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This is my first post in TL, a site i really admire due to its serieousness and the level of its posts, so first of all i'd like to say that for me it's a pride to even write a post here. I'll really try to contribute, and i feel a bit ashamed about my first post being one like this, but i really think that i need a bit of feedback before writing anything acceptable about SC2, and i'm sure i'm not the only one in this situation playing the beta (or maybe yes and that's the problem). Also is difficult to me to express myself with precision when not talking in my mother tongue, so my apologies about that, i'm trying to sound as "serious" as i can, but i bet i'm not achieving it x).
Ok so about the topic, i'd like to say first that i'm a reasonably good player at some other games. I'm a strong chess player, and i've been playing some soccer and fighting videogames at relatively high levels. I hadn't been playing RTS's too much, and thought that SC2 was the perfect oportunity to change sports/fight games for something more interesting. In fact, i've been a bit tired about videogames lately, and i wanted to give and opportunity to the acclaimed Starcraft (SC2 being the definitive esport, as i'd been reading, etc) to regain the faith in them.
But what i have found in this beta is just an insane learning curve, an extremely demanding "game" that i hardly could define as something you do for "fun" (is even harder to play "reasonably" well than games like chess..or that is my actual impression, maybe is that i'm getting older? Maybe is just that hard at the very beginning?). I've been reading posts for weeks and its just crazy for someone who have never played seriously to SC or even WC3. I'm not sure if the experimented players are conscious about the level of metaconecepts and nuances of all kind that the game has..and you have to grasp them and use them in a ridiculously fast way. At least in chess you have some time to think! In SC, like i have read in countless posts, "If you are thinking in SC, you have already lost". Ok, in CS you don't have time to think either, but it doesn't have the tons and tons of metagame's issues, timing issues, macro and whatnot nuances that SC has.. Don't get me wrong, i understand all the basics about economy, micro and macro, OP's, counters, exopos, scouting, etc..it just that understanding all that things is not even close to be enough for being an acceptable player :S. With the same level of effort than in other games you get quite good, in SC seems to be that you still are a total noob.
So my intention is not to make the classical post "I suck, what do i have to do to not suck?" I know that the answer is just playing and playing, trying and trying like just everything else in life. What i really would like know is, knowing that in SC the concept of "playing and playing" or "practising and practising" is even more important than in other games, realising about the effort that playing SC seems to involve..what make it really different?, what make SC worth playing?
I know is a quite personal and subjective question..saying it in another way, For someone who is 25, is a bit tired of videogames in general, doesn't have too much time and only want to play for "fun"..is really worth start playing from scratch a game like SC2? I mean, is really that satisfactory when you really know what your are doing (like, i would say, "real" tennis, which i is incredibly rewarding when you get better)? Or is it closer to the sensation of WoW, you know, when you stop playing, look back to all the time you have spend playing it and think "what a waste of time"? (i suposse that if you are in this forums you are not going to answer the second option, but it will be very interesting to me to understand why is different of WoW). In conclusion, i would like to know your motivations for playing something as demanding as SC seems to be, to make sure that this game is not another "WoWistic" time waster. Something closest to chess or a real sport, if you know what i mean, something you would not end regreting about being giving your time to it.
After all that cryings, I'll end the post making some "real" questions, i suposse that despite of all, this is an "I suck, what do i have to do to not suck?" post in some way after all x):
- I obviously have tried the liquipedia, but the SC2 section is yet almost empty, so, Should i use SC1 liquipedia for now, or should i just wait until the game is finished and SC2's liquipedia has more information on it? Can i extrapolate sc1 concepts to SC2, or that would be only worse? Toss still the easiest race to start?
- Is this beta just a bad site for startig to play? (due to too much good players, etc)
- Is real SC more a tactical game than a strategic game? (i usually prefer strategic games than tactical ones, and i'm having the impression that in SC tactics (aka mechanical training micro) are just too important compared to strategies, but obviously i haven't played enough to have a real image about the question..anyway i find way more interesting all the things about OP's, counters, knowing what the opponent is doing etc than microing units..)
Thanks to everyone. If this is not the forum (or even the site) to post something like this, please let me know. I suposse that i will have enough with not being banned x).
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Nice first post. Welcome!
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Problem 1: "Practice"
Indication you are taking the game too seriously at the level you are at.
Play the game, enjoy it for what it offers. If it does not appeal to you then there is no reason to continue playing the game.
From there, just keep in mind the initial steps of relatively easy build orders, try to maintain a consistent timing through the games you play. If you're a noob macro > micro.
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Well the first step should, since you seem to not have played any RTS for a long time, is to just get the basic mechanics down. This mean's using the hotkeys, control groups, etc, getting used to the RTS controls.
Next you should be learning about things like microing and macroing, and things like not queuing up units and remembering to use your macro abilities.
After that I think you should begin seriously practicing build orders and such.
This is of course if you plan to play it competitively for a while, if not then just do what the above poster said.
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When I am playing well and macroing in the late game, it feels very good. I am constantly hotkeying, producing units, rallying them. I get a good sensation when I'm building supply depots, calling mules, making scvs, making sure the lights in my barracks don't go off, upgrading, posturing, and keeping my minerals low. It feels really good when I am able to do that and not get supply blocked/queue up too many units.
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Newcomers need to play the single player game first before jumping into multiplayer. Wait till the game comes out. They also have tutorial missions in the game to help you out.
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Too answer your question every one of us were once in your shoes. Starcraft is my favorite game of all time and getting better at it is part of the fun.
Enjoy the journey, not the destination.
On March 25 2010 10:11 DanceDance wrote:
Newcomers need to play the single player game first before jumping into multiplayer. Wait till the game comes out. They also have tutorial missions in the game to help you out.
Single player game might as well be a different game from multiplayer. Dont discourage him from trying his hand at the worlds best competive e-sport. He could be the next Bisu!
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The reason I was excited about getting into beta was to get started on sucking.
Starcraft has a large learning curve (like you mentioned) but that's mainly the fun part.
It's similar to chess in the fact that you can understand the fundamentals and basic strategy fairly simply.
My advice - When you have the opportunity to play, then play! Mechanics (as a beginner) are very important to improve upon. Don't worry about losing, especially cause it's beta!
Right now there isn't much to do. But when you start feeling the burnout from 1v1s, find a buddy and do 2s or even FFA can be relaxing.
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Play for fun, read liquipedia as it gets updated more and more, watch other streams, replays etc and read the odd thread discussing x is imba nerf x now thread and you hear lots of stuff about a lot of other units etc giving you good general knowledge.
Lasting make friends in game.
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Don't take the game too seriously if you're just starting out. The most important thing is to HAVE FUN. If you enjoy playing the game, you will learn on your own naturally. To be good at something, you generally have to enjoy doing it - so enjoy yourself. Once you find yourself improving and having the basics down, you then can 'practice' to really improve your play. We didn't learn how to walk before learning how to crawl.
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Dustin Browder stated himself that a new player jumping into beta right now would be like a newbie jumping into WoW level 80 PvP. Multiplayer will obviously be difficult for new players, if you wait for the actual game to be released and play single player, that would help you get a lot better. And yeah, don't worry about getting better while you're a new player, just enjoy it. You could always pass the SC1 campaign for now, some of those skills will transfer over.
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Welcome as well, to the definitive Starcraft site. As you said, it's an honor to be a part of it.
In response to your post, I think you should also probably keep something in mind - this is a Beta. Most of the people who got the Beta, received keys because at some level they are a Starcraft nut. Now if you were fortunate enough to get a key somehow, through maybe a Blizzard event or other, and aren't a Starcraft nut, well, lucky for you - there are many who would do unspeakable things to be in your position. I think a lot of the people who are playing the beta right now are pretty hard core Starcraft gamers, or at the least have been following the game for some time, or are pretty familiar with the SCBW scene.
Once the game actually gets released, I'm sure that there will be many more people who are in the exact same position that you are in. Having been a fan of Starcraft: BroodWar from day 1, I can honestly say that one of the most helpful, and epic things that I did with the game was play through the single player campaigns. Through the campaigns you learn a lot about the units, how they work, some strategies, and a lot of fundamentals that you are just expected to "know" in the Beta. So wait for the single player campaigns to come out for SC2 before making any final conclusions - I think the best is only yet to come!
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StarCraft is very much based on both strategy and tactics. Strategy being your over all game-plan and tactics the cute little tricks you can do in battles that help but aren't the center of your game.
I play StarCraft because you simply cannot find another game that can compare to it. It is like the definition of a game where you not only need fast mechanical skills but also very good and very quick judgment skills. It is also a game where losing is just as important as winning which you cannot say for most games.
StarCraft is most certainly a game where you can't be good on theory or raw instincts alone. It's not a FPS where you can pick it up and have it generally the same as any other FPS. The amount of information you have to take in, consider, judge what you should do, do what you think needs to be done, access the new situation, and so on is insanely higher than other games in my opinion. On top of all that information you have to gather, and use you have to do it far faster AND do a lot more with it than typical games. You don't just have to turn and shoot, throw a grenade, jump, run.
I do think the SC2 match making system and copper/bronze/silver/gold/platinum system really helps out newer players because chances are they will be placed in an appropriate level and will also be playing against equally good players.
Yes the learning curve is high just due to all the skills and information you need on top of the usual knowing the weapons/units/maps or whatever a game typically requires. There are just so many more mechanics which are over whelming to new players but really reward hard work and experience.
You mention chess and StarCraft has it's parallels to it in some aspects. You have to be able to think far ahead in time. What will they do if I do this? If I do that, what will they do? If they do this, this or that what will I have to do and what will that cause them to do? StarCraft parallels a lot of life lessons too where you have to be willing to put the time and effort in, take defeat in stride and just keep going at it. I must say there is no better thrill than winning a match you never expected you could/would win.
Remember what Boxer told us, Never surrender.
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You should extrapolate SC1's history and extrapolate the big concepts like expansion control and general game sense.
the beta is a very hard place to start playing, you shouldnt expect to do well unless you have a lot of RTS background and are able to put in the hours of play time.
Strategies are very important, tactics are an element of strategy that is lost when the real time aspect is removed. Your over all game plan is important and using tactics to discover if it is correct and adapt are important.
This is just my oppinions on this
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The beta will probably have a larger percentage of RTS veterans than release, so in a way yes, it's a bad place for someone new to RTS. Then again, practicing now will help get you on par with said veterans when the game is out.
Yes, Starcraft is probably more tactical than strategical, but so are most RTS. When tens of thousands of people play thousands of games, eventually the most common strategies are going to be found, copied, and repeated over and over again, and alot of the difference will be made in who is the fastest and makes the least mistakes (on a set path). This was most evident in the last years of WC3, matches became pretty stale and everyone knew how a match would play out, it was just a matter of performing your strategy to the best you could.
That isn't to say there is no room for brilliant thinking at all, but it needs to be fast and happen while you're actually playing the game, you get no free time to think something over. The best player will not only be able to play fast, but also adapt quickly and appropriately to new situations.
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On March 25 2010 10:11 Archerofaiur wrote:
Single player game might as well be a different game from multiplayer. Dont discourage him from trying his hand at the worlds best competive e-sport. He could be the next Bisu!
I'm not trying to discourage him or anything. It's just the beta and of course there is going to be a huge learning curve if a person hasn't played the first starcraft or the new single player campaign. Things will be better for multiplayer when it comes out anyway, more newbs to play with and the leagues will (hopefully) be better optimized.
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as of right now, i dont see much point in getting good at sc2 too much. try to improve your mechanics, mostly macro, hotkeys + shortcuts, and then play purely for fun and for getting used to the game. eventually, you'll remember all the units and what they do, you'll recognize things way faster, and then once the game gets a bit more stagnant you can then try to hardcore learn it.
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On March 25 2010 10:00 evilK wrote:
- Is real SC more a tactical game than a strategic game? (i usually prefer strategic games than tactical ones, and i'm having the impression that in SC tactics (aka mechanical training micro) are just too important compared to strategies, but obviously i haven't played enough to have a real image about the question..anyway i find way more interesting all the things about OP's, counters, knowing what the opponent is doing etc than microing units..)
It is both. You need the "tactical" skills to play the game itself. But in a high end game even if you had ridiculously good mechanics you will find that there is an overwhelmingly large amount of strategic play. If you know what you're better at be sure to use it towards your advantage. This involves something like scouting and understanding your opponent can and can not do. As well as forseeing the outcome of each attack and multiple scenarios before they happen (like chess).
As far as if playing a game is worth it. The game sure is fun, way more fun and replayability than WoW. But like everything else you cant expect to throw down thousands of hours on something and be able to look back on it years and remember the "motions" of the game itself. You're more likely to remember epic games, moving up ranks in ladder, or specific tournaments.
Another bonus about learning a game as competitive as SC2 is that you can watch the pro games streamed or commentated and actually understand all of the intense battles and decisions being made. Some observed games are more memorable than you would expect from a computer game.
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- Is this beta just a bad site for startig to play? (due to too much good players, etc)
In a word, yes. Dustin Browder even (almost) said this in a recent beta interview. (He pointed out there's a large number of newbs and a large number of experienced players, and the beta doesn't contain challenges and other tools to teach the game.)
Teaching tools will be in the released product, and of course you'll have time to get familiar with the units in the campaign (well, at least some terran ones anyway).
If you're getting crushed, it could just mean the AMM isn't working properly. Once that gets working, you should only be facing lower-skilled players, which will hopefully give you time to get used to the units, interface, etc.
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The really great moments of sc/sc2 are when you are playing and realize things like "holy shit... my opponent is scared right now" when you see them build too much defense... or when you and your opponent are both playing extremely well and have amazing battles, each pulling off great micro and harassment and such. and the best thing about these kinds of moments is you don't have to be an amazing player to experience them. You just have to have the basics down and play against people at your level.
I do not look back at my years of playing sc as a waste at all. My status in the game is quantifiable by my skill (not gosu or anything of course, but reasonable), not by how much time I put in or how many items I collected. In addition to that, my sc skills transfer to other things, some as silly as being able to type and click very fast when programming, others like planning out how to solve tasks.
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Also trying custom games with a player at your level works too. Help each other, test some things out and discuss it with each other.
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Hey man, good post. I'm sure others including myself are wondering what to really do about SC2 beta at this point. I myself am somewhat of a novice compared to most SC vets. Even people who played SC for 1 month have more experience than I do. I am learning the game because I think that--like most things, it is fun to learn new things. Strategy games like SC1 and WC3 are probably more of a spectator sport to people who don't want to compete at that professional level, and that is fine.
If you wish to just be a spectator, there is a place for you in this community. But the fun part about watching games goes further as well. When I watch pros I think, hey I would do this, I would do that, and when I can guess what he does, it feels good. When I see him do something else, I say why would he do that? Oh because of this. I like figuring things out. I like rooting for my favorite team, I like being apart of the game and community as much as possible.
So in closing I say to you, play if you have fun playing. After I watch a good game or replay or hear some funny, yet insightful commentary, it makes me even more pumped to play. I want to do funny things, I want to do be impressed by my own merit in-game, so that's why I play. Find that focus, if you think its futile because you can't devote the time to be "pro", it isn't the end of the game, but it is what you make it.
TL;dr -- Play if its fun, if the learning curve sucks to bad play tennis!! Then win!!!
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Austin10831 Posts
If you were able to get good at SC2 in just a few weeks, it wouldn't be a very good game would it?
It took some people years to get where they wanted in Brood War. I think your expectations of your own skill level at this point (I mean, we're not even out of beta yet...) is highly unreasonable.
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We are actually pretty relaxed here, :D I'm sure you will do great with common sense, the only real reason people get banned is no common sense.
Great first post and I will definitely read any thread you make, Welcome!
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I think if you want more of a gentle learning curve, jumping into the competitive-only, work-in-progress beta is a mistake. The full release will have a complete tutorial built into the one-player story mode.
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Starcraft is a great game, for all skill levels really. It's not that hard to get better, but it requires a little bit more distance than typical game play, you have to kind of watch what other people do and talk about it rather than just fiddling around and getting rolled again and again. I'm an absolute noob myself, I could hardly get through the campaign modes in broodwar, but I've found I've been ok (mid silver level) at SC2 just from hanging around here and watching a lot of pro matches of SC1 and stuff like the D9 daily.
as far as comparisons to other games go, WoW and starcraft give two different skillsets- WoW gives you teamwork ability and excelent spatial awareness and timing skills, SC forces you to think like a chessplayer and requires awareness of a huge number of things at once. Neither is a waste of time if you apply those skills learned, both are if you don't.
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I find it's actually fun because its such a demanding game. I mean you can see in each game where you could have performed better and it's always a challenge. BW was a challenge for me even after 7 years of playing. You can constantly get better and better and look at BW for example, after 12 years there still isn't some "definitive" player that is best at all and kills everybody. There is no top to be reached, there is only getting better and better.
As far as tactical vs strategical, what's amazing about this game (well SC, and hopefully SC2) is that after you mastered the tactical (i.e. mechanical) only then do you really take on the strategies of SC at their full potential. At top level there aren't problems like weak macro, idle workers etc. there are only better strategies.
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I think you really nailed the "problem" when you wrote that beta is a bad place to start. In the full game you'll have a huge campaign to get the basics down, skirmish vs various computer skill levels and challenge missions specifically designed to teach new players some of the fundamentals of online play. Once you go through all that, the game will be more enjoyable due to greater experience and understanding.
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If you have never played any RTS game you are going to lose a lot in the next 4 months or so, and only 4 if you play quite frecuently and with some focus.
I think is better to learn the strategy first and then the mechanics, this can sound stupid, but if you have no idea of what you have to do, you are going to be lost and your mechanics are going to bad even if you practice a lot. So i recommend you to follow this steps:
1 - Pick a match up: ZvZ,ZvP,TvP,ZvT, etc...
2 - Watch a ton of good player replays of what they do, and pick the ones that they make the same build order and try to understand the reasons behind (if you cant, ask in this forums)
3 - When you know what to do and how to do it (easier now as you can see the hotkeys) try to copy it (its better with a partner than vs strangers because you dont have pressure and can pick every variable like map,race etc...)
4 - After doing the thing 10 times watch your own replays, try to catch at most 5 mistakes, focus on some of them ( 3 at most) and play 10 games once again, rewatch replays and get more mistakes and so on(try to focus on mechanical mistakes first).
5 - Eventually, you will be able to play that MU quite good, at that point is where you can try to adjust your build to your style, and make some tweaks.
If you start on the 4th pass as some have mentioned, you are going to be completly lost and dont know what to do, also if you invent your own Build order without any knowledge you are going to screw up almost for sure and get brain memory of something that is completly wrong.
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i will tell you how the introduction to sc went for two people i know.
i have a friend whom i gave my second beta key to who was more of a shooter player before, drawing much from reflexes and things like that, even when he played pvp in wow. he played some wc3 before and made fun of how sc players spam apm so much in the beginning of the game.
when i invited him to play beta with me it didnt take many games until he told me that he never would have thought that there were so many things to do in sc2, and that he feels stupid for making fun of apm spam before.
he said that he is enjoying it very much to have so many things to improve upon and to excel at - so many things to keep you busy and using your skills the entire game, not wasting a second.
while it is true that you need to be good at a lot of things at the same time to play a decent game, you can see a ton of improvement every single game just because there are so many things to improve upon.
but as with every other game you need to have the right people to play with. plain laddering can be frustrating, and going against the ai all the time wont be much fun either.
i started out playing bw about 10 years ago when a friend of mine asked me to. i was horrible. my apm wasnt even consistently above 50. i didnt know anything, and didnt do a lot of things (but didnt know that at the time, of course!).
but i knew my friend personally, so i always wanted to try hard to give him a run for his money.
first he would rush me every single time in the beginning (zealot rush, pvz), and i would die to it every single time. but i focused on splitting my drones faster, getting my overlord, pool, hatchery out faster with every try and did the same bo over and over.
even though i was far from being able to match him even remotely, i was cheering and joyful for every second that my build got faster, for every increase in apm be it ever so small. i knew from replays when pros would be finished with splitting their drones (2-3seconds for them to all reach separate mineral patches) and when their buildings would pop out. so i knew where to place myself and where i was going.
after surviving the rush i had to learn how to deal with his tech, how to keep him from expanding and gaining big advantages etc and even though i never catched up to him (i would beat him occasionally, but he would still keep a sharp winning record) my gaming improved a whole lot. before long my apm got to about 130, which is enough to play the game decently, and at the end of my "career" i was comfortably sitting at 240 apm, my sole weakness being really deep game understanding that people like mondragon or other top players display.
i am a perfectionist. i watch my replays and when my split is off by one second it makes my unhappy. if my pool is off by one second it makes me unhappy. if i stockpile more than 300 minerals, get more than 2 larvae on a hatchery, have idle workers, forget to build supply, dont make enough drones etc... all these things make watching a game i played less fun for me. so when i see something like this, i tried to do it better next time.
im no good strategical thinker (otherwise i would be playing poker 24/7 already), but i like to rely on pure mechanical skill like that coppled with knowledge of very basic things like when to expand, contain, attack etc.
long story short: tons of things to do arent always bad. it also means you can have fun improving on each and every one of them, but you will have more fun when you play with the right people so you are always motivated to do better, while at the same time still able to slack off and do silly stuff. im trying to get my friend up to the same level where i am now so that we can practice together and then have some competition also in laddering.
so yes, i think it is absolutely worth it, if you have at least one other person to play the game with.
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+ Show Spoiler +On March 25 2010 10:00 evilK wrote:
This is my first post in TL, a site i really admire due to its serieousness and the level of its posts, so first of all i'd like to say that for me it's a pride to even write a post here. I'll really try to contribute, and i feel a bit ashamed about my first post being one like this, but i really think that i need a bit of feedback before writing anything acceptable about SC2, and i'm sure i'm not the only one in this situation playing the beta (or maybe yes and that's the problem). Also is difficult to me to express myself with precision when not talking in my mother tongue, so my apologies about that, i'm trying to sound as "serious" as i can, but i bet i'm not achieving it x).
Ok so about the topic, i'd like to say first that i'm a reasonably good player at some other games. I'm a strong chess player, and i've been playing some soccer and fighting videogames at relatively high levels. I hadn't been playing RTS's too much, and thought that SC2 was the perfect oportunity to change sports/fight games for something more interesting. In fact, i've been a bit tired about videogames lately, and i wanted to give and opportunity to the acclaimed Starcraft (SC2 being the definitive esport, as i'd been reading, etc) to regain the faith in them.
But what i have found in this beta is just an insane learning curve, an extremely demanding "game" that i hardly could define as something you do for "fun" (is even harder to play "reasonably" well than games like chess..or that is my actual impression, maybe is that i'm getting older? Maybe is just that hard at the very beginning?). I've been reading posts for weeks and its just crazy for someone who have never played seriously to SC or even WC3. I'm not sure if the experimented players are conscious about the level of metaconecepts and nuances of all kind that the game has..and you have to grasp them and use them in a ridiculously fast way. At least in chess you have some time to think! In SC, like i have read in countless posts, "If you are thinking in SC, you have already lost". Ok, in CS you don't have time to think either, but it doesn't have the tons and tons of metagame's issues, timing issues, macro and whatnot nuances that SC has.. Don't get me wrong, i understand all the basics about economy, micro and macro, OP's, counters, exopos, scouting, etc..it just that understanding all that things is not even close to be enough for being an acceptable player :S. With the same level of effort than in other games you get quite good, in SC seems to be that you still are a total noob.
So my intention is not to make the classical post "I suck, what do i have to do to not suck?" I know that the answer is just playing and playing, trying and trying like just everything else in life. What i really would like know is, knowing that in SC the concept of "playing and playing" or "practising and practising" is even more important than in other games, realising about the effort that playing SC seems to involve..what make it really different?, what make SC worth playing?
I know is a quite personal and subjective question..saying it in another way, For someone who is 25, is a bit tired of videogames in general, doesn't have too much time and only want to play for "fun"..is really worth start playing from scratch a game like SC2? I mean, is really that satisfactory when you really know what your are doing (like, i would say, "real" tennis, which i is incredibly rewarding when you get better)? Or is it closer to the sensation of WoW, you know, when you stop playing, look back to all the time you have spend playing it and think "what a waste of time"? (i suposse that if you are in this forums you are not going to answer the second option, but it will be very interesting to me to understand why is different of WoW). In conclusion, i would like to know your motivations for playing something as demanding as SC seems to be, to make sure that this game is not another "WoWistic" time waster. Something closest to chess or a real sport, if you know what i mean, something you would not end regreting about being giving your time to it.
After all that cryings, I'll end the post making some "real" questions, i suposse that despite of all, this is an "I suck, what do i have to do to not suck?" post in some way after all x):
- I obviously have tried the liquipedia, but the SC2 section is yet almost empty, so, Should i use SC1 liquipedia for now, or should i just wait until the game is finished and SC2's liquipedia has more information on it? Can i extrapolate sc1 concepts to SC2, or that would be only worse? Toss still the easiest race to start?
- Is this beta just a bad site for startig to play? (due to too much good players, etc)
- Is real SC more a tactical game than a strategic game? (i usually prefer strategic games than tactical ones, and i'm having the impression that in SC tactics (aka mechanical training micro) are just too important compared to strategies, but obviously i haven't played enough to have a real image about the question..anyway i find way more interesting all the things about OP's, counters, knowing what the opponent is doing etc than microing units..)
Thanks to everyone. If this is not the forum (or even the site) to post something like this, please let me know. I suposse that i will have enough with not being banned x).
This is the exact problem I am having  Even I registered like a week ago.
I had played SC1 a long long time ago, but it was only with a bunch of some friends on LAN, I really did not know many things bout SC then. I was so excited to get a SC2 beta key, but I was afraid I would suck a lot, so I did not even play for around 2 weeks, I was just watching replays and videos on youtube. I got absolutely demolished in the placement games placed in copper, though always I felt like i knew what i was doing, but small things would escape my mind, like forgetting to hotkey the 4th & 5th newly constructed barrack in my barracks group. Forgetting that i had raised my supply depots so my reinforcements were not getting anywhere. I would forget that it takes a good amount of time to get the weapons and armor upgrades at E.Bay. That I need a factory first to get a starport and many many such things.
Whenever I watch my replays, I find that I started out well, I am neck and neck with the others guys military count sometimes even ahead, but then after the initial push or defense (in which I dont lose the game) but then I start falling back. I even do expansions well too, getting a good amount of buildings, just cant get enough units though my economy might be actually doing well, coz I am fighting somewhere and forget getting troops Almost all the times my 'Structures' score is better than my opponents, 'Units' is where I suck
I have not played RTSes in more than 6-7 years and the last one i played was AoE.
Then I gave up gaming completely to concentrate on school and only in the senior year began playing some CS and got really good at it, the whole strategy aspect of that game appealed to my RTS roots, but then my team disbanded when school ended. So again a break. And now I am trying to get back in SC2, but my APM just outrightly sucks.
Blah.. sorry for another noobish rant, I love this site and the amount of analysis/discussions that members do here. The mentally challenging aspect of SC is what is keeping me interested, but I just suck at gameplay, haha.
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Bad idea: Memorizing build orders
Good idea: Understanding why you use such build orders so you don't HAVE to memorize them. Is there a reason you go ____ in response to _____? Of course there is, and you need to understand that reasoning before you get a good strategic grasp on the game.
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FREEAGLELAND26781 Posts
On March 25 2010 10:24 Legendary- wrote:
Hey man, good post. I'm sure others including myself are wondering what to really do about SC2 beta at this point. I myself am somewhat of a novice compared to most SC vets. Even people who played SC for 1 month have more experience than I do. I am learning the game because I think that--like most things, it is fun to learn new things. Strategy games like SC1 and WC3 are probably more of a spectator sport to people who don't want to compete at that professional level, and that is fine.
If you wish to just be a spectator, there is a place for you in this community. But the fun part about watching games goes further as well. When I watch pros I think, hey I would do this, I would do that, and when I can guess what he does, it feels good. When I see him do something else, I say why would he do that? Oh because of this. I like figuring things out. I like rooting for my favorite team, I like being apart of the game and community as much as possible.
So in closing I say to you, play if you have fun playing. After I watch a good game or replay or hear some funny, yet insightful commentary, it makes me even more pumped to play. I want to do funny things, I want to do be impressed by my own merit in-game, so that's why I play. Find that focus, if you think its futile because you can't devote the time to be "pro", it isn't the end of the game, but it is what you make it.
TL;dr -- Play if its fun, if the learning curve sucks to bad play tennis!! Then win!!!
Hey hey don't hate on tennis. I'd argue that sport also has a pretty steep learning curve.
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If you are even asking this question the answer is probably no, because you have a basic sense of doing productive things with your time.
25, tired of games, and little time, the answer is hell no, unless you find the time is worth the experience (fun).
This coming from someone that has sunk a significant amount of time into sc and regrets it slightly due to not finding playing all that fun & little reward.
Still while you might be thinking about the ends now, that hardly matters since it comes down to playing in the present moment. If you find you want to keep playing for whatever reason then you will. Certain people will play a lot and some will even excel for a variety of reasons which are not easily explicable.
To sum up: Why not go ahead and play casually. If you find yourself playing more and more because you enjoy the game/challenge/community then think about what it takes to play competitively vs casually.
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Very nice OP, it's nice to see sc2 from a total outsiders view. I totally see why jumping into the beta could be overwhelming. I mean, at the copper level I'd think there are plenty of total noobs but I don't really know. If blizz does a good ladder system upon the real release hopefully all skill levels will have a place to find similarly skilled opponents though so everyone can play and improve.
imo, one problem with the current state of sc2 is most people already know how, and want to play in a competitive manner. When I, and many other bw veterans I assume, learned sc, I learned through playing all sorts of different game modes and I didn't even begin to play many 1v1s until I had a pretty solid grasp of the game. (Money maps, 2v2s, 3v3s (of low quality because many people were just noobs like me) and even ums and ffa.)
This is important considering a 1v1 match is the most mentally demanding game type imo. It's just tough to jump into the most difficult part of a game and work to improve while having a good time.
Hopefully the final release with the campaign will help people who are new to the game to have a stepping stone to multiplayer and even then there should be plenty of beginners to play with each other.
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You bring up a lot of good points. I think that chess is a really good analogy for starting RTS - when you first started chess it was a bunch of confusing pieces, but if you learned to play you probably didn't mind losing too much or you wouldn't have kept playing! Just take a deep breath and realize that if you want to be competitive that you WILL lose to begin with.
Imagine the beta right now as a giant gymnasium full of the master, good, intermediate, and some beginning players. Generally the beginners aren't lasting that long because... it's not that fun to lose to nameless opponents over and over.
Really you need to find a partner that is also new, and play some games with them. It doesn't help that you can't play against the computer right now because the AI is so weak. When the full version comes out there will be many more types of play and you might find one you like!
However, in the end it comes down to whether or not you "catch the bug" of RTS. Most people either love it or hate it. It's not for everyone.
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I know this really isn't the place to put this but I can't find another good place or any place to put it, I've been a fan of starcraft ever since it came out been playing it a lot. I've got the sc2 beta and just downloaded procast and have a working stream going and I play quite a bit could someone post a topic for me with the url www.livestream.com/Rarthyr and advertise my stream please? I mean if you guys wanna see me play the sc2beta, I'm high ranked in Gold League I would consider myself an average or good player and hope to get into platinum but I do play kinda a lot.
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When I started playing Starcraft 2, I decided I'd keep a list of the things I thought were important in the game, so that I could analyze where I went wrong and how to fix this in my next game.
I keep this next to me even though I never read it while in-game. What I do is after the game finished, if I lost I write down in my notebook why I lost, where I made mistakes and what I should do next to do better according to the list below.
Here's my small, but in my opinion important list (if you have suggestions, please post them so I can update it  )
- Buildings
o Upgrade and Tech Buildings
o Unit Buildings
o Supply
- Army
o Unit Composition
o Overall Size
o Location and Terrain
o Upgrades
- Income
o Expansions
o Worker Saturation
Questions I ask myself after playing a game:
- Who has the advantage in each of the factors above in the major moments of the game?
- Which factor I forgot to improve systematically?
And here’s how I like to analyze Starcraft strategically – it’s not a guide, but instead a basic outline of when you should diverge strategies or converge towards a goal.
Strategic Divergence and Convergence
- Divergence (Brainstorming with yourself)
o If you scout something out of the ordinary, or that gives you information that you should change your army composition.
o Whenever you’re thinking about which strategy you want to pursue.
- Convergence
o Focusing on a single aspect of the Major Factors (like opponent’s expansions) and working towards achieving a specific goal (such as preventing him from taking them).
Example: Focusing on expanding.
But you have to remind yourself that Starcraft is not deterministic, and causal relationships are too lose, so to achieve a specific goal you can always choose different paths. With that in mind, your sound judgment and ability to read the situation are the most important skills to have. Forget about APM, forget about build orders, you must think about what is going on and act or react accordingly.
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my advice is - its beta so the matchmaking is not setup as it is suppose to be.
In release you really will play against people who play just like you, and as you get better you'll play better people. But as people said before, just try and get the basics...if you pawned hardcore watch the replay and see what the other person did, watch their perspective and see what they did and what they saw you do and screw up on
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if you cant have fun playing the game if youre not winning then StarCraft is not the game for you
but if you find the difficulty of the game fun in addition to just the game itself then you will really love it.
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Well, in the developer chat or whatever they SPECIFICALLY said that the beta was NOT designed for casual gamers, the purpose of the beta is to try to create a balanced final product, which means it is geared toward high level players. The average level of skill on the beta is likely going to be much much higher than the general release, so it's not really a shock that there are players like you struggling hugely and possibly not enjoying it.
As they said in the dev chat though, just stick with it and keep your head up!
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On March 25 2010 10:00 evilK wrote: many many letters
In sc (and sc2 I presume) mechanics are actually pretty secondary to strategics, but vital nevertheless. Whether sc2 is worth playing is a tough question, because it's up to you, but you don't exactly HAVE to aim at becoming a very competitive player.
I didn't really play 1v1s at all during my first couple of years as a sc player, instead I focused on 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, ffa, ums and all that, basically playing around with friends and having fun. There's also a great single player campaign, so in a way those things could be as good a starting off point as any, as they will improve your mechanics and knowledge of the game in the process.
If you want to become a good player all it takes is practice. Although, 9 years ago blizzard patched the nifty little replay function into starcraft. That pretty much changed everything and you should use them if you really want to get good at sc2 (both by analyzing your own ones and for stealing awesome bo's and strategies from stronger players.)
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I'm relatively new as well. I played the original, but that was when I was like 10 and thought massing a bunch of soldiers and just rushing in was the way to go. Or building the biggest base I could. Been gaming for years, but not much RTS. I find watching videos of the better players helps keep interest to see a new play. It's challenging to join a new community (I am doing it too ), but really play to enjoy, not to be good.
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Starcraft (either) is well worth the frustration and troubles you'll experience learning the game. As others have said in this thread. Yes, it's hard, but that's because you have to learn new skills, and unlike RPG Skills, these transfer betweens games, and some are even applicable in the "real world"
The best way to improve at this moment, would be to mass game. Preferably find someone that is 5% better than you, and just play them over and over again trying new things. Liquipedia will be pretty nice by launch i'm sure, but until then you should check out Day[9]'s Daily show.
GLHF
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I'm really going to have to disagree with you here. I'm mainly a counter strike player, and I always wanted to get into SC BW, but never did because it was too damn hard. When I played, all I would do is enter korean hunter games (I swear the only thing on bnet) and try to 6 pool every game. If the first attack didn't gay a toss user, I would leave with shame. I was that bad. However, I saw SC2 as a whole new game, one that would give a chance to newcomers to RTS's. I think a lot of people anticipated SC2 in the same way. Since it has come out, I have been in plat league and have beaten some relatively known sc1 players. The game is just soooo much easier mechanically, which in my opinion is the main reason beginners couldn't compete with sc1 veterans. Anyone can remember some BO's and learn hard counters, but unless you have insane multitasking in SC1, you're not going to be able to execute. So yeah, SC2 has leveled the playing ground for RTS noobs to challenge SC1 players. So try not to start with the mentality that you are already too far behind RTS players.
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Sweden33719 Posts
I know is a quite personal and subjective question..saying it in another way, For someone who is 25, is a bit tired of videogames in general, doesn't have too much time and only want to play for "fun"..is really worth start playing from scratch a game like SC2? I mean, is really that satisfactory when you really know what your are doing (like, i would say, "real" tennis, which i is incredibly rewarding when you get better)? Or is it closer to the sensation of WoW, you know, when you stop playing, look back to all the time you have spend playing it and think "what a waste of time"? (i suposse that if you are in this forums you are not going to answer the second option, but it will be very interesting to me to understand why is different of WoW). In conclusion, i would like to know your motivations for playing something as demanding as SC seems to be, to make sure that this game is not another "WoWistic" time waster. Something closest to chess or a real sport, if you know what i mean, something you would not end regreting about being giving your time to it.
I think the difference between SC and WoW is basically what you said in your tennis example - as you stop having to wrestle with the controls for every tiny aspect of the game, it will gradually become incredibly... immersive, I guess?
Like, I'll play a really intense game and time doesn't flow at all in the same way as it does when not playing, everything else is just blocked out and your mind is focused only on playing.
Once you and your opponent starts getting better there's also a ton of more "feedback", like you can start assuming that based on what you've shown, he'll do something, so you do something else or you only show something you want him to see etc. I think it becomes quite interesting~
To give an example: I played a game vs Nazgul, TvP on LT 9 vs 6. I'd made a sensor tower at the edge of my base and saw a bunch of units moving down towards his base, so I moved out to kill the rocks at my gold mineral expansion....... only to get ambushed by his entire army, because as soon as he exited the sensor tower radius, he'd doubled back up and waited out of sight.
I think SC can be a frustrating game until you reach some base level of proficency, but then it quickly becomes very rewarding.
EDIT: Oh and if you are starting now, as opposed to day 1, don't worry - I'm sure it'd be hard for anyone.
On March 25 2010 11:28 Treeplant wrote:
I'm really going to have to disagree with you here. I'm mainly a counter strike player, and I always wanted to get into SC BW, but never did because it was too damn hard. When I played, all I would do is enter korean hunter games (I swear the only thing on bnet) and try to 6 pool every game. If the first attack didn't gay a toss user, I would leave with shame. I was that bad. However, I saw SC2 as a whole new game, one that would give a chance to newcomers to RTS's. I think a lot of people anticipated SC2 in the same way. Since it has come out, I have been in plat league and have beaten some relatively known sc1 players. The game is just soooo much easier mechanically, which in my opinion is the main reason beginners couldn't compete with sc1 veterans. Anyone can remember some BO's and learn hard counters, but unless you have insane multitasking in SC1, you're not going to be able to execute. So yeah, SC2 has leveled the playing ground for RTS noobs to challenge SC1 players. So try not to start with the mentality that you are already too far behind RTS players.
Well, let's be honest here, if you had 6 pooled every game and only played 3v3 (well, 2v2) in Sc2, you wouldn't get anywhere either  It seems like a large part just your mentality keeping you back.
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It is a fun game to play and that all that should matter for you in the beginning. There there are insanely though opponent out there, but that is why the game itself is separated by different league. I have friends ranging from copper all the way to platinum league and I can assure you the skill range is definitely large even for this beta. So my best advice to you is to just play the game for what it is and enjoy it. The skill and what not will come with time. The most important thing that you need to remember is that winning isn't everything. In fact, loosing constant actually helps me improve my game a whole lot more than winning could. If it wasn't for the 50+ games this friend of mine in platinum cream the crap out of me, I doubt I would even make it into platinum league let alone trying to gun for top 20 (currently 30ish) in my division.
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..play with people at your level, or maybe friends at your level.. casual players playing against their friends may go "I nuked you! uber-cool!!! Did you see those tanks?!!" just enjoy the game at your level. The game aims to cater to all levels, newbies and seasoned, when you see someone so good, just realize that it's not that you're way behind but that THE GAME allows you to push the game to its limits and the limit is "SCBW limit" (if that made sense).
..it can only be as demanding as you make it to be.
- Is this beta just a bad site for startig to play? (due to too much good players, etc)
..i'm thinking there are just many good players at this point. Which is good for beta. And from somewhere i read, beta is not really for the 'beginners', it can be real harsh, not like in the retail version they have planned, where you'll be given the stuff in in chunks you can swallow..
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Play 2v2's until you get solid mechanics.
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On March 25 2010 11:28 FrozenArbiter wrote:Show nested quote +I know is a quite personal and subjective question..saying it in another way, For someone who is 25, is a bit tired of videogames in general, doesn't have too much time and only want to play for "fun"..is really worth start playing from scratch a game like SC2? I mean, is really that satisfactory when you really know what your are doing (like, i would say, "real" tennis, which i is incredibly rewarding when you get better)? Or is it closer to the sensation of WoW, you know, when you stop playing, look back to all the time you have spend playing it and think "what a waste of time"? (i suposse that if you are in this forums you are not going to answer the second option, but it will be very interesting to me to understand why is different of WoW). In conclusion, i would like to know your motivations for playing something as demanding as SC seems to be, to make sure that this game is not another "WoWistic" time waster. Something closest to chess or a real sport, if you know what i mean, something you would not end regreting about being giving your time to it.
I think the difference between SC and WoW is basically what you said in your tennis example - as you stop having to wrestle with the controls for every tiny aspect of the game, it will gradually become incredibly... immersive, I guess? Like, I'll play a really intense game and time doesn't flow at all in the same way as it does when not playing, everything else is just blocked out and your mind is focused only on playing. Once you and your opponent starts getting better there's also a ton of more "feedback", like you can start assuming that based on what you've shown, he'll do something, so you do something else or you only show something you want him to see etc. I think it becomes quite interesting~ To give an example: I played a game vs Nazgul, TvP on LT 9 vs 6. I'd made a sensor tower at the edge of my base and saw a bunch of units moving down towards his base, so I moved out to kill the rocks at my gold mineral expansion....... only to get ambushed by his entire army, because as soon as he exited the sensor tower radius, he'd doubled back up and waited out of sight. I think SC can be a frustrating game until you reach some base level of proficency, but then it quickly becomes very rewarding.
I would also like to note that SC has a huge learning advantage (not sure how to word that) in that you have an almost unlimited pool of skilled players to play against. It is no secret that the best way to get good at anything competitive is to play against the best competition. ICCUP and SC2's ladder gives you the privilege of playing someone better than you whenever you want, allowing you to improve quickly with effort. Many other competitive games like Counter Strike are very network heavy, as the only way to contact the best players is if you have the right connections. With ICCUP and SC2's ladder you have access to those top players if you can prove you compete against them.
So at least with SC, if you have serious dedication, you can improve much more quickly than other games. Nothing is more frustrating than wanting to improve, but being forced to stick playing against bad players (which will eventually make you worse) due to lack of connections.
Well, let's be honest here, if you had 6 pooled every game and only played 3v3 (well, 2v2) in Sc2, you wouldn't get anywhere either It seems like a large part just your mentality keeping you back.
This may be true, but even now with my SC2 RTS experience, I would never imagine trying to competitive in a game that has been perfected for over 10 years. Maybe with some heavy dedication I could get to D+, but I wouldn't see myself going any further than that.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On March 25 2010 11:39 D10 wrote:
Play 2v2's until you get solid mechanics.
This is a really good piece of advice, find someone good and play as many 2vs2 and 3v3s with him as you can. It will really make the game more interesting if you aren't a huge fan of losing 50 games straight ;D
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An entertaining and easy way to improve at the game is to watch high level replays and also VODs with commentary/analysis. Obviously you wont magically become good at the game without playing it, but it definitely helps to understand how people win.
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On March 25 2010 11:47 FrozenArbiter wrote:This is a really good piece of advice, find someone good and play as many 2vs2 and 3v3s with him as you can. It will really make the game more interesting if you aren't a huge fan of losing 50 games straight ;D
i wouldnt recommend that. you learn a lot less in 2v2 because you are a lot less responsible for the outcome of the game. you arent the only target for being attacked either and thus also wont learn good builds.
id approach it from the other side and find someone to play with where who wins or loses simply doesnt matter, like practicing with someone you know. i know it worked for me, while i would never learn to get my shit together by playing 2v2. maybe its different for different people though.
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On March 25 2010 11:28 Treeplant wrote:
I'm really going to have to disagree with you here. I'm mainly a counter strike player, and I always wanted to get into SC BW, but never did because it was too damn hard. When I played, all I would do is enter korean hunter games (I swear the only thing on bnet) and try to 6 pool every game. If the first attack didn't gay a toss user, I would leave with shame. I was that bad. However, I saw SC2 as a whole new game, one that would give a chance to newcomers to RTS's. I think a lot of people anticipated SC2 in the same way. Since it has come out, I have been in plat league and have beaten some relatively known sc1 players. The game is just soooo much easier mechanically, which in my opinion is the main reason beginners couldn't compete with sc1 veterans. Anyone can remember some BO's and learn hard counters, but unless you have insane multitasking in SC1, you're not going to be able to execute. So yeah, SC2 has leveled the playing ground for RTS noobs to challenge SC1 players. So try not to start with the mentality that you are already too far behind RTS players.
I would say that SC2 is far more mechanically demanding than BW. The only reason for the huge difference in APM is you aren't having to constantly cycle through multiple control groups of units and don't have to individually select all of your building structures. SC2 more than makes up for that in the constantly having to remember to do a much larger number of things. As a protoss player, for instance, I have to constantly be on my warpgates so that I don't miss a cycle, chronoboosting my non-warpgate production buildings/upgrade structures, producing probes, being mindful of my observers and managing my army. I'm sure I forgot about many other things. In BW, you could ignore a lot of things once you started/built them and base management is much less intensive.
I'd have to say the biggest difference is mainly just managing large armies. Very high APM in BW was only really necessary since managing a large army and keeping up on your macro was very mechanically intense. However, good army management was only really necessary at a very high level of play. Which is why most people who aren't pros are macro players. Quality micro while keeping up on your macro just isn't possible without good mechanics. That's really the only big difference. I still feel as if I'm doing far more in SC2.
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Problem 1: "Practice"
Problem 0: "Awareness and Planning"
Boxor (in his day) was not known for his micro as much as he was known for his cheezy play. All-in double-proxy Barracks/Barracks/Supply rush build, EMP/Nuke Nexus, Medic/Wraith vs Carriers, Micro-ed Marine Hitsquads vs Lurkers etc.
If you think you're getting a "solid game" then you're doing it wrong! and just getting overly comfy with yourself. The game is not there for you to trade units like resources for the win. The game is there for you to make it unfair!
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Welcome to teamliquid! I think it really is worth it to learn, as once you get better and understand the nuances of the game it can be relaxing, hilarious, fun, and competitive. The learning curve for beta is really really steep, however in the full release there will be a vastly expanded spectrum of ways to play, and to improve, with blizzard releasing some kind of training thing to help newcomers overcome the learning curve, and with campaigns and far more people like yourself. Beta might seem really tough, so I advise you don't take losing too seriously, play against AI some, just mess around with the units and experiment, and try to figure out how the abilities work and what everything does.
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On March 25 2010 11:57 enzym wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2010 11:47 FrozenArbiter wrote:On March 25 2010 11:39 D10 wrote:
Play 2v2's until you get solid mechanics. This is a really good piece of advice, find someone good and play as many 2vs2 and 3v3s with him as you can. It will really make the game more interesting if you aren't a huge fan of losing 50 games straight ;D i wouldnt recommend that. you learn a lot less in 2v2 because you are a lot less responsible for the outcome of the game. you arent the only target for being attacked and thus also wont learn good bos. id approach it from the other side and find someone to play with where who wins or loses simply doesnt matter, like practicing with someone you know. i know it worked for me, while i would never learn to get my shit together by playing 2v2. maybe its different for different people though.
It depends on what kind of frustration tolerance you have and what you're looking to get out of SC2 I guess. I have a friend who'd probably be low copper league 1v1 (he stopped playing 1v1 ladder after losing his first 2 placement matches), but what he wants out of SC2 is a bit of fun and he's just not interested in losing again and again in an effort to get better. The solution is that he's been playing 2v2 with me and instead of being a copper 1v1 player, he's in a platinum 2v2 team (not that I'm that great, but the level in the 2v2 ladder is pretty low).
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[b]On March 25 2010 10:00 evilK wrote[b]: many many letters
haha! If you compiled all the threads ever made on teamliquid, you would have a pile of text larger than War and Peace, the Bible, Moby Dick, and the entire Wheel of Time series combined.
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I think that this is one of this things that is harder, but at the same time is more rewarding. But its one of those things that you do not really care about, then it will never be rewarding. I mean there is always the campaign where a LOT more casual players will enjoy the game more. The ladder and multiplayer scene is full of hardcore SC fans whether gosu or noob, who get pure satisfaction from beating someone in a match. Its probably the hardest game on the market because the skill cap is SOOO incredibly high (which noone except for paid professionals seem to come even close to reaching).
In short, its only rewarding if you find this game and the competition of it rewarding. If your just looking for a casual game where you can have fun whenever just to kill time, than the campaign will better suit you. I think if your already thinking "big deal, I dont get why anyone would want to dedicate to being good at this" then you probably shouldnt bother. It is just one of those things where the people who dedicate themselves to it are dedicated fans who get an overwhelming amount of joy from pulling off a good Macro/Micro/Strategic move.
It is one of those games, where the multiplayer aspect is better suited for the small niche community that is just that into it that the rewards are worth the time spent, and for some the time spent is the rewarding aspect.
Just as a for instance, my friend and I have been huge fans of the pro-scene and competitive SC scene for a while now, with the release of SC2 i have decided to dedicate myself to becoming a better SC2 player, like someone in Platinum division (im currently in Silver, started in bronze, at 1900 elo in Silver hoping to get bumped to gold when ladders reset). My friend and I both agreed "lets focus and get good at SC2 since well have a jump ont he competition thanks to beta. Im currently almost Gold, whereas he is in Bronze division and has already given up on it. To him it simply wasnt worth the time it takes to progress, but I love it and find winning and progressing to be the most rewarding gaming I have ever done.
Will you ever get a pat on the back or a high five in real life for being good at SC2? Probably not, but that doesnt mean YOU shouldnt find it rewarding. Just my 2 cents here.
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On March 25 2010 11:00 Jonoman92 wrote:
Very nice OP, it's nice to see sc2 from a total outsiders view. I totally see why jumping into the beta could be overwhelming. I mean, at the copper level I'd think there are plenty of total noobs but I don't really know. If blizz does a good ladder system upon the real release hopefully all skill levels will have a place to find similarly skilled opponents though so everyone can play and improve.
imo, one problem with the current state of sc2 is most people already know how, and want to play in a competitive manner. When I, and many other bw veterans I assume, learned sc, I learned through playing all sorts of different game modes and I didn't even begin to play many 1v1s until I had a pretty solid grasp of the game. (Money maps, 2v2s, 3v3s (of low quality because many people were just noobs like me) and even ums and ffa.)
This is important considering a 1v1 match is the most mentally demanding game type imo. It's just tough to jump into the most difficult part of a game and work to improve while having a good time.
Hopefully the final release with the campaign will help people who are new to the game to have a stepping stone to multiplayer and even then there should be plenty of beginners to play with each other.
Very important post. I played SC:BW for almost 12 years and I only started getting somewhat decent after some 5 years of messing around on moneymaps, UMS, FFA, team games, etc. 5 years just to get decent. Of course then there weren't infinite VODs, strategy discussion, replays, etc. or those things were only available to a very small circle of top players.
And as said before, at least SC:BW was very rewarding the higher your skill got. Just start out with something fun to you, may it be team games, custom games, UMS. Ofc those aren't out yet, so I might suggest you should wait until the final release of SC2.
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SC2 and scbw are definitely more rewarding than the average game. I play a mix of dota, starcraft and css and starcraft is definitely the most epic. Although I'm pretty good at css, I can not play for a few months, pick it up and within an hour or two can be back to where I was before. This isn't the case in starcraft, and it shows how difficult the game is. Anything difficult can be rewarding if you put time into it.
Beyond that, I could argue that I play for the community. No other game has a community like starcraft does, and sites like teamliquid to support them. There is always something to do or take part in, and when you don't feel like it, you can watch a professional play the game you are attempting to get good at. The pro scene definitely adds excitement to the game, as well as things that you will want to try because your favorite progamer did them.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On March 25 2010 11:57 enzym wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2010 11:47 FrozenArbiter wrote:On March 25 2010 11:39 D10 wrote:
Play 2v2's until you get solid mechanics. This is a really good piece of advice, find someone good and play as many 2vs2 and 3v3s with him as you can. It will really make the game more interesting if you aren't a huge fan of losing 50 games straight ;D i wouldnt recommend that. you learn a lot less in 2v2 because you are a lot less responsible for the outcome of the game. you arent the only target for being attacked either and thus also wont learn good builds. id approach it from the other side and find someone to play with where who wins or loses simply doesnt matter, like practicing with someone you know. i know it worked for me, while i would never learn to get my shit together by playing 2v2. maybe its different for different people though.
But you'll get good fundamentals, and your friend can easily give you tips. Tonnes of the good pros started as team game players I'm pretty sure (I seem to recall Bisu being a 3v3 hunters guy).
You eventually have to move to 1v1s of course, to learn how to 1v1, but for getting the mechanics down 2v2s are excellent I think. I didn't personally learn the game that way (I was 12~13 at the time and had no issue with losing 20 games for every win, given how much I was playing it was only a week or two before my wins started becoming a lot more frequent), but I think it's a good way.
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Since you are a chess player, you will definitely do well in Starcraft. Starcraft and chess both require similar intuition in regards to tactics and strategy, it's just that Starcraft is real time.
TL is probably the best place to start your SC career. Even though the talk is really high level here, it's not like other games where it's just people using a certain lingo, on TL, people have a very analytical thought process, and I'm sure you can get used to it very easily.
To start, I would recommend playing sc1. The general concepts in both games are the same, sc2 is just dumbed down a lot. The most important thing is just to keep playing the game your way. What I found was that if I try to use someone else's build order or strategy, it doesn't really work, but if I keep on playing my own way, build orders and strategies come into place themselves. The key is not to memorize what to do in every single scenario, but to get a good understanding of the root mechanics of the game through experience, so you are able to respond to every situation on the fly.
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On March 25 2010 10:00 evilK wrote:
Or is it closer to the sensation of WoW, you know, when you stop playing, look back to all the time you have spend playing it and think "what a waste of time"? (i suposse that if you are in this forums you are not going to answer the second option, but it will be very interesting to me to understand why is different of WoW).
I'll tackle this one.
WoW is awful in two ways. Firstly, it's a glorified slot machine, with carefully balanced rewards to keep you coming back for more, and secondly, it teaches the wrong things, a la:
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060222/sirlin_01.shtml
Wow does teach some interesting real-life things if you run a guild, and has more depth than most people give it credit for, but ultimately the person who sinks the most time wins at wow, and it teaches you very little that's very interesting outside of the game.
Starcraft has very different lessons and very different demands. To improve at starcraft, you must be able think and assess quickly, juggle many different demands on your time and attention, react cooly under pressure, judge your opponent well. You need to be able to recognize/construct good plans, and adapt them well on the fly.
Starcraft teaches interesting things about knowledge and decision making (e.g. don't bother scouting unless it can change what you're going to do). At very high level play, you'll need hands that move like lightning, but I think you're asking "is starcraft satisfying" more than "can I go pro".
To answer your broader question, the beta is for blizzard to test balance, and they've made official statements acknowledging that it's not a particularly great way to learn.
ladder will always be brutal, but you'll have a much smoother curve once it's released, and yes starcraft is worth perservering with.
You don't need to get to pro to be able to enjoy the game. After a couple of dozen games you should already have the basics down and be able to get a good match even on the beta ladder.
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If you played SC1, WC1, 2 or 3 its like riding a bike. If you didn't you're going to have a lot of catching up to do. But don't be discouraged the learning curve isn't huge. It's not like trying to learn online poker or something. There isn't a huge incentive for people to be good at it so everybody just plays for fun. Now if the Korean pro-gaming scene starts putting money into it then ya things will change if you expect to make it to the top. This is the best time to start from scratch and not be discouraged.
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Do what you love and you will always find ways to improve. Play this game because you think its fun, because you like learning and improving, and/or because it gets your heart rate up.
Don't play it if you only want to win. When it releases there will be many more players and you will find your level quicker but you will always find your level be that copper or platinum. By your level I mean a 50-50 win rate give or take a few % points.
I had a friend complain that he thought the game was too hard and I asked him what his win rate was, he replied it was 55ish% and I laughed and said, then your doing fine.
At least you can't be smurfed all afternoon like wc3 bnet was infamous for.
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better first post then most i''ve seen ^_^ welcome to Teamliquid!
to me you seam to be taking the GAME a bit to seriously we love starcraft and most people here are very dedicated and spend literally years playing the game and perfecting their game play and becoming experienced to the point of people going to korea to become pros.
what does this have to do with you? well first off all you might not belive it but you have an advantage here compared to the high up players. you see they had to take the time and figure builds out, in BW the 1rax expo became the first build for any starting terran, did he make it? figure it out? no he copied it from better players and learned from them. same goes for you. now we are in the beta so nothing is set in stone, and believe me when i say "there is always someone better then you and worse"
and yes this game is a lot more tactical then it is strategical because it takes one guy to make a strategy which 1000 other guys can copy and master.
some advise i can give you is to not take the game so seriously, don't focus on whos is better and how far ahead they are, focus on playing, practice and learn, 90% of tl players on the beta have been playing SC for years and have experience in this type of game play.
just chill guy your too tense, no one going to ban you for posting something like this we gonna try and help you achieve whatever it is you want to achieve. gl hf
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On March 25 2010 12:00 FrEaK[S.sIR] wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2010 11:28 Treeplant wrote:
I'm really going to have to disagree with you here. I'm mainly a counter strike player, and I always wanted to get into SC BW, but never did because it was too damn hard. When I played, all I would do is enter korean hunter games (I swear the only thing on bnet) and try to 6 pool every game. If the first attack didn't gay a toss user, I would leave with shame. I was that bad. However, I saw SC2 as a whole new game, one that would give a chance to newcomers to RTS's. I think a lot of people anticipated SC2 in the same way. Since it has come out, I have been in plat league and have beaten some relatively known sc1 players. The game is just soooo much easier mechanically, which in my opinion is the main reason beginners couldn't compete with sc1 veterans. Anyone can remember some BO's and learn hard counters, but unless you have insane multitasking in SC1, you're not going to be able to execute. So yeah, SC2 has leveled the playing ground for RTS noobs to challenge SC1 players. So try not to start with the mentality that you are already too far behind RTS players. I would say that SC2 is far more mechanically demanding than BW. The only reason for the huge difference in APM is you aren't having to constantly cycle through multiple control groups of units and don't have to individually select all of your building structures. SC2 more than makes up for that in the constantly having to remember to do a much larger number of things. As a protoss player, for instance, I have to constantly be on my warpgates so that I don't miss a cycle, chronoboosting my non-warpgate production buildings/upgrade structures, producing probes, being mindful of my observers and managing my army. I'm sure I forgot about many other things. In BW, you could ignore a lot of things once you started/built them and base management is much less intensive. I'd have to say the biggest difference is mainly just managing large armies. Very high APM in BW was only really necessary since managing a large army and keeping up on your macro was very mechanically intense. However, good army management was only really necessary at a very high level of play. Which is why most people who aren't pros are macro players. Quality micro while keeping up on your macro just isn't possible without good mechanics. That's really the only big difference. I still feel as if I'm doing far more in SC2.
Well your post surprised me. Mainly the first sentence since I've noticed that average APM seems lower across the board for nearly all replays I've checked. (This can of course be partially attributed to the fact that people are new to the game. However, I don't think being good at sc2 will require AS high apm as sc1 demanded.)
The macro mechanics imo make it much LESS mechanically demanding. I am simply too slow to macro in sc1 via clicking every building so i htokey my gateways/rax's/hatches. In sc2 this doesn't put me at a disadvantage as it did in sc1 because there are plenty of hotkeys for everything since you can set multiple buildings to one hotkey. This is just one example, other things like smart cast also help so you can have 10 templars selected with full energy and still only cast one storm at a time without wasting any. This other features are additional features which help make the game a bit less mechanically demanding.
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imo
it's like chess because it's hard and it's interesting. you're not expecting to win tournaments or make money, you're doing it because it's fun and it's something to get better at.
(someone probably already said this before :\)
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Yeah, good advice has already been given, but I will throw out my own perspective just for the heck of it.
I started playing SC not that long ago and I started by playing the computer until I could beat it. Then I watched a bunch of commentated games on youtube (klazart <3)
Then I jumped into iccup...and got mostly raped. Even though I had a pretty decent understanding of the game and knew standard build orders, I simply couldn't execute. So I played 3v3s because no one cares about losing and you can just learn the game at a relaxed pace. My 1v1 slowly improved even though I only played a handful of them.
Then I found a friend of similar skill level and we started 2v2ing. This helped me get a better feel for slightly more competitive play (since it there is 2v2 laddering on iccup) but the skill level is slightly worse and the punishment not as great for mistakes(since your partner can cover for you). It is also a lot more fun if you are losing with a friend too.
Last Iccup season we actually easily hit D+ and were closing in on C-, even though I had never even gotten close in 1v1.
So yeah, the best way is to find a gametype that is more fun at your skill level and your mechanics DO improve, making it that much more fun when you go back to 1v1ing.
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On March 25 2010 13:57 Jonoman92 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2010 12:00 FrEaK[S.sIR] wrote:On March 25 2010 11:28 Treeplant wrote:
I'm really going to have to disagree with you here. I'm mainly a counter strike player, and I always wanted to get into SC BW, but never did because it was too damn hard. When I played, all I would do is enter korean hunter games (I swear the only thing on bnet) and try to 6 pool every game. If the first attack didn't gay a toss user, I would leave with shame. I was that bad. However, I saw SC2 as a whole new game, one that would give a chance to newcomers to RTS's. I think a lot of people anticipated SC2 in the same way. Since it has come out, I have been in plat league and have beaten some relatively known sc1 players. The game is just soooo much easier mechanically, which in my opinion is the main reason beginners couldn't compete with sc1 veterans. Anyone can remember some BO's and learn hard counters, but unless you have insane multitasking in SC1, you're not going to be able to execute. So yeah, SC2 has leveled the playing ground for RTS noobs to challenge SC1 players. So try not to start with the mentality that you are already too far behind RTS players. I would say that SC2 is far more mechanically demanding than BW. The only reason for the huge difference in APM is you aren't having to constantly cycle through multiple control groups of units and don't have to individually select all of your building structures. SC2 more than makes up for that in the constantly having to remember to do a much larger number of things. As a protoss player, for instance, I have to constantly be on my warpgates so that I don't miss a cycle, chronoboosting my non-warpgate production buildings/upgrade structures, producing probes, being mindful of my observers and managing my army. I'm sure I forgot about many other things. In BW, you could ignore a lot of things once you started/built them and base management is much less intensive. I'd have to say the biggest difference is mainly just managing large armies. Very high APM in BW was only really necessary since managing a large army and keeping up on your macro was very mechanically intense. However, good army management was only really necessary at a very high level of play. Which is why most people who aren't pros are macro players. Quality micro while keeping up on your macro just isn't possible without good mechanics. That's really the only big difference. I still feel as if I'm doing far more in SC2. Well your post surprised me. Mainly the first sentence since I've noticed that average APM seems lower across the board for nearly all replays I've checked. (This can of course be partially attributed to the fact that people are new to the game. However, I don't think being good at sc2 will require AS high apm as sc1 demanded.) The macro mechanics imo make it much LESS mechanically demanding. I am simply too slow to macro in sc1 via clicking every building so i htokey my gateways/rax's/hatches. In sc2 this doesn't put me at a disadvantage as it did in sc1 because there are plenty of hotkeys for everything since you can set multiple buildings to one hotkey. This is just one example, other things like smart cast also help so you can have 10 templars selected with full energy and still only cast one storm at a time without wasting any. This other features are additional features which help make the game a bit less mechanically demanding.
I already said that there was a big difference in APM and I attributed it to the constant cycling of hotkeys and how that effected the game. You kind of ignored my post beyond that first sentence, it seems.
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OP - I wanna compliment you on your english. It's actually rather good for not being your first language.
APM // Mechanics wise - SC2 is much more forgiving (at this moment) for people who dont have 200+ APM. On SC1, I was at best C- with 130-140 APM (my mechanics prevented me from going any higher). I'm a little slower now, but it doesn't seem to matter in sc2 as much. I'm platinum level 1v1 and top silver (we keep playing top 8 gold and top 20 platinum players) with 66% winrate (my teammate is/was a D- sc1 player).
Understanding the game itself helps a bunch. Knowing what you scout, or what you see while scouting means is very important. You only get this stuff from reading articles // watching replays or vods and playing the game. Some people don't ever really pick up that sense or intuition but still do well on the basis of mechanics. Playing the game now probably isn't the best time to be playing as its rather competitive since hardcore SC players are in it. (as well as people who pay a few hundred dollers for it...) So I feel like the majority of players are those who already have some interest // motivation // skill in the game or scbw.
Do I think playing in the beta will help? Yes. If you play a bunch now and lose, and come release the quality of opponents will be much lower. People will be starting their own learning of the game and you will have had a head start. That doesnt mean you might necessarily be able to beat sc1 players out of the gates (and maybe you will) but you would be ahead of if you just started at release as well.
Do I think starcraft is worth it? Yes. And no. It depends on why you play. If you want to be a progamer, I'd say most likely you wont be one. If you are playing to be the best, it wont be worth it. Unless you are, I dunno, Jaedong or Flash in sc1 there will always be somebody better then you. And even if you are the best how long will it be for?
What sucks about playing to win, or playing to be the best is that after a certain point, none of your friends will want to play with you anymore. Unless you bring them along into a more competitive form of bw or sc2 you will stomp them all easily. Is that enough? I have a single friend who will play sc1 with me now because the others just cant keep up. Again, I'm not amazing at sc1, D+ last iccup season... but being that good makes you better then the vast majority of players already.
Play for fun? sure. Play casually, play to be the best you can, whatever you want to play for. Personally, I'm at the point where I'm about as good as I can be without spending inordinate amounts of time training my mechanics (I understand the game rather well, I feel like I could make B- easily if I had even decent mechanics)..... Its pretty much the same with everything for me. I get to a point where I get to be as good as I can be without taking it super seriously to the next level. Like table tennis, I got to the point where I had a monster top spin, and decent playing skills in general (i was hitting winners against 2000 ranked players even if i lost to them all the time), but the consistency was lacking and the only way to get better from there was hours upon hours of drilling which I wasnt willing to do.
In my opinion? play until you arnt auto lose to random people online. Play so you can play casually against your friends and still be able to win. (but make it appear they have a chance so they wont refuse to play against you) then decide if you want to take it to the next level or not.
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I think the solution to you problem is to play with people at the same skill level as you, or better than you but willing to help.
I suspect that in your desire to win, you are approaching the game too scientifically, and are overloading your consciousness with disordered information. You should just play the game and trust your feelings. And when I say play the game, I mean lose, over and over again, without shame. If you feel you are playing with people consistently better than you, LOSE SOME MORE, drop a league, drop to rock bottom if need be.
Things will be difficult at first, but after a while, you will be surprised at how much of the game you're internalizing. This will start with your initial build orders, which you will start to do without knowing you're doing them, like driving a car, and will continue on from there.
All of that information, which was like a bed of unsown seeds now, will slowly fall into order in your subconsciousness. At this point, when you face a new patterns of play, 99% of the game will be instinctual, allowing you to focus your cognitive energy on analyzing and adapting to said patterns. You can seek the aid of your own intuition (which I recommend at first) or the help of the forums to do this until you've internalized the encounter. And you can continue doing this until your play becomes more and more nuanced.
But the key I think is to practice with people at the same skill level as you.
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Do the following:
Play some ladder/ranking games.
When you find an enemy with which you have fun/decent games and isn't an ass , add him to your F-List and play 1on1's with him.
In the beginning the pure strain of the Macro is enough to keep you busy and you improve even if your enemy isn't exploiting every weakness you show .
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I had the same problem, albeit without SC2. I picked up Starcraft earlier this year, and was getting roflstomped on iccup. I ended up finding about this site, and used it to gain quite a bit of knowledge. You just need practice, and some more basic facts. I finally got to D+ yesterday. after quite of while of being D-/D. The Beta might be an awkward position to start in, but it sure is okay enough as there are separate rankings. Just continue to read up, and even watch live streams. Watch what other people do, and modify/copy and try to attempt it yourself. Go over replays, its worth it, just not going to be easy, as it is insanely hard to start even to become decent at.
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I think especially SC2 will be a pretty hard game to become very good at, just because pro's from so many games switch to SC2 and wan't to try their luck, but I also think that there will be quite a few newcomers, or ppl that didn't play many RTS-games on a very high level.
If you wanna learn fast, I'd recommend playing a lot and actively trying to improve certain aspects of your play: Maybe try to get high APM and good Multitasking or train one specific build until your timing is perfect. Watch a lot of VoD's and replays and try to understand why the pro's play how they play.
The Beta is maybe kinda hard for newcomers, so I'd just try to enjoy the game and play as long as it's fun for you - when SC2 is available for the masses, you'll have an easier time I guess and more rewards for playing on a non-pro-level, like Avatar's you'll get for wins, statistics that aren't wiped in the near future etc. ^^'
I've got abaout 250-300 games atm but I feel like I could play a lot more and would be more motivated with upcoming features of B.Net, but I'm not an aspiring progamer, so I just play for fun now trying out all the races and start really farming wins when SC2 comes out. ^^'
So i'd focus on being the best of the worst for now, it's maybe too big of an endeavour if you try to become pro and it's just a lot of pressure you don't really need to put yourself under. I also felt a bit of a pressure to play, jsut because it's SC2 and you wan't to be good at it, but to become pro, you really have to make a decision and stick with it, so if you're not totally sure, just play for fun and look where it takes you.
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1) Play to have fun. If you're not having fun then just stop. I recommend you to play SC2 singleplayer when it comes out.
2) Starcraft has no leveling, no gear, none of that shit. The ONLY thing that distinguishes you from others is SKILL, and that is a beautiful thing.
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I don't the Beta is a good place for a new player.
As many have said it's much more enjoyable to practice versus computers and through the single-player where the pressure of losing is off.
The truth is SC players are addicted to the rush of the game. Whilst Chess is also fun it's a bit slow. Starcraft is an escape. When you're playing the game you're not thinking about anything else, you're totally engrossed in the game.
You tend to think and analyse strategy more when you're not playing.
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On March 25 2010 10:00 evilK wrote:
why is different of WoW
In WoW you train your character to become awesome, in Starcraft you train yourself to become awesome. Owning something awesome < being awesome.
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On March 25 2010 20:31 Klive5ive wrote:
I don't the Beta is a good place for a new player.
As many have said it's much more enjoyable to practice versus computers and through the single-player where the pressure of losing is off.
The truth is SC players are addicted to the rush of the game. Whilst Chess is also fun it's a bit slow. Starcraft is an escape. When you're playing the game you're not thinking about anything else, you're totally engrossed in the game.
You tend to think and analyse strategy more when you're not playing.
ppl have actually conducted a study analizing which parts of the brain is active when playing Starcraft1 with a progamer and a newb and the study has shown that the newb has lot's of areas active for planning, strategizing - it showed that he really was thinking hardcore - but the areas active for the pro were the areas for "instinct"! ^^'
The Pro didn't need to think, it was just pure muscle-reactions and instinct. xD
That just shows that Pro's are so involved in the game, that it just becomes instinct and they can use their thinking on a very strategic level, because they don't have to think constantly what to build next, how to react etc. but just worry about the big picture and be more creative.
Just an interesting off-topic-post I wanted to make. ^^'
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Quality first post. I'd never consider playing SC as a waste of time, because you are actually challenging yourself and trying to improve (Much like you would in chess, no?) I'm a chess player myself, and I'm glad I took it up as a hobby. Maybe you'll enjoy playing StarCraft as much as you do playing chess?
Whatever you do, good luck.
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I agree with most of your points evilK. I will say though that Blizzard has promised that when the game launches it will have a much more sophisticated tutorial system that is intended to be not only for ultra beginners (this is a marine move it by clicking..) but also to bridge the gap and additionally it is said to include practice maps for intermediates(such as the micro maps we have in sc).
P.S.
I want to add something. You should know that just playing the game for a long time doesn't necessarily mean you will get beyond a certain level. I personally have played starcraft for close to 7-8 years, but just recently started learning. Though playing a tooon of bgh games helped me in faster learning because i had experience with unit relations, hotkeys, costs and such stuff, I was stuck at a pretty low level. To get good at the game you must be determined and to want to research try out stuff, And to want to win badly.
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As a player of both SC(II) and chess, I do think SC is the bullet part of chess. You know, the game with an extreme low time to play, with an increment of few sec every move played. Lke this kind of format : 20sec to play the game, with an extra 2sec for every move played. That's an extreme challenge for your mind : that's the same in SC. No time to think, but the knowledge of openings, good reflexes and a global purpose/strategy is requiered.
If you are new to chess, of course you'll be overwhelmed in bullet ! That's the same in SC. You have to learn slowly openings, patterns and global strats / antistrats. Once you're used to it, you'll be able to go down in the arena. These days, most of players in the beta are good players. Be patient, when the game comes out, tons of practicing players will flood (because mostly of UMS), but the great matching system will provide you some people with your skill level, and you will be able to learn (and have fun !) from.
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If you're good at chess, it helps to play lightening / blitz variants. At least I found that helped me improve my decision making under "pressure". It also doesn't hurt to not let losing bug you, and go the 1 win for every 10 games lost... You'll learn a lot. I think there's a saying for that, winning is teaching, losing is learning?
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Starcraft is a sport. People will say "well not REALLY because _____" but honestly it is. It has just as high and complex a learning curve as soccer or basketball or (as you said) chess. Because it is a sport it should be treated as one. When you start out playing a sport, you suck! that's the natural way of things. Little league and other youth sport (or older beginners in sports) are hilariously bad to anyone with even marginal skill at that sport. Does that mean that it's not a fun game? No way! Does it mean tons of people can kick your ass? Definitely! The real take home message I think is if you're copper or bronze or silver or whatever don't sweat it! just have fun! and yeah, in the beta they're tons of players who have played the prequel for years or have played some form of RTS at an extremely high level. Tons of people will be able to clobber you but I'd think in the lower regions tons of other people should be around who are just as bad if not worse? I have a friend who's on the low-end of copper and he's having plenty of fun playing even though he's terrible to someone like me who's played sc1 etc. Just have fun and enjoy playing the sport!
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These games are very hard man. BW is the hardest competetive game ever made and SC2, from what I've heard, is very hard mechanically as well.
But don't expect to just be able to pick up a game and be decent at it competitively -.-
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I'm sure we all understand where your comming from, we've all been there. Remember you're playing against people who've played starcraft and broodwar who have years of experience behind them. Right away that puts you at at disadvantage, and the ladder system as it is now probably isn't going to help much.
My advice would be to just have fun, learn the strengths and weaknesses of the units and races. Over time, your mechanics will improve and you'll feel yourself getting "faster". When the full game comes out and play through the single player mode, that's where you'll really see the beauty of the game and what it can bring. Then jump back online, join some friend in multiplayer and you'll have a blast.
We play starcraft because we've grown with it over the last 10+ years. Most of us were teenagers when it first came out, now new generations of fans will grow to love SC2.
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OP, you said that you "are getting a little tired of videogames", but what aspect of them is not pleasing you?
I'm asking this because I couldn't grasp if the problem is with the lack of complexity most games have these days, or if the problem is actually with frustration and lack of fun when you lose.
I'll assume you have mostly the game mindset of a strong chess player throughout this post, so if I'm wrong about this assumption, then the rest of this is mostly useless. Also, when I refer to games, I'll be refering to very complex games, so even hard but simpler gameflow-wise games like tennis are out.
From chess you can bring the game sense, analysis, and positionning skills, but you definitely _can't_ use the same mindset. In chess you typically will consider every possibility in the order you are the most comfortable with, and you need to use the _best_ available move else you lose. In SC/SC2, or any action-strategy game really, you need to take a _good_ move in a very short timespan; what I call a good move is a move that will require your opponent to react a certain way and demand a certain level of skill. This is because these games are not turn-based, and any time lost translates into a "free turn" for the opponent to make a good move against you.
This would translate into chess as recklessly attacking your opponent in order to bring his pieces into vulnerable/less useful positions, even if you risk losing a piece in the process. I am a very "action" game guy, and when I play chess, or slow fighting games (a "slow" fighting game is one where small mistakes are easily reactable and severely punished, so it encourages a very safe play. A "fast" one has more escape paths, more multi-use moves, and give players less time to react) I find myself doing this kind of "reckless" thing (and losing) often.
This "slow-fast" measure of games heavily influences the optimal thought pathway -the mindset- to play it. And learning a new mindset _will_ lead to frustration and a lack of fun at first because the way your brain works intuitively will work against you instead of in your favor.
If you wish to learn how to play these kinds of games though, this frustration will work in your favor in the long run as it will make your achievements much more gratifying. It was this way for me with danmaku shooters : for someone who could play games like Worms Armageddon and GunZ: the Duel decently well, suddenly being unable to complete a game at the Easy difficulty, even though it is about 100 times easier than the hardest difficulty setting was quite a big deal.
Today though, 2 years later, I can consider myself a good danmaku player (I can complete touhou games in lunatic with some specific practice, and even got some nicely placed scores in the games I specialize), and it is _extremely_ gratifying, even though the very genre of these games have some sort of in-built frustration device even for experienced players, lol.
Also, like any hard action game, at higher levels SC requires a lot of physical and mental endurance, so overcoming this will be yet another large step that will lead to frustration at first and a lot of gratification afterwards.
So the decision is up to you, just make sure you set your main goal to learn and not to win at first if you decide to play. If I have guessed right your mindset, then it is inevitable that you'll not experience much fun at first, but if you maximize your learning of the game, and can recognize when you're getting better, then I would say you'd need about a 2-3 months to start to feel satisfied. The fun will then only increase at that point onwards for a long time (years worth of).
You only need sheer practice to overcome the physical and mental aspects like APM, tension management, physical endurance, etc... for the rest you can greatly speed up the learning process by playing smartly and making learning plans.
I'd say if you have enough time, then it is a great idea to start playing SC2, but keeping all this in mind. And if you do, good luck =)
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On March 25 2010 10:14 Kantutan wrote:
Dustin Browder stated himself that a new player jumping into beta right now would be like a newbie jumping into WoW level 80 PvP. Multiplayer will obviously be difficult for new players, if you wait for the actual game to be released and play single player, that would help you get a lot better. And yeah, don't worry about getting better while you're a new player, just enjoy it. You could always pass the SC1 campaign for now, some of those skills will transfer over.
haha I've only played Wow like 3 times but I'm pretty sure I could jump into level 80 PvP and be competitive there in like 2 hours if someone gave me the right equipment.
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On March 25 2010 23:13 Luddite wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2010 10:14 Kantutan wrote:
Dustin Browder stated himself that a new player jumping into beta right now would be like a newbie jumping into WoW level 80 PvP. Multiplayer will obviously be difficult for new players, if you wait for the actual game to be released and play single player, that would help you get a lot better. And yeah, don't worry about getting better while you're a new player, just enjoy it. You could always pass the SC1 campaign for now, some of those skills will transfer over. haha I've only played Wow like 3 times but I'm pretty sure I could jump into level 80 PvP and be competitive there in like 2 hours if someone gave me the right equipment.
wow leveling/social masturbation is kinda HERP DERP but don't be ignorant man. You need alot of knowledge of all classes and spell timings, etc in order to be really competitive in pvp wow.
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Welcome to the TLnet. Great first post I must say.
About the topic. I had similar problem myself as well. Played mostly FPS and MMO games with some SC:BW/WC3:TFT games, just for fun, never even tried to be actually good at them. I followed SC:BW/WC3:TFT scene, watched replays and such but I always enjoyed more playing Quake for instance.
When Blizz announced that SC2 is soon to be ready to enter Beta stage I started playing SC:BW again, a bit on Battle.net and ICCup (D/D+) and now when SC2 beta started and I got a key felt being owned all around in custom games. Played custom games because I thought I'll play other newbies as well, but when I found out how to "check stats" of my opponents I realised I played even few Platinum league players so I started with Placement matches.
I am currently in Gold league and things that helped me to become better and actually enter Gold league even if I never played SC:BW/WC3:TFT games were:
- Streams, here at TLnet.
- Picking Race that I felt I could do most in early game.
- Watching replays of decent players and trying to understand things like "Why he is building *that* against *that?"; "Why is he using *that* strategy on *this* map against same oponent and/or race and not on *that* map?"; And so on.
- Trying to understand reactions and decisions in fights while watching replays/streams.
- Finding a player who is as same or similar level of SC2 knowledge and have a fun games with him.
- Just playing the game. While you are playing, even without desire to become better you are still learning things.
- Learning few "tricks" with your Race of choice, tricks you can pull out and surprise your opponent.
- Etc.
I am sure that if you put at least some time now in playing and learning SC2 while it is beta, you will feel decent and much better when game gets released and you encounter people who will have same problem as you have now.
Try to have a look at this Beta and your current experience as new player as preparation for great fun, decent matches, great wins and such when game comes at stores.
And as many said before me, from your position you really shouldn't think or even aim to become competitive for now. Just try to have a great time with super-great game!
Good luck!
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Welcome to TL!
To the OP - Is it worth learning - ABSOLUTELY. If you don't find it fun just learning the game then this is not for you. It is a complex game and you will find satisfaction in mastering the multitude of aspects the game has to offer.
Yes you will loose alot - very few players don't loose a ton of games. All of them are fun tho!
gl hf
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Regarding your tennis/WoW comparison, that's really up to an individual's preferences. Aside from the health benefits (obviously a big plus) of tennis, it's no more inherently beneficial than WoW. I mean, if you're not gonna become the next Nadal, are you wasting your time? Or does it come down to you being happy? I'm pretty sure that if a person really enjoys it, you can get just as much outta wow from an emotional standpoint as seening yourself evolve in tennis.
I'm sure beta also has a bit to do with your learning curve. Most of the people opting in are BW/WC3 players, and while SC2 is obviously different, they're gonna have an edge. When the full game comes out, there will be an influx of true newbies. Plus, even with some flaws, AMM will pretty much put you against people relatively close to your skill bracket.
I really don't think you need to be the best or log a gazzilion hours a week to get enjoyment from something. I'm in the same boat, about to be 25 and going to school again, so I'm not gonna be playing like how I was at 15. But it's still fun to play for me, even with just a few hours a week.
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If you want to get good, give yourself at least 6 months to a year coming from never playing an RTS before. Don't take it too seriously, and if you don't enjoy playing it maybe its not for you. You are going to need a few things to improve, the first of which is mechanical ability. Your hands need to be fast, you need to be able to control units well. The only way to do this is to practice lots and make sure you are using all the hotkeys and using them well. The second important thing is in game mindset. You can't "not think" and still win. Starcraft is very much a thinking game at higher levels, and a better way of describing it would be, "think fast". If you ever expect to be able to make useful decisions in game, you need to understand the details of the game. If I asked you how much damage a stalker did or what armor types its good against, and what units its useful for fighting could you answer? Make sure you learn about every race, and all of their abilities. Another important thing is understanding macro (economy/production management) and basic micro concepts such as concave, focus fire, dancing, general positioning etc. Get into a cycle of thinking where practice, then analyze what you did, think about why you did it, and then decide how you would do it better or what you would do instead and go practice some more.
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Wow, thanks everybody for all the interest, nearly 100 replys in one day, and every single one being an useful one, people who has been playing for so long, even some private messages offering help...is just mindblowing, really. I've read all of them, but can't reply to every one i liked cause i will never end. Again, thanks everybody and be sure that i would consider absolutely every word you said.
Broadly speaking, i completely agree with the "you level up > your character level up" concept, and also that the idea is to have fun getting better, not winning. That's absolutely rigth, and believe me when i say that i understood that too many years ago, it's a key concept about playing anything in life.
But let me say that while i've been reading the posts, i realised that i was much more interested in the ones that talked about the reasons for play or not to play; the things, skills, etc that playing SC would contribute to my life, rather than posts that talked about the game itself, and i'm not sure if that's a good symptom.
I've found specially interesting the brocoli's post when he asked:
OP, you said that you "are getting a little tired of videogames", but what aspect of them is not pleasing you?
I'm asking this because I couldn't grasp if the problem is with the lack of complexity most games have these days, or if the problem is actually with frustration and lack of fun when you lose.
The problem is not to not having fun when you lose (i strongly think that somebody who can't have fun while learning something will never be able to be really good at it, cause to be really good to a true complex game yo HAVE to lose millions of time, you'll have to play with people who are way better than you and obviously will destroy you, but that's the greatest lesson you can receive for get better). Is not the lack of complexity either, the problem i'm lately seeing with games/videogames in general is the lack of meaning of their complexity/effort. "Fun" is simply not enough reason.
I'll try to explain what i want to say when i say that i'm getting tired of games..what i feel is that i search things like SC2 just because my brain (and also the ones of some smart friends, and probably some of you could feel identified in some way), is somehow addicted to the kind of deep and complex task that some games can provide. Like someone said before, SC (or chees, or whatever whant to say) is just the perfect escape to real life. I mean, my real life, and everyone life, is a really complicate thing/game to handle by itself, and instead confront it, instead try to play better at my life as a whole, i immerse myself into so many different complex and hard games/tasks...and keep hiding of the real difficult tasks of my life, which are probably harder than playing chess,SC or whatever, but less rewarding at short time.
So, trying to sum up, for me gaming is interesting because it implies learning, and i really think that learning something is one of the best things you can do in life. But what i'm starting to feel a bit tired about is for learning the wrong/useless things. To learn things that really doesn't matter. To waste my limited time in something just because my brain likes "deep and complex things", but doesn't care a shit if that complex thing has some purpose at all. I'm feeling that i'm reaching a point where "Fun" is just not enough. what i really wanted to know was if SC is a game that has anything more that just "Fun". When you play tennis al least you can feel the sun in your face, feel the life in your body, it gives you much more that only the game itself (and will only steal you 2/3 hours a week..). But playing WoW obsesively or spend all the weekend watching sports in the TV or "put here whatever activity that can be "fun" but in the end is completly empty" is really escaping of your life, and that's not the "fun" i want.
Despite all this..even if i'm not sure about if learning to play SC2 has anything more than the empty "fun" factor of it, i'm quite sure that if there is a single dammit videogame which is worth to learn to play it, is THIS game. And as i'm a "complex games" junkie anyway, that reason is going to be enough for me to play, at least at the moment xP. But obviously it woud be great to have some stronger argument than that one.
Thanks again. Two giant posts in a row is playing with your patience.
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We were all noobies at one time. I remember when I was a 40 apm Terran player; playing constant 1v1 LT games to get better. It really isn't fun at first, and you have to stick through it.
When you're a beginner, you lose a lot, but that odd win feels great, and fuels your desire to keep playing, to be rewarded with that satisfied feeling.
The game only gets more fun and more rewarding as you get better. Sure, winning felt good when I was that 40 apm Terran player; but now, winning a 40 minute macro fest is just as rewarding. When you actually know what you're doing and play your heart out, winning a game and having all your hard work and decision making pay off makes it all worth it.
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Well you are right to recognize this as a Grey area. Take this passage from "on the meaning of life":
Pursuits can be meaningful in a more or less deep way, but not, as it were, in a shallow way; so to appraise something as meaningful
excludes its being trivial or silly. Pastimes like golf appear
somewhat borderline here: it seems they can just about
qualify as meaningful, but only provided they have a substan-
tial and important recreational function (fostering, perhaps,
a certain relaxation, harmony or expansiveness of spirit), or
else play some further role, for example by promoting health,
or furthering a professional sporting career. But lining up
balls of torn up newspaper in neat rows cannot normally be
meaningful.
Throwing some links out:
11year old college grad says games are waste of time:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=95012
Skew: to sum up: something like if you have a good time doing it then it is not a waste
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=61775
Fayth saying poker is loads better, and responses:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=114255¤tpage=3
why play this game:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=673
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=14515
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=53932 (or not)
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=58581 (or not)
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As someone who has played both WoW and Starcraft I can tell the OP that Starcraft is not like WoW in that after you stop playing it you feel like "that was a waste of time".
I know exactly what you mean when you say that about WoW because I have felt identically, but I have never regretted the time I spent playing SC. Its more like chess in that sense.
(I also never regretted the time playing CS interestingly)
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evilK,
I think Bertrand Russel put it best when he said "The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."
I mean sure games such as SC and Chess are all escapes from the reality we live in but honestly don't we deserve to have a reprieve from harshness that the world throws at us?
However to provide more insight into your question, what can starcraft teach us that is applicable in the real world?, I think SC can teach us a lot about critical thinking, and the ability to stay cool under pressure. While the severity of the situations we face in starcraft don't even come close to situations that crop up in real life the simulation of being under pressure and being able to gracefully deal with these situations will help us find solutions when we are faced with difficult times. I feel like I'm rambling so I'm going to stop now, but I do hope this helps.
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Lots of good posts here so I'll try not to repeat stuff that's already been said. A couple of comments to tack on though:
1. Yes you're going to lose in beta, a LOT. However, once SC2Release comes out, you'll be ahead of the vast majority of players. So, you'll have your time to shine.
2. If you're looking for a relaxed game pace, try the FFAs. They're unranked, most of the players aren't amazing, and there's less rushing involved. Obviously, FFAs aren't the best place to learn competitive play or good long term habits, but in the context of Beta, they provide a safe way to get your feet wet. When/if you lose, watch the replay and try to emulate what the best player did, paying particular attention to his economy management.
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Just play for fun. Try your luck in 2v2 matches or free for all.
The best way to start though is by playing against the AI. There is only one setting now, the very easy so that should be perfect for you.
Get to know the units, buildings and the general feel of the game.
Second thing you should do, is watch some videos and/or replays from SC2, you will learn a lot from it and especially the videos you can find here on TL.net or youtube.
You should then proceed to play 2v2, Free for all and only than 1v1. See what suites you best, maybe you can be really supportive in 2v2 matches, but lack the necessary stuff to succeed in 1v1. This is why its important to try out all the modes available in the SC2 beta.
After you do all these things, you should only than start to expand your knowledge about the strategies, counters, tactics, build times, etc... But don't approach it as a math lesson, aproach it casually and step by step.
Just use one simple strategy, mass some units and try to get something done, it you fail just shake up your strategy a bit in game and see how it goes.
Its important to say that you will be pitted against players of similar skill levels, you you won't have to have insane mechanical skills, great timings or the best build orders or unit combinations to beat someone.
Again, this is only a beta and there is little to none of tutorials, more AI settings, etc... The final SC2 game will have tutorial, mini campaign, co-op with an AI, mini skirmishes and stuff like that to introduce you to the game and introduce you to the basics or RTS and Starcraft 2 play.
There will also be the campaign, which you may enjoy even if you are not too fond on the multiplayer aspect of the game.
So overall it still depends on your preference. You could try it out now in the beta and judge, but again its only a beta, there are still lots of balance changes, bug fixes, content added and stuff like that.
Best thing would be to play the beta as I've stated, see if you have some fun and if you do, wait for the full game to come and and than play.
You will most certainly not regret for time "lost", since even if the campaign sucks, 1v1, 2v2, FFE, 4v4 suck, there will also be a lot of custom maps(games) like Dota is for WC3, tower defenses, RPG's, adventures and puzzle maps/games that you may actually get quite fond of.
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EPT
