planetairy fortresses, ...
Where you will be placed in on the ladder will depend on yourself. Good decision making and mechanics will do a LOT. Being capable to defeat a certain difficulty of AI doesn't mean a thing. Mechanics is something you can train against an AI and watching vods also helps your decision making a ton. Those two are the reason i got placed into diamond. All i did was watch VODs (and i still do) and play AI. I stopped playing ladder when i started watching lots of VODs and i was in bronze back then. I started playing again right before the end of season 1 and i got placed in diamond for season 2.
It's hard to compare it to Bnet because battlenet has the "Human" factor where someone can do something totally unexpected, whereas the bot will prettymuch play similarly all the time.
While the bot does have varying diffecoulties you can beat all of these with some practice, because you learn to beat it. You will never "beat" battlenet, you will never beat every single player opposing you, hell even top pros cant jump on the ladder and expect to win every game because of the "Human" factor.
The AI is easy because you know which gimmicks can be abused.
If you played against AI on the ladder, thinking it was a human player, it would be close to impossible to defeat the Insane, therefore it would go GM quickly.
Insane doesn't really count because you have to abuse it and can't play normal, but mostly everyone who plays 1v1 on battle.net for some time (regardless of league) should be able to consistently beat the next hardest level (Very Hard?) in a straight up game without any AI exploit tricks.
You guys are seriously stupid. HuskyStarcraft showed a video of him beating 6 insaine ai's... The ai does the same thing every game and are ridiciously easy to beat. dont bother practicing against them unless u are practicing a build order.
The concept is "could you beat a goldfish in a bow"
The goldfish has no strategy, tactics or micro--he should be easy to defeat. If your strategy has a hard time against the goldfish, try another strategy, etc...
The AI will do a 1base push against you. Not really a big push, nor a really powerful one. Just big enough so if you forget to defend yourself you die. The easier the AI the more forgiving the goldfish. Insane AI is when the goldfish pushes the bowl to its side and hopes you don't notice the water seeping into your laptop/cards. You have to play "special" against it. Casual => Very Hard is all you need.
On May 15 2011 03:48 Chocobo wrote: You should absolutely buy SC2, it's so more much fun than you realize, and the single player missions are very entertaining and help you learn the basics at the same time.
The Blizzard AI is very well designed and is actually better than a lot of players. Also, the online ladder gameplay is extremely well designed... it detects your skill level and only matches you with players with similar skill levels. If you're still learning, you'll only play other beginners and you'll still be able to win quite a few games. Once you start to get better, it will see that you're winning a lot and promote you to the next higher league, where your opponents will be a little bit stronger.
I think the previous poster's league comparisons are inaccurate. Here's how I see it:
Very Easy - no one is this bad, my grandma could beat this on her first time playing Easy - low bronze league Medium - mid bronze league Hard - high silver league Very Hard - high gold league, possibly platinum Insane - this AI cheats by getting extra income. can only be beaten by exploiting early game AI weaknesses, would otherwise be in grandmaster league
You will have a LOT of fun if you buy this game, and with a little bit of practice you'll find that you'll be able to produce a lot more units (probably almost double what you're currently making) once you have the early game a little more figured out. Hint: make a LOT of workers to get a strong income, then focus on making as many production buildings as it takes to spend all of that money. Unspent money is your enemy. Learn to mass a lot of units first, then move on to specific strategies.
Really there just used for practiceing stratagies against to find optimal timings and stuff like that without having it affect your MMR. There not a measure of skill (except if you lose to easy, that measures lack of skill).
May have been said before but you really can't compare AI difficulty to human skill level. It's not that the AI is necessarily worse, but it's very predictable. You work out a strategy against it and beat it every time thereafter.
Also, the AI makes consistent micro mistakes that you can learn to exploit and gain a larger and larger edge.
Insane AI cheats, making it hard to beat without exploiting the above weaknesses, also you need to learn completely different timings compared to usual games.
For anyone thinking very easy can be beaten by anyone, my friend's newbie friend playe 2 TvTs against it (having played before) and lost both times. His macro is nonexistant, his micro involves M-moving until all of his units get there. So, some people CAN lose, but not many.
Anything but insane AI is super easy to beat, and insane AI can beat easily crushed with cheese in under 3 minutes, as insane AI mines 7 minerals per trip as opposed to 5, it's much harder to just crush them like you can vs all the other AI levels
I'm high silver, and I can crush the very hard AI without too much effort.. and yeah, I can outmacro plats if they actually decide to macro, which is why I agree that playing against AI is great macro practice, however most gold - diamond just 4gate/3rax. So playing Vs AI doesn't help against that.
Offence, yeah people usually say "no" but they never mean it. If you're high silver and think you can outmacro plats. You are delusional on a grand scale ;-) I'm high diamond was plat just a week ago and my micro is pretty much non existant except for a little target firing once in a blue moon. How many workers have you made when the game ends? More than 70? Is your average unspent resource under 700(on 3+ bases)? How many times do you get supply capped without someone sniping depos/pylos/overlords, one or less? Have you ever had more than 10 production facilities? Did you ever build a unit during a battle!?
Just use AI as a practise ground to learn the build orders. If you are like me, using zerg and want to do a fast expand in all the maps. Since AI always goes for one base timing attack, I can now handle early pressure after I fast expanded easier on ladder
You can't really equate it to people's levels because the computer has different strengths and weaknesses. The computer never cheeses you, but hard probably has better macro than everyone in gold, and very hard has better macro than most if not all people in platinum.
When I started playing Starcraft (sc2), I played co-op against computer. After I felt that very hard computers are not very challenging any more I played human players and got into Gold league, played 20 more games, got into Platinum. So unless you completely abuse the AI all the time (for example with rushes, forcefields or mass siegetanks into which it will attack) you'll be pretty good.
I can only speak for myself, I'm high plat and able to beat very hard consistently (based on the knowledge that a 1 base push is coming). So I'd rate that high gold to low plat. I was working on beating the Insane AI using a Spanishiwa build on Crossfire, which I managed to do after two or three times. If you survive the initial and second attack, you basically won. Denying expo's helps a lot too!
Hardest part of playing an AI is not abusing it, not in the sense of harass and keep him in his base, but in the sense of not overactively preparing for the 1-base push you know is coming.
I remember playing against the very easy ai the first time I ever played zerg. I had absolutley no idea how to build units and I had never watched any games. I was trying to make zerglings from my spawning pool I ended up losing when the ai built thors, I had never seen them before.
Anyway, now I'm a diamond protoss and can beat very hards, I have yet to beat an insane though.
On May 15 2011 02:56 TheAwesomeTemplar wrote: Difficulties are very easy, easy, medium, hard, very hard, and insane. Very easy: rank 85 bronze Easy: rank 50 bronze Medium: rank 30 bronze Hard: rank 30 silver Very hard: rank 10 silver Insane: rank 5 gold
AHHHHH are you kidding me about the insane part? im in mid-masters and i cant beat insane ): its so hard because they have double your mineral income or something and they have maphax too its bullshit
it should be something like
very easy: CombatEX easy: bronze medium: high bronze hard: silver very hard: gold/plat insane: PillaGe
On May 15 2011 02:56 TheAwesomeTemplar wrote: Difficulties are very easy, easy, medium, hard, very hard, and insane. Very easy: rank 85 bronze Easy: rank 50 bronze Medium: rank 30 bronze Hard: rank 30 silver Very hard: rank 10 silver Insane: rank 5 gold
AHHHHH are you kidding me about the insane part? im in mid-masters and i cant beat insane ): its so hard because they have double your mineral income or something and they have maphax too its bullshit
it should be something like
very easy: CombatEX easy: bronze medium: high bronze hard: silver very hard: gold/plat insane: PillaGe
I said what I did for insane for 2 reasons: a. I can almost beat it; I'm mid gold. B. It's very vulnerable to cheese
On May 16 2011 17:49 regulator_mk wrote: You can't really equate it to people's levels because the computer has different strengths and weaknesses. The computer never cheeses you, but hard probably has better macro than everyone in gold, and very hard has better macro than most if not all people in platinum.
That is such a lie. Hard builds a maximum of 20 workers to mine and expands verrrrry slowwwwwllllyyyyy. I have yet to see a gold league player with worse macro, except for someone who proxy gated and cannon rushed simultaniously and made less than 15 probes. As for very hard, I haven't played it and analyzed it's macro yet, but I'm guessing that mine is still better (I'm gold league)
I never play AI competitively, I just always play Hard AI for testing and refining the timings of my builds. Just to add though, the insane Zerg AI should be the easier, hardest is probably the Terran AI, anyone agree?
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
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 don't know about you, but as a Zerg player fighting Protoss AI, I find Very Hard to be much harder than the majority of my opponents as Diamond league. Really really frustrating push.
On May 15 2011 03:48 Chocobo wrote: You should absolutely buy SC2, it's so more much fun than you realize, and the single player missions are very entertaining and help you learn the basics at the same time.
The Blizzard AI is very well designed and is actually better than a lot of players. Also, the online ladder gameplay is extremely well designed... it detects your skill level and only matches you with players with similar skill levels. If you're still learning, you'll only play other beginners and you'll still be able to win quite a few games. Once you start to get better, it will see that you're winning a lot and promote you to the next higher league, where your opponents will be a little bit stronger.
I think the previous poster's league comparisons are inaccurate. Here's how I see it:
Very Easy - no one is this bad, my grandma could beat this on her first time playing Easy - low bronze league Medium - mid bronze league Hard - high silver league Very Hard - high gold league, possibly platinum Insane - this AI cheats by getting extra income. can only be beaten by exploiting early game AI weaknesses, would otherwise be in grandmaster league
You will have a LOT of fun if you buy this game, and with a little bit of practice you'll find that you'll be able to produce a lot more units (probably almost double what you're currently making) once you have the early game a little more figured out. Hint: make a LOT of workers to get a strong income, then focus on making as many production buildings as it takes to spend all of that money. Unspent money is your enemy. Learn to mass a lot of units first, then move on to specific strategies.
I believe these league comparisons are highly inaccurate especially since you'll be on EU ladder. Like I said very hard AI stomping only got me top 2 bronze placement, mind you I am zerg. Everything else stated though is true. You will have fun.
That's because the computer uses one base pushes only. As zerg, to beat the computer you need to go very heavy on defense early. Once you beat the first push, you've already won. Against players, that doesn't work at all, especially as a zerg player.
I would not recommend zerg players to train vs computer AI and then expect it to work against players, as zerg against players you need to scout opponents and be as greedy as possible. Against very hard computer, it's impossible to be greedy unless you're doing something like spanishiwa.
Edit: In fact, even if you do spanishiwa, you have to scout better than against platinum players, I've been broken several times by very hard protoss going really early immortal push when I try playing with less than 3 spines blind. Never had a player do a push like that.
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.
On Very Hard difficulty, and you just reminded of the reapers they occasionally use :p
There is no way any comparison between AI Levels and Ladder Rankings is possible. The AI does stuff that no sane human would ever do, like for example pulling their whole 200/200 Army back all the way while they are just about to kill you if they have 3 Mutas in their mineralline. Or going total apeshit when a building is placed inside their base.
Furthermore the AI doesn't cheese, doesn't 4gate, doesn't cannonrush, no 2rax-allin, no dt-rush.. nothing what occurs on a daily basis on the ladder.
So any new player who reads this: If you practice against the AI, that's fine. You can work on your macro and stuff. But don't ever draw any connection to ladder rankings, because on the ladder you'll get confronted with stuff, no AI would ever to do you. Don't think: "hey, i beat very hard AI in every game, i should be at least platinum", because thats just bullshit in my opinion.
On May 17 2011 22:16 reapsen wrote: There is no way any comparison between AI Levels and Ladder Rankings is possible. The AI does stuff that no sane human would ever do, like for example pulling their whole 200/200 Army back all the way while they are just about to kill you if they have 3 Mutas in their mineralline. Or going total apeshit when a building is placed inside their base.
Furthermore the AI doesn't cheese, doesn't 4gate, doesn't cannonrush, no 2rax-allin, no dt-rush.. nothing what occurs on a daily basis on the ladder.
So any new player who reads this: If you practice against the AI, that's fine. You can work on your macro and stuff. But don't ever draw any connection to ladder rankings, because on the ladder you'll get confronted with stuff, no AI would ever to do you. Don't think: "hey, i beat very hard AI in every game, i should be at least platinum", because thats just bullshit in my opinion.
Your description of teh computer is me when sc2 came out o.O
FYI, comparing AI to BNet is not a statement that one is better than the other nor is it saying that a choice should be made on which is better. It's just listing of anything related and unrelated in order to (and here's the hard part) *compare* them to each other
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.
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.
wow, gold league has really gotten a lot better it's sounding. He actually knew to keep his money down during a game and not just while posting on TL.
Also, the Insane is incomparable because it cheats. You could say you need to be Bronze or even Diamond -- you will need to do some really weird shit like cheese in order to beat it.
A Very Hard AI plays like a goldish platinum. Unless I'm mistaken, AIs almost always do some kind of early-ish push, so that gets stale quickly.
In my opinion very hard is SO TRIVIAL. I don't even play starcraft 2, and I beat the AI easily in a straight up macro game. I'm low silver btw, but might be in part because I have 20 games played.
Insane AI has so many cheats... but it is still completely beatable. If you have solid macro and game sense, it is quite doable.
OP: This question is a non-starter, because the AI is really not comparable to BNet in any way. anything below Very Hard is barely BARELY comparable to low bronze. More importantly, the AI will never:
* 6pool/cannon rush/3 rax you (favored at the lower levels), thus not punishing you for bad scouting.
* Never initiate a base-trade with you because it will always withdraw the whole army home if any force is attacking (e.g. 1 mutalisk)
* Is totally predictable, i.e. always does a big 1 base attack and never techs in unusual ways or does the truly strong sub-10 minute all-ins (i.e. Raven/Tank/Marine, 6 gate Warpgate bust, Roach/ling Losira bust)
* Doesn't actually macro; either cheats (INSANE) or moves very slowly to take bases. Doesn't teach you how to manage the game by understanding your opponent's economy.
* Doesn't punish you (or reward you) for creative play, e.g. double-expanding, playing mindgames by cancelling a nexus or hiding tech, etc.
* Doesn't relentlessly attack and throw you into brutal micro battles that challenge you to macro while trying to stay alive by the skin of your teeth
Basically... go get on Bnet and have a lot more fun! Few things are more satisfying than getting stomped by a creative and seemingly imba build, reviewing a replay, refining your reaction, and murdering it the next time you see it on ladder.
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.
Yes we're all terrible o.o
I play random so I'm a 3 race gold player. I don't play more than 20-30 games a week. And most of all- I'm only a mediocre player.
But i'm not effing terrible :O
On topic- AI =/= Living Breathing People. Hard will send like 7 roaches and 2 lings to you at 8 minutes or so exactly. Every time.
Bronze-GM you'll get cheesed then 2 base all in'd then macro game'd then ... You just can't compare it. However versing the AI is a good way to get comfortable with producing workers, the timing of a build order and when you can or can't multitask during it AND you can get supply blocked without looking silly. But you're not learning any competitive ladder skills unfortunately.
The AI plays way more predictably than somebody on BNET. Online, somebody can make a Dark Shrine and then just attack without Dark Templars at all. The AI actually makes use of everything in the same ways just about every game. They even attack at around the same times each game, unlike a real game. And then you have to note that a cannon rush can beat Insane AI...
The AI works for learning the basics, anything beyond that is pointless.
Insane, without cheesing, you can as T win against 4 Z opponents on some maps due to siege tanks. You won't do it every time, but it is possible. VS 3 insane Z on some maps it is always possible. VS 2 insane it isn't possible on some maps, but it is on most.
Winning against one insane in a straight up macro game is very possible due to their bad unit control.
So I would rate hard and below as bronze. Where you basically learn one strat and execute it. With some prior RTS experience you can beat all of them pretty easily.
Very hard is probably mid bronze level, mostly since you know what the possible options are and how easy it is to cheese.
The cheating insane is probably gold level since you know what you are facing. The tenth game on you should be winning most of your games already.
No comparison. Very easy-hard is just same exact build every time. Just different timings due to the cap of workers. (very easy caps at like 10 or something O.o) But Very hard actually adapts a little and plays like a low gold player I would say. But Insane is just different. if you play straight up (no cheese no glitchign the AI by agroing with like 2 drones) then they SHOULD win just because they actually have a faster collection rate I believe (unless your macro is impeccable and you are just that boss at micro...)
I find i can outmacro a Very Hard AI, and win ( ZvP), but i've never tried insane.
As long as you scout what's coming the Very Hard AI doesn't reinforce very well so as long as you've macroed well you can simply just keep producing and overwhelm the AI.
Insane would be interesting, I think Terran might also be the more difficult race to beat.
Can't really compare AI to humans, as when you find the 'abuse' that lets you beat the AI it doesn't matter how skilled you are, you can beat the AI anytime.
As zerg, bring one or two drones into his base Build extractors, and then cancelling and then immediately rebuilding
Sometimes (seems like sometimes they won 't do it though), the AI will pull all his workers to attack your extractor, in which case he will have zero income and will die as soon as you make anything
Take it from someone who's played hundreds of AI games - it's a no.
>Very easy sends about 2-3 units for its first attack. A baby could defend and win. >Medium sends a half-decent amount of units but if you're Silver League or above you will never lose. >Hard sends a fair challenge of units but most standard openings will crush it. >Very Hard can be challenging but a Platinum player will almost always defeat it.
Tactics (or lack thereof) >All AIs attack without fail at the exact same time every game: 6:30-7:00. >You can either defend this and push back for a win, or tech up and defend the second attack at ~12:00, then win. >I've never played a game that went to a third, because I'll always win after that point. >All AIs play standard army ball with no other tactics. They do not use harass or stealth tactics. >They stay on one base for a very long time and all attacks are a-moves. >If AI units are attacked from up a cliff and there is a wall, they will turn tail and run unless it deems the force strong enough to push in. >If an AI army is attacking, sneaking any units into their base to attack their structures will make the WHOLE ARMY drop its attack and come back to defend.
You will not learn anything other than basic macro and control when playing against AIs. If anything, it's a good warmup before playing against real people. If you're beyond Gold League, it isn't worth it.
I'd say you should definatly buy it. Playing online is nothing like playing against a computer, and won't be for quite some time I believe! It's a complete different story with multiplayer and that's what makes the game incredible!
As others have said, the fact that you know you are playing the AI and it behaves in a predictable fashion makes things a lot easier. For a proper test of the AI's actual strength you would need to get people to play the AI without knowing they are playing an AI. For example, putting the AIs onto the ladder and seeing how they fare.
Regarding insane AI, it is perfectly possible to beat it straight up, simply because it makes poor decisions and has awful micro.
In any case, I wouldn't worry so much about difficulty. The great thing about the ladder is that it automatically matches you against people of your own skill level.
I think I accurately say what level of skill one needs to beat the various levels, as I was myself a bronze and now top silver who had played AI a lot. This is what rank I was when I finally beat the different levels of AI
Very easy: Absolute Beginner Easy: Bottom Bronze Medium: Bottom-Mid Bronze Hard: Mid-High Bronze Very hard: Bottom-Mid Silver Insane: ?? Haven't beaten it yet
To beat insane AI, pick T, P can work as well. Make sure enemy ai is Z (since it is by far the weakest). Make static defence for first attack wave. Defend it, tech up. Let the teched units handle wave two behind static defence, get a natural if you couldn't before attack 1. Defend it.
If you are lucky you get a third. Most map layouts stop you from getting one though. Now defend until the opponent mines out or you get a large enough tier 3 air force to win.
OR cheese.
Some maps with island expansions you can play T vs Z and defend your main with a small choke and float CCs over, giving you enough resources to win with BC while defending your main to keep the opponent army in check.
If you aren't playing vs a Z insane then you are in for a real fight that is hard to win for most people.
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.
I don't think there can be a direct comparison like Very Hard - Platinum and so on. The Blizzard AI will always push at the same time, every game, with almost the same composition. Will retreat if it can't defeat you by it's calculations but it will still do the same thing. It can be learned and it can be defeated by anyone. You could be thrashing AIs left and right but the second you find yourself in a ladder game you will be greeted by cheese, weird timings & unit compositions, maybe pressure because you really want those ladder points and it's a whole other game.
You could say, at the most, that in order to beat the Very Hard AI in a macro game you need to have some sort of decent macro yourself, maybe gold level, something like that, but it's in no way an indication as to what you can expect in actual ladder games.
How strong is the Blizzard AI compared to Players on BNET? The Blizzard AI has levels like Casual, Normal, Hard, or Brutal, the Battlenet has leagues like Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master and Grandmaster and what i want to know is if you can compare the AI levels to Bnet leagues.
My first thought is NO, AI is always worse then players.
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...
please answer yours faithfully HL
Late to the party here, but there's a demo!? Seriously?
On May 27 2011 21:43 VaultDweller wrote: I don't think there can be a direct comparison like Very Hard - Platinum and so on. The Blizzard AI will always push at the same time, every game, with almost the same composition. Will retreat if it can't defeat you by it's calculations but it will still do the same thing. It can be learned and it can be defeated by anyone. You could be thrashing AIs left and right but the second you find yourself in a ladder game you will be greeted by cheese, weird timings & unit compositions, maybe pressure because you really want those ladder points and it's a whole other game.
You could say, at the most, that in order to beat the Very Hard AI in a macro game you need to have some sort of decent macro yourself, maybe gold level, something like that, but it's in no way an indication as to what you can expect in actual ladder games.
Actually atleast the Very Hard AI does not always attack at the same time using the same unit composition. It just seems like that if you go somewhat standard builds. Very hard cheats and change strats vs certain cheese such as early pool. Not 100% that it change if you build alot of unit X but feels like that too. And it dont always scout what you are up to but it still reacts.
As I said before. If the Very Hard AI was let loose on the ladder and you wont know that you are plaing vs an AI it would probably do quite well.
very hard isnt gold ... very hard is barley top of bronze ... when i was top of bronze i was killing it consistently at whatever race i was playing at the time ... the point is you can use it to get your build orders down but it plays VERY differently to people. Also i didnt cheese it - you just have to macro up as you would against a decent bronze / silver player. I wouldn't win every game mind you.
you also have to bear in mind top of bronze usually get promoted to top of silver
On May 29 2011 00:16 Sufficiency wrote: If I am not mistaken, Very Hard cheats too. Also I think Very Hard is more like a low-diamond. Maybe it's just me.
Im mid/high silver and I beat it quiet easily on very hard. I think you are over estimating it.
On May 27 2011 21:43 VaultDweller wrote: I don't think there can be a direct comparison like Very Hard - Platinum and so on. The Blizzard AI will always push at the same time, every game, with almost the same composition. Will retreat if it can't defeat you by it's calculations but it will still do the same thing. It can be learned and it can be defeated by anyone. You could be thrashing AIs left and right but the second you find yourself in a ladder game you will be greeted by cheese, weird timings & unit compositions, maybe pressure because you really want those ladder points and it's a whole other game.
Exactly right. AI isn't comparable to the ladder because it's always the same. You just do the counter to that ONE build (ok you'll randomly get cheesed maybe 1 out of 100 times, 99% of the time it's the same attack) and you beat up to very hard every time.
It's just not like a human at all. The developers were really lazy and haven't changed the AI at all since beta.
Yeah I was surprised how crappy the AI in starcraft 2 was. I mean they put in the effort of making the computer only use the information they scout on lower difficulties, but then the computer itself just does a scripted rush like they did in starcraft 1. Arguably the AI has not progressed literally at all from starcraft 1 except it scouts now and has more difficulties. Maybe they added a couple different possible scripts for it to follow, but its certainly not any kind of real AI and it still sucks really bad. Hopefully some universities can use BWAPI and make some smart bots for Brood war I would be happy with that. Starcraft 2 has too many hurdles to make AI for like being online only, too many resources and things like that.
I think the AI is way better in SC2 than SC1. I mean, loads. My personal feeling is that if you let loose the Very Hard AI on the ladder it would have a decent enough win percent to be a high silver or low/mid gold rating just based on macro. It's true that it doesn't vary it's build very much but it does vary it some, the worst thing is that its AI is abusable in that it doesn't wall/turtle off, so you can keep a small squad near its base, scout, and as soon as you see it out of position halfway across the map run in your squad and trash its economy and get a huge edge that way.
I've played a LOT of games against Very Hard ZvT and I think it's WAY harder to beat than the average bronze player, and somewhat harder than all but the upper tier of silver players.
The computer WILL vary its early build sometimes. Rarely it will do a no gas early marine rush (9-12 marines) that will flatten you if you don't scout it and get too greedy instead of its usually later marine/medic rush that it does most of the time. Sometimes it will go for a couple of early siege tanks but it's not too gosu about how it positions the tanks and doesn't abuse the siege mode the way a good human would. The weakest thing it does is go for early mass reapers - for some reason when it does this it makes the fewest workers.
Playing very hard isn't bad for players learning to macro. At least in ZvT, its T will build 70 or more workers and grab multiple bases, it will even planetary some bases (like the gold in XNC) and put turrets around the PF.
It doesn't assemble a full supply deathball army like a good turtling human player would, it will always attack you with small to intermediate size armies, that's one of its other limitations. And it doesn't abuse drops where the high APM of the computer should allow it to drive you crazy with multiple drops. It rarely drops at all, and if it does it just does on the plateau of your base and not the mineral line, and it doesn't pick up its units and leave, it just commits and loses everything.
The computer will never go for cloaked banshee rushes or blue flame hellions to roast your mineral line like a human player, it won't rush to DTs as Protoss either as far as I've seen. And it'll never cannon rush you.
I just found that the majority of players in bronze and silver don't get that many workers or bases and often don't make as strong an army as the Very Hard computer does. I think it's a decent tool particularly to practice macro, but only playing humans makes you really have to scout for cheese better and tests your decision making under pressure better.
It's pretty difficult to compare AI with human players. Some silver/gold players can probably consistently beat the Very Hard AI after figuring out the AI's rather predictable patterns, but while I can beat my silver/gold friends while messing around and toying with them the whole time, I can't afford do that with the VH AI.
I believe the Insane AI can only be beaten by exploiting the AI's weaknesses. This includes cannon/bunker rushes, proxy gates, ling rush (with gas steal), and reapers early game and turtling hard on 2/3 bases as terran or protoss before moving out mid/late game (well, I personally also consider this as an AI exploit because I turtle extra hard to an extent I would never do against human players and the AI throws away a ridiculous number of units by charging straight into a heavily fortified front entrance). Harassing with mobile units also really messes up the AI because it always pulls it entire army back if their base is under attack even if that army is right in front of your base.
The Insane AI gets extra income, it starts to expand like crazy around the time it gets its third base, and it also counters your unit composition from my experiences. For example, if you have a very colossus heavy army, the AI makes a ton of corruptors after their initial roach/hydra army dies. If you have a big flock of mutalisks or void rays flying around the map for long enough, the AI builds a lot of anti-air bulidings as well as its own air units.
The AI's micro is quite strange. It will often run its entire army into my tank line, but its unit split micro vs storm is perfect and its banshee micro is actually decent as well. On the other hand, the AI has no idea what to do against forcefields and it doesn't run away from banelings.
Anyway, back to what I was saying initially, it's really difficult trying to compare the AI with the human players, but I think the hard or VH AI's are good ways to practice your macro if you are plat or below.
On June 01 2011 12:04 LordYama wrote: The computer will never go for cloaked banshee rushes or blue flame hellions to roast your mineral line like a human player, it won't rush to DTs as Protoss either as far as I've seen. And it'll never cannon rush you.
It does go for pretty quick cloaked banshees and DT's, as well as fast void rays. They're just quite rare. I've even seen a zerg AI do a FE into slightly delayed baneling bust.
You probably won't see most of those though unless you're an idiot like me and grind away mass AI games for achievements, lol.
EPT
