**EDIT: Warning - If you don't care about getting better or only play for fun, do not read. What this thread is trying to say is that to get better as a player, you shouldn't cheese much in ladder. Nothing else. Please stay on topic.**
I define cheese as: A mostly unpreventable, unscoutable (in time), luck-based strategy, usually a rush, that relies on your opponent being unprepared or not knowing what to do, but would probably not work twice against the same player.
I've played my fair share of ladder games, and I'd say that in about 10% of games my opponents try to cheese me. I'm sure alot of people here on teamliquid.net cheese as well. Now, I'm not complaining about this, as it always makes for good practice. However, this practice is much better for me, not the cheeser.
In my opinion, which is probably correct, cheesing should not be the strategy you use on a game-to-game basis. Simply put - cheesing is not difficult. Any competent RTSer can execute a cheese to near perfection. Cheeses often occur early in the game, where macro is not a factor, and the need for micro is usually minimal. I mean, how much micro do you need to proxy 4 gate or lift dual rax into the back of someones base and create reactors? Or the marine/scv rush vs protoss. Does that really take much skill? 8 pool? Make you a better player?
The point is, cheesing IS in fact a great way to win, but IS NOT a great way to get better at the game. If someone cheeses in 50% of their games, and someone else cheese in 0% of their games, effectively, the first person is recieving 50% relevant game practice, while the other player is recieving almost 100% relevant game practice. To become a better player, one must learn to play in the standard way, macro/micro/management/tactics, because while cheesing will work sometimes, it won't work all the time, and when it doesn't, and you realize you have to start playing normal games, you're screwed.
**edit:added for clarity - I recommend reading the entire thread**
Consider this example: Player 1 plays for 1 year playing 10% of his games as Cheese builds 90% Standard builds. Player 2 plays for 1 year playing 50% of his games as Cheese builds 50% Standard builds.
Player 1 faces player 2 in a best of 5 match. Who will win? Now who do you consider the better player? *************************************************************************
I personally think cheesing should only be used for tournaments or extremely important games, where you can surprise your opponent in 1 game, not the ladder, which should predominantly be used for practice. The way to get better is to cheese sparingly, and play standard much. If you can never beat a person straight-up you're the worse player, no matter what. It is much easier to make changes to stop a cheeser than to suddenly become good at the game. So if you have a new idea for a cheese or want to try new things out, go ahead. A loss is MUCH more valuable than a win. Don't just go into every game with the mindset "I only play to win" and try to cheese the majority of your games. Because while you may win for now, in the end, it is you who will lose.
2 great posts illustrating my point: IdrA - page 3 Floophead_III - page 5
"Any competent RTSer can execute a cheese to near perfection."
No. Practicing cheese is very useful. It's a great way to throw the opponent of his game. If you practice transitioning from cheese then you will be at an advantage if the cheese doesn't end the game.
What if you wanna practice cheese? Practicing cheese with friends is stupid, as you can only play one game with them. Then they'll know it's coming. It's also super boring to practice vs cheese.
Cheese doesn't take micro? -.-
Everyone knows cheesing every time isn't the best way to get better at this game, but where else other than in ladder play would you practice cheese?
If no one tries it right now, we may not find out which cheeses are overpowered. In SC1 we haven't really found any cheese to be so overwhelmingly unstoppable, but lets say we find out that say... 3 warpgate zealot is overpowered, but we find out right as the OSL prelims start. What happens when 2/3 of the league is protoss? The beta should be about trying everything so blizzard can balance properly, so I think this is the perfect time to mix in some cheese.
I disagree, I learn many new things each time I cheese. Plus, it is just as complex as playing standard, expecially when things go awry and you have to adapt.
On March 16 2010 23:20 TS-Rupbar wrote: What if you wanna practice cheese? Practicing cheese with friends is stupid, as you can only play one game with them. Then they'll know it's coming. It's also super boring to practice vs cheese.
Cheese doesn't take micro? -.-
Everyone knows cheesing every time isn't the best way to get better at this game, but where else other than in ladder play would you practice cheese?
I said in my post if you have a new cheese/want to practice it go ahead, i'm just saying it shouldn't be a majority of your games.
On March 16 2010 23:20 TS-Rupbar wrote: What if you wanna practice cheese? Practicing cheese with friends is stupid, as you can only play one game with them. Then they'll know it's coming. It's also super boring to practice vs cheese.
Cheese doesn't take micro? -.-
Everyone knows cheesing every time isn't the best way to get better at this game, but where else other than in ladder play would you practice cheese?
I said in my post if you have a new cheese/want to practice it go ahead, i'm just saying it shouldn't be a majority of your games.
If you want to practice something, you do it every game. Saying that people shouldn't cheese in ladder with the argument that cheese is better in tournament play is quite absurd imo,
On lower levels on ICC, I cheese a lot because I can't be bothered to play 20 standard games before I get to C- and can have some decent games.
As a previous poster said, I'm not sure what you want this thread to talk about. Yes, it's boring to be cheesed. End thread.
The goal is to exploit the game and find whatever strategies are unstoppable/imbalanced. You've basically been chosen to this, that's what a beta is for. If you think you can win every game with a cheese, exploit your heart out and make people cry on the forums.
lol. i cheese every game. it makes starcraft actually fun. and i usually never do the same thing twice. each game i will try something different. whether its against zerg and rushing quick to scouts or proxy in his base its very fun. "cheesing should not be used on a game to game basis" <--- lame. using build orders is lame. (Oh crap this is SC2 isnt it. sorry.)
Disagree with the opening post, no clue whatsoever. Especially as Terran if you proxy rax it needs immense amounts of micro / multitasking to keep your marines alive and don't die to as example drones with autosurround...
I'm glad you took time to argue your points. The topic title could have been from some frustrated player posting 3 lines in anger after being 'cheesed'. So thanks for that.
That said I really could not disagree more. You argue any competent player is capable of cheesing to perfection which is very far from the truth. There definitely is a lot of skill in the minor differences. The same small differences you might forget to perform in a long game that do not matter when you have large armies. You might be overseeing them because of this, because when performing an early game strategy designed to take the game they are important and difficult. As it's possible to win games with 'cheese' at the highest level amongst progamers in Korea you are basically arguing anybody could take a game from those guys performing the same kind of cheese. It's plain wrong. There is a lot of skill in cheesing as there is in a long game. It requires planning, practice and lots of thought. What you might argue is that you don't need the same kind of micro/macro as you do in a long game which is true, yet it doesn't mean everyone becomes equal.
The other argument against your post is that this is the Beta and we are testing. You are pretty much required to use whatever it takes to win so that it brings awareness to Blizzard's numbers about balancing the races, balancing the early and the late game. If everyone would refuse to cheese in the Beta ladder and Blizzard therefor keeps everything the same, then the effective cheeses will become 100% of the tournament games after SC2 is released, as tournament games are all about winning.
the 8pool isnt so much cheese as it is an aggressive opener. The goal of it is to do a lot of economic harassment early enough and then transition into roaches for continued pressure.
My style has always been one of near relentless harassment and aggressive denial of expansions while my creep slowly eats the map. 8pool is a great opener for that on certain maps.
I dunno what this op is smokin, I got to like 50 on platinum with 80-90% cheese. Then I started to play legit with the higher skilled players. And I'm pretty sure my cheese tactics would still be working in at least 50% of my games I play at rank 11 now. Besides, cheese is relative. I don't consider anything cheap or cheese, it's just an (often) inferior strategy which usually relies on catching an opponent off guard or taking advantage of their weak early game. So in other words, it's all part of the game.
I am new to TL and also to SC scene so I am not familiar with the history of the term "cheese". However, it seems from the OP that any unorthodox strategy that beats orthodox play is labelled as cheese by the people that got beaten by it. I find this whole cheese-calling arbitrary and subjective. As far as I am concerned, any strategy within the game rules is fair and valid.
On March 17 2010 00:06 Liquid`Nazgul wrote: I'm glad you took time to argue your points. The topic title could have been from some frustrated player posting 3 lines in anger after being 'cheesed'. So thanks for that.
That said I really could not disagree more. You argue any competent player is capable of cheesing to perfection which is very far from the truth. There definitely is a lot of skill in the minor differences. The same small differences you might forget to perform in a long game that do not matter when you have large armies. You might be overseeing them because of this, because when performing an early game strategy designed to take the game they are important and difficult. As it's possible to win games with 'cheese' at the highest level amongst progamers in Korea you are basically arguing anybody could take a game from those guys performing the same kind of cheese. It's plain wrong. There is a lot of skill in cheesing as there is in a long game. It requires planning, practice and lots of thought. What you might argue is that you don't need the same kind of micro/macro as you do in a long game which is true, yet it doesn't mean everyone becomes equal.
The other argument against your post is that this is the Beta and we are testing. You are pretty much required to use whatever it takes to win so that it brings awareness to Blizzard's numbers about balancing the races, balancing the early and the late game. If everyone would refuse to cheese in the Beta ladder and Blizzard therefor keeps everything the same, then the effective cheeses will become 100% of the tournament games after SC2 is released, as tournament games are all about winning.
You have a good point, but let me pose to you a question, and this goes to everyone trying to argue against my post.
If one player cheesed 50% of their games, and another player cheesed only 10% of their games, after one year of intensive playing, who do you think would be the better player?
If one player cheesed 50% of their games, and another player cheesed only 10% of their games, after one year of intensive playing, who do you think would be the better player?
that's not even a good hypothetical question.
My definition of a good player is one who knows how to control the flow of the game from the moment of spawning on the map. You act as if cheese is 100% win and unbeatable. Every Strat has a counter (hopefully) in a balanced game.
On March 17 2010 00:06 Liquid`Nazgul wrote: As it's possible to win games with 'cheese' at the highest level amongst progamers in Korea you are basically arguing anybody could take a game from those guys performing the same kind of cheese. It's plain wrong. There is a lot of skill in cheesing as there is in a long game. It requires planning, practice and lots of thought.
eh, a big part of that is who you're playing. if you have a progamer playing vs kwark, but he thinks its bisu, kwark's bulldog could very well work if it catches him off guard, just because its a very powerful strategy that requires 0 execution beyond knowing the build order. but if the progamer knows hes playing kwark he'll never ever lose because he'll be willing to sacrifice econ to be safe vs any kind of build, knowing that he can make up the advantage.
there are cheeses that are difficult to execute, either mentally or mechanically, and there are some that are simply a matter of doing a build and hoping they dont expect it. the latter really is pretty much the same whether its a top progamer or just any competent protoss, though obviously the progamer could follow up a semi-success much better, making it look like it was more skill dependent than it really was.
No, I answered it. You can't judge a player's skill on the basis of "he does strategy X 50% of the time, therefor he is better". Doing a 4pool for 50% of your games would give you the same game experience as doing a 1 rax FE for 50% of your games. You're going to run into counter builds or people who can't deal with it equally with either strategy.
Again, like I said cheese is a relative and stupid term imo. It's just a weak excuse for players who think the game should be played a certain way without even understanding why most top players don't do the cheese strats.
Advancing to the level of understanding where you don't distinguish between cheese and non-cheese should be a requirement for opening threads on strategy.
So by cheese you mean using strategies that win games?
If thats the definition, which you seem to have laid out, then yes everyone is cheesing all the time. I mean, what the hell are you even talking about. You don't like proxy rush? Well then scout and counter it. You don't like 6 pool? Well then scout and counter it. They're putting themselves way behind economically to take this chance. It's not 'cheese' unless you consider winning games cheese, at which point I'm just done with you.
I play for myself. I'm not trying to improve, I'm playing to have fun. If I feel cheese is going to be fun, I do it. This is fun, not self-improvement.
I think people should try to cheese and stress test the limits of every build. If one cheese build is found to be uncounterable in the beta, then it can be fixed. IT's also very entertaining to watch.
However, an argument to support your point; players looking to master the game should not practice cheese in the Beta, because it is very likely that these builds will change completely from one patch to another. Solid play is more likely to stay the same up to the launch of the game.
if you cheese too much and the higher up you go the smaller the player pool gets (in the release matchmaking system anyway) then you'll get a reputation as someone who cheeses and they will prepare for it. Either way you spin it you'll need to be flexible in higher ranks and I can't see cheesing every game as viable past a certain point.
On March 17 2010 00:22 Tray wrote: So by cheese you mean using strategies that win games?
If thats the definition, which you seem to have laid out, then yes everyone is cheesing all the time. I mean, what the hell are you even talking about. You don't like proxy rush? Well then scout and counter it. You don't like 6 pool? Well then scout and counter it. They're putting themselves way behind economically to take this chance. It's not 'cheese' unless you consider winning games cheese, at which point I'm just done with you.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure this is just a ragepost.
that is exactly what I'm saying. If a guy named Larry thinks 2 gate zeal to expo is cheesy because it's not a conformed standard opening then he has already lost. It's like kids at the arcade crying because you keep thowing hadoukens over and over. LEARN TO DEAL WITH IT, THEN MOVE ON.
I've played sooooo many games on bloodbath and your kind of players are all the same. "Oh it's just a rush map, 4pool>All, Tanks>All, etc. etc." You're always looking for some kind of excuse to why that strategy/map/race/unit is bullshit.
If one player cheesed 50% of their games, and another player cheesed only 10% of their games, after one year of intensive playing, who do you think would be the better player?
The one whose strategy was best suited to the particular game in question, and best exploited the strategies of the mass of the players. Depends on both the game and the metagame.
The best player is the one who actually wins most of the time, which is not the same as the one who can macro up the best-looking army in a 20-minutes no-rush game.
On March 17 2010 00:23 Chill wrote: I play for myself. I'm not trying to improve, I'm playing to have fun. If I feel cheese is going to be fun, I do it. This is fun, not self-improvement.
True, if you play purely for the sake of fun, then by all means I'm not referring to you, and you should play how you wish.
But to everyone else, look at the question I posed, can you honestly say it will be the 50% cheeser who will be better than the 10% cheeser after one year? I think not. And i'm saying if you HAD to give an answer, which one would you likely choose.
Here is an easy way to break this down so you can understand:
Cheese = Strat A, Cheese Defense = Strat B, Cheese Defense-Defense = C
A always beats C B always beats A C always beats B
Now if you can formulate a safer more adaptable build somewhere between C and B then you are fine. Furthermore, if you can utilize a timing scout and reduce the chance of luck and probability on that scout to seek out Strat A, B or C. Then you can basically just adapt your build to be slightly ahead while still being safe.
To answer your question AGAIN, you are making cheese out to be negative. And there is no context for your 'cheeser' hypothetical, like I said. Cheese is a completely valid strategy just like 1 base fast teching to a Carrier is. The difference between the 2 is that most players can easily make a decision between now and 10 minutes, while with cheese it is more skillful to read and decide in the first 2 minutes.
So why are we discussing the effectiveness of cheese? I'm just saying it won't make you a better player skill-wise (except for maybe at that particular cheese).
On March 17 2010 00:31 CharlieMurphy wrote: Here is an easy way to break this down so you can understand:
Cheese = Strat A, Cheese Defense = Strat B, Cheese Defense-Defense = C
A always beats C B always beats A C always beats B
Now if you can formulate a safer more adaptable build somewhere between C and B then you are fine.
or more simply
Cheese beats Economic, but is beaten by Defensive Economic beats Defensive, but is beaten by Cheese Defensive beats Cheese, but is beaten by Economic
Something like that?
yes, If you wanna get technical you can even say this
Map: Bloodbath
Zerg vs Terran
Both players know 4pool is a totally valid threat.
So Terran can opt for 8rax/10bunk near his CC to defend it. Again both players are aware of this defense.
So Zerg can opt for a 9pool and now has a slight economic advantage over that earlier rax. Both players are aware of this counter build.
Now, Terran can opt for a 9/10rax/bunk instead. Seeing a trend here?
Now Zerg can get back to saying 5pool is a few seconds slower than 4, but still almost as powerful with a larger/safer economy. An 8rax is a little too fast to defend it, but a 10 rax is too slow. etc. etc. etc.
Cheese is all part of mind games. It is the sole basis for strategy development. Without it we have nothing but people building units whenever they feel like it. It is the reigning governor of all that is RTS.
Now, your opinion that "cheese won't make you a better player" is just that, your opinion. But know that it is exactly the same as saying "doing a standard build every game won't make you a better player".
But, I guess the point the OP is making might be right to an extent. We have a rare opportunity to get thousands of games of experience over 99.999999999% of players as beta testers and if you just cheese every game you aren't getting much practice at some of the more intense and in the long run more important comfort with mid and late game strategies.
I feel like adding a cheese to your gameplay is very useful so you are never predictable and the opponent always know he has to scout you carefully. Practicing cheese is nice, I had this rule on starcraft that whenever I played a zerg on a ladder I would proxy gate 50% of the second games against the same opponents and overall I'm pretty sure I learnt much about very strict timings I wouldn't know otherwise.
I'm really curious as to what prompted the op to make this thread. I'm willing to bet he got cheesed and raged, instead of thinking, "Hmm what can I do to adapt my strategy in order to still keep on par with the economic standard as well as defend these crappy cheesers".
On March 17 2010 00:06 Liquid`Nazgul wrote: I'm glad you took time to argue your points. The topic title could have been from some frustrated player posting 3 lines in anger after being 'cheesed'. So thanks for that.
That said I really could not disagree more. You argue any competent player is capable of cheesing to perfection which is very far from the truth. There definitely is a lot of skill in the minor differences. The same small differences you might forget to perform in a long game that do not matter when you have large armies. You might be overseeing them because of this, because when performing an early game strategy designed to take the game they are important and difficult. As it's possible to win games with 'cheese' at the highest level amongst progamers in Korea you are basically arguing anybody could take a game from those guys performing the same kind of cheese. It's plain wrong. There is a lot of skill in cheesing as there is in a long game. It requires planning, practice and lots of thought. What you might argue is that you don't need the same kind of micro/macro as you do in a long game which is true, yet it doesn't mean everyone becomes equal.
The other argument against your post is that this is the Beta and we are testing. You are pretty much required to use whatever it takes to win so that it brings awareness to Blizzard's numbers about balancing the races, balancing the early and the late game. If everyone would refuse to cheese in the Beta ladder and Blizzard therefor keeps everything the same, then the effective cheeses will become 100% of the tournament games after SC2 is released, as tournament games are all about winning.
You have a good point, but let me pose to you a question, and this goes to everyone trying to argue against my post.
If one player cheesed 50% of their games, and another player cheesed only 10% of their games, after one year of intensive playing, who do you think would be the better player?
You probably want to hear the answer "the one with 10% of cheeses because he practiced more standard play" and i tell you "The one with 50% cheeses, since his cheeses have better followup and his better followup after cheeses also improved his standard play"
On March 17 2010 00:49 iG.ClouD wrote: I feel like adding a cheese to your gameplay is very useful so you are never predictable and the opponent always know he has to scout you carefully. Practicing cheese is nice, I had this rule on starcraft that whenever I played a zerg on a ladder I would proxy gate 50% of the second games against the same opponents and overall I'm pretty sure I learnt much about very strict timings I wouldn't know otherwise.
This is exactly correct. In poker, if you read any poker books at least, there is a sort of standard that you should bluff 1 in every 6 hands assuming all players are of decent/equal skill level and the table is not too loose or whatever. A bluff can be likened to a cheese.
I know we are getting a little off topic, so I reread the op and I'll reply directly. Doing 'Cheese' is in fact a great way to get better at a game. Obviously if you are playing to win, you will use the most effective strategy to achieve those wins. If this happens to be a strategy that some guy or the general public doesn't like, fuck em. Their loss, your gain. (I'm obviously talking within the limits of the game, and I'm not condoning cheating or anything else illegitimate). If the 'cheese' is not imbalanced in any way then there are counters, you will become predictable and/or people will learn how to counter you. Then you will learn the counters to their counters, etc. like I already explained a few times on the previous page.
On March 17 2010 00:23 Chill wrote: I play for myself. I'm not trying to improve, I'm playing to have fun. If I feel cheese is going to be fun, I do it. This is fun, not self-improvement.
True, if you play purely for the sake of fun, then by all means I'm not referring to you, and you should play how you wish.
But to everyone else, look at the question I posed, can you honestly say it will be the 50% cheeser who will be better than the 10% cheeser after one year? I think not. And i'm saying if you HAD to give an answer, which one would you likely choose.
Better at what? Cheesing? Definitely. Winning more games? Maybe. I'm not sure why everyone sees the defensive macro game through such romantic glasses.
On March 17 2010 00:50 CharlieMurphy wrote: I'm really curious as to what prompted the op to make this thread. I'm willing to bet he got cheesed and raged, instead of thinking, "Hmm what can I do to adapt my strategy in order to still keep on par with the economic standard as well as defend these crappy cheesers".
Nope, I just want players who are trying to become better to have an epiphany. I cheese myself from time to time, as everyone should, I'm just saying it shouldn't even be CLOSE to 20% of your games. It's a valid tool, just not one that will make you, technically, much better in general.
I am sorry but what the hell is the purpose of this thread? Cheese is part of the game, who wants to cheese, then he can. Who doesn't like cheese, he doesn't have to do it. Simple as that..Regarding comparison of the practice gain, i don't think it is viable to compare that, because there are so many factors that influence it. It is good to be able to cheese when needed and it is not easy to cheese effectively so people have to practice that. So your 50% - 100% practice gain is just irrelevant bs.
By the way, given your (albeit unrealistic) conditions in the OP, it would be irrational not to cheese. By your own admission it's easy to do and has a good chance of working. If that's true why wouldn't you cheese?
I'm not sure why everyone sees the defensive macro game through such romantic glasses.
You sure it's everyone? I reckon if you were to get a statistician in on the case, there'd be a definite correlation between playing Terran and complaining about cheeses.
On March 17 2010 00:58 Chill wrote: By the way, given your (albeit unrealistic) conditions in the OP, it would be irrational not to cheese. By your own admission it's easy to do and has a good chance of working. If that's true why wouldn't you cheese?
I would, but why do it unless it's an important game. If it's easy to execute and takes minimal practice I'd rather spend my time playing the full game spectrum of macro/micro/management/etc. I can cheese when needed, to throw people off if I was in a tourny or something like that. Ladder seems like practice more or less, and much more practice is needed for non-cheese, which is inevitably much more useful.
On March 16 2010 23:20 TS-Rupbar wrote: What if you wanna practice cheese? Practicing cheese with friends is stupid, as you can only play one game with them. Then they'll know it's coming. It's also super boring to practice vs cheese.
Cheese doesn't take micro? -.-
Everyone knows cheesing every time isn't the best way to get better at this game, but where else other than in ladder play would you practice cheese?
I practice cheese with my partners. All it requires is for you to find 2 or 3 variations of each opening cheese (2-gate into dts, 2-gate into proxy 2-gate zealot, The Stove) Choose the best variation for each map/opponent =D.
I play terran and must admit I play for short game very often. This is mainly because people dont seem to make enough units early, and are very vournable trying to either fe or tech up fast. I got up to 9 platinum mainly with games lasting no longer then 7-10 mins.
I can safely say that atleast 80% of the games i try to rush it works, and it has alot to do with denying them scout. I wall off down ramp, that way you will only need 1 rax+depot to wall off, no idea why not more people do this.
I agree that it should not be your main strategy when playing, but its a beta and people should do whatever it takes to win just to find things that are "imbalanced" so it can be balanced out.
To add to what Chill said, I personally dislike this whole eco macro long game every person has copycat FE builds that SCBW's metagame has shifted into. The game has become somewhat stagnant because of this, to the point where their strategies are so perfected that they can deal with anything and respond to anything. This is partly the reason why (I believe, anyways) that there are so many new weird maps and map concepts. To keep the game fresh and keep players for just doing their 1 strategy that is safe on every LT clone map.
Whenever I see a pro like Fantasy getting fucking rushed so bad that he lifts off his base and almost cries I fucking cheer. When I saw Boxer bunker rush Yellow over and over to the point where he claims imbalance, I fucking loved it. 'Cheese' is great. And There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing it every game if you want to. If you are trying to be a great player then you should definitely practice any strategy to the point of exhaustion.
"Chesse" does make you a better player gives you timings, practice for micro and macro, the balance of micro/macro is so damn important in chesse, micro your atacking units or produce another round at home.... Microing probably wins you that battlel but with out reinforments you may still losse, macroing another round will give you reinforsments but you may losse some of your current units....
Chesse does make you a better player, maybe not a macroing 3-4 bases but gives you balance in macro/micro and very nice micro for harrasment, wich will demand multitask from your oponent, you see my point??? Sure won't get you that much better at some things but it will get you better at others, if you play standard and your oponent plays standar for 100 games then you find a "chesser" and he rapes you hard many games with varios chesse cause you had no idea how to defend cause you play standar all the time, had no idea of early timings or openings he knows all that.. you don't are you the better player???
On March 17 2010 00:58 Chill wrote: By the way, given your (albeit unrealistic) conditions in the OP, it would be irrational not to cheese. By your own admission it's easy to do and has a good chance of working. If that's true why wouldn't you cheese?
I would, but why do it unless it's an important game. If it's easy to execute and takes minimal practice I'd rather spend my time playing the full game spectrum of macro/micro/management/etc. I can cheese when needed, to throw people off if I was in a tourny or something like that. Ladder seems like practice more or less, and much more practice is needed for non-cheese, which is inevitably much more useful.
On March 17 2010 01:05 Pekkz wrote: I play terran and must admit I play for short game very often. This is mainly because people dont seem to make enough units early, and are very vournable trying to either fe or tech up fast. I got up to 9 platinum mainly with games lasting no longer then 7-10 mins.
I can safely say that atleast 80% of the games i try to rush it works, and it has alot to do with denying them scout. I wall off down ramp, that way you will only need 1 rax+depot to wall off, no idea why not more people do this.
I agree that it should not be your main strategy when playing, but its a beta and people should do whatever it takes to win just to find things that are "imbalanced" so it can be balanced out.
And do you feel you were alot better than your opponents doing this? Do you feel it was really hard to do and/or took much practice? Do you feel you were getting better at the game by doing it? Or was it something almost anyone can just pick up and win with? I'm not saying anything about your skill level, you can be great for all I know, just want your opinion to make a point.
On March 17 2010 00:58 Chill wrote: By the way, given your (albeit unrealistic) conditions in the OP, it would be irrational not to cheese. By your own admission it's easy to do and has a good chance of working. If that's true why wouldn't you cheese?
I would, but why do it unless it's an important game. If it's easy to execute and takes minimal practice I'd rather spend my time playing the full game spectrum of macro/micro/management/etc. I can cheese when needed, to throw people off if I was in a tourny or something like that. Ladder seems like practice more or less, and much more practice is needed for non-cheese, which is inevitably much more useful.
practice for what?
Practice for the ladder itself, ladder tourneys, tourneys in general, or if you aspire to do anything bigger than just the ladder.
Who the fuck cares what he feels like when doing a strategy? Who the fuck cares if was 'hard to do'? Who the fuck cares if it required more or less practice? How can you get better than winning already, lol? If anyone can do it then by all means EVERYONE fucking do it please.
He probably feels good because he won and that's the bottom line.
Listen dude, If you want to feel satisfied for doing something hard that requires a lot of practice and not everyone can do. Then take up rubix cube or maybe even just 5000 piece puzzles. RTS is obviously not for you.
On March 17 2010 01:06 CharlieMurphy wrote: To add to what Chill said, I personally dislike this whole eco macro long game every person has copycat FE builds that SCBW's metagame has shifted into. The game has become somewhat stagnant because of this, to the point where their strategies are so perfected that they can deal with anything and respond to anything. This is partly the reason why (I believe, anyways) that there are so many new weird maps and map concepts. To keep the game fresh and keep players for just doing their 1 strategy that is safe on every LT clone map.
Whenever I see a pro like Fantasy getting fucking rushed so bad that he lifts off his base and almost cries I fucking cheer. When I saw Boxer bunker rush Yellow over and over to the point where he claims imbalance, I fucking loved it. 'Cheese' is great. And There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing it every game if you want to. If you are trying to be a great player then you should definitely practice any strategy to the point of exhaustion.
the reason the bw meta game shifted to that is that people like to win. cheese became more rare because its inherently luck based. doesnt matter how strategically genius you are, if they scout or guess what you're doing, and what you're doing is dependent on them not knowing what you're doing, you lose. you can know how good flash is, you can know exactly what hes gonna do, and hes still gonna beat you because hes just that fucking good. how people could prefer horang to flash given that, or how they fuckin love fantasy getting allined by a trash player because he didnt wall properly, is beyond me. not only is it gay, its bad for esports. ya cheese can be exciting (because of the luck/simplicity of it, its very obvious to a crowd that when proxy bbs gets scouted the game has reached a turning point. the climax is less clear in real games), but bad players winning, and luck based games, are not good for something that wants to be a real competition.
also, oddly enough, its largely bad players (the kind who are capable of winning because of these cheesy strategies) who defend it as some kind of strategical genius. for instance, someone who would ling allin a famous player and then post the replay of it while bragging about how they masterminded the strategical flow of the game.
On March 17 2010 00:58 Chill wrote: By the way, given your (albeit unrealistic) conditions in the OP, it would be irrational not to cheese. By your own admission it's easy to do and has a good chance of working. If that's true why wouldn't you cheese?
I would, but why do it unless it's an important game. If it's easy to execute and takes minimal practice I'd rather spend my time playing the full game spectrum of macro/micro/management/etc. I can cheese when needed, to throw people off if I was in a tourny or something like that. Ladder seems like practice more or less, and much more practice is needed for non-cheese, which is inevitably much more useful.
practice for what?
Practice for the ladder itself, ladder tourneys, tourneys in general, or if you aspire to do anything bigger than just the ladder.
And if cheese is working to qualify me, why wouldn't it work in those actual tournaments? You are making a lot of generalizations that you assume people are just going to fall in line with, like cheese = easy, skill-less; drawn-out macro game = the purest form of skill.
I would like you to start from the beginning, make your real point, and back it up. This wishy-washy "you won't get better" doesn't cut it because if I'm winning with cheese what else do I need to get better at? I'm already winning? I don't care that I'm not winning the way you want me to.
On March 17 2010 00:23 Chill wrote: I play for myself. I'm not trying to improve, I'm playing to have fun. If I feel cheese is going to be fun, I do it. This is fun, not self-improvement.
True, if you play purely for the sake of fun, then by all means I'm not referring to you, and you should play how you wish.
But to everyone else, look at the question I posed, can you honestly say it will be the 50% cheeser who will be better than the 10% cheeser after one year? I think not. And i'm saying if you HAD to give an answer, which one would you likely choose.
Better at what? Cheesing? Definitely. Winning more games? Maybe. I'm not sure why everyone sees the defensive macro game through such romantic glasses.
On March 16 2010 23:16 JTPROG wrote:In my opinion, which is probably correct, cheesing should not be the strategy you use on a game-to-game basis. Simply put - cheesing is not difficult.
In my opinion, which is probably correct, people shouldn't be using roaches against me in ZvP. Roaches are very easy to make and maneuver and by not using them to counter my army the zerg will be getting an effective 100% increase in rate of practice. Also I don't like roaches.
Btw how are you supposed to execute cheese properly in tournys if you can't practice them online? And wtf is cheese anyway, a couple of weeks into beta and you think you're able to classify what is "standard" play at this point, that is quite ridiculous. Like if I were using some advanced fe sair build in PvZ back in 2001 people would probably call it cheese. Bitch plz.
On March 17 2010 01:05 Pekkz wrote: I play terran and must admit I play for short game very often. This is mainly because people dont seem to make enough units early, and are very vournable trying to either fe or tech up fast. I got up to 9 platinum mainly with games lasting no longer then 7-10 mins.
I can safely say that atleast 80% of the games i try to rush it works, and it has alot to do with denying them scout. I wall off down ramp, that way you will only need 1 rax+depot to wall off, no idea why not more people do this.
I agree that it should not be your main strategy when playing, but its a beta and people should do whatever it takes to win just to find things that are "imbalanced" so it can be balanced out.
And do you feel you were alot better than your opponents doing this? Do you feel it was really hard to do and/or took much practice? Do you feel you were getting better at the game by doing it? Or was it something almost anyone can just pick up and win with? I'm not saying anything about your skill level, you can be great for all I know, just want your opinion to make a point.
It all depends on the game. Some of the games you will just run over people who did not see your rush coming and its not close at all, those games prolly everyone could win with very little effort. Some games they do suspect somthing is coming, and it comes down to your build / micro / position. I think cheese requires skill to pull off at a high level, but its alot easier to get good at it then it is to get good at late game.
When people play without scout information on you, and they dont prepare for a rush at all, its really just a hole in their gameplay as i see it. When people cheese me I dont get mad on anyone else then myself for letting them do it to me.
Although i think most of the community frowns upon cheesing, its part of the game and its vital beta testers figure out these things so they can get nerfed (if needed). I personally love watching games where someone attempts to cheese but fails! haha
On March 16 2010 23:16 JTPROG wrote: Just don't go into every game with the mindset "I only play to win" and try to cheese the majority of your games. Because while you may win for now, in the end, it is you who will lose.
Oh i will go into every game with the mindset " i only play to win " because i find winning fun, so i play to win
About cheesing the majority of your games, if you cheese in every match you play then you're obviously doing something wrong if you wanna win, you should cheese if you scout your enemy and see that it would give you an advantage and win you the game, if it wont help you win the game... then dont do it. but you gotta realize cheese is a part of the game and it will be used by ANYONE from time to time if it helps them win the game.
PS: Cheese is always good, it goes with alot of food np, cheese is for everyone it comes in all flavors! infact im eating cheese in my sandwich right now! Cheese <3 makes the world a happier place!
On March 17 2010 01:33 Qiin wrote: Although i think most of the community frowns upon cheesing, its part of the game and its vital beta testers figure out these things so they can get nerfed (if needed). I personally love watching games where someone attempts to cheese but fails! haha
I can ALMOST understand why people get annoyed by cheese 11 years after the release of starcraft, but why would you complain about such a thing early on in sc2 beta? Looking back at boxer, he was a pretty huge cheeser, I mean the guy introduced the bunker rush for gods sake. I really think that's one of the reasons why people liked watching him, because innovative "cheese" carried out by exceptional micro can be very exciting to watch. His strongpoint never was macro, and so he went about winning games a little differently than everyone else, which is one of the reasons he is considered one of the most innovative sc player to current date.
So if you have a new idea for a cheese or want to try new things out, go ahead. Just don't go into every game with the mindset "I only play to win" and try to cheese the majority of your games. Because while you may win for now, in the end, it is you who will lose.
There's nothing negative about being able to pull of creative and aggressive play, or as you would call it "cheesing". It takes skill too you know. The best players of the game will be able to adapt and act on their feet by changing their game plan depending on what the opponent is doing.
If you see your opponent going for a greedy, economic build, you punish that build through aggressive play, beacuse you play to win. If you see him going for a safer build, you adapt for a longer game and try to force an economic lead through harass and superior multitasking/macro, beacuse you play to win.
Cheesing isn't a guaranteed win, neither is playing long macro games. While playing long macro games might improve your mechanics, It won't always makes you a better player. The most glaring and obvious example as of late is the TSL 2 finals between Nony and Idra.
On March 17 2010 01:06 CharlieMurphy wrote: To add to what Chill said, I personally dislike this whole eco macro long game every person has copycat FE builds that SCBW's metagame has shifted into. The game has become somewhat stagnant because of this, to the point where their strategies are so perfected that they can deal with anything and respond to anything. This is partly the reason why (I believe, anyways) that there are so many new weird maps and map concepts. To keep the game fresh and keep players for just doing their 1 strategy that is safe on every LT clone map.
Whenever I see a pro like Fantasy getting fucking rushed so bad that he lifts off his base and almost cries I fucking cheer. When I saw Boxer bunker rush Yellow over and over to the point where he claims imbalance, I fucking loved it. 'Cheese' is great. And There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing it every game if you want to. If you are trying to be a great player then you should definitely practice any strategy to the point of exhaustion.
the reason the bw meta game shifted to that is that people like to win. cheese became more rare because its inherently luck based. doesnt matter how strategically genius you are, if they scout or guess what you're doing, and what you're doing is dependent on them not knowing what you're doing, you lose. you can know how good flash is, you can know exactly what hes gonna do, and hes still gonna beat you because hes just that fucking good. how people could prefer horang to flash given that, or how they fuckin love fantasy getting allined by a trash player because he didnt wall properly, is beyond me. not only is it gay, its bad for esports. ya cheese can be exciting (because of the luck/simplicity of it, its very obvious to a crowd that when proxy bbs gets scouted the game has reached a turning point. the climax is less clear in real games), but bad players winning, and luck based games, are not good for something that wants to be a real competition.
also, oddly enough, its largely bad players (the kind who are capable of winning because of these cheesy strategies) who defend it as some kind of strategical genius. for instance, someone who would ling allin a famous player and then post the replay of it while bragging about how they masterminded the strategical flow of the game.
lol I think IdrA is the only one who understands/seems to agree with what I'm saying. That's okay, I'll take a pro gamer over 100 others.
Chill wrote: And if cheese is working to qualify me, why wouldn't it work in those actual tournaments? You are making a lot of generalizations that you assume people are just going to fall in line with, like cheese = easy, skill-less; drawn-out macro game = the purest form of skill.
I would like you to start from the beginning, make your real point, and back it up. This wishy-washy "you won't get better" doesn't cut it because if I'm winning with cheese what else do I need to get better at? I'm already winning? I don't care that I'm not winning the way you want me to.
Because you face random people on the ladder each game who aren't expecting cheese. Try a BO5. You won't win a tourney using cheese every game. You need solid standard play. Winning on the ladder essentially means nothing if it's cheese.
i love when ppl cheese against me because then i will learn how to scout it and how to respond. if ppl were always playing straight up against me id be going 15cc every single game :p
I think we have gone off topic. The OP wasn't whining about the merits or demerits of cheese I don't think. It's more him saying that in the beta right now there is a lot of cheesing going on and its to get the jump on all the people you have a large skill advantage over. His thesis is that people are cheesing too much and it is squabbling the giant opportunity we have to gain a huge advantage over the other players by being in the beta.
I don't really play for more than 2 hours a day so i know I'm not going to be able to break the C- level anytime soon. Instead, I make up cheeses. it's just as satisfying to beat some B people using a cheese you made yourself as it is to reach C for the first time. For a strategy player like me who lacks mechanics, cheese is pretty much my gameplay. It also screws anyone who plays against me when I go standard.
On March 17 2010 02:10 TheElitists wrote: I think we have gone off topic. The OP wasn't whining about the merits or demerits of cheese I don't think. It's more him saying that in the beta right now there is a lot of cheesing going on and its to get the jump on all the people you have a large skill advantage over. His thesis is that people are cheesing too much and it is squabbling the giant opportunity we have to gain a huge advantage over the other players by being in the beta.
His argument is that we should all train for the idealistic game he wants us to play. That's dumb. He can't even say he's arguing we should "play to win" because by his own admission the easiest way to win is to cheese. He's arguing that we should seek to fully understand this one aspect of the game which he has decided is critical.
On March 17 2010 01:06 CharlieMurphy wrote: To add to what Chill said, I personally dislike this whole eco macro long game every person has copycat FE builds that SCBW's metagame has shifted into. The game has become somewhat stagnant because of this, to the point where their strategies are so perfected that they can deal with anything and respond to anything. This is partly the reason why (I believe, anyways) that there are so many new weird maps and map concepts. To keep the game fresh and keep players for just doing their 1 strategy that is safe on every LT clone map.
Whenever I see a pro like Fantasy getting fucking rushed so bad that he lifts off his base and almost cries I fucking cheer. When I saw Boxer bunker rush Yellow over and over to the point where he claims imbalance, I fucking loved it. 'Cheese' is great. And There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing it every game if you want to. If you are trying to be a great player then you should definitely practice any strategy to the point of exhaustion.
the reason the bw meta game shifted to that is that people like to win. cheese became more rare because its inherently luck based. doesnt matter how strategically genius you are, if they scout or guess what you're doing, and what you're doing is dependent on them not knowing what you're doing, you lose. you can know how good flash is, you can know exactly what hes gonna do, and hes still gonna beat you because hes just that fucking good. how people could prefer horang to flash given that, or how they fuckin love fantasy getting allined by a trash player because he didnt wall properly, is beyond me. not only is it gay, its bad for esports. ya cheese can be exciting (because of the luck/simplicity of it, its very obvious to a crowd that when proxy bbs gets scouted the game has reached a turning point. the climax is less clear in real games), but bad players winning, and luck based games, are not good for something that wants to be a real competition.
also, oddly enough, its largely bad players (the kind who are capable of winning because of these cheesy strategies) who defend it as some kind of strategical genius. for instance, someone who would ling allin a famous player and then post the replay of it while bragging about how they masterminded the strategical flow of the game.
lol I think IdrA is the only one who understands/seems to agree with what I'm saying. That's okay, I'll take a pro gamer over 100 others.
I smiled when I imagined how hard you would've gotten pwned here if idra claimed he was just kidding.
Your point about cheesing not winning you a Bo5 doesn't make any sense. Sure it might not win you the whole series if your opponent expects it, but it can take 1 game easily, and that's 1/3 of the series right there. Cheesing and "proper" play, which you can't even define, both take their own skill sets. In the end, skill in Starcraft is not about who can get to 200/200 with 5 expos the fastest, but who can win the most games. If you saw in game 1 of a Bo5 that your opponent doesn't pay much attention to his scouting worker, you can pick up a free win by cheesing the next game. If you see your opponent using the same no-defense fast expo build in games 1 and 2, you'd better have a quick rush prepared to all-in him in game 3. At the same time, if you see your opponent has a tendency to play nothing but the safest anti-cheese builds, you should exploit this by playing that no-defense fast expo build yourself!
As for the comparison between a player who cheeses 50% of his games and the player who cheeses 10% of his games, the former guy sure has unpredictability on his side. Even if he is a bit worse at mid and late game, the fact that his opponents will all be using more defensive builds against him should make up for the latter guy's better mid and late game macro.
On March 16 2010 23:16 JTPROG wrote: In my opinion, which is probably correct, Simply put - cheesing is not difficult. the need for micro is usually minimal.
While I did read your entire post, I feel that I *could* have stopped reading at the above points and been fine. I like to think my quotation feels sort of like a short poem or haiku. Though the syllables are not correct.
You make very flat subjective statements about a truth that depends on the relative skill levels of the two players involved. A player good enough to beat his opponent with cheese is probably not playing at a level where he will benefit significantly from a long-term macro game against that opponent. I'm sort of disappointed when someone worse than me tries to cheese, because I invested 3-5 minutes in my opening and then won because my enemy sucked and went all-in and died. Hence, I have to repeat openings until I get a "real" game. I do see your point. But those opening statements are folly. The ladder is and must be competitive and feelings have no place in determining which strategies are valid in a competitive setting.
Winning on the ladder essentially means nothing if it's cheese.
Depending on how you look at this, it is either subjective or circular logic - Take your pick.
So this boils down to "play with your best chance to win"? I agree.
There was a tourney where someone won every games using cheese? Even if so, how many times did that happen?
"play with your best chance to win"
And you won't win if you don't have a SOLID game besides cheesing, and this is done by practicing predominantly standard play, which is the point of this thread. Cheese little, standard much, if you want to get good.
I doubt anyone has ever won a major tourney did not have a SOLID standard game. And i'm sure they didn't spend much more than 5% of their time playing cheeses either.
You should cheese like a bastard in the beta in order to find imbalances. Look at what happened to PvP, its a good thing that they found that. I'm sure there are even more MU castrating strats out there that have to be found by people inventing and popularizing new cheeses.
Also, as far as the whole "is cheese legit on a ladder or tournament" debate:
The goal of the game is to win, and of you know your opponent has bad scouting, it's definitely possible to get an advantage by "cheesing". I don't see why you should let some joker who copies a standard build order and doesn't scout perfectly get ahead of you because he fast expanded, or even let him live past the 7 minute mark when there is an obvious way to beat his strat.
The elephant in the room is that when two good standard players face off, they are often not playing to their full potential if they don't cheese. They both have good scouting, but with good execution, the cheeser can have even better distraction and denial of scouting, he can make his build look like something other than it is by letting certain things be seen and then canceling them, after killing the scout, for example. Sometimes playing standard and macroing up is just not the best tool for the job, especially in a best of X series.
Some "cheeses" are actually just different builds that have different ways of dealing with all threats the matchup presents. For example, my favorite is an expansion into 4-barracks TvZ build that forces the zerg to either use his mutas defensively until I almost have vessels out, lose a considerable number of drones and minerals to sunkens, or go allin elimination against 3-4 control groups of mnm. Zergs that I play against (because I am D/D+ noob) get absolutely destroyed by this build because they are bad and can't deal with a new kind of situation in that matchup. But 4-barracks is not all in - if they cut drones, you have to cut SCVs.. if they don't, you don't. It does good against lurkers as well if you control it right, and if you play smart, you are safe against all other strats including zerg "cheeses".
I think that a lot of "cheese" is just a different way of playing. As much as people whine and bitch about players like Kwanro and JF, they still win a lot of games, and it is simply because they are better than their opponent at Starcraft. Being good at Starcraft is not defined by APM, what builds you use, or anything else. It's defined by whether you win or not.
the guy does make a good point that a player predominantly practicing cheese is going to have glaring deficiencies in the other aspects of the game and you may be better served mastering the standard game before working on the easier to learn aspects like cheese. on the other hand cheesing will put you in more novel situations that you may be able to bullshit your way out of which could actually be the most beneficial in terms of truly understanding the intricacies of the game. so basically this is a dumb discussion because who knows which will be better. i think we can all agree that having 1 all-in build that you do over and over again and ragequit when it fails is not going to help you improve as a player even though it might give you a nice ladder ranking. i believe this is the type of player he is speaking ill of.
On March 17 2010 01:59 JTPROG wrote: Because you face random people on the ladder each game who aren't expecting cheese. Try a BO5. You won't win a tourney with cheese. Winning on the ladder essentially means nothing if it's cheese.
Tell that to motherfucking Julyzerg. First Golden Mouse awarded Zerg player.
On March 17 2010 01:59 JTPROG wrote: Because you face random people on the ladder each game who aren't expecting cheese. Try a BO5. You won't win a tourney with cheese. Winning on the ladder essentially means nothing if it's cheese.
Tell that to motherfucking Julyzerg. First Golden Mouse awarded Zerg player.
Did he cheese every single game? Was he a solid player overall? I already posted an argument to this.
The whole argument is dumb, because the OP thinks there's just one way to play a game and if we don't all conform to what he thinks is the right way to play then we're inferior players. For example, I played Artosis the other day and I did this really fast 2 robo rush and attacked with 5 immortals and 2 sentries. It caught him off guard and he said it was a lame cheese (I ended up losing the game anyways), but my question is how is that cheese?
How can really anything be cheese in a 3 week old game? People barely even know how to play it, everything is just trial and error at this point. Think about chess, there are many different play styles, there isn't one accepted way to play chess, whatever gets you the win is what you should do.
If you want a really high rank, you can cheese all your games, get like a 10:1 WL ratio doing 5 minutes per game. The ladder awards people that gets the most wins in the fastest time, so it's to your advantage if you are good at cheesing.
there is a lot of psychology that goes into cheesing especially in BO 3/5/7 series but even in ladder. I had a session where i played the same guy 4-5 times. After the first loss i decided to cheese and won. The next game i knew he was expecting cheese so i fast expo'ed and went hardcore turtle. IDK cheese is lame, but not to the point of where i would say no1 should do it, wins are wins. IDK if anything cheese leads to better builds which incorporate the ability to quickly defend/quickly and smoothly transition.
You play the same people over and over again at high ratings, you'll be punished for straying too far to either side of the standard/cheese play style by observant opponents. Ironically the people that hate cheese builds the most will be the ones who face them most frequently. If they don't use any themselves and are too predictable in teching or expanding off 1 rax/gate, opponents will tend to open with pressure builds.
There are those who label any build that involves more than 1 rax/gate in the early game as "cheese" or "all-in," but regardless of how you see it, these early pressure builds force people to vary their play. I used to get 3 warp gate "cheesed" with a proxy pylon on the map nearly every game TvP and it enraged me that I was basically forced to open 2 rax builds or I would die within the first 5 minutes.
After a week of using this opening with a defensive mindset, I found it to be a strong build to apply pressure in the early game even if your opponent wasn't using proxy warp gates and saw that it transitioned well into the mid game and securing an expansion unlike similar builds from bw where making more than 1 rax was akin to all-in play.
Being pressured by these "cheese builds" forced me to take another look at how the game flow in sc2 works and left me with a stronger understanding of opening builds and their transitions into mid game play.
Or maybe I just want an excuse to cheese people as much as possible.
On March 17 2010 01:59 JTPROG wrote: Because you face random people on the ladder each game who aren't expecting cheese. Try a BO5. You won't win a tourney with cheese. Winning on the ladder essentially means nothing if it's cheese.
you might think cheese is very easy to do but they are not. there is a lot of planning, measuring the time for the rush to reach your opponent, scouting paths etc, probabilities and the opponent's style.
i think what you are trying to say is that it doesn't help you practice mechanics and how to play long games, which is rather true.
well im gonna disagree with some of what idrA said even though he is pro and have a higher understanding of the game than i do.
Cheesy build doesnt have to be luck based, it becomes luck based when your opponent does a cheesy build or normal strategy/tactic without scouting you and end up winning on it, thats lucky on his behalf and stupid on yours because you didnt scout and counter, i bet sometimes you scout an enemy and see that you would gain an advantage later in the game or even win the game if you do a cheesy tactic.
Im not saying cheesy tactics works 30-40-50-60-100% of the time, im saying that from time to time it might be worth going for the cheesy tactic to get the advantage or win, no matter where or who you play.
and even though its a cheesy build then you wont do it to perfection just because its cheesy " as the OP said " you still need micro and macro to pull it off perfect, AND AGAIN im not saying you need the same amount of micro/macro as in lategame, im just saying some cheesy builds do require some sort of skill to pull off effectively
and for those who says that some cheesy builds CANT be countered then its either because your not good enough to counter it, or its imbalanced, and if its imbalanced then its most likely gonna get fine tuned " nerfed " by blizzard at some point.
On March 17 2010 01:59 JTPROG wrote: You won't win a tourney with cheese.
There are countless examples proving you wrong.
Winning on the ladder essentially means nothing if it's cheese.
Depending on how you look at this, it is either subjective or circular logic - Take your pick.
So this boils down to "play with your best chance to win"? I agree.
There was a tourney where someone won every games using cheese? Even if so, how many times did that happen?
"play with your best chance to win"
And you won't win if you don't have a SOLID game besides cheesing, and this is done by practicing predominantly standard play, which is the point of this thread. Cheese little, standard much, if you want to get good.
I doubt anyone has ever won a major tourney did not have a SOLID standard game. And i'm sure they didn't spend much more than 5% of their time playing cheeses either.
So now this theoretical player who is equal in lifestyle, talent, and motive of every other player of the world is cheesing all of the time instead of half the time?
You provide no context to your argument, Id prefer to be the cheesey player against Flash or Bisu 100% of the time, or compared to Korean players in SC1 because I don't have hours to play every day. It would be way more fun to have mastered a bunch of cheese and win some than practice macro and still lose to every one with better macro (aka everyone)
You're full of crap man...even Jaedong is super aggressive and takes lots of shots, if you see an opportunity take it. It would be stupid not to cheese players who go FE all the time.
Also while their are some cheeses that either win or don't win, there are many plays considered "cheese" which have a transition, and maximizing the advantage after that can get complex and is very important to learn.
Player A cheeses 50% of the time in games. Player B cheeses 10% of the time in games. That's not enough information.
If Player B played against players who cheesed 90% of the time, he will play generally much safer, and will be used to defending and winning games against this. In a Bo5 if Player A cheeses a lot he probably won't do so well. If player B played against other players who all read this thread and decide to cheese 10% of the time he will, even if he defends it he won't be as comfortable with the transitions and might lose the advantage he gained.
So without opponents who cheese you in practice how do you beat the ones that do and do it against you in a tournament? You need to play a whole range of players in ladder, making everyone go do some safe economical fast expand build is just silly.
Also, take into account Player A in this case will either play shorter games and therefore get much more games or else he will play longer games transitioning out of his cheese with either advantage of disadvantage, which will help him a lot. In short, I don't think people should view this cheese thing on another level. It's just part of the game and it's as important as fast expand builds.
People who descredit cheese, especially directed at those who's defining gameplay is around it are scrubs. The game has a set of rules in place, and they're clear. Zerglings can't shoot air, SCV's can't build cannons, and a Barracks costs 150 minerals.
Does the game give a fuck if you got scv rushed? Nope. Does the game give a fuck if you got 6 pooled? Nope.
Every in game strategy directed towards the final goal - Winning, is valid.
Also its WAY more fun to cheese at the beginning of your learning curve because you win sometimes.
If you try to start playing super tight you will lose to everyone with better macro and not have then perspective of cheese, and therefor lose every game against a decent player.
Cheese in laddering, practice, and tournaments are very very different things. They all serve different purposes.
Cheese in laddering is to gain ranks (often as fast as possible). It requires less effort and is mechanically easier to execute and requires minimal to no scouting. It's a good way to beat people who are not familiar/practiced against whatever cheese you're doing.
Cheese in tournaments is often used to beat players who are better than you. It also can be a way to overcome a disadvantageous matchup on a certain map. Most importantly though, cheese keeps people from doing eco abusive strategies every game. If everyone played standard, there'd be no reason not to eco abuse (14 cc, etc). Cheese has to be part of the game, but it serves as a balance.
This thread is about cheesing in laddering for the sake of winning. Winning what? You should be learning as much about the game as you can. It's not even a real ladder. It's beta. I think cheeses are fine every now and then, but it should not be the only weapon in your arsenal.
As for what Idra has been saying about cheese being luck based play - it's entirely true. You're banking on whether your opponent: a) scouts you b) knows how to respond c) has worse micro than you
These things are entirely outside your control and you're basically flipping a coin for the game. It's legitimately bad play and it proves nothing at all about skill levels. People will continue to do it because they legitimately suck at the game and can't win without it, but at the end of the day they've accomplished nothing.
If you are good your overall game (mixing built orders/scouting is such that no cheese succeeds against you more often than 50% (or more likely at least 60%). This is basic game theory stuff. If your game doesn't meet this requirement then you suck and "cheesing" against you is very clever thing to do. If it does meet this requirement why would you mind people "cheesing" and getting automatic 40% or something against you ? (if you are THAT much better just play more solidly at the beginning of the game). As to "cheesing" in ladders, you gotta learn various ways to exploit opponents. It's quite possible that you will meet some, even very good, whose the biggest weakness is that they lose 70% of the time to 5-pool. Not 5-pooling against such people in the name of some strange "cheese is bad" philosophy is just dumb.
Also lol @ at Idra's argument about "bad for esports" the most succesful televised game (poker) is that popular exactly because of element of luck. Same with golf for that matter. I really fail to see why the game which has no luck involved should be more popular , better for tv, or better "for esports" in general.
On March 17 2010 01:06 CharlieMurphy wrote: To add to what Chill said, I personally dislike this whole eco macro long game every person has copycat FE builds that SCBW's metagame has shifted into. The game has become somewhat stagnant because of this, to the point where their strategies are so perfected that they can deal with anything and respond to anything. This is partly the reason why (I believe, anyways) that there are so many new weird maps and map concepts. To keep the game fresh and keep players for just doing their 1 strategy that is safe on every LT clone map.
Whenever I see a pro like Fantasy getting fucking rushed so bad that he lifts off his base and almost cries I fucking cheer. When I saw Boxer bunker rush Yellow over and over to the point where he claims imbalance, I fucking loved it. 'Cheese' is great. And There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing it every game if you want to. If you are trying to be a great player then you should definitely practice any strategy to the point of exhaustion.
the reason the bw meta game shifted to that is that people like to win. cheese became more rare because its inherently luck based. doesnt matter how strategically genius you are, if they scout or guess what you're doing, and what you're doing is dependent on them not knowing what you're doing, you lose. you can know how good flash is, you can know exactly what hes gonna do, and hes still gonna beat you because hes just that fucking good. how people could prefer horang to flash given that, or how they fuckin love fantasy getting allined by a trash player because he didnt wall properly, is beyond me. not only is it gay, its bad for esports. ya cheese can be exciting (because of the luck/simplicity of it, its very obvious to a crowd that when proxy bbs gets scouted the game has reached a turning point. the climax is less clear in real games), but bad players winning, and luck based games, are not good for something that wants to be a real competition.
also, oddly enough, its largely bad players (the kind who are capable of winning because of these cheesy strategies) who defend it as some kind of strategical genius. for instance, someone who would ling allin a famous player and then post the replay of it while bragging about how they masterminded the strategical flow of the game.
Duh, to your first point. The game has evolved, like I said, where strategies are perfected to have that delicate adaptive balance between economic and rush defense. Cheese isn't so much luck based as it is calculated risk based on the player's style or predicted strategy. Look at Luxury's stats for 4 and 5 pool 'cheese' versus pro gamers Luxury is 5-1 Wait, so you just said 'cheese' was inherently luck based, yet you go on to the next sentence to say "..or guess what you're doing", So guessing isn't luck based at all right? It's the same thing, a calculated risk. lol, obviously every strategy is going to be somewhat relying on the fact that they do not know what you are doing. If a player knew what the other player was doing 100% of the time then that is called a maphack. It doesn't make a difference if you are going for a early game timing attack, a rush, or a fake-double (any of which could be considered all-in against the absolute counter). Guess what happens when 2 programers have maphacks on? The game fucking breaks. Dunno, what you're trying to point out about your jocking of Flash, but I assume you're trying to say that he is uncheesable? That is ridiculous. Granted, a veteran player has prepared contingency strategies to deal with 'cheese' in the event it happens, but that doesn't mean it's going to be enough 100% of the time. You calling Jaedong a trash player? Because I was referring to the game on Holy World where he get's 4pooled. Did you just say that 'Cheese' was bad for e-sports, or that sloppy panicked playing on defending 'cheese' is bad for esports? If it's the latter, then that just proves right there that 'cheese' is totally valid, people love to see how players are challenged under pressure. And I agree with your last point. But your opinion that players who use a certain strategy to win because you don't deem it to your standards and calling it bad is absurd.
If you take a look at some of the info on that 4/5pool thread, you can see that 5pool's goal isn't even to win outright versus protoss, while 4pool versus terran is. Both can be considered 'cheese'.
As far as your inference of me I wouldn't expect anything less of you to call me bad and remove any credit where it is due. Oddly enough for me, I distinctly remember a chat where you said something along the lines of "US [toss] players don't even make fucking obs, and they wonder why I don't play them", because in that replay your buddy geoff didn't make a fucking obs and it cost him the game. Which btw, I consider that timing attack of zeal/immortal/sentry/etc to be a 'cheese', what the fuck do you have to say about that? And I would hardly call 12 or so lings with speed for early game map control, into mutalisk an all in ling cheese. To be honest I didn't even expect to rape him as bad as I did with just a dozen lings (I expected him to have at least some semblance of defense when he moved out, so I guess you can call that lucky that he was playing badly?) and I was hoping to do a decent amount of damage to put him back on the defensive so I could get my muta out, harass, and expand. My game plan was NOT to win with nothing but lings like you whiners complained about.
PS- I dunno if you have a US beta account but I would really love to play you. I'll keep it manner if you can.
On March 17 2010 02:57 mnofstl007 wrote: there is a lot of psychology that goes into cheesing especially in BO 3/5/7 series but even in ladder. I had a session where i played the same guy 4-5 times. After the first loss i decided to cheese and won. The next game i knew he was expecting cheese so i fast expo'ed and went hardcore turtle. IDK cheese is lame, but not to the point of where i would say no1 should do it, wins are wins. IDK if anything cheese leads to better builds which incorporate the ability to quickly defend/quickly and smoothly transition.
Your OP is based on the assumption that all people playing the ladder care most about improving. Getting the immediate win outweighs long term gosuness for many.
And not all cheese wins off the bat. So practicing it allows one to practice their different transitions after their cheese has done a lot, some, or even no damage.
Any competent player is capable of DEFENDING a cheese. Cheese has its trade offs and does not always win. Transitions out of cheeses into mid game are very important to understand. It took me many games to figure out an effective transition for PvZ out of early void ray or pheonix.
PvP is all about cheeses atm, and it comes down to every little bit of micro between two players in keeping your zeals alive and killing the opponent's zeals.
Defending against a 6 pool could just mean putting a forge down before your core and skipping gas for a bit later. Tight wall + 2-3 cannons = lots of dead zerglings.
Really the only problem with 'cheese' is that it's the most ambiguous vague term that people like to throw around anytime they disagree with a strategy (and by disagree I mean lose to ).
"OH NO HE MADE CANONS BEHIND MY MINERALS WHEN I WAS FAST EXPANDING LIKE A GREEDY BITCH. YOU FAGGOT CHEATER, DONT YOU KNOW THAT EVERYONE IS SUPPOSED TO FAST EXPAND, YOU, YOU NON CONFORMIST1!!!!"
I wish beta players would cheese more and actually abuse imbalances. They are there not to get better before the release strikes but to make the game more balanced.
On March 17 2010 03:49 CharlieMurphy wrote: Really the only problem with 'cheese' is that it's the most ambiguous vague term that people like to throw around anytime they disagree with a strategy.
"OH NO HE MADE CANONS BEHIND MY MINERALS WHEN I WAS FAST EXPANDING LIKE A GREEDY BITCH. YOU FAGGOT CHEATER"
People just get caught up in the korean macro standard and in the process of wanting to become the best, think they should be emulating the best down to every last macro detail. I remember when Ret didn't want to re some dude on ICCUP because his build was "weird".
mTw-Tak3r from War3 is a good example of a good player who cheesed whenever he possibly could. The type of player that makes the game interesting again.
How does one define a "better player"? Wins and losses? Technical skill? APM? Tourney victories? The premise itself is subjective. If cheese strats are effective, come up with an effective counter. When the Germans invaded Poland with the Blitzkrieg, the Allies didn't cry "OMG CHEEZ!" they got "roflstomped" as it were, pulled out of Europe and then dropshipped it after several years of coordinated harass supplied by US minerals, gas and factories .
Cheese and its effect on the game is only relevant if one strat is clearly dominant and makes the game unplayable for everyone. That hasn't happened yet, and when it does Blizz patches the game to correct it. To say therefore that Cheesers aren't any good and their wins are somehow invalid strikes me as sanctimonious. You can't tell someone they're having fun the wrong way.
rofl, I very much agree wth CM's post. People throw the word cheese around WAY too much.
Also, [uci] Fizik and other people saying comptetent players can block cheese. They can block it but even at the highest levels pros lose to cheese. Just look at Nal_rA and his tricky rushes or Flash vs. Jaedong on HB ridge that one game.
If you get a reputation for throwing in the odd cheese build, imo you get the advantage early game. If i was to play standard player i basically know his BO before game starts and prob dont have to adapt for a suprise attack, putting me in the comfort zone. Cheese ftw :D
On March 17 2010 03:58 AmericanJesus wrote: How does one define a "better player"? Wins and losses? Technical skill? APM? Tourney victories? The premise itself is subjective. If cheese strats are effective, come up with an effective counter. When the Germans invaded Poland with the Blitzkrieg, the Allies didn't cry "OMG CHEEZ!" they got "roflstomped" as it were, pulled out of Europe and then dropshipped it after several years of coordinated harass supplied by US minerals, gas and factories .
What you said, " If you can't beat a person straight-up you're the worse player, no matter what." is straight up wrong.
While I personally agree that to further advance your skills, playing standard will teach you faster/better than cheesing, you cannot make a blanket statement like this.
Am I to understand Yellow is a better player than Boxer because Boxer bunker rushed him 3 games in a row to win the finals?
The better player is the one that wins. Obviously in beta's current state that doesn't hold true because imbalance can play a large part in who wins, but in a balanced game, whoever wins is the better player in my opinion.
I highly disagree. What you're calling luck is basically when you play on your opponents unpreparedness. The most famous generals in history have one thing in common: they have all mastered the art of surprise. The key is to use surprise, but not to entirely rely on it. In that case you're putting the game in your opponents hands. So don't play weak 'cheese' strategies, but discover good ones.
man this beta is doing amazing things to charlie's ego.. he fucking wins a game and suddenly he is calling out idra.. anyone EVER thought they'd see this day rofl?
On March 17 2010 04:19 -orb- wrote: What you said, " If you can't beat a person straight-up you're the worse player, no matter what." is straight up wrong.
While I personally agree that to further advance your skills, playing standard will teach you faster/better than cheesing, you cannot make a blanket statement like this.
Am I to understand Yellow is a better player than Boxer because Boxer bunker rushed him 3 games in a row to win the finals?
What I meant was moreso "if you can never beat a person straight-up you're the worse player."
Which is straight up correct.
And who said Yellow was better than boxer? They didn't play straight-up so we don't know. Just because Boxer cheesed doesn't mean hes definitely worse, just means he cheesed that game. If he couldn't ever beat yellow in a straight-up game then yeah, he's worse. Being better and winning aren't necessarily correlated 100%.
Cheese is just another strategy. It is a high risk, high yield strategy. Starcraft is a strategy game, so there's no issue with using strategy, even if it's one that catches your opponent completely off-guard.
Cheese is a meaningless derogatory word created by the autistic upper class players who prefer to obsessively perfect one specific kind of play. The same as any kind of manners; contrived rules which push conformity. There is nothing wrong with it, honestly the word annoys me as does any whiner who uses it.
On March 17 2010 04:19 -orb- wrote: What you said, " If you can't beat a person straight-up you're the worse player, no matter what." is straight up wrong.
While I personally agree that to further advance your skills, playing standard will teach you faster/better than cheesing, you cannot make a blanket statement like this.
Am I to understand Yellow is a better player than Boxer because Boxer bunker rushed him 3 games in a row to win the finals?
What I meant was moreso "if you can never beat a person straight-up you're the worse player."
Which is straight up correct.
How can you just make random blanket statements without providing any proof. You don't EVER define what "cheese" is, nor what "straight up" is. What does straight up even mean? How can you call things straight up or not in a 3 week old game. The only person making valid arguments in favor of 'cheese=bad' is IdrA. All you're doing is making general undefended statements and saying "IdrA is the only person that gets it"... no: IdrA is the only one providing solid evidence. There are tons of people who are disagreeing with you that are providing real evidence to support their claims.
"If a player cheeses 50% of his games and another player cheeses 10% of his games... who do you think will be a better player in a year" - that's a retarded argument. There are 3459349 things wrong with that statement.
- For example: what if the guy who cheeses 50% of the time played 10 times more. So he still has an exponentially higher number of "straight up" games than the guy who only cheeses 10% of the time.
- What if the guy who cheeses 50% is more intelligent and has a better understanding of RTS than the guy who cheeses 10%, what's going to happen?
- What if the guy who cheeses 10% doesn't watch and analyze his replays to improve his play, while the guy who cheeses 50% does.
That was the best argument you made in 6 pages and it's fucking terrible. You just sound like an angry newbie. Cheesing is part of the game. If Blizzard didn't want it to be there, they would have made the game start at mid-game stages to avoid it altogether. Cheesing adds a level of unpredictability and excitement to otherwise boring games.
Who is really bad... the player who 'cheeses' or the player who loses to it consistently? For example: I lost 4 games in a row to protosses who warp gate rushed me last week. You seem like you would be blaming "stupid cheese" for the loss, while I blamed my inability to come up with a counter to it after 4 times.
Being able to not play like a robot has very distinct advantages. If you have some really strong 'cheese' builds in addition to 'standard' builds, I can guarantee you will be a better player at the end of the day as opposed to some guy who plays like a mindless robot and does the same two builds every time.
player who knows how to win is a good player. but if you cheese against strangers and win at a good rate, that doesn't make you a good player. but if you can win something like bo7 at a good rate, then regardless of whether you cheese or not, you are doing something right.
so cheese is not necessarily wrong. It is necessary at times to keep the opponent guessing. And if it can work even when the opponent expects it, then it is a legit strategy. ex. boxer vs yellow. but it is also dumb just to cheese one time strategy against strangers. that's just being a ladder whore. but even then, you have to be careful with beta ladder whores, since they help beta w/ balancing. and since they never argued that they are good players anywhos.
op was very sure of his statements, and there are some legit arguments made. But bashing cheese in general was just asking for it from TL, and everyone expected this outcome the moment they read the first page, regardless of the surge of IdrA
On March 17 2010 01:06 CharlieMurphy wrote: To add to what Chill said, I personally dislike this whole eco macro long game every person has copycat FE builds that SCBW's metagame has shifted into. The game has become somewhat stagnant because of this, to the point where their strategies are so perfected that they can deal with anything and respond to anything. This is partly the reason why (I believe, anyways) that there are so many new weird maps and map concepts. To keep the game fresh and keep players for just doing their 1 strategy that is safe on every LT clone map.
Whenever I see a pro like Fantasy getting fucking rushed so bad that he lifts off his base and almost cries I fucking cheer. When I saw Boxer bunker rush Yellow over and over to the point where he claims imbalance, I fucking loved it. 'Cheese' is great. And There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing it every game if you want to. If you are trying to be a great player then you should definitely practice any strategy to the point of exhaustion.
the reason the bw meta game shifted to that is that people like to win. cheese became more rare because its inherently luck based. doesnt matter how strategically genius you are, if they scout or guess what you're doing, and what you're doing is dependent on them not knowing what you're doing, you lose. you can know how good flash is, you can know exactly what hes gonna do, and hes still gonna beat you because hes just that fucking good. how people could prefer horang to flash given that, or how they fuckin love fantasy getting allined by a trash player because he didnt wall properly, is beyond me. not only is it gay, its bad for esports. ya cheese can be exciting (because of the luck/simplicity of it, its very obvious to a crowd that when proxy bbs gets scouted the game has reached a turning point. the climax is less clear in real games), but bad players winning, and luck based games, are not good for something that wants to be a real competition.
also, oddly enough, its largely bad players (the kind who are capable of winning because of these cheesy strategies) who defend it as some kind of strategical genius. for instance, someone who would ling allin a famous player and then post the replay of it while bragging about how they masterminded the strategical flow of the game.
Cheesing is just another way of playing good. If it was a "bad strat", like 6 gates no expansion mass stalkers A move all in, you wouldn't call it a cheese. Precisely, the cheese is not something stupid, it's supposed to be a dagger perforating your chest at a very precise moment.
You think that it's bad for Esports, because the "worst player" CAN win ? But if the "best" player is the one cheesing, like Savior against Ret at Blizzcon, it doesn't bother you anymore right ? Does that make sense ? And on another note, is somebody "good" if he can play long macro game effectively, no matter if he can't defeat an All in Zergling rush ? Who made these rules ? Is that the purpose of Starcraft competitions ?
To me, and to the overwhelming majority of people who never passed B on ICCup, Starcraft 1,2 are nothing more than entertainments (to an extent, it's the same for you). You are an entertainer. What matters is, are cheeses more entertaining than standard playstyle ? The answer to that is undoubtebly yes, therefore so called "cheeses" are good for you. If cheeses were prohibited in Pro competitions, I'm pretty sure that your salary wouldn't be half of what it is right now, because a lot of casual people would find the game kind of predictable and boring and would stop watching them.
A good player is one who can take advantage of the weaknesses of another player, either by "cheese" or going to late game if that is his forte, me in sc: bw reach "C-" doing "cheeses." Makes me this is a bad player of sc: bw? not if I could get a B + but if I could get without using C-"cheese" so if that makes me a bad player, but what makes starcraft a good game is the 1,000,000 possible ways to win.
I feel my English, I am using the google translator.
On March 17 2010 04:19 -orb- wrote: What you said, " If you can't beat a person straight-up you're the worse player, no matter what." is straight up wrong.
While I personally agree that to further advance your skills, playing standard will teach you faster/better than cheesing, you cannot make a blanket statement like this.
Am I to understand Yellow is a better player than Boxer because Boxer bunker rushed him 3 games in a row to win the finals?
What I meant was moreso "if you can never beat a person straight-up you're the worse player."
Which is straight up correct.
How can you just make random blanket statements without providing any proof. You don't EVER define what "cheese" is, nor what "straight up" is. What does straight up even mean? How can you call things straight up or not in a 3 week old game. The only person making valid arguments in favor of 'cheese=bad' is IdrA. All you're doing is making general undefended statements and saying "IdrA is the only person that gets it"... no: IdrA is the only one providing solid evidence. There are tons of people who are disagreeing with you that are providing real evidence to support their claims.
"If a player cheeses 50% of his games and another player cheeses 10% of his games... who do you think will be a better player in a year" - that's a retarded argument. There are 3459349 things wrong with that statement.
- For example: what if the guy who cheeses 50% of the time played 10 times more. So he still has an exponentially higher number of "straight up" games than the guy who only cheeses 10% of the time.
- What if the guy who cheeses 50% is more intelligent and has a better understanding of RTS than the guy who cheeses 10%, what's going to happen?
- What if the guy who cheeses 10% doesn't watch and analyze his replays to improve his play, while the guy who cheeses 50% does.
That was the best argument you made in 6 pages and it's fucking terrible. You just sound like an angry newbie. Cheesing is part of the game. If Blizzard didn't want it to be there, they would have made the game start at mid-game stages to avoid it altogether. Cheesing adds a level of unpredictability and excitement to otherwise boring games.
Who is really bad... the player who 'cheeses' or the player who loses to it consistently? For example: I lost 4 games in a row to protosses who warp gate rushed me last week. You seem like you would be blaming "stupid cheese" for the loss, while I blamed my inability to come up with a counter to it after 4 times.
Being able to not play like a robot has very distinct advantages. If you have some really strong 'cheese' builds in addition to 'standard' builds, I can guarantee you will be a better player at the end of the day as opposed to some guy who plays like a mindless robot and does the same two builds every time.
I have added a definition of what I define as cheese a while ago on OP so people understand better.
As for the 50% 10% argument, we are OBVIOUSLY ASSUMING that everything is EQUAL except for the cheese %. Why the hell would we assume differences in a point of comparison?... And saying that it is unintuitive is just plain stupid.
Please read OP again since I made it more clear cause apparently people don't understand simple things. I have provided plenty of proof and examples to back up my statements.
It is in the middle: Cheese can be good. Solid play can be good.
THE BEST is a player who plays solid but mixes in a cheese every once in awhile. People forget Flash got the attention by cheesing a couple of big players and winning. Could he make a career off of that? NOT NEARLY as successful of a career as he has had if he was a pure cheeser.. that is for sure.
So practice a cheese every once in awhile on the ladder. But if you do it each game and want to defend that if it wins you games it is good is faulty and short-sighted logic. Being a solid player that does the macro style but can mix in a cheese is the most dangerous player you can be. A pure cheeser is NOT.
On March 17 2010 04:26 {88}iNcontroL wrote: man this beta is doing amazing things to charlie's ego.. he fucking wins a game and suddenly he is calling out idra.. anyone EVER thought they'd see this day rofl?
I've played Idra before he went to korea in BW and I've seen a few of his reps n sc2. It's not like he's some kind of unbeatable pro in sc2 already. Especially since he's such a predictable macro/mechanics player who despises cheese. He's essentially giving up a psychological edge by even saying cheese is bad.
On March 17 2010 01:59 JTPROG wrote: You won't win a tourney with cheese.
What about Mondragon's 40+ ZvP overpool->ling canon runby wins in the TSL1 ladder? Or would you claim a difference between transition-able cheese and all-in?
As a random player, I sometimes decide beforehand on each map that I'll cheese if I get race X because part of being a random is casting a psychological uncertainty over your opponent that ANYTHING could happen.
this thread makes no sense, this is a test ladder, abuse everything you can so the bad stuff doesn't wind up in the final build. It's already worked with the warpgate nerf
I define cheese as: A mostly unpreventable, unscoutable (in time), luck-based strategy, usually a rush, that relies on your opponent being unprepared or not knowing what to do, but would probably not work twice against the same player.
Unpreventable/Unscoutable, So like when a zerg denies probe scouts that is cheese? Luck based? Does this include calculated risks, Gambling IS a valid strategy whether you want to acknowledge it as one or not. Being Uprepared? You basically just singled out like 90% of the strategies in any RTS game. Not knowing what to do? lol? Probably won't work twice? You mean like how boxer totally mindfucked yellow and 'cheesed' him multiple times in a row?
Dude like I said, 'cheese' is relative and if you wanna write it off as 100% bad you are just plain bad. A better definition of 'cheese' would be; a calculated gambit that often employs psychology into the strategy. Gambit being the key word here.
On March 16 2010 23:40 rackdude wrote: Why you should cheese in the Beta ladder.
The goal is to exploit the game and find whatever strategies are unstoppable/imbalanced. You've basically been chosen to this, that's what a beta is for. If you think you can win every game with a cheese, exploit your heart out and make people cry on the forums.
Yes, and if you don't get people QQing on forums directly, maybe people will take your build and adopt it for themselves, so they get people QQing on forums too.
I agree with most of the points (particularly by Nazgul and idra, solid arguments). But let's just put it this way - what if koreans had put off doing 3 warpgates and 2 gateway proxies until major post-beta starleagues in pvp. Think of the shit storm that would have occurred. + Show Spoiler +
Oh, and for the skill vs. ladder's sake argument - being a good player requires two things - 1. playing a good solid normal game 2. playing an unorthodox game. If you cannot defend cheese well, then you don't deserve to be playing with the best. Cheese is a part of the game. Sure, some cheese builds are auto wins, but that is a luck/risk that some players are willing to take at times, and simply part of the game. If cheese was 100% defendable vs all builds, then it would be far more boring / uninteresting, as the better player would ALWAYS win. Its this sort of flexibility/depth that makes BW so great.
On March 17 2010 04:19 -orb- wrote: What you said, " If you can't beat a person straight-up you're the worse player, no matter what." is straight up wrong.
While I personally agree that to further advance your skills, playing standard will teach you faster/better than cheesing, you cannot make a blanket statement like this.
Am I to understand Yellow is a better player than Boxer because Boxer bunker rushed him 3 games in a row to win the finals?
What I meant was moreso "if you can never beat a person straight-up you're the worse player."
Which is straight up correct.
And who said Yellow was better than boxer? They didn't play straight-up so we don't know. Just because Boxer cheesed doesn't mean hes definitely worse, just means he cheesed that game. If he couldn't ever beat yellow in a straight-up game then yeah, he's worse. Being better and winning aren't necessarily correlated 100%.
IDK what being "better" means if its not connected to winning really.
Maybe you should stop making up imaginary ideas of whats "better" or "worse" and just accept accept that they are DIFFERENT playstyles.
On March 17 2010 03:32 fyyer wrote: People who descredit cheese, especially directed at those who's defining gameplay is around it are scrubs. The game has a set of rules in place, and they're clear. Zerglings can't shoot air, SCV's can't build cannons, and a Barracks costs 150 minerals.
Does the game give a fuck if you got scv rushed? Nope. Does the game give a fuck if you got 6 pooled? Nope.
Every in game strategy directed towards the final goal - Winning, is valid.
This is the most important post in this thread. Up to that point anyway, I stopped reading there.
Simply put, if there is some facet of the game that you consider to be unfair, then the game isn't as good as you think it is. Go find something to do with your time that doesn't enrage you.
I define cheese as: A mostly unpreventable, unscoutable (in time), luck-based strategy, usually a rush, that relies on your opponent being unprepared or not knowing what to do, but would probably not work twice against the same player.
Unpreventable/Unscoutable, So like when a zerg denies probe scouts that is cheese? Luck based? Does this include calculated risks, Gambling IS a valid strategy whether you want to acknowledge it as one or not. Being Uprepared? You basically just singled out like 90% of the strategies in any RTS game. Not knowing what to do? lol? Probably won't work twice? You mean like how boxer totally mindfucked yellow and 'cheesed' him multiple times in a row?
Dude like I said, 'cheese' is relative and if you wanna write it off as 100% bad you are just plain bad. A better definition of 'cheese' would be; a calculated gambit that often employs psychology into the strategy. Gambit being the key word here.
Unless the zerg is doing something cheesy while denying the scout, such as 4 pooling, which I don't see how it would be possible to deny a scout in that case, I don't see your point. Think about it, by the time you figure out hes 4-pooling its basically too late. That is unpreventable/unscoutable. It's not cheese if you're not actually doing something cheesy. Preventing something is not initiating something. Denying a scout is not cheese...
And it wouldn't work twice if yellow actually put all his effort in trying to stop it, in which case he prob would have ended up winning the game. That's the point.
And I never said cheese was 100% bad. Can you people read? I'm just saying if you want to be good you should play predominantly standard build 90%+. Worry about the cheese later, after you're far and above decent.
The value of "cheesing" IMO is that it helps to establish the baseline for standard play. A standard strat that loses consistently to cheese has a gaping hole in it. Saying "You should work on standard play" is great advice if you accept the premise that standard play is well established after one month in a beta where changes are made every week.
Edit:
If you have a great BO that loses to 8 pool rush all the time, then it's not a great build. What could be worse than a build that makes you lose to even the scrubbiest players on earth?
On March 17 2010 06:13 Wintermute wrote: If you have a great BO that loses to 8 pool rush all the time, then it's not a great build. What could be worse than a build that makes you lose to even the scrubbiest players on earth?
Well said. If you cannot scout and counter the cheese, it was a valid aggressive play to defeat your build, wasn't it? If we choose to deny that this is the case, we are saying that the cheese was overpowered and perhaps that needs looking at. But in competition there is only what you can do and what you cannot do. You can bunker rush, 8pool all-in, prox 2-gate, double gas steal and then zealot rush... If you lose you have no right to complain but if you win nobody else is really in the right for saying you didn't earn it.
If you don't cheese then the expected value of openings is no longer correct. If you do cheese you will reach a level where your opponents don't just die to it more quickly, making longer macro games a more effective learning experience than they would have been at lower levels. Additionally this is a beta. Cheese is one of the most important things to test heavily right away to balance. Something that goes wrong 5 minutes into the game is more important than something that goes wrong 15 minutes in.
The goal is to exploit the game and find whatever strategies are unstoppable/imbalanced. You've basically been chosen to this, that's what a beta is for. If you think you can win every game with a cheese, exploit your heart out and make people cry on the forums.
I agree with this and I think op is wrong as far as betas are concerned. Better to learn what abuses can be done now while they are patching weekly. I am very gratefully to all the toss players who were abusing warp gates. They helped make SC2 a better game.
Respond to my post please I'm curious how you will rationalize, its not really nice to just ignore peoples argument and instead argue the merits of cheese, which is what we weren't supposed to do here, I'm pretty sure.
Hmmm don't agree with OP, but a point is that generic, luck-based cheeses are generally going to be common and the top players after a while will be able to handle it easily and account for the possibility of such a build in their own build. In this way having some people cheese pays off.
Creative cheese that you tailor to your opponent/the situation and isn't entirely luck based - instead noticing a weakness in your opponent's standard opening - is great and the day people stop doing it in favour of repetitive, cookie-cutter standard builds is the day I find a new game to play.
"Don't cheese if you want to get good at non-cheese." Thanks, that helps a lot.
Fact: Being "good" and "getting better" actually just mean "winning" and "winning more." In order to maximize your winning, you can't cheese 100% of the time, and you can't play standard 100% of the time either. In order to win as much as possible, you have to mix the two strategies at a certain ratio. But in any case, you should cheese sometimes =o
On March 17 2010 01:59 JTPROG wrote: You won't win a tourney with cheese.
There are countless examples proving you wrong.
Winning on the ladder essentially means nothing if it's cheese.
Depending on how you look at this, it is either subjective or circular logic - Take your pick.
So this boils down to "play with your best chance to win"? I agree.
There was a tourney where someone won every games using cheese? Even if so, how many times did that happen?
"play with your best chance to win"
And you won't win if you don't have a SOLID game besides cheesing, and this is done by practicing predominantly standard play, which is the point of this thread. Cheese little, standard much, if you want to get good.
I doubt anyone has ever won a major tourney did not have a SOLID standard game. And i'm sure they didn't spend much more than 5% of their time playing cheeses either.
So now this theoretical player who is equal in lifestyle, talent, and motive of every other player of the world is cheesing all of the time instead of half the time?
You provide no context to your argument, Id prefer to be the cheesey player against Flash or Bisu 100% of the time, or compared to Korean players in SC1 because I don't have hours to play every day. It would be way more fun to have mastered a bunch of cheese and win some than practice macro and still lose to every one with better macro (aka everyone)
You're full of crap man...even Jaedong is super aggressive and takes lots of shots, if you see an opportunity take it. It would be stupid not to cheese players who go FE all the time.
Also while their are some cheeses that either win or don't win, there are many plays considered "cheese" which have a transition, and maximizing the advantage after that can get complex and is very important to learn.
I don't really understand what you're trying to say in the first paragraph, but you said to reply to your post, so I'll try to.
Okay - so you can be a cheesy player against Flash or Bisu, yes, that is your best chance. I'm saying you shouldn't cheese on the ladder so that you can actually get better at the game in general. It seems everyone is misunderstanding the point and thinks i'm saying you should never cheese. This is not true. But cheesing should not be your main play or strategy. It should be very minimum, especially on the ladder. Cheesing is saved for let's say 1 game of a BO3. You can practice it on the ladder, but you must predominantly play standard games if you want to go better.
You say you don't have hours to play every day and you want to have fun. If you read the OP i said this post doesn't apply to you. This post only applies to people who want to get better by playing the ladder. Go ahead and cheese all day, but you'll never get better that way. You can abuse the ladder, but that's about it. And yes, some cheeses do have transitions into standard play, but the fact is it started with cheese, and therefore "messes up" any real standard aspects of that particular game - for both players. You can cheese once and win but to win consistently you need to be a solid player who plays solid games consistently.
Just read through the entire thread I can't believe some of the arguments people are making. and the two "great posts" in OP are complete garbage
On March 17 2010 03:34 Floophead_III wrote: As for what Idra has been saying about cheese being luck based play - it's entirely true. You're banking on whether your opponent: a) scouts you b) knows how to respond c) has worse micro than you
really, just look at that I'm just gonna say from now on, I consider 1rax FE cheese. it's a luck based play and you're gambling on the 3 points floophead_III has outlined for me
This ridiculous notion of cheese vs standard builds is so stupid a "standard build" is gambling it can hold off cheese and win a "cheese build" is gambling it can damage the standard BO
both sides are playing just as fucking risky, I can apply every single argument you made to both sides.
and as for your dumbass question of the 50% cheese vs 10% cheese. I'll consider the 50% cheese a better player.
On March 17 2010 04:52 {88}iNcontroL wrote: I can't really believe this is going this long...
It is in the middle: Cheese can be good. Solid play can be good.
THE BEST is a player who plays solid but mixes in a cheese every once in awhile. People forget Flash got the attention by cheesing a couple of big players and winning. Could he make a career off of that? NOT NEARLY as successful of a career as he has had if he was a pure cheeser.. that is for sure.
So practice a cheese every once in awhile on the ladder. But if you do it each game and want to defend that if it wins you games it is good is faulty and short-sighted logic. Being a solid player that does the macro style but can mix in a cheese is the most dangerous player you can be. A pure cheeser is NOT.
On March 17 2010 01:59 JTPROG wrote: You won't win a tourney with cheese.
There are countless examples proving you wrong.
Winning on the ladder essentially means nothing if it's cheese.
Depending on how you look at this, it is either subjective or circular logic - Take your pick.
So this boils down to "play with your best chance to win"? I agree.
There was a tourney where someone won every games using cheese? Even if so, how many times did that happen?
"play with your best chance to win"
And you won't win if you don't have a SOLID game besides cheesing, and this is done by practicing predominantly standard play, which is the point of this thread. Cheese little, standard much, if you want to get good.
I doubt anyone has ever won a major tourney did not have a SOLID standard game. And i'm sure they didn't spend much more than 5% of their time playing cheeses either.
So now this theoretical player who is equal in lifestyle, talent, and motive of every other player of the world is cheesing all of the time instead of half the time?
You provide no context to your argument, Id prefer to be the cheesey player against Flash or Bisu 100% of the time, or compared to Korean players in SC1 because I don't have hours to play every day. It would be way more fun to have mastered a bunch of cheese and win some than practice macro and still lose to every one with better macro (aka everyone)
You're full of crap man...even Jaedong is super aggressive and takes lots of shots, if you see an opportunity take it. It would be stupid not to cheese players who go FE all the time.
Also while their are some cheeses that either win or don't win, there are many plays considered "cheese" which have a transition, and maximizing the advantage after that can get complex and is very important to learn.
I don't really understand what you're trying to say in the first paragraph, but you said to reply to your post, so I'll try to.
Okay - so you can be a cheesy player against Flash or Bisu, yes, that is your best chance. I'm saying you shouldn't cheese on the ladder so that you can actually get better at the game in general. It seems everyone is misunderstanding the point and thinks i'm saying you should never cheese. This is not true. But cheesing should not be your main play or strategy. It should be very minimum, especially on the ladder. Cheesing is saved for let's say 1 game of a BO3. You can practice it on the ladder, but you must predominantly play standard games if you want to go better.
You say you don't have hours to play every day and you want to have fun. If you read the OP i said this post doesn't apply to you. This post only applies to people who want to get better by playing the ladder. Go ahead and cheese all day, but you'll never get better that way. You can abuse the ladder, but that's about it. And yes, some cheeses do have transitions into standard play, but the fact is it started with cheese, and therefore "messes up" any real standard aspects of that particular game - for both players. You can cheese once and win but to win consistently you need to be a solid player who plays solid games consistently.
You wanna know how you get better? you cheese mercilessly, repetitively, and vs the same few people (who will also cheese you) You will be continuously forced to change ur strategy, and play ridiculous, low econ games that hinge on micro, decision making, scouting, and game sense. After a while, you will learn timing windows, and be able to feel out how the game works. Both sides will then try to maximize their econ while still not dying to the flurry of cheeses. eventually, you will arrive upon the "standard" BO that pros use.
It's not the product, but the process that makes you a better player.
On March 17 2010 01:59 JTPROG wrote: You won't win a tourney with cheese.
There are countless examples proving you wrong.
Winning on the ladder essentially means nothing if it's cheese.
Depending on how you look at this, it is either subjective or circular logic - Take your pick.
So this boils down to "play with your best chance to win"? I agree.
There was a tourney where someone won every games using cheese? Even if so, how many times did that happen?
"play with your best chance to win"
And you won't win if you don't have a SOLID game besides cheesing, and this is done by practicing predominantly standard play, which is the point of this thread. Cheese little, standard much, if you want to get good.
I doubt anyone has ever won a major tourney did not have a SOLID standard game. And i'm sure they didn't spend much more than 5% of their time playing cheeses either.
So now this theoretical player who is equal in lifestyle, talent, and motive of every other player of the world is cheesing all of the time instead of half the time?
You provide no context to your argument, Id prefer to be the cheesey player against Flash or Bisu 100% of the time, or compared to Korean players in SC1 because I don't have hours to play every day. It would be way more fun to have mastered a bunch of cheese and win some than practice macro and still lose to every one with better macro (aka everyone)
You're full of crap man...even Jaedong is super aggressive and takes lots of shots, if you see an opportunity take it. It would be stupid not to cheese players who go FE all the time.
Also while their are some cheeses that either win or don't win, there are many plays considered "cheese" which have a transition, and maximizing the advantage after that can get complex and is very important to learn.
I don't really understand what you're trying to say in the first paragraph, but you said to reply to your post, so I'll try to.
Okay - so you can be a cheesy player against Flash or Bisu, yes, that is your best chance. I'm saying you shouldn't cheese on the ladder so that you can actually get better at the game in general. It seems everyone is misunderstanding the point and thinks i'm saying you should never cheese. This is not true. But cheesing should not be your main play or strategy. It should be very minimum, especially on the ladder. Cheesing is saved for let's say 1 game of a BO3. You can practice it on the ladder, but you must predominantly play standard games if you want to go better.
You say you don't have hours to play every day and you want to have fun. If you read the OP i said this post doesn't apply to you. This post only applies to people who want to get better by playing the ladder. Go ahead and cheese all day, but you'll never get better that way. You can abuse the ladder, but that's about it. And yes, some cheeses do have transitions into standard play, but the fact is it started with cheese, and therefore "messes up" any real standard aspects of that particular game - for both players. You can cheese once and win but to win consistently you need to be a solid player who plays solid games consistently.
You wanna know how you get better? you cheese mercilessly, repetitively, and vs the same few people (who will also cheese you) You will be continuously forced to change ur strategy, and play ridiculous, low econ games that hinge on micro, decision making, scouting, and game sense. After a while, you will learn timing windows, and be able to feel out how the game works. Both sides will then try to maximize their econ while still not dying to the flurry of cheeses. eventually, you will arrive upon the "standard" BO that pros use.
It's not the product, but the process that makes you a better player.
or you can skip all the bullshit and practice what matters.
This is the beta. It's our job to cheese the shit out of each other so it gets patched quickly if it's too broken, and that we can refine unit control and learn how to respond properly now so we don't have to witness some guy cheesing his way through a tournament later five minutes at a time.
If it works, do it. If it doesn't work, then don't do it. If your cheese and micro works 100% then do it. If it doesn't then mix it up. I'm trying to say that it's up to you to decide what your OP strategy is. Even pro gamers saw this. If you know the timing of their BO, and you know it can be countered, then do it. You don't need to run into a wall when you can just walk around it.
In other words, if a player does the same BO over and over again, then counter it with a different BO. The whole point of doing different BO is to make yourself a little harder for your opponent to estimate. "Cheese" builds aren't glitches or cheats. They're just a different opening and as like most posters have said, it's still the beta version of testing. If this was all balanced out, even cheese builds can be defended much like the 1st Starcraft. The game is suppose to be fought with micro in the end. BOs are meant for you and your opponent to set ground what tactics, buildings are used, and units are meant to be micro. If BOs decided how the game ends, then this game isn't balanced yet.
I have yet to see a pro gamer now a days quit when they just see a "cheese" build in the regular Starcraft. They would micro out of it and build accordingly to the new situation at hand.
On March 17 2010 01:59 JTPROG wrote: You won't win a tourney with cheese.
There are countless examples proving you wrong.
Winning on the ladder essentially means nothing if it's cheese.
Depending on how you look at this, it is either subjective or circular logic - Take your pick.
So this boils down to "play with your best chance to win"? I agree.
There was a tourney where someone won every games using cheese? Even if so, how many times did that happen?
"play with your best chance to win"
And you won't win if you don't have a SOLID game besides cheesing, and this is done by practicing predominantly standard play, which is the point of this thread. Cheese little, standard much, if you want to get good.
I doubt anyone has ever won a major tourney did not have a SOLID standard game. And i'm sure they didn't spend much more than 5% of their time playing cheeses either.
So now this theoretical player who is equal in lifestyle, talent, and motive of every other player of the world is cheesing all of the time instead of half the time?
You provide no context to your argument, Id prefer to be the cheesey player against Flash or Bisu 100% of the time, or compared to Korean players in SC1 because I don't have hours to play every day. It would be way more fun to have mastered a bunch of cheese and win some than practice macro and still lose to every one with better macro (aka everyone)
You're full of crap man...even Jaedong is super aggressive and takes lots of shots, if you see an opportunity take it. It would be stupid not to cheese players who go FE all the time.
Also while their are some cheeses that either win or don't win, there are many plays considered "cheese" which have a transition, and maximizing the advantage after that can get complex and is very important to learn.
I don't really understand what you're trying to say in the first paragraph, but you said to reply to your post, so I'll try to.
Okay - so you can be a cheesy player against Flash or Bisu, yes, that is your best chance. I'm saying you shouldn't cheese on the ladder so that you can actually get better at the game in general. It seems everyone is misunderstanding the point and thinks i'm saying you should never cheese. This is not true. But cheesing should not be your main play or strategy. It should be very minimum, especially on the ladder. Cheesing is saved for let's say 1 game of a BO3. You can practice it on the ladder, but you must predominantly play standard games if you want to go better.
You say you don't have hours to play every day and you want to have fun. If you read the OP i said this post doesn't apply to you. This post only applies to people who want to get better by playing the ladder. Go ahead and cheese all day, but you'll never get better that way. You can abuse the ladder, but that's about it. And yes, some cheeses do have transitions into standard play, but the fact is it started with cheese, and therefore "messes up" any real standard aspects of that particular game - for both players. You can cheese once and win but to win consistently you need to be a solid player who plays solid games consistently.
You wanna know how you get better? you cheese mercilessly, repetitively, and vs the same few people (who will also cheese you) You will be continuously forced to change ur strategy, and play ridiculous, low econ games that hinge on micro, decision making, scouting, and game sense. After a while, you will learn timing windows, and be able to feel out how the game works. Both sides will then try to maximize their econ while still not dying to the flurry of cheeses. eventually, you will arrive upon the "standard" BO that pros use.
It's not the product, but the process that makes you a better player.
or you can skip all the bullshit and practice what matters.
which is exactly why people like you with that kind of mindset will always die to cheese and then find a reason to complain. And no matter how hard you try, will never be at the top. (cough*idra*cough) If you wanna skip the process and just try to make the finished product, then that's fine.
But there's a reason difficult jobs require a high level of education. You wanna be a surgeon, fine, but you need to learn basic academia, then go through premed, then go to med school. You can't just start practicing cutting people up. Don't expect you can "skip the bullshit and practice what matters" and actually get results
On March 17 2010 01:59 JTPROG wrote: You won't win a tourney with cheese.
There are countless examples proving you wrong.
Winning on the ladder essentially means nothing if it's cheese.
Depending on how you look at this, it is either subjective or circular logic - Take your pick.
So this boils down to "play with your best chance to win"? I agree.
There was a tourney where someone won every games using cheese? Even if so, how many times did that happen?
"play with your best chance to win"
And you won't win if you don't have a SOLID game besides cheesing, and this is done by practicing predominantly standard play, which is the point of this thread. Cheese little, standard much, if you want to get good.
I doubt anyone has ever won a major tourney did not have a SOLID standard game. And i'm sure they didn't spend much more than 5% of their time playing cheeses either.
So now this theoretical player who is equal in lifestyle, talent, and motive of every other player of the world is cheesing all of the time instead of half the time?
You provide no context to your argument, Id prefer to be the cheesey player against Flash or Bisu 100% of the time, or compared to Korean players in SC1 because I don't have hours to play every day. It would be way more fun to have mastered a bunch of cheese and win some than practice macro and still lose to every one with better macro (aka everyone)
You're full of crap man...even Jaedong is super aggressive and takes lots of shots, if you see an opportunity take it. It would be stupid not to cheese players who go FE all the time.
Also while their are some cheeses that either win or don't win, there are many plays considered "cheese" which have a transition, and maximizing the advantage after that can get complex and is very important to learn.
I don't really understand what you're trying to say in the first paragraph, but you said to reply to your post, so I'll try to.
Okay - so you can be a cheesy player against Flash or Bisu, yes, that is your best chance. I'm saying you shouldn't cheese on the ladder so that you can actually get better at the game in general. It seems everyone is misunderstanding the point and thinks i'm saying you should never cheese. This is not true. But cheesing should not be your main play or strategy. It should be very minimum, especially on the ladder. Cheesing is saved for let's say 1 game of a BO3. You can practice it on the ladder, but you must predominantly play standard games if you want to go better.
You say you don't have hours to play every day and you want to have fun. If you read the OP i said this post doesn't apply to you. This post only applies to people who want to get better by playing the ladder. Go ahead and cheese all day, but you'll never get better that way. You can abuse the ladder, but that's about it. And yes, some cheeses do have transitions into standard play, but the fact is it started with cheese, and therefore "messes up" any real standard aspects of that particular game - for both players. You can cheese once and win but to win consistently you need to be a solid player who plays solid games consistently.
You wanna know how you get better? you cheese mercilessly, repetitively, and vs the same few people (who will also cheese you) You will be continuously forced to change ur strategy, and play ridiculous, low econ games that hinge on micro, decision making, scouting, and game sense. After a while, you will learn timing windows, and be able to feel out how the game works. Both sides will then try to maximize their econ while still not dying to the flurry of cheeses. eventually, you will arrive upon the "standard" BO that pros use.
It's not the product, but the process that makes you a better player.
or you can skip all the bullshit and practice what matters.
How are you qualified to say what does and doesn't matter if you can't even break D+.
On March 17 2010 01:59 JTPROG wrote: You won't win a tourney with cheese.
There are countless examples proving you wrong.
Winning on the ladder essentially means nothing if it's cheese.
Depending on how you look at this, it is either subjective or circular logic - Take your pick.
So this boils down to "play with your best chance to win"? I agree.
There was a tourney where someone won every games using cheese? Even if so, how many times did that happen?
"play with your best chance to win"
And you won't win if you don't have a SOLID game besides cheesing, and this is done by practicing predominantly standard play, which is the point of this thread. Cheese little, standard much, if you want to get good.
I doubt anyone has ever won a major tourney did not have a SOLID standard game. And i'm sure they didn't spend much more than 5% of their time playing cheeses either.
So now this theoretical player who is equal in lifestyle, talent, and motive of every other player of the world is cheesing all of the time instead of half the time?
You provide no context to your argument, Id prefer to be the cheesey player against Flash or Bisu 100% of the time, or compared to Korean players in SC1 because I don't have hours to play every day. It would be way more fun to have mastered a bunch of cheese and win some than practice macro and still lose to every one with better macro (aka everyone)
You're full of crap man...even Jaedong is super aggressive and takes lots of shots, if you see an opportunity take it. It would be stupid not to cheese players who go FE all the time.
Also while their are some cheeses that either win or don't win, there are many plays considered "cheese" which have a transition, and maximizing the advantage after that can get complex and is very important to learn.
I don't really understand what you're trying to say in the first paragraph, but you said to reply to your post, so I'll try to.
Okay - so you can be a cheesy player against Flash or Bisu, yes, that is your best chance. I'm saying you shouldn't cheese on the ladder so that you can actually get better at the game in general. It seems everyone is misunderstanding the point and thinks i'm saying you should never cheese. This is not true. But cheesing should not be your main play or strategy. It should be very minimum, especially on the ladder. Cheesing is saved for let's say 1 game of a BO3. You can practice it on the ladder, but you must predominantly play standard games if you want to go better.
You say you don't have hours to play every day and you want to have fun. If you read the OP i said this post doesn't apply to you. This post only applies to people who want to get better by playing the ladder. Go ahead and cheese all day, but you'll never get better that way. You can abuse the ladder, but that's about it. And yes, some cheeses do have transitions into standard play, but the fact is it started with cheese, and therefore "messes up" any real standard aspects of that particular game - for both players. You can cheese once and win but to win consistently you need to be a solid player who plays solid games consistently.
You wanna know how you get better? you cheese mercilessly, repetitively, and vs the same few people (who will also cheese you) You will be continuously forced to change ur strategy, and play ridiculous, low econ games that hinge on micro, decision making, scouting, and game sense. After a while, you will learn timing windows, and be able to feel out how the game works. Both sides will then try to maximize their econ while still not dying to the flurry of cheeses. eventually, you will arrive upon the "standard" BO that pros use.
It's not the product, but the process that makes you a better player.
or you can skip all the bullshit and practice what matters.
which is exactly why people like you with that kind of mindset will always die to cheese and then find a reason to complain. And no matter how hard you try, will never be at the top. (cough*idra*cough) If you wanna skip the process and just try to make the finished product, then that's fine.
But there's a reason difficult jobs require a high level of education. You wanna be a surgeon, fine, but you need to learn basic academia, then go through premed, then go to med school. You can't just start practicing cutting people up. Don't expect you can "skip the bullshit and practice what matters" and actually get results
Cheesing is not needed, and I guess would be considered the "bullshit". Once you are very good at the game you are also very good at cheesing. It's just a matter of executing a simple strategy with your already stellar macro micro and management skills. Cheesing won't make you better. You can practice everything without it. It's a good tool later, but not good for getting better.
My thought is cheese can be extremely useful to help a player get better. Sure, learning build orders that take you to the late game are great, and help practice macro, but often that can lead to a newer player becoming completely overwhelmed. A build designed to win quickly allows a player to improve his micro and multi tasking. Will the player's wins begin to drop off once he hits a skill division that features better players who are better at stopping cheese? Sure. But it isnt like the skills learned from the proper execution of cheese build have no place in a standard game.
I think you should realize that "Cheese" and "Standard Play" are all subjective. What's a "Standard Play" to you? NOT "Cheesing"?
If you never get good at "Standard Play," so be it. That's like saying you have to use FE Forge 90% of your games because all other methods suck.
If a strategy can beat another strategy, USE IT. It proves nothing by saying "It can beat higher level players"; that is the case with ANY strategy. If any one strategy were so dominant that it were invincible to all strategies, the game would become a "Terran always does X, Protoss always does Y, Zerg always does Z" game. Because of "Cheese," the so-called "Standard Play" is made beatable by an alternate strategy.
In a strategy game such as SC, you do what will let you win. If it's "Cheese," so be it. What does having amazing macro do if you're taken out in the first 5 minutes? You'll be prepared for the time when anti-Cheese builds are found, but until then, you need to fend for yourself.
On March 17 2010 01:59 JTPROG wrote: You won't win a tourney with cheese.
There are countless examples proving you wrong.
Winning on the ladder essentially means nothing if it's cheese.
Depending on how you look at this, it is either subjective or circular logic - Take your pick.
So this boils down to "play with your best chance to win"? I agree.
There was a tourney where someone won every games using cheese? Even if so, how many times did that happen?
"play with your best chance to win"
And you won't win if you don't have a SOLID game besides cheesing, and this is done by practicing predominantly standard play, which is the point of this thread. Cheese little, standard much, if you want to get good.
I doubt anyone has ever won a major tourney did not have a SOLID standard game. And i'm sure they didn't spend much more than 5% of their time playing cheeses either.
So now this theoretical player who is equal in lifestyle, talent, and motive of every other player of the world is cheesing all of the time instead of half the time?
You provide no context to your argument, Id prefer to be the cheesey player against Flash or Bisu 100% of the time, or compared to Korean players in SC1 because I don't have hours to play every day. It would be way more fun to have mastered a bunch of cheese and win some than practice macro and still lose to every one with better macro (aka everyone)
You're full of crap man...even Jaedong is super aggressive and takes lots of shots, if you see an opportunity take it. It would be stupid not to cheese players who go FE all the time.
Also while their are some cheeses that either win or don't win, there are many plays considered "cheese" which have a transition, and maximizing the advantage after that can get complex and is very important to learn.
I don't really understand what you're trying to say in the first paragraph, but you said to reply to your post, so I'll try to.
Okay - so you can be a cheesy player against Flash or Bisu, yes, that is your best chance. I'm saying you shouldn't cheese on the ladder so that you can actually get better at the game in general. It seems everyone is misunderstanding the point and thinks i'm saying you should never cheese. This is not true. But cheesing should not be your main play or strategy. It should be very minimum, especially on the ladder. Cheesing is saved for let's say 1 game of a BO3. You can practice it on the ladder, but you must predominantly play standard games if you want to go better.
You say you don't have hours to play every day and you want to have fun. If you read the OP i said this post doesn't apply to you. This post only applies to people who want to get better by playing the ladder. Go ahead and cheese all day, but you'll never get better that way. You can abuse the ladder, but that's about it. And yes, some cheeses do have transitions into standard play, but the fact is it started with cheese, and therefore "messes up" any real standard aspects of that particular game - for both players. You can cheese once and win but to win consistently you need to be a solid player who plays solid games consistently.
You wanna know how you get better? you cheese mercilessly, repetitively, and vs the same few people (who will also cheese you) You will be continuously forced to change ur strategy, and play ridiculous, low econ games that hinge on micro, decision making, scouting, and game sense. After a while, you will learn timing windows, and be able to feel out how the game works. Both sides will then try to maximize their econ while still not dying to the flurry of cheeses. eventually, you will arrive upon the "standard" BO that pros use.
It's not the product, but the process that makes you a better player.
or you can skip all the bullshit and practice what matters.
How are you qualified to say what does and doesn't matter if you can't even break D+.
On March 17 2010 09:39 JTPROG wrote: Cheesing is not needed, and I guess would be considered the "bullshit". Once you are very good at the game you are also very good at cheesing. It's just a matter of executing a simple strategy with your already stellar macro micro and management skills. Cheesing won't make you better. You can practice everything without it. It's a good tool later, but not good for getting better.
Well even your quote-buddy Idra seems to think cheese requires some set of skills and some sort of mindset that isn't gained with the stellar macro micro management skills. Witness his interview before being kicked out of the TSL by NonY, where he claims (wrongly in NonY's case, obviously) that both he and NonY are well out of their comfort zone with cheesy play, and that he considered Jian Fei or White-Ra to be more of a threat in that regard, and that Mondragon was better at coping with cheese than Kolll.
Fighting your way out of unusual game positions warrants some sort of game-sense that you generally get from experience of having been in vaguely similar situations before - that means cheesing or being cheesed or both. Dealing with unusual strategies is a skill, and that skill needs to be practiced somehow too. You don't get it for free in a cornflakes packet when your APM hits 250.
also, oddly enough, its largely bad players (the kind who are capable of winning because of these cheesy strategies) who defend it as some kind of strategical genius. for instance, someone who would ling allin a famous player and then post the replay of it while bragging about how they masterminded the strategical flow of the game.
This reminds me of my friend sending me a replay of him beating elky with a 5 pool with 2 and 10 oclock positions on proving grounds. He was so pumped about it as if it somehow meant he was better.
I usually don't cheese, but i almost always pylon scout to avoid it just because I can't use the ramp to defend nearly as well in sc2.
On March 17 2010 01:59 JTPROG wrote: You won't win a tourney with cheese.
There are countless examples proving you wrong.
Winning on the ladder essentially means nothing if it's cheese.
Depending on how you look at this, it is either subjective or circular logic - Take your pick.
So this boils down to "play with your best chance to win"? I agree.
There was a tourney where someone won every games using cheese? Even if so, how many times did that happen?
"play with your best chance to win"
And you won't win if you don't have a SOLID game besides cheesing, and this is done by practicing predominantly standard play, which is the point of this thread. Cheese little, standard much, if you want to get good.
I doubt anyone has ever won a major tourney did not have a SOLID standard game. And i'm sure they didn't spend much more than 5% of their time playing cheeses either.
So now this theoretical player who is equal in lifestyle, talent, and motive of every other player of the world is cheesing all of the time instead of half the time?
You provide no context to your argument, Id prefer to be the cheesey player against Flash or Bisu 100% of the time, or compared to Korean players in SC1 because I don't have hours to play every day. It would be way more fun to have mastered a bunch of cheese and win some than practice macro and still lose to every one with better macro (aka everyone)
You're full of crap man...even Jaedong is super aggressive and takes lots of shots, if you see an opportunity take it. It would be stupid not to cheese players who go FE all the time.
Also while their are some cheeses that either win or don't win, there are many plays considered "cheese" which have a transition, and maximizing the advantage after that can get complex and is very important to learn.
I don't really understand what you're trying to say in the first paragraph, but you said to reply to your post, so I'll try to.
Okay - so you can be a cheesy player against Flash or Bisu, yes, that is your best chance. I'm saying you shouldn't cheese on the ladder so that you can actually get better at the game in general. It seems everyone is misunderstanding the point and thinks i'm saying you should never cheese. This is not true. But cheesing should not be your main play or strategy. It should be very minimum, especially on the ladder. Cheesing is saved for let's say 1 game of a BO3. You can practice it on the ladder, but you must predominantly play standard games if you want to go better.
You say you don't have hours to play every day and you want to have fun. If you read the OP i said this post doesn't apply to you. This post only applies to people who want to get better by playing the ladder. Go ahead and cheese all day, but you'll never get better that way. You can abuse the ladder, but that's about it. And yes, some cheeses do have transitions into standard play, but the fact is it started with cheese, and therefore "messes up" any real standard aspects of that particular game - for both players. You can cheese once and win but to win consistently you need to be a solid player who plays solid games consistently.
You wanna know how you get better? you cheese mercilessly, repetitively, and vs the same few people (who will also cheese you) You will be continuously forced to change ur strategy, and play ridiculous, low econ games that hinge on micro, decision making, scouting, and game sense. After a while, you will learn timing windows, and be able to feel out how the game works. Both sides will then try to maximize their econ while still not dying to the flurry of cheeses. eventually, you will arrive upon the "standard" BO that pros use.
It's not the product, but the process that makes you a better player.
or you can skip all the bullshit and practice what matters.
And then you have no idea of all the timings and such that made the original player any good in the first place.
These things are entirely outside your control and you're basically flipping a coin for the game. It's legitimately bad play and it proves nothing at all about skill levels. People will continue to do it because they legitimately suck at the game and can't win without it, but at the end of the day they've accomplished nothing.
"Standard Play" is all crap. All they do is sit back and macro. It proves nothing about skill levels, and people will keep doing it because they suck at "Cheesing" and can only compete with "Standard Play." At the end of the day, they lose anyway and complain about how stupid cheese is.
o u c wut i did thar?
Nobody will ever prove that "Cheese" is worse than "Standard Play," or vice-versa, because it's purely subjective.
They both teach you separate skills; they are separate entities in the broad category of "Strategies."
On March 17 2010 01:59 JTPROG wrote: You won't win a tourney with cheese.
There are countless examples proving you wrong.
Winning on the ladder essentially means nothing if it's cheese.
Depending on how you look at this, it is either subjective or circular logic - Take your pick.
So this boils down to "play with your best chance to win"? I agree.
There was a tourney where someone won every games using cheese? Even if so, how many times did that happen?
"play with your best chance to win"
And you won't win if you don't have a SOLID game besides cheesing, and this is done by practicing predominantly standard play, which is the point of this thread. Cheese little, standard much, if you want to get good.
I doubt anyone has ever won a major tourney did not have a SOLID standard game. And i'm sure they didn't spend much more than 5% of their time playing cheeses either.
So now this theoretical player who is equal in lifestyle, talent, and motive of every other player of the world is cheesing all of the time instead of half the time?
You provide no context to your argument, Id prefer to be the cheesey player against Flash or Bisu 100% of the time, or compared to Korean players in SC1 because I don't have hours to play every day. It would be way more fun to have mastered a bunch of cheese and win some than practice macro and still lose to every one with better macro (aka everyone)
You're full of crap man...even Jaedong is super aggressive and takes lots of shots, if you see an opportunity take it. It would be stupid not to cheese players who go FE all the time.
Also while their are some cheeses that either win or don't win, there are many plays considered "cheese" which have a transition, and maximizing the advantage after that can get complex and is very important to learn.
I don't really understand what you're trying to say in the first paragraph, but you said to reply to your post, so I'll try to.
Okay - so you can be a cheesy player against Flash or Bisu, yes, that is your best chance. I'm saying you shouldn't cheese on the ladder so that you can actually get better at the game in general. It seems everyone is misunderstanding the point and thinks i'm saying you should never cheese. This is not true. But cheesing should not be your main play or strategy. It should be very minimum, especially on the ladder. Cheesing is saved for let's say 1 game of a BO3. You can practice it on the ladder, but you must predominantly play standard games if you want to go better.
You say you don't have hours to play every day and you want to have fun. If you read the OP i said this post doesn't apply to you. This post only applies to people who want to get better by playing the ladder. Go ahead and cheese all day, but you'll never get better that way. You can abuse the ladder, but that's about it. And yes, some cheeses do have transitions into standard play, but the fact is it started with cheese, and therefore "messes up" any real standard aspects of that particular game - for both players. You can cheese once and win but to win consistently you need to be a solid player who plays solid games consistently.
You wanna know how you get better? you cheese mercilessly, repetitively, and vs the same few people (who will also cheese you) You will be continuously forced to change ur strategy, and play ridiculous, low econ games that hinge on micro, decision making, scouting, and game sense. After a while, you will learn timing windows, and be able to feel out how the game works. Both sides will then try to maximize their econ while still not dying to the flurry of cheeses. eventually, you will arrive upon the "standard" BO that pros use.
It's not the product, but the process that makes you a better player.
or you can skip all the bullshit and practice what matters.
That's true except oh wait you can't.
There is a reason that the game starts with everyone rushing everything and fucking around and the meta game slowly changes into safer more marginal play, you can't just skip it. In fact I argue that it's better to learn the cheeses first because it gives you the cheesers perspective, which makes you fantastic against cheese later. Also it gets it out of the way and gives you several builds you can use so your not completely predictable.
JTPROG, cheese strategies are not auto-win, super-easy situations. They're used to keep the game interesting and to keep your opponents from nailing you as "That guy who uses Standard Build Order X every single game." Have you ever watched Boxer play a game? Have you EVER correctly guessed what strategy he was going to pull out of his hat, before he did it? You often need to execute your micro and timing perfectly to pull off a great cheese strategy, and you always end up learning something.
Let's put it this way JTPROG because your understanding seems superficial, there are good cheesers and there are bad cheesers. The difference? Their micro and understanding. Good players who cheese aren't doing it for shits and giggles, but either to mindfuck the opponent for the match (see Boxer vs. Yellow), and aren't relying entirely on "surprise" to win the game. If you can't understand that then there's no point.
On March 17 2010 12:12 JTPROG wrote: I'd just like to throw this analogy out there for those of you who say "whoever wins is the better player".
That's like saying in a foot race when a person used a legal shortcut to beat everyone else, he was the better runner because he won. Makes sense?
Whoever wins is not the better player. Whoever wins played better.
HUGE difference.
Same with a foot race; whoever won played better. If someone "played it standard" and ran the normal track, they should be punished for playing too standard by those who will take the opportunity to crush them.
Who said the better player should win every time? I say, the one who plays better should win every time. A Copper League newbie at rank D- in ICCup may not be a great player, but if they beat Boxer, they played better. Likewise, let's say Boxer wins the next match; he played better.
Person who players better wins every game. Cheese is just one of those "plays."
Think football. If you do the same play every game, someone is going to surprise you eventually. If it gets to the point where EVERYBODY is doing it against you; well? Isn't that giant sign that says you should adjust?
On March 17 2010 00:06 Liquid`Nazgul wrote: I'm glad you took time to argue your points. The topic title could have been from some frustrated player posting 3 lines in anger after being 'cheesed'. So thanks for that.
I get the feeling that it's a frustrated player posting a wall of text in anger after being cheesed.
OP's hypothetical question of two players doing 10/90 and 50/50 cheese play on ladder playing against each other in a BO5... is pretty much the worst hypothetical question I've ever seen. Are the two players being forced to play standard? If the cheeser uses his practiced cheese against the 10/90, what says he won't win the BO5? Mind games are beautiful - and of course, whoever wins the BO5 is the better player.
Also, - if a cheese is unscoutable (in time), then why wouldn't the same cheese work against the same player twice in a row?
JTPROG also do you realize that in the "ok you should cheese maybe once in a BO3 series" comment means that you would be cheesing half the games you win in BO3?
On March 17 2010 12:12 JTPROG wrote: I'd just like to throw this analogy out there for those of you who say "whoever wins is the better player".
That's like saying in a foot race when a person used a legal shortcut to beat everyone else, he was the better runner because he won. Makes sense?
Wait, you're saying I should get a medal for turning up to the olympics and running the wrong way? "Cheese" is part of the course. Prepare accordingly.
Where you're 100% correct is if you're talking about strats the depend on your opponent having never seen them before. That play won't work for long, and isn't worth practicing, because it wont have any place in a mature metagame.
Let me turn it around on you. If you know your opponent plays a better standard game than you, that you will lose 100% of the time with a "standard game", should you cheese? Should you practice cheese? If you know that your opponent hates cheese and loses to a specific cheese 100% of the time, should you cheese?
Finally, let's say that this is one person - they can beat you in a "standard" game 100% of the time, but you can beat them with "cheese" 100% of the time. Who would you consider the better player? + Show Spoiler +
If this is true, the game is probably degenerate and not worth playing, but the cheeser is definitely the better player.
With cheese that still works when the opponent knows you might do it, the question is not "should you cheese", but "what is the optimal rate of cheese to maximize your win rate". The answer to that will depend on your skills, but if you can't cheese well, your win rate will be lower - you will be a less good player.
On March 17 2010 03:49 CharlieMurphy wrote: Really the only problem with 'cheese' is that it's the most ambiguous vague term that people like to throw around anytime they disagree with a strategy.
"OH NO HE MADE CANONS BEHIND MY MINERALS WHEN I WAS FAST EXPANDING LIKE A GREEDY BITCH. YOU FAGGOT CHEATER"
People just get caught up in the korean macro standard and in the process of wanting to become the best, think they should be emulating the best down to every last macro detail. I remember when Ret didn't want to re some dude on ICCUP because his build was "weird".
mTw-Tak3r from War3 is a good example of a good player who cheesed whenever he possibly could. The type of player that makes the game interesting again.
So the TL;DR version is essentially cheesing doesn't make you better even though its fun. You really needed a thread to state something thats as obvious as this?
To all the people arguing otherwise: you're wrong sorry. What does cheesing really make you better at? Micro? Yes. Multitask? Yes. but I think everyone can agree macro is the much much much more important aspect of becoming a good player when it comes to starcraft. This is the post Oov era after a;; Besides, all the standard FE builds have evolved to counter all cheeses provided you scout well.
Not to put cheesing down or anything, I absolutely love the site of a well executed cheese when I'm the one dishing the pain
Wow. I'm getting the feeling that nobody even read the OP. Please stay on topic. Random discussion that even I may take part in within the thread does not necessarily relate 100% to my point in the OP.
I'll state the point once again.
If you want to become a better player, do not cheese. Cheese usually results in short, skill-less games where the game is over before any macro or micro is even needed.
I'm not saying not to cheese.
I'm not saying you shouldn't cheese.
I'm not saying cheese is completely skill-less, but it IS definitely not as intensive as a standard game.
In short, to get better, cheese sparingly and play standard heavily. It will increase your skills.
This post was made for people to get BETTER while practicing the LADDER. Read the TITLE.
And that is by working out all of your skills, which is best demonstrated in a standard game.
On March 17 2010 12:47 SubtleArt wrote: So the TL;DR version is essentially cheesing doesn't make you better even though its fun. You really needed a thread to state something thats as obvious as this?
To all the people arguing otherwise: you're wrong sorry. What does cheesing really make you better at? Micro? Yes. Multitask? Yes. but I think everyone can agree macro is the much much much more important aspect of becoming a good SC player when it comes to starcraft. Besides, all the standard FE builds have evolved to counter all cheeses provided you scout well.
Not to put cheesing down or anything, I absolutely love the site of a well executed cheese when I'm the one dishing the pain
On March 17 2010 12:12 JTPROG wrote: I'd just like to throw this analogy out there for those of you who say "whoever wins is the better player".
That's like saying in a foot race when a person used a legal shortcut to beat everyone else, he was the better runner because he won. Makes sense?
Wait, you're saying I should get a medal for turning up to the olympics and running the wrong way? "Cheese" is part of the course. Prepare accordingly.
Where you're 100% correct is if you're talking about strats the depend on your opponent having never seen them before. That play won't work for long, and isn't worth practicing, because it wont have any place in a mature metagame.
Let me turn it around on you. If you know your opponent plays a better standard game than you, that you will lose 100% of the time with a "standard game", should you cheese? Should you practice cheese? If you know that your opponent hates cheese and loses to a specific cheese 100% of the time, should you cheese?
Finally, let's say that this is one person - they can beat you in a "standard" game 100% of the time, but you can beat them with "cheese" 100% of the time. Who would you consider the better player? + Show Spoiler +
If this is true, the game is probably degenerate and not worth playing, but the cheeser is definitely the better player.
With cheese that still works when the opponent knows you might do it, the question is not "should you cheese", but "what is the optimal rate of cheese to maximize your win rate". The answer to that will depend on your skills, but if you can't cheese well, your win rate will be lower - you will be a less good player.
Yes it makes sense to cheese against an opponent who will beat you in straight up fight. It's better to have a slim chance of victory than no chance at all.
On March 17 2010 12:12 JTPROG wrote: I'd just like to throw this analogy out there for those of you who say "whoever wins is the better player".
That's like saying in a foot race when a person used a legal shortcut to beat everyone else, he was the better runner because he won. Makes sense?
Whoever wins is not the better player. Whoever wins played better.
HUGE difference.
Same with a foot race; whoever won played better. If someone "played it standard" and ran the normal track, they should be punished for playing too standard by those who will take the opportunity to crush them.
Who said the better player should win every time? I say, the one who plays better should win every time. A Copper League newbie at rank D- in ICCup may not be a great player, but if they beat Boxer, they played better. Likewise, let's say Boxer wins the next match; he played better.
Person who players better wins every game. Cheese is just one of those "plays."
Think football. If you do the same play every game, someone is going to surprise you eventually. If it gets to the point where EVERYBODY is doing it against you; well? Isn't that giant sign that says you should adjust?
So player A 4 pools and player B decides to 12 hatch...player A played better right?
On March 17 2010 00:49 iG.ClouD wrote: I feel like adding a cheese to your gameplay is very useful so you are never predictable and the opponent always know he has to scout you carefully. Practicing cheese is nice, I had this rule on starcraft that whenever I played a zerg on a ladder I would proxy gate 50% of the second games against the same opponents and overall I'm pretty sure I learnt much about very strict timings I wouldn't know otherwise.
This is exactly correct. In poker, if you read any poker books at least, there is a sort of standard that you should bluff 1 in every 6 hands assuming all players are of decent/equal skill level and the table is not too loose or whatever. A bluff can be likened to a cheese.
I know we are getting a little off topic, so I reread the op and I'll reply directly. Doing 'Cheese' is in fact a great way to get better at a game. Obviously if you are playing to win, you will use the most effective strategy to achieve those wins. If this happens to be a strategy that some guy or the general public doesn't like, fuck em. Their loss, your gain. (I'm obviously talking within the limits of the game, and I'm not condoning cheating or anything else illegitimate). If the 'cheese' is not imbalanced in any way then there are counters, you will become predictable and/or people will learn how to counter you. Then you will learn the counters to their counters, etc. like I already explained a few times on the previous page.
Average players are not subject to the same meta-game analysis as those pro-league. Poker is different. Because players play dozens of hands against each other per game, their play style undergoes continuous analysis.
Why are standard games better because they increase your skill if Cheese increases your skill as well?
Are RTS games limited to the "standard play" that you adore so much? If something other than standard play is the dominant playstyle, will adapting to that playstyle not make you a better player in current Ladder?
Ask yourself those questions, JTPROG. Skill as a player does not boil down to Micro, Macro, APM, etc. in just standard play.
On March 17 2010 12:12 JTPROG wrote: I'd just like to throw this analogy out there for those of you who say "whoever wins is the better player".
That's like saying in a foot race when a person used a legal shortcut to beat everyone else, he was the better runner because he won. Makes sense?
Whoever wins is not the better player. Whoever wins played better.
HUGE difference.
Same with a foot race; whoever won played better. If someone "played it standard" and ran the normal track, they should be punished for playing too standard by those who will take the opportunity to crush them.
Who said the better player should win every time? I say, the one who plays better should win every time. A Copper League newbie at rank D- in ICCup may not be a great player, but if they beat Boxer, they played better. Likewise, let's say Boxer wins the next match; he played better.
Person who players better wins every game. Cheese is just one of those "plays."
Think football. If you do the same play every game, someone is going to surprise you eventually. If it gets to the point where EVERYBODY is doing it against you; well? Isn't that giant sign that says you should adjust?
So player A 4 pools and player B decides to 12 hatch...player A played better right?
Short answer: Basically.
Longer answer: Player A used a strategy that Player B knew they were susceptible to. It could have been a stroke of luck, but Player A ended up making the better decision.
On March 17 2010 13:00 ShaperofDreams wrote: yes he did. if they play again maybe player b will play better.
rofl, now you just sound stupid =P
now you just sound like a noob who doesn't understand context at all. As that other guy said player a played better that game, sure he could have been lucky but he decided to use a strategy he knew would surprise his opponent, and if the meta game is gravitating toward 12 as a "standard" then 4 pool is actually a great strategical decision.
edit: and if 9pool is standard then 4 pool isnt such a great idea and 12 pool is an awesome idea. it all depends on trends in the game, and the trend in SC2 right now is very rush heavy in general because its so new its not even new yet. trying to play economic 90% of the time would probably just get you less experience because either you have to adapt to crazy rushes and therefore not play economically or lose.
I don't see anything wrong with cheese. It totally depends on what a player is looking for anyway.
If you're looking for just a win, by all means cheese if you have to. Though if you want to improve your overall SC skill, try not to rely on cheese so often. I mean says in a tournament you're up against a better player, and you have to win, yes cheese will help. But if you do that on Battle.net 100 out of 100 games and get, says 60 wins out of it, then even though it looks like a 60% winning rate, but it's actually a 60% luck rate. Because we all know that cheese is VERY luck-based. Strategically or not, it still relies a lot on luck to win a game. People call cheese ",strategic play", but not all of them are. It's a strategic play when you're confident that what you're doing was well prepared and thought through, and that it's exactly that the opponent least expected you to do. That's why progamer's cheese is generally different from amateur's one. Because progamers understand the game, they study the maps, they analyze their opponents, they have coaches and teammates to discuss and practice with. That's why it's a strategic play. Amateurs, on the other hand, usually proceed on a 5-pool while praying to God that they don't get scouted. And I personally don't find that any strategic at all, neither should any of you.
So in conclusion: - to get better at SC, try to win without cheese. - to win a game, do whatever it takes to achieve it, all is fair.
On March 17 2010 13:15 nayumi wrote: I don't see anything wrong with cheese. It totally depends on what a player is looking for anyway.
If you're looking for just a win, by all means cheese if you have to. Though if you want to improve your overall SC skill, try not to rely on cheese so often. I mean says in a tournament you're up against a better player, and you have to win, yes cheese will help. But if you do that on Battle.net 100 out of 100 games and get, says 60 wins out of it, then even though it looks like a 60% winning rate, but it's actually a 60% luck rate. Because we all know that cheese is VERY luck-based. Strategically or not, it still relies a lot on luck to win a game. People call cheese ",strategic play", but not all of them are. It's a strategic play when you're confident that what you're doing was well prepared and thought through, and that it's exactly that the opponent least expected you to do. That's why progamer's cheese is generally different from amateur's one. Because progamers understand the game, they study the maps, they analyze their opponents, they have coaches and teammates to discuss and practice with. That's why it's a strategic play. Amateurs, on the other hand, usually proceed on a 5-pool while praying to God that they don't get scouted. And I personally don't find that any strategic at all, neither should any of you.
So in conclusion: - to get better at SC, try to win without cheese. - to win a game, do whatever it takes to achieve it, all is fair.
Another great post.
Oh and Shaperofdreams, I understood the context perfectly well, but just because he made the seemingly obvious decision of 4 pooling because the other guy will probably 12 pool and proceeded to win with minimal skill involved does not mean he played better that game, and does not make him a great strategist or a better player at all. You can play better and still lose you know.
I kinda agree with OP about not cheesing in ladder, but I think cheesing in beta is absolutely essential. If people don't cheese right now then we won't be able to find as many balancing issues.
When cheese is impossible to counter or there's no alternative (as 3 warpgate rush in PvP used to be) then it needs to be nerfed/balanced. The best time for that to happen is now, in beta.
On March 17 2010 01:06 CharlieMurphy wrote: To add to what Chill said, I personally dislike this whole eco macro long game every person has copycat FE builds that SCBW's metagame has shifted into. The game has become somewhat stagnant because of this, to the point where their strategies are so perfected that they can deal with anything and respond to anything. This is partly the reason why (I believe, anyways) that there are so many new weird maps and map concepts. To keep the game fresh and keep players for just doing their 1 strategy that is safe on every LT clone map.
Whenever I see a pro like Fantasy getting fucking rushed so bad that he lifts off his base and almost cries I fucking cheer. When I saw Boxer bunker rush Yellow over and over to the point where he claims imbalance, I fucking loved it. 'Cheese' is great. And There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing it every game if you want to. If you are trying to be a great player then you should definitely practice any strategy to the point of exhaustion.
the reason the bw meta game shifted to that is that people like to win. cheese became more rare because its inherently luck based. doesnt matter how strategically genius you are, if they scout or guess what you're doing, and what you're doing is dependent on them not knowing what you're doing, you lose. you can know how good flash is, you can know exactly what hes gonna do, and hes still gonna beat you because hes just that fucking good. how people could prefer horang to flash given that, or how they fuckin love fantasy getting allined by a trash player because he didnt wall properly, is beyond me. not only is it gay, its bad for esports. ya cheese can be exciting (because of the luck/simplicity of it, its very obvious to a crowd that when proxy bbs gets scouted the game has reached a turning point. the climax is less clear in real games), but bad players winning, and luck based games, are not good for something that wants to be a real competition.
also, oddly enough, its largely bad players (the kind who are capable of winning because of these cheesy strategies) who defend it as some kind of strategical genius. for instance, someone who would ling allin a famous player and then post the replay of it while bragging about how they masterminded the strategical flow of the game.
Duh, to your first point. The game has evolved, like I said, where strategies are perfected to have that delicate adaptive balance between economic and rush defense. Cheese isn't so much luck based as it is calculated risk based on the player's style or predicted strategy. Look at Luxury's stats for 4 and 5 pool 'cheese' versus pro gamers Luxury is 5-1 Wait, so you just said 'cheese' was inherently luck based, yet you go on to the next sentence to say "..or guess what you're doing", So guessing isn't luck based at all right? It's the same thing, a calculated risk. lol, obviously every strategy is going to be somewhat relying on the fact that they do not know what you are doing. If a player knew what the other player was doing 100% of the time then that is called a maphack. It doesn't make a difference if you are going for a early game timing attack, a rush, or a fake-double (any of which could be considered all-in against the absolute counter). Guess what happens when 2 programers have maphacks on? The game fucking breaks. Dunno, what you're trying to point out about your jocking of Flash, but I assume you're trying to say that he is uncheesable? That is ridiculous. Granted, a veteran player has prepared contingency strategies to deal with 'cheese' in the event it happens, but that doesn't mean it's going to be enough 100% of the time. You calling Jaedong a trash player? Because I was referring to the game on Holy World where he get's 4pooled. Did you just say that 'Cheese' was bad for e-sports, or that sloppy panicked playing on defending 'cheese' is bad for esports? If it's the latter, then that just proves right there that 'cheese' is totally valid, people love to see how players are challenged under pressure. And I agree with your last point. But your opinion that players who use a certain strategy to win because you don't deem it to your standards and calling it bad is absurd.
If you take a look at some of the info on that 4/5pool thread, you can see that 5pool's goal isn't even to win outright versus protoss, while 4pool versus terran is. Both can be considered 'cheese'.
As far as your inference of me I wouldn't expect anything less of you to call me bad and remove any credit where it is due. Oddly enough for me, I distinctly remember a chat where you said something along the lines of "US [toss] players don't even make fucking obs, and they wonder why I don't play them", because in that replay your buddy geoff didn't make a fucking obs and it cost him the game. Which btw, I consider that timing attack of zeal/immortal/sentry/etc to be a 'cheese', what the fuck do you have to say about that? And I would hardly call 12 or so lings with speed for early game map control, into mutalisk an all in ling cheese. To be honest I didn't even expect to rape him as bad as I did with just a dozen lings (I expected him to have at least some semblance of defense when he moved out, so I guess you can call that lucky that he was playing badly?) and I was hoping to do a decent amount of damage to put him back on the defensive so I could get my muta out, harass, and expand. My game plan was NOT to win with nothing but lings like you whiners complained about.
PS- I dunno if you have a US beta account but I would really love to play you. I'll keep it manner if you can.
if you really think that people winning a handful of games with a decent % with fast pools means that cheese isnt luck based you arent worth arguing with. but then anyone whos ever seen you try to discuss anything before already knew that. do you think you're good now or something? we already played, you got raped. you're trash, dont be cocky cuz you cheesed a handful of good players and made it into the top 30 of a platinum division or something.
i said he played better that game, which he did, stop making shit up.
also the post you just quoted is talking about in sc1, and no you dont understand context because playing super eco and having to either not play that way or die because of the cheese heavy environment of beta is not the best way to learn. in fact most really great players at the start of beta could never even get a chance to play eco against decent ppl, so they just got great at what they had to get great at to win, therefore making it less effective against them and directing the meta into a more eco style among the best players.
It's ridiculous how you guys can be so blindly limited by these ridiculous notions you made up for yourselves.
On March 17 2010 12:47 SubtleArt wrote: So the TL;DR version is essentially cheesing doesn't make you better even though its fun. You really needed a thread to state something thats as obvious as this?
To all the people arguing otherwise: you're wrong sorry. What does cheesing really make you better at? Micro? Yes. Multitask? Yes. but I think everyone can agree macro is the much much much more important aspect of becoming a good player when it comes to starcraft. This is the post Oov era after a;; Besides, all the standard FE builds have evolved to counter all cheeses provided you scout well.
cheese requires macro, its not like if I cheese, we suddenly stop and start playing streetfighter
On March 17 2010 12:51 JTPROG wrote: Wow. I'm getting the feeling that nobody even read the OP. Please stay on topic. Random discussion that even I may take part in within the thread does not necessarily relate 100% to my point in the OP.
I'll state the point once again.
If you want to become a better player, do not cheese. Cheese usually results in short, skill-less games where the game is over before any macro or micro is even needed. I'm not saying not to cheese. I'm not saying you shouldn't cheese. I'm not saying cheese is completely skill-less, but it IS definitely not as intensive as a standard game. In short, to get better, cheese sparingly and play standard heavily. It will increase your skills. This post was made for people to get BETTER while practicing the LADDER. Read the TITLE. And that is by working out all of your skills, which is best demonstrated in a standard game. I hope this thread is now back on-topic.
and you are SO WRONG where did the so called "standard" play come from? did someone sit on their ass and theory craft and adjust numbers and one day stumbled upon it? You sound like the idiots back in my physics and calculus class who were all like
"oh we don't need to derive formulas, we can use a formula sheet on the test or we can just memorize it" Yea and then what, you pass the test then you forget everything you learned in a few years. OR you can learn how to derive equations from scratch so that you can 1. actually retain information and learn 2. be able to solve much harder problems applying the skills you learn
By deriving it, you learn HOW and WHY it was made and is now the "standard" and you are able to use the formula with much more speed and fluency
in short, playing only "standard" is like memorizing a bunch of numbers/formulas you don't really understand. In short term, it makes you SEEM like you know what you're doing
cheesing is the gradual road to discovering your own "standard". And if your "standard" is different from the current "standard", then you are an innovator
[B]On March 17 2010 13:48 Xenocide_Knight wrote: cheesing is the gradual road to discovering your own "standard". And if your "standard" is different from the current "standard", then you are an innovator
and thus boxer nada Iloveoov julyzerg bisu reach jaedong flash and a whole lot more.
edit: SC2 isn't like bw, we dont have such an advanced state of the game that we all need to "catch up" to, right now is the time where people create and collectively/unconsciously decide what is standard, and it will continuously change.
On March 17 2010 08:22 JTPROG wrote: Solid, standard, etc.
These words have no meaning in the context of SC2 beta. For all we know now standard could have ended up being proxy gate PvP or SCV marine rush TvP.
Just like in SC1 standard ZvZ ended up being aggressive zergling centered builds transitioning into "all in" muta.
No one will ever figure out what "standard play" is unless there are players ruthlessly cheesing from the word "go".
If you want to "skip the bullshit" and play to improve your macro and late game oriented skills that can come in handy when the game is figured out then thats fine. But be prepared to lose a fuck lot in the next couple of years, because it took at least half a decade before the macro oriented play that is considered standard today bacame popular at the highest levels.
On March 17 2010 01:06 CharlieMurphy wrote: To add to what Chill said, I personally dislike this whole eco macro long game every person has copycat FE builds that SCBW's metagame has shifted into. The game has become somewhat stagnant because of this, to the point where their strategies are so perfected that they can deal with anything and respond to anything. This is partly the reason why (I believe, anyways) that there are so many new weird maps and map concepts. To keep the game fresh and keep players for just doing their 1 strategy that is safe on every LT clone map.
Whenever I see a pro like Fantasy getting fucking rushed so bad that he lifts off his base and almost cries I fucking cheer. When I saw Boxer bunker rush Yellow over and over to the point where he claims imbalance, I fucking loved it. 'Cheese' is great. And There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing it every game if you want to. If you are trying to be a great player then you should definitely practice any strategy to the point of exhaustion.
the reason the bw meta game shifted to that is that people like to win. cheese became more rare because its inherently luck based. doesnt matter how strategically genius you are, if they scout or guess what you're doing, and what you're doing is dependent on them not knowing what you're doing, you lose. you can know how good flash is, you can know exactly what hes gonna do, and hes still gonna beat you because hes just that fucking good. how people could prefer horang to flash given that, or how they fuckin love fantasy getting allined by a trash player because he didnt wall properly, is beyond me. not only is it gay, its bad for esports. ya cheese can be exciting (because of the luck/simplicity of it, its very obvious to a crowd that when proxy bbs gets scouted the game has reached a turning point. the climax is less clear in real games), but bad players winning, and luck based games, are not good for something that wants to be a real competition.
also, oddly enough, its largely bad players (the kind who are capable of winning because of these cheesy strategies) who defend it as some kind of strategical genius. for instance, someone who would ling allin a famous player and then post the replay of it while bragging about how they masterminded the strategical flow of the game.
Duh, to your first point. The game has evolved, like I said, where strategies are perfected to have that delicate adaptive balance between economic and rush defense. Cheese isn't so much luck based as it is calculated risk based on the player's style or predicted strategy. Look at Luxury's stats for 4 and 5 pool 'cheese' versus pro gamers Luxury is 5-1 Wait, so you just said 'cheese' was inherently luck based, yet you go on to the next sentence to say "..or guess what you're doing", So guessing isn't luck based at all right? It's the same thing, a calculated risk. lol, obviously every strategy is going to be somewhat relying on the fact that they do not know what you are doing. If a player knew what the other player was doing 100% of the time then that is called a maphack. It doesn't make a difference if you are going for a early game timing attack, a rush, or a fake-double (any of which could be considered all-in against the absolute counter). Guess what happens when 2 programers have maphacks on? The game fucking breaks. Dunno, what you're trying to point out about your jocking of Flash, but I assume you're trying to say that he is uncheesable? That is ridiculous. Granted, a veteran player has prepared contingency strategies to deal with 'cheese' in the event it happens, but that doesn't mean it's going to be enough 100% of the time. You calling Jaedong a trash player? Because I was referring to the game on Holy World where he get's 4pooled. Did you just say that 'Cheese' was bad for e-sports, or that sloppy panicked playing on defending 'cheese' is bad for esports? If it's the latter, then that just proves right there that 'cheese' is totally valid, people love to see how players are challenged under pressure. And I agree with your last point. But your opinion that players who use a certain strategy to win because you don't deem it to your standards and calling it bad is absurd.
If you take a look at some of the info on that 4/5pool thread, you can see that 5pool's goal isn't even to win outright versus protoss, while 4pool versus terran is. Both can be considered 'cheese'.
As far as your inference of me I wouldn't expect anything less of you to call me bad and remove any credit where it is due. Oddly enough for me, I distinctly remember a chat where you said something along the lines of "US [toss] players don't even make fucking obs, and they wonder why I don't play them", because in that replay your buddy geoff didn't make a fucking obs and it cost him the game. Which btw, I consider that timing attack of zeal/immortal/sentry/etc to be a 'cheese', what the fuck do you have to say about that? And I would hardly call 12 or so lings with speed for early game map control, into mutalisk an all in ling cheese. To be honest I didn't even expect to rape him as bad as I did with just a dozen lings (I expected him to have at least some semblance of defense when he moved out, so I guess you can call that lucky that he was playing badly?) and I was hoping to do a decent amount of damage to put him back on the defensive so I could get my muta out, harass, and expand. My game plan was NOT to win with nothing but lings like you whiners complained about.
PS- I dunno if you have a US beta account but I would really love to play you. I'll keep it manner if you can.
if you really think that people winning a handful of games with a decent % with fast pools means that cheese isnt luck based you arent worth arguing with. but then anyone whos ever seen you try to discuss anything before already knew that. do you think you're good now or something? we already played, you got raped. you're trash, dont be cocky cuz you cheesed a handful of good players and made it into the top 30 of a platinum division or something.
Replays or it didn't happen! Charlie don't lose to the likes of idra! To make an argument sound and valid you must manipulate the data you are using to support your argument. For example: pull the statistics of boxer's 3 bunker cheese vs yellow alone, but ignore the thousands of other fail cheeses in the history of starcraft + BW.(Example: Nazgul vs gopher's epic drone drill fail) Ta Ta You have a valid argument for cheesing will work 100% proven by the Emperor of Terran. refute that!
On March 17 2010 13:48 Xenocide_Knight wrote: It's ridiculous how you guys can be so blindly limited by these ridiculous notions you made up for yourselves.
On March 17 2010 12:47 SubtleArt wrote: So the TL;DR version is essentially cheesing doesn't make you better even though its fun. You really needed a thread to state something thats as obvious as this?
To all the people arguing otherwise: you're wrong sorry. What does cheesing really make you better at? Micro? Yes. Multitask? Yes. but I think everyone can agree macro is the much much much more important aspect of becoming a good player when it comes to starcraft. This is the post Oov era after a;; Besides, all the standard FE builds have evolved to counter all cheeses provided you scout well.
cheese requires macro, its not like if I cheese, we suddenly stop and start playing streetfighter
On March 17 2010 12:51 JTPROG wrote: Wow. I'm getting the feeling that nobody even read the OP. Please stay on topic. Random discussion that even I may take part in within the thread does not necessarily relate 100% to my point in the OP.
I'll state the point once again.
If you want to become a better player, do not cheese. Cheese usually results in short, skill-less games where the game is over before any macro or micro is even needed. I'm not saying not to cheese. I'm not saying you shouldn't cheese. I'm not saying cheese is completely skill-less, but it IS definitely not as intensive as a standard game. In short, to get better, cheese sparingly and play standard heavily. It will increase your skills. This post was made for people to get BETTER while practicing the LADDER. Read the TITLE. And that is by working out all of your skills, which is best demonstrated in a standard game. I hope this thread is now back on-topic.
and you are SO WRONG where did the so called "standard" play come from? did someone sit on their ass and theory craft and adjust numbers and one day stumbled upon it? You sound like the idiots back in my physics and calculus class who were all like
"oh we don't need to derive formulas, we can use a formula sheet on the test or we can just memorize it" Yea and then what, you pass the test then you forget everything you learned in a few years. OR you can learn how to derive equations from scratch so that you can 1. actually retain information and learn 2. be able to solve much harder problems applying the skills you learn
By deriving it, you learn HOW and WHY it was made and is now the "standard" and you are able to use the formula with much more speed and fluency
in short, playing only "standard" is like memorizing a bunch of numbers/formulas you don't really understand. In short term, it makes you SEEM like you know what you're doing
cheesing is the gradual road to discovering your own "standard". And if your "standard" is different from the current "standard", then you are an innovator
EPT
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Manifesto7/boxernum1.jpg)
.
Besides, all the standard FE builds have evolved to counter all cheeses provided you scout well.
