Official State of the Game Podcast Thread - Page 820

On April 21 2011 03:39 gnutz wrote:
I need to comment on the shit you are giving Cruncher.

As a non-brood-war-player i find it disgusting you say "Mondragon outplayed Cruncher". The thing, why i like Sc2 more than Wc3, is, that it is actually a strategy game. You just can't build anything and win. In Wc3 you could, with a few exceptions, just have some units and micro them properly, and win 100% of the time.

The thing about Sc2 is, that you can't do that. To win, you need not only some mechanics, but you actually need to outsmart your opponent. Mondragon obviously didn't have the experience of Infestors, so he would have easily won. But he didn't. And just because you actually need strategy for this game.
So, while you can't say, Cruncher really outplayed Mondragon (because he did the same thing over and over ^^) you can say that to his series against Idra. Never saw such a simple gameplan which was just a hardcounter to Idra's style, not more or less. And also that is why Cruncher wins more, because his gameplan against Idra style is good against Zergs metagame now.
But, like Day9 said: If the style gets figured out, it will be more than easy to win against Cruncher. Mondragon showed half the way to do it, now we need Idra to do the other half, getting the right units.

That's also the main problem i have with Idra, he flames in games, where it is obvious what could have been done to win. Just playing different.

And i think i don't need to add, that if you look at Roach/Hydra and then to VR/Colossus, you could see, that the "obvious counters" to Rach Hydra are Voidrays and Colossi.

Just outsmart your opponent, not outplay him. That's the main thing that comes new with Sc2. ALL units have a place, therefore you need to think more about unit compositions in certain matches. And the mechanics are more easy, you can do that with little training.
I honestly don't think Idra understood that. Maybe now, but not when he lost to Cruncher.

That's why Cruncher is not to blame. His strategy is only designed to "counter" the actual Zerg-metagame. Not more. But not less.

On April 21 2011 04:18 Mailing wrote:


It's odd, because both the strategy cruncher used and the map it won on were BOTH recently patched

As for game 3, idra already admitted he made the wrong decision after scouting and thought it was just a poke, made drones, and lost for it.

On April 21 2011 04:22 gnutz wrote:

I agree that Shakuras was imbalanced, but still Idra did nothing in game 1. And by nothing, i mean ... nothing.
And when did VR/Colossus get patched? Only Infestors got patched.

Maybe, Idra would have lost game 1 anyways. Because Infestors were not patched and Shakuras was imbalanced. But it still was a game where you could see, that Idra did .... nothing. And Cruncher pretty much hardcountered that.
You know, its not that hard to counter nothing.

On April 21 2011 04:18 Mailing wrote:


It's odd, because both the strategy cruncher used and the map it won on were BOTH recently patched

As for game 3, idra already admitted he made the wrong decision after scouting and thought it was just a poke, made drones, and lost for it.

On April 21 2011 03:51 turdburgler wrote:



its all well and good him sounding down on sotg when people are shitting on him. but this is the guy who shits on everyone else. its all fun and fair game until people shit on him, and then its a super sad face sowwwyy guiiizzz moment and we are supposed to feel sorry for him?

hes right to apologise for what the nasl has been so far. hes also right that its only their first week, they will improve and it will almost certainly be a great star league 'soon'. but thats not what he promised and so he deserves what hes got so far.

this is also a pretty much dead horse that we should probably stop beating, after week 2 is finished, with their hopefully new maps, new production schedule, and hopefully no walkovers, then we can come back and maybe comment again but until then im quietly hopefully that we can see something really good come out this week.

i agree that its hard to get psyched about these early weeks, but i dont think that can be avoided. when we get on to season 2 i think it will be alot better. they can compare the match to previous seasons, compare standings to how a player was doing before. and it will have the added excitement of relative "new blood" against veterans from season 1.

On April 21 2011 04:27 lxanderl wrote:
I understand that NASL working with a lean crew, but shouldn't the logistics of the operation be a black box to the audience, i.e., they put in $25 and expect a smooth tournament, regardless of how the results get done? It doesn't seem fair to say "we are doing the best we can under these constraints, which is a lack of manpower" because those constraints are self-imposed; the audience had nothing to do with the lack of manpower, they didn't ask NASL to work with so small a crew; the crew size should be something the NASL judges appropriate to its task and expand accordingly.

Of course I'm not privy to the workings of the NASL, so a sincere question: do you guys (NASL peeps) think you could have ironed out the running of the show before the season started (e.g., cast and edit test games for a full day)? Was it a "we didn't foresee this coming" or a "we did foresee this but thought we could deal with it" or something else?

Having speculated that at least part of the current situation was avoidable (mostly by not trying take on something this huge with such a slim crew), I have to give little props :D to NASL for doing the best possible things they can do in a poor situation - addressing each issue transparently, communicating with the community in a timely fashion and making improvements based on the valid criticism step-by-step - even though I can't help but think that NASL were the ones who got themselves in that poor situation. But, as far as professionalism goes, I'm not worried about the future of the NASL.

On April 21 2011 04:41 -Archangel- wrote:
I would have prefered Incontrol instead of giving excuses for the mess NASL to tell us how are they going to fix it. He told us a "sad" story about how the editing guys work a lot and stay late. Buhuhu. Hire more people! Are those editing guys volunteers?
Is NASL free for all or is it asking for money?
It would be like coming to McDonalds, paying for a Big Mac and getting a burned piece of meat and in a half rotten bun with the explanation that they got only two people working there.

Anyways while I was hoping I would support NASL this season, my money went to GSL instead although I cannot watch games live. NASL will need to give us more then excuses to give them money, personally I am expecting a 50% increase in quality for it to be a serious thing.
IGN league will probably blow them out of the water.

On April 21 2011 05:14 Defacer wrote:



I definitely think you have a point here ... at some point, nobody should be expected to accept an apology for a bad product that they paid for.

The thing is -- and this is me, personally -- I genuinely dont' think they're doing that bad a job. I mean, logistically, NO ONE has tried to do what they're doing, not even the GSL. They're trying to run a 50-man, Divisional, tournament with that is truly international (as opposed to players that can live and play in Korea).

And while there's definitely been some gaffes, for the most part they're making it happen. Aside from the three no-shows, they've airing 4 hours of games, 5 days a week, hot off the presses with little delays (particularly compared to MLG or most LAN tournaments, which if anything, should be easier to coordinate because the players are localized).

I think a lot of the criticism about the production values are valid, but the truth is, all I wanted to see was great players play in a tournament structure that rewarded the best players. While the production value of Dreamhack, GSL or MLG might be better, the actual design of the tournament doesn't reward the most consistent players.

So from my perspective, the way the NASL Tournament format is what makes scheduling and editing gaffes more likely, but is also the primary reason while I find the tournament appealing. It's a compromise I'm willing to make as customer, although I understand why other people wouldn't.

On April 21 2011 05:40 Fries wrote:
I think all arguments should be had using food analogies, by the way.

On April 21 2011 05:14 Defacer wrote:



I definitely think you have a point here ... at some point, nobody should be expected to accept an apology for a bad product that they paid for.

The thing is -- and this is me, personally -- I genuinely dont' think they're doing that bad a job. I mean, logistically, NO ONE has tried to do what they're doing, not even the GSL. They're trying to run a 50-man, Divisional tournament that is truly international (as opposed to players that can live and play in Korea).

And while there's definitely been some gaffes ... for the most part they're making it happen. Aside from the three no-shows, they've airing 4 hours of games, 5 days a week, hot-off-the-presses with little delay (particularly compared to MLG or most LAN tournaments, which should be easier to coordinate because the players are localized).

I think a lot of the criticism about the production values are valid. But the truth is, all I wanted to see was great players play in a tournament structure that rewarded the best players. While the production value of Dreamhack, GSL or MLG might be better, the actual design of the tournament doesn't reward the most consistent players.

So from my perspective, the NASL Tournament format inherently makes scheduling and editing errors more likely. However, it is also the primary reason I find the tournament appealing. It's a compromise I'm willing to make as customer, although I understand why other people wouldn't.


>Edited for shitty grammar.