I mean all it pretty much is now is Reapers into MMM against zerg and just straight to MM against Protoss. And all the other side desperately trying to counter it. I am just not getting to same level of excitement as I got during the King of the Beta tournament. It's really just about countering MMM. Even TvT is now only MMM with some vikings and banshees.
I even find Protoss boring now as all they do is try to counter MMM, they can't try anything creative as they will just get rolled over. Anyone else absolutely bored to death with this?
The only reason we have all these "new up and coming" Terran players that are beating pros is that MM(M) (with ghost! yes I have to mention that because if I don't I will get a million responses saying "against Protoss you need ghost... sometimes) is because it is so easy to do and so powerful and so EASY to do. Sure there are "tight" timings but it really doesn't take too long to figure them out and then just "skillfully" kite your opponent. A lot of people say that Terran is seen so much in tournaments because it is the most familiar race, however the ratio of NEW, PRO Terran players to Protoss/Zerg players in tournaments is astounding.
To close I just want to say that I KNOW that this is NOT the case on the KR servers. So is it just that on the KR servers they learned to counter it? Or is it that they just don't do it good enough? What you guys think
P.S not a balance issue, more of a strategy issue ITT
EDIT: Responses
On August 29 2010 04:44 Rea-Rea wrote: How to beat a terran going MMM against protoss...
Storm, collosi, stalkers, immortals. Storm is key.
The point here is not even how to beat MMM, its just that seeing MMM every single game of the tournament(since Terran plays in every single game) is getting boring.
I personally think that MMM is the worst thing to have happened to Starcraft. It completely takes out all variety not only from Terran, but from the other races as they have to constantly counter it in the same way which really makes you feel like you are watching the same game over and over again. I honestly cannot see how Day9 is so excited and talks so much in these matches. All there really is to say is:
"Looks like the Terran players is going MM and Protoss is going to try to counter it"
"I've already said a million times that I don't believe in hard counters and just having a lot of "meat" and "core" units will ROLFstomp other units(thanks Day9 for contributing to Terran diversity), so I won't say it again."
On August 29 2010 04:59 GoSu] wrote: This was probably the most interesting tournament so far. The matches last night, specifically drewbie vs socke, were fantastic, and every match today was also great. Only the first few matches weren't interesting because they had random people due to open registration.
Saying that this is boring is like saying that Broodwar is boring because everyone opens the same. That isn't what either game is about.
I doubt that you've seen the KotB tournament (easily the best tournament), only one Terran in the semi-finals, and guess what... everyone loved it. Maybe the only ones who didn't like it were Terrans who don't even know the mechanics of the other races and coundn't follow along.
Now that the game is out we have a bunch of new players whom we have never even heard of who know how to go MM, you may find it interesting now but I guarantee you that after having seen MM in almost every pro SC2 game you will find it tiring and pointless to watch.
Knowing that, and after seeing a bunch of games that follow this concept exactly, you will find that watching any matchup with Terran in it is a complete waste of time.
Lets compare a TvX to a ZvP: TvX: "Ok what could happen here?Any one of 2 things can happen when Terran goes MM as usual: -Game ends within first push OR -Game does not end in the first push and Terran just expands and gets more MM regardless of what opponent has. And the other player has to counter MM which you already know what that will be like, and Terran seems to stick with MM no matter what. So the opponent will have to stay with MM counter. And then the game just goes on to who has more "stuff" and whether or not Terran knows how to dodge storms."
ZvP: Although this can end with a 4gate push, if the Zerg player fends it off and then there is so much that can happen here as both races REACT to what the other is doing, as opposed to "getting MOAR". If Zerg gets hydras to counter gateway units, Protoss gets colossi, then Zerg gets roaches, then Protoss gets immortals, then Zerg gets corrupters to kill colossus, so that it's hydras are more effective, then a huge battle occurs where Zerg will usually lose but Protoss will not have enough to make a push as Zerg will quickly recreate their army by the time Protoss gets there and then both players have to rebuild their army, and the whole reacting to the opponent's army so that I can stomp it begins again.
I know it is mostly Zerg that needs to react but Protoss also needs to react a bit.
Now wouldn't it be great if ALL the races needed to react to what their opponent was doing? Wasn't the whole point of light and armored units to make it so that people would have to react more? Wasn't it supposed to be so that the question you asked yourself was "Am I getting the right units?" rather then "Am I getting ENOUGH units"? Wasn't the whole point of unit types to make it so that if your opponent is going heavy on these types of units, I don't need to make MOAR I need to make "smart".
BUT WAIT, this like ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS! I don't want that to happen! However you may want it more then you think. A lot of people originally didn't like that idea. However a lot of the people who play Zerg enjoy adapting to what the opponent is building, however the reason as to why they THINK they don't like it is because their opponent does not have to adapt to what THEY are doing, leading them to say that this is a stupid idea. I would say that if ALL the races had to quickly respond to what they opponent is doing it would force them to stay away from a single all-powerful strategy.
funny couse like there are a lot of protoss in the semi's if im not mistaken. its jst the current strat atm and u cant blame the players for using the best strat for the race right now..
On August 29 2010 04:40 cr4ckshot wrote: If you want to see innovative play, big money tournaments aren't the source. You may get a glimpse of creative plays, but that's pretty much it.
What sort of evidence do you have for a statement like this?
On August 29 2010 04:40 cr4ckshot wrote: If you want to see innovative play, big money tournaments aren't the source. You may get a glimpse of creative plays, but that's pretty much it.
What sort of evidence do you have for a statement like this?
It's logical reasoning. Big money encourages plays that win. Innovative is unreliable.
On August 29 2010 04:40 cr4ckshot wrote: If you want to see innovative play, big money tournaments aren't the source. You may get a glimpse of creative plays, but that's pretty much it.
What sort of evidence do you have for a statement like this?
It's logical reasoning. Big money encourages plays that win. Innovative is unreliable.
Shit, broodwar never had room for creativity right?
The level of play hasn't been very high tbh. People are just executing cookie cutter builds pretty badly, which is not exciting to watch, or winning with stupid shit that shouldn't work, which is frustrating to watch.
On August 29 2010 04:40 cr4ckshot wrote: If you want to see innovative play, big money tournaments aren't the source. You may get a glimpse of creative plays, but that's pretty much it.
What sort of evidence do you have for a statement like this?
On August 29 2010 04:44 Rea-Rea wrote: How to beat a terran going MMM against protoss...
Storm, collosi, stalkers, immortals. Storm is key.
MMM+ghost versus gateway (or immortals, not much difference) + HT is pretty balanced. The problem is that its the only end-game composition Protoss can go for... Vikings roflstomp all air units and Collosi. It makes it a bit boring of a matchup for Protoss once it reaches the late-ish game.
Imho changing Vikings to 8+6 to light would allow Phoenixes to counter them for cost (well, assuming they have to fly over marines heads to shoot the vikings, not really, but it would still be good to try it).
Then Collosi and Carriers would both be theoretical late game options, and there would be a real reason to fight for air superiority in TvP... Terran would want to negate carrier/void ray/Collosi threat by maintaining air superiority, and Protoss would want to take it so that they could use those units.
Thors might even see use as a counter to phoenixes, and Terran might try and keep a higher concentration of marines in late-game as anti-air even if its a bit harder to deal with storms or Collosi as a result.
In short, the matchup becomes much more interesting in the end-game.
On August 29 2010 04:44 Rea-Rea wrote: How to beat a terran going MMM against protoss...
Storm, collosi, stalkers, immortals. Storm is key.
The point here is not even how to beat MMM, its just that seeing MMM every single game of the tournament(since Terran plays in every single game) is getting boring.
PvT is pretty balanced, There are scary timings that the Terran can do in the midgame but it just comes down to good force field and flanking control. It may be somewhat difficult but in the lategame a Phoenix/Colossus build or storms will allow the Protoss to pull ahead pretty well.
Totally agree, especially the fact that the last zerg went out seemingly ages ago is sooo boring and lame... Im just a bit sad that Blizzard is gonna take until mid september until patch 1.1
On August 29 2010 04:34 hadoken5 wrote: I mean all it pretty much is now is Reapers into MMM against zerg and just straight to MM against Protoss. And all the other side desperately trying to counter it. I am just not getting to same level of excitement as I got during the King of the Beta tournament. It's really just about countering MMM. Even TvT is now only MMM with some vikings and banshees.
I even find Protoss boring now as all they do is try to counter MMM, they can't try anything creative as they will just get rolled over. Anyone else absolutely bored to death with this?
The only reason we have all these "new up and coming" Terran players that are beating pros is that MM(M) (with ghost! yes I have to mention that because if I don't I will get a million responses saying "against Protoss you need ghost... sometimes) is because it is so easy to do and so powerful and so EASY to do. Sure there are "tight" timings but it really doesn't take too long to figure them out and then just "skillfully" kite your opponent. A lot of people say that Terran is seen so much in tournaments because it is the most familiar race, however the ratio of NEW, PRO Terran players to Protoss/Zerg players in tournaments is astounding.
To close I just want to say that I KNOW that this is NOT the case on the KR servers. So is it just that on the KR servers they learned to counter it? Or is it that they just don't do it good enough? What you guys think
P.S not a balance issue, more of a strategy issue ITT
On August 29 2010 04:44 Rea-Rea wrote: How to beat a terran going MMM against protoss...
Storm, collosi, stalkers, immortals. Storm is key.
The point here is not even how to beat MMM, its just that seeing MMM every single game of the tournament(since Terran plays in every single game) is getting boring.
but overall i agree. hurr 4gate, duurrr MMM spam. well thats what ive been talking about in my map thread. thats what most of the maps promote. and now we get a patch that further promotes pure MMM play. yay.
but also we didnt have many tournaments since release. IEM was amazing. mlg is worse (but players are too on average). nothing terrible about beeing "the worst" out of 2 big tournaments.
I really get bored by watching MMM. In starcraft 1 I loved bratOK replays, in sc2 they are just boring for me. That's the reason I play mech against protoss.
On August 29 2010 04:56 Neo.NEt wrote: Personally I think its retarded that you have to get high templars or colossi to beat 2 units that you get out of a rax...
Personally I think its retarded that as Zerg you have no way to win if the Terran does MMM properly.
This was probably the most interesting tournament so far. The matches last night, specifically drewbie vs socke, were fantastic, and every match today was also great. Only the first few matches weren't interesting because they had random people due to open registration.
Saying that this is boring is like saying that Broodwar is boring because everyone opens the same. That isn't what either game is about.
If you go into a stream with the attitude of "omg all these op strategies going to suck so much" then yeah, the games will suck. If you go into it with a "I cant wait to see these games!" attitude, then they're fun. Games are fine. You just have a sucky perception of them.
Have you guys watched Masq vs Slush? Masq is like the definition of the typical Terran player who thinks he can roll any Zerg by making reapers. His control was so horrible I literally started cracking up in the middle of the stream. But it literally goes to show how many Terrans can get around by using these strong builds and completely rolling over inexperienced players, whereas when you actually run into a clear superior player you will have your ego stripped away and be completely humiliated. Bastards, eat it.
On August 29 2010 05:01 Snuggles wrote: Have you guys watched Masq vs Slush? Masq is like the definition of the typical Terran player who thinks he can roll any Zerg by making reapers. His control was so horrible I literally started cracking up in the middle of the stream. But it literally goes to show how many Terrans can get around by using these strong builds and completely rolling over inexperienced players, whereas when you actually run into a clear superior player you will have your ego stripped away and be completely humiliated. Bastards, eat it.
Masq is a great player. It was probably nerves. It doesn't help that Slush played perfectly either. Terrans aren't just laughing their way to the podium because of easy strategies, because if you haven't noticed, all top 3 are Protoss.
i'm really losing interest aswell, no zerg has made it so boring. now we've got PvP mirror matches for the finals, i may not even continue till the end..=\
Drewbie vs Socke says otherwise, if you didn't scream out in excitement at least once on that game you sir may want to check for a pulse. Not every game is going to be a show stopper event, those that are, do it really really well however. This hasn't changed. Overall the tournament after the first rounds actually really really good from what I've been seeing. *shrug* Guess I am easier to entertain.
On August 29 2010 05:01 Snuggles wrote: Have you guys watched Masq vs Slush? Masq is like the definition of the typical Terran player who thinks he can roll any Zerg by making reapers. His control was so horrible I literally started cracking up in the middle of the stream. But it literally goes to show how many Terrans can get around by using these strong builds and completely rolling over inexperienced players, whereas when you actually run into a clear superior player you will have your ego stripped away and be completely humiliated. Bastards, eat it.
Masq is a great player. It was probably nerves. It doesn't help that Slush played perfectly either. Terrans aren't just laughing their way to the podium because of easy strategies, because if you haven't noticed, all top 3 are Protoss.
That's true I haven't considered that, so I'll take back what I said. Masq was laughing during that game though oddly enough, but it probably was one of those shaky laughs because I don't see why someone would be laughing at all those units dying.
On August 29 2010 04:59 Alou wrote: If you go into a stream with the attitude of "omg all these op strategies going to suck so much" then yeah, the games will suck. If you go into it with a "I cant wait to see these games!" attitude, then they're fun. Games are fine. You just have a sucky perception of them.
110% agree with this, i have been waiting for weeks for this and its still very exciting. the only thing that sucks is that there arnt very many high level zergs here and its down to protoss and terran. if Idra was at this event and Machine didnt get knocked out first round to Incontrol the even would have been much more exciting to watch.
On August 29 2010 04:59 GoSu] wrote: This was probably the most interesting tournament so far. The matches last night, specifically drewbie vs socke, were fantastic, and every match today was also great. Only the first few matches weren't interesting because they had random people due to open registration.
Saying that this is boring is like saying that Broodwar is boring because everyone opens the same. That isn't what either game is about.
I doubt that you've seen the KotB tournament (easily the best tournament), only one Terran in the semi-finals, and guess what... everyone loved it. Maybe the only ones who didn't like it were Terrans who don't even know the mechanics of the other races and coundn't follow along.
Now that the game is out we have a bunch of new players whom we have never even heard of who know how to go MM, you may find it interesting now but I guarantee you that after having seen MM in almost every pro SC2 game you will find it tiring and pointless to watch. You'll just think:
"Ok what could happen here? Terran will go MM: -Game ends withing first push OR -Game does not end in the first push and Terran just expands and gets more MM regardless of what opponent has. And the other player has to counter MM which you already know what that will be like, and since Terran seems to stick with MM no matter what. So the opponent will have to stay with MM counter. And then the game just goes on to who has more "stuff" and whether or not Terran knows how to dodge storms."
Knowing that, and after seeing a bunch of games that follow this concept exactly, you will find that watching any matchup with Terran in it is a complete waste of time.
On August 29 2010 05:18 A.J. wrote: I'm disappointed at the lack of zerg players.
And at IEM you don't think Toss players were dissapointed? I don't understand all this "Tourney sucks because this race isn't in here. QQ" Just enjoy the games. Will someone fill me in on why they can only watch this game if their favorite race is playing??
On August 29 2010 04:44 Rea-Rea wrote: How to beat a terran going MMM against protoss...
Storm, collosi, stalkers, immortals. Storm is key.
The point here is not even how to beat MMM, its just that seeing MMM every single game of the tournament(since Terran plays in every single game) is getting boring.
Terran doesn't have a ton of options against Protoss. MMM or Marine+Banshee is about their only options for stable opens. The tank nerf is going to make this matchup even more MMM biased since I don't think you'll see anyone build tanks against Protoss.
this thread needs to get closed or banned, i mean seriously? stfu and enjoy the tourny, its had some amazing games, and some great casting. (also op being a zerg player, just sayin)
Drewbie vs Socke had some of the most exciting games I have seen in a while. Also, the war of the worlds PvP between huk and kiwikaki was very cool to watch.
On August 29 2010 05:18 A.J. wrote: I'm disappointed at the lack of zerg players.
And at IEM you don't think Toss players were dissapointed? I don't understand all this "Tourney sucks because this race isn't in here. QQ" Just enjoy the games. Will someone fill me in on why they can only watch this game if their favorite race is playing??
QFT
just look at how many bw finals ended up with zvz pvp or tvt...
On August 29 2010 05:05 Dougz_G wrote: i'm really losing interest aswell, no zerg has made it so boring. now we've got PvP mirror matches for the finals, i may not even continue till the end..=\
Too lazy to find the exact quote from blizzard but when they reduced stim to 100/100 it was like "we want terran infantry to be more dangerous early game".
lol
Edit for quote:
We still believe that the terrans are spending too much on infrastructure and are struggling to compete at certain times in the game against the protoss. Reducing the cost of essential infantry upgrades should make the terrans a little bit more dangerous when going with an infantry heavy force.
If you cant appreciate the mico invovled in all these 4 gate PVP we just saw, you probably are only gonna enjoy games that include nukes or carriers or some other unpractical t3 unit. This tourny has been amazing and fun to watch, the best part is it was all free to the public too. Calling this tourney the most boring one of SC2 is just showing us how few tourneys in SC2 you have seen.
I don't understand why you seem to expect every game to be wtfawesome... that's not going to happen! i think the games have been mostly entertaining, some have been great. I think the only thing that makes this less entertaining than watching starcraft1 is that the level of play is much lower, but these guys are still the best we've got and you should appreciate their skill!
On August 29 2010 04:54 Viruuus wrote: Totally agree, especially the fact that the last zerg went out seemingly ages ago is sooo boring and lame... Im just a bit sad that Blizzard is gonna take until mid september until patch 1.1
Patch 1.1 won't noticeably change anything except for early gate pressure.
Well, if you see more and more protoss defeating MMM then eventually the meta game will shift to other terran options. I think when protosses get better at using high templar and collosus you'll definately see less and less MMM.
On August 29 2010 04:40 cr4ckshot wrote: If you want to see innovative play, big money tournaments aren't the source. You may get a glimpse of creative plays, but that's pretty much it.
What sort of evidence do you have for a statement like this?
For instance, morrow went 5rax reaper pretty much every game against idra. He's going to do a build that he's practiced and refined and rely on his fundamentals to win his games. Idra knew what to expect each and every game. Nothing innovative about the series or the entire IEM tourney for that matter.
On August 29 2010 05:18 A.J. wrote: I'm disappointed at the lack of zerg players.
And at IEM you don't think Toss players were dissapointed? I don't understand all this "Tourney sucks because this race isn't in here. QQ" Just enjoy the games. Will someone fill me in on why they can only watch this game if their favorite race is playing??
QFT
just look at how many bw finals ended up with zvz pvp or tvt...
I wouldn't call it boring, per se. I'd say a lot of games have had some pretty low skill levels (Not even including the 32 non-invites, or however it was set up). A lot of the pro-type players have been a little shaky even, a lot of them it's one of their first LAN events, so they're likely jittery. The styles have suited me just fine, although being a Protoss player, I tend to cringe at so much PvP. 4gate v 4gate gets old, but G3 of Kiwikaki vs HuK in the WB finals was really exciting, I enjoyed it thoroughly.
So, an entertaining tourney, but the level of play has been a bit lower than IEM or KoTB (Obvious reasons.. international exclusive events vs more localized more inclusive event, duh!)
Totally worth watching still! Although, getting up at 5am for JD vs Flash was admittedly more epic.
I do shudder every time I hear people complaining about every little thing and the game is a month old.. BW's peak took a long time to evolve as well, just be patient and enjoy the game. It is a game, after all!
i just hate how all the top players playing are terran.
only 3 zergs we had were machine and slush and catz kinda.
but i'd rather watch brood war any day of the week over sc2 right now, i'm sure i'll love sc2 once innovative play/amazing and exciting micro and big, prestigious tourneys come.
On August 29 2010 05:39 shawster wrote: i just hate how all the top players playing are terran.
only 3 zergs we had were machine and slush and catz kinda.
but i'd rather watch brood war any day of the week over sc2 right now, i'm sure i'll love sc2 once innovative play/amazing and exciting micro and big, prestigious tourneys come.
People don't understand PvP that well. Yes there are these kind of rock paper scissors builds where one build beats another build, but loses to another, etc. However, there is a lot of micro involved at this level of play because every unit counts so much in PvP. The games have been great and will continue to be great.
I actually really enjoy this torunament. Tons of games have been casted and the donwtimes are reasonable, I have watched MLG events where there was like 45 minutes between each casted WoW-series. The casters are doing a good job (although I'm not convinced that HD has a good understanding of the game).
It's unfortunate that the last few series were all pvp, but what you gonna do. Must be very hard for all those guys lurking the LR-thread who just waited for the right moment to tell us how broken terran is.
I don't think it's really fair to complain about MMM (or any build for that matter) for the reason of repetition, just because so many players are using it over and over. Look at brood war for a moment. Terran almost always goes vultures/tanks and protoss will go mass ground army. Hundreds of games have been played with people using the same, strong builds over and over, and yet many of them are still entertaining to watch just because of the decisions the players make and their abilities to manage their units so well. There's a HUGE difference between playing with MMM at bronze level and at pro level. When a commentator talks about countering, there's so much more going on than just making the right units. If you can look beyond unit compositions alone, most of the games were actually really exciting to watch.
On August 29 2010 05:39 shawster wrote: i just hate how all the top players playing are terran.
only 3 zergs we had were machine and slush and catz kinda.
but i'd rather watch brood war any day of the week over sc2 right now, i'm sure i'll love sc2 once innovative play/amazing and exciting micro and big, prestigious tourneys come.
On August 29 2010 04:39 Nyx wrote: The play at IEM spoilt us -_-
Give me MorroW vs Dimaga again
The general turn out seemed poor compared to the IEM global challenge. Nearly all the games were extremely boring in comparison, Maybe Euro players just make for a more interesting tourney.
Kind of agree, just haven't been that exciting games. PvP is just 4gate vs 4gate totally boring, TvP is a little bit more fun but still the MLG players seem to stay to standard tactics and build not really mixing it up. Could have to do with the fact that these are not elite players of the world.
You dont like MMM? I dont like zerg strategy. Mainly because all they have are like 5 units. Thats it.
Every zerg starts out with zerglings, maybe a few banelings. Then he either goes roach or muta. Rarely goes hydra. Late game it's pretty much the same, maybe even a few corrupters.
On August 29 2010 05:39 shawster wrote: i just hate how all the top players playing are terran.
only 3 zergs we had were machine and slush and catz kinda.
but i'd rather watch brood war any day of the week over sc2 right now, i'm sure i'll love sc2 once innovative play/amazing and exciting micro and big, prestigious tourneys come.
what are you talking about?
i dont get any part of your post.
which top players?
you only talking about american zergs?
iem not big? gsl not big?
check the mlg raleigh entry in liquipedia
there are no foreign zergs in THIS tourney
iem isn't as big as osl or msl but i think that's a bad comparison. obviously brood war is more prestigious atm, it's not like i hate sc2. i love sc2 but i just think brood war is more exciting atm. yeah ofc im pumped for gsl. i think the game is in an fantastic place for only being a month old. probably gonna be the most competitive esports game ever.
On August 29 2010 05:50 Deadlyfish wrote: You dont like MMM? I dont like zerg strategy. Mainly because all they have are like 5 units. Thats it.
Every zerg starts out with zerglings, maybe a few banelings. Then he either goes roach or muta. Rarely goes hydra. Late game it's pretty much the same, maybe even a few corrupters.
Same thing.
What the fuck?
A zerg player doesn't have the option to go for any other units early game, as that's all the units he has. How is that the same thing?
On August 29 2010 04:40 cr4ckshot wrote: If you want to see innovative play, big money tournaments aren't the source. You may get a glimpse of creative plays, but that's pretty much it.
What sort of evidence do you have for a statement like this?
It's logical reasoning. Big money encourages plays that win. Innovative is unreliable.
Shit, broodwar never had room for creativity right?
...
It's also how old? Compare that to a game that's not even 6 weeks old.
On August 29 2010 05:49 Spiffeh wrote: As a Zerg watching this MLG series; very boring. But that's my biased view.
Hopefully by next event we'll be a couple patches in and start seeing more Zerg progress through.
god stop blaming balance for evry small tourneytrend. iem had 2 zergs in the top3. no P made it out of group. now we have mass Ps evrywhere and no zergs. different players that perform differently. that just happens.
On August 29 2010 05:50 Deadlyfish wrote: You dont like MMM? I dont like zerg strategy. Mainly because all they have are like 5 units. Thats it.
Every zerg starts out with zerglings, maybe a few banelings. Then he either goes roach or muta. Rarely goes hydra. Late game it's pretty much the same, maybe even a few corrupters.
Same thing.
What the fuck?
A zerg player doesn't have the option to go for any other units early game, as that's all the units he has. How is that the same thing?
He said Terran was boring to watch, i said Zerg was boring to watch.
I personally dont find it boring. I came from Warcraft III and I'm very much used to seeing the same strategies used over and over again only with slight variances. Like for instance orc going bm/sh grunt/raider/spirit every match up every map. The entertainment value(at least for me) doesnt come down to the strategy used but how its utilized. Seeing how they use it and how other players react is enjoyable as there is always variances. There is no such thing as 2 perfectly identicle games.
On August 29 2010 05:49 Spiffeh wrote: As a Zerg watching this MLG series; very boring. But that's my biased view.
Hopefully by next event we'll be a couple patches in and start seeing more Zerg progress through.
god stop blaming balance for evry small tourneytrend. iem had 2 zergs in the top3. no P made it out of group. now we have mass Ps evrywhere and no zergs. different players that perform differently. that just happens.
Rofl.
You can blame imbalance for tourney results. Also, amount of any race in top doesn't factor out that the game is imbalanced.
On August 29 2010 05:50 Deadlyfish wrote: You dont like MMM? I dont like zerg strategy. Mainly because all they have are like 5 units. Thats it.
Every zerg starts out with zerglings, maybe a few banelings. Then he either goes roach or muta. Rarely goes hydra. Late game it's pretty much the same, maybe even a few corrupters.
Same thing.
What the fuck?
A zerg player doesn't have the option to go for any other units early game, as that's all the units he has. How is that the same thing?
He said Terran was boring to watch, i said Zerg was boring to watch.
Obviously, both statements are an exaggeration.
No there is a difference to that. Terran is boring to watch because it pursues a single strategy all game long(as was shown in the MLG). Zerg may be boring to watch for you because you simply don't understand it or you may feel that they do the same thing over and over again, when really, all they're doing is reacting.
On August 29 2010 05:33 RifleCow wrote: Well, if you see more and more protoss defeating MMM then eventually the meta game will shift to other terran options. I think when protosses get better at using high templar and collosus you'll definately see less and less MMM.
I think when Protosses get better at storms you'll start seeing more effective MMM control.
This thread has now been filled with trash, i think this thread is only being fueled by narrow minded players at this point. If you think this tourny is boring play random and gain some appreciation for what the players are doing beyond what the commentators are pointing out.
On August 29 2010 06:01 BrahminKing wrote: I personally dont find it boring. I came from Warcraft III and I'm very much used to seeing the same strategies used over and over again only with slight variances. Like for instance orc going bm/sh grunt/raider/spirit every match up every map. The entertainment value(at least for me) doesnt come down to the strategy used but how its utilized. Seeing how they use it and how other players react is enjoyable as there is always variances. There is no such thing as 2 perfectly identicle games.
QFT. I've been enjoying the subtlety, even in PvP.
On August 29 2010 05:50 Deadlyfish wrote: You dont like MMM? I dont like zerg strategy. Mainly because all they have are like 5 units. Thats it.
Every zerg starts out with zerglings, maybe a few banelings. Then he either goes roach or muta. Rarely goes hydra. Late game it's pretty much the same, maybe even a few corrupters.
Same thing.
MMM is different from Zerg's "5" units. Zerg needs to take advantage of all their units' abilities and strengths in order to win. That's Zerg strategy. Terran strayegy is MM and more MM. I would hardly call kiting micro as it is so easy to do. The game should have been made around the fact that Terran would NEED to kite in order to win rather then making Terran the winner of any 1-a encounter.
"My build order when I'm dating is 8 dinner, 10 movie. Around 12 i try to lean in for a kiss and if that fails I try to get back into it with a little bit of harassment... Still in the Bronze league though. Every girl I've ever dated is terran though it's broken."
On August 29 2010 05:49 Spiffeh wrote: As a Zerg watching this MLG series; very boring. But that's my biased view.
Hopefully by next event we'll be a couple patches in and start seeing more Zerg progress through.
god stop blaming balance for evry small tourneytrend. iem had 2 zergs in the top3. no P made it out of group. now we have mass Ps evrywhere and no zergs. different players that perform differently. that just happens.
Rofl.
You can blame imbalance for tourney results. Also, amount of any race in top doesn't factor out that the game is imbalanced.
i never said game is perfectly balanced. im just tired of you guys going "oh look this tourney had 2 X in top3 and no Y in top5! therefore we have proof that X is OP and Y UP!" which is plain stupid.
Nah. This tournament have been very enjoyable so far. I have found the MUs very exciting, even the mirrors. Maybe you are just bored of SC2 and should go play something else.
On August 29 2010 05:50 Deadlyfish wrote: You dont like MMM? I dont like zerg strategy. Mainly because all they have are like 5 units. Thats it.
Every zerg starts out with zerglings, maybe a few banelings. Then he either goes roach or muta. Rarely goes hydra. Late game it's pretty much the same, maybe even a few corrupters.
Same thing.
What the fuck?
A zerg player doesn't have the option to go for any other units early game, as that's all the units he has. How is that the same thing?
He said Terran was boring to watch, i said Zerg was boring to watch.
Obviously, both statements are an exaggeration.
No there is a difference to that. Terran is boring to watch because it pursues a single strategy all game long(as was shown in the MLG). Zerg may be boring to watch for you because you simply don't understand it or you may feel that they do the same thing over and over again, when really, all they're doing is reacting.
You're saying that all Terran ever does is MMM? Why do siege tanks need to be nerfed then? I rarely see Terran go MMM vs another Terran or a zerg. I simply just dont see the problem.
Also, i did not see the MLG. But the OP complained about MMM in general so
Are you surprised at all by the progression? It's the way the game is. Terran aren't just cheesing because MMM 0wnZ. The unit progression of both races makes sense. Sometimes hellions are used early or at the Baneling phase, occasionally ghosts are used at the Muta phase, occasionally ravens are used, sometimes vikings are made. That's almost the entire Terran arsenal right there.
TvT is primarily tank/viking with MMM/raven support. I haven't seen enough good TvP's to comment.
The problem right now is that reaper harass is too effective and the game doesn't go beyond 1-2 base play. But when it does, this is what happens, and it makes for good games imo.
On August 29 2010 05:50 Deadlyfish wrote: You dont like MMM? I dont like zerg strategy. Mainly because all they have are like 5 units. Thats it.
Every zerg starts out with zerglings, maybe a few banelings. Then he either goes roach or muta. Rarely goes hydra. Late game it's pretty much the same, maybe even a few corrupters.
Same thing.
What the fuck?
A zerg player doesn't have the option to go for any other units early game, as that's all the units he has. How is that the same thing?
He said Terran was boring to watch, i said Zerg was boring to watch.
Obviously, both statements are an exaggeration.
No there is a difference to that. Terran is boring to watch because it pursues a single strategy all game long(as was shown in the MLG). Zerg may be boring to watch for you because you simply don't understand it or you may feel that they do the same thing over and over again, when really, all they're doing is reacting.
You're saying that all Terran ever does is MMM? Why do siege tanks need to be nerfed then? I rarely see Terran go MMM vs another Terran or a zerg. I simply just dont see the problem.
because blizzard doesnt understand their game very well and are doing weird kneejerk changes to T (tank/cruiser).
and if you watch any vods/reps of the last 1-2 weeks youll notice that bio dominates all matchups.
its rauder + few tanks/vikings/banshees tvt bio + tanks tvz pure bio spam + maybe ghosts tvp
but game is still still changing on a weekly basis. fotw is played 100% in current tournaments. add the maps that promote gimmick/very aggressive/allin play and you have the tournaments we have now.
that said its still hugely entertaining and if people werent such crybabies there we wouldnt have to deal with all the terrible balance tears and complains.
I hate when people say "Oh just use unit a and b to counter it, duh..." when those units are T3 and the T1 MM with fast and cheap upgrades is constantly knocking you. How do you tech to T3+ when the T has a full tech and army pumping out at the beginning of the game? Oh yeah just wall in... Or... Wait, thats Terran too.
I found it to be pretty good actually. I liked IEM a lot more but that's just maybe because I'm more familiar with those players because I have watched them from bw. In MLG I only really knew Tyler and Incontrol. But even so they are quite enjoyable and love for Day9 and JP Also HuskyHD isn't bad at all. People complained lack of protoss in IEM so here you have lots of protoss players, enjoy!
why all this terran imba cry when 3 of the 4 semifinalists are protoss and the finals is PvP. i just don't understand it. at this rate, i think the only thing T should have are scvs because everything else is imba. make too many reapers and it's imba. make too many MM and it's imba. make too many tanks and it's op.
On August 29 2010 06:21 BeMannerDuPenner wrote: because blizzard doesnt understand their game very well and are doing weird kneejerk changes to T (tank/cruiser).
On August 29 2010 05:50 Deadlyfish wrote: You dont like MMM? I dont like zerg strategy. Mainly because all they have are like 5 units. Thats it.
Every zerg starts out with zerglings, maybe a few banelings. Then he either goes roach or muta. Rarely goes hydra. Late game it's pretty much the same, maybe even a few corrupters.
Same thing.
What the fuck?
A zerg player doesn't have the option to go for any other units early game, as that's all the units he has. How is that the same thing?
He said Terran was boring to watch, i said Zerg was boring to watch.
Obviously, both statements are an exaggeration.
No there is a difference to that. Terran is boring to watch because it pursues a single strategy all game long(as was shown in the MLG). Zerg may be boring to watch for you because you simply don't understand it or you may feel that they do the same thing over and over again, when really, all they're doing is reacting.
You're saying that all Terran ever does is MMM? Why do siege tanks need to be nerfed then? I rarely see Terran go MMM vs another Terran or a zerg. I simply just dont see the problem.
because blizzard doesnt understand their game very well and are doing weird kneejerk changes to T (tank/cruiser).
and if you watch any vods/reps of the last 1-2 weeks youll notice that bio dominates all matchups.
its rauder + few tanks/vikings/banshees tvt bio + tanks tvz pure bio spam + maybe ghosts tvp
For every game i've ever played and watched, by far the most would go like this:
TvT: tank/viking maybe banshee, few marauders or thors/bc's sometimes.
TvZ: Mech. Early hellion into tank/thor/hellion/viking just anything besides Bio.
TvP: This is MMM + ghost for sure, not gonna argue with that.
Doesnt mean i havent seen alot of MMM games, but i dont think that MMM is somehow dominant amongst the matchups. Tanks are the biggest problem with terran, and they have now been nerfed, so lets be thankful for that
On August 29 2010 05:50 Deadlyfish wrote: You dont like MMM? I dont like zerg strategy. Mainly because all they have are like 5 units. Thats it.
Every zerg starts out with zerglings, maybe a few banelings. Then he either goes roach or muta. Rarely goes hydra. Late game it's pretty much the same, maybe even a few corrupters.
Same thing.
What the fuck?
A zerg player doesn't have the option to go for any other units early game, as that's all the units he has. How is that the same thing?
He said Terran was boring to watch, i said Zerg was boring to watch.
Obviously, both statements are an exaggeration.
No there is a difference to that. Terran is boring to watch because it pursues a single strategy all game long(as was shown in the MLG). Zerg may be boring to watch for you because you simply don't understand it or you may feel that they do the same thing over and over again, when really, all they're doing is reacting.
You're saying that all Terran ever does is MMM? Why do siege tanks need to be nerfed then? I rarely see Terran go MMM vs another Terran or a zerg. I simply just dont see the problem.
because blizzard doesnt understand their game very well and are doing weird kneejerk changes to T (tank/cruiser).
and if you watch any vods/reps of the last 1-2 weeks youll notice that bio dominates all matchups.
its rauder + few tanks/vikings/banshees tvt bio + tanks tvz pure bio spam + maybe ghosts tvp
For every game i've ever played and watched, by far the most would go like this:
TvT: tank/viking maybe banshee, few marauders or thors/bc's sometimes.
TvZ: Mech. Early hellion into tank/thor/hellion/viking just anything besides Bio.
TvP: This is MMM + ghost for sure, not gonna argue with that.
Doesnt mean i havent seen alot of MMM games, but i dont think that MMM is somehow dominant amongst the matchups. Tanks are the biggest problem with terran, and they have now been nerfed, so lets be thankful for that
really just watch more recent play. what you describe is sooo several weeks ago. :>
because blizzard doesnt understand their game very well and are doing weird kneejerk changes to T (tank/cruiser).
you obviously understand their game way more than blizzard. j/k
seriously though, blizzard needs to keep in mind EVERY REGION and EVERY LEVEL. for example, 2 gate proxy may not work that well in high level play, but if 1 million people quit starcraft because the plat-bronze player can't handle it then starcraft is no good.
unlike a sport where different levels can have different rules, starcraft is the same for everyone, every level. any change must account for everyone. let them do their job, and you do yours which is to play
On August 29 2010 05:50 Deadlyfish wrote: You dont like MMM? I dont like zerg strategy. Mainly because all they have are like 5 units. Thats it.
Every zerg starts out with zerglings, maybe a few banelings. Then he either goes roach or muta. Rarely goes hydra. Late game it's pretty much the same, maybe even a few corrupters.
Same thing.
What the fuck?
A zerg player doesn't have the option to go for any other units early game, as that's all the units he has. How is that the same thing?
He said Terran was boring to watch, i said Zerg was boring to watch.
Obviously, both statements are an exaggeration.
No there is a difference to that. Terran is boring to watch because it pursues a single strategy all game long(as was shown in the MLG). Zerg may be boring to watch for you because you simply don't understand it or you may feel that they do the same thing over and over again, when really, all they're doing is reacting.
You're saying that all Terran ever does is MMM? Why do siege tanks need to be nerfed then? I rarely see Terran go MMM vs another Terran or a zerg. I simply just dont see the problem.
because blizzard doesnt understand their game very well and are doing weird kneejerk changes to T (tank/cruiser).
and if you watch any vods/reps of the last 1-2 weeks youll notice that bio dominates all matchups.
its rauder + few tanks/vikings/banshees tvt bio + tanks tvz pure bio spam + maybe ghosts tvp
but game is still still changing on a weekly basis. fotw is played 100% in current tournaments. add the maps that promote gimmick/very aggressive/allin play and you have the tournaments we have now.
that said its still hugely entertaining and if people werent such crybabies there we wouldnt have to deal with all the terrible balance tears and complains.
imho these changes are going to shift TvZ away from bio, ironically. Bio only worked as well it did in TvZ because a few tanks (4ish) in lategame could just completely negate Banelings and do huge damage to hydras with good positioning. Now you need to invest more heavily into tanks to get the same effect, terrans going to be forced to choose from pure bio or pure mech, and I think mechs going to win out because there really isn't a viable way for a pure bio army to deal with banelings+infestors+mutaling/hydra.
tl;dr: Its a huge nerf to biomech, and I think its going to force terran to pick either or in TvZ. And Mech will probably win.
On August 29 2010 05:50 Deadlyfish wrote: You dont like MMM? I dont like zerg strategy. Mainly because all they have are like 5 units. Thats it.
Every zerg starts out with zerglings, maybe a few banelings. Then he either goes roach or muta. Rarely goes hydra. Late game it's pretty much the same, maybe even a few corrupters.
Same thing.
What the fuck?
A zerg player doesn't have the option to go for any other units early game, as that's all the units he has. How is that the same thing?
He said Terran was boring to watch, i said Zerg was boring to watch.
Obviously, both statements are an exaggeration.
No there is a difference to that. Terran is boring to watch because it pursues a single strategy all game long(as was shown in the MLG). Zerg may be boring to watch for you because you simply don't understand it or you may feel that they do the same thing over and over again, when really, all they're doing is reacting.
You're saying that all Terran ever does is MMM? Why do siege tanks need to be nerfed then? I rarely see Terran go MMM vs another Terran or a zerg. I simply just dont see the problem.
because blizzard doesnt understand their game very well and are doing weird kneejerk changes to T (tank/cruiser).
and if you watch any vods/reps of the last 1-2 weeks youll notice that bio dominates all matchups.
its rauder + few tanks/vikings/banshees tvt bio + tanks tvz pure bio spam + maybe ghosts tvp
but game is still still changing on a weekly basis. fotw is played 100% in current tournaments. add the maps that promote gimmick/very aggressive/allin play and you have the tournaments we have now.
that said its still hugely entertaining and if people werent such crybabies there we wouldnt have to deal with all the terrible balance tears and complains.
imho these changes are going to shift TvZ away from bio, ironically. Bio only worked as well it did in TvZ because a few tanks (4ish) in a mid/lategame push could just completely negate Banelings and do huge damage to hydras with good positioning. Now you need to invest more heavily into tanks to get the same effect, terrans going to be forced to choose from pure bio or pure mech, and I think mechs going to win out because there really isn't a viable way for a pure bio army to deal with banelings+infestors.
no rofl. All you have to do is get +1 vehicle weapons and its the same. its just to give zerg a better chance vs the early-mid game tank/etc push.
On August 29 2010 05:50 Deadlyfish wrote: You dont like MMM? I dont like zerg strategy. Mainly because all they have are like 5 units. Thats it.
Every zerg starts out with zerglings, maybe a few banelings. Then he either goes roach or muta. Rarely goes hydra. Late game it's pretty much the same, maybe even a few corrupters.
Same thing.
What the fuck?
A zerg player doesn't have the option to go for any other units early game, as that's all the units he has. How is that the same thing?
He said Terran was boring to watch, i said Zerg was boring to watch.
Obviously, both statements are an exaggeration.
No there is a difference to that. Terran is boring to watch because it pursues a single strategy all game long(as was shown in the MLG). Zerg may be boring to watch for you because you simply don't understand it or you may feel that they do the same thing over and over again, when really, all they're doing is reacting.
You're saying that all Terran ever does is MMM? Why do siege tanks need to be nerfed then? I rarely see Terran go MMM vs another Terran or a zerg. I simply just dont see the problem.
because blizzard doesnt understand their game very well and are doing weird kneejerk changes to T (tank/cruiser).
and if you watch any vods/reps of the last 1-2 weeks youll notice that bio dominates all matchups.
its rauder + few tanks/vikings/banshees tvt bio + tanks tvz pure bio spam + maybe ghosts tvp
but game is still still changing on a weekly basis. fotw is played 100% in current tournaments. add the maps that promote gimmick/very aggressive/allin play and you have the tournaments we have now.
that said its still hugely entertaining and if people werent such crybabies there we wouldnt have to deal with all the terrible balance tears and complains.
imho these changes are going to shift TvZ away from bio, ironically. Bio only worked as well it did in TvZ because a few tanks (4ish) in a mid/lategame push could just completely negate Banelings and do huge damage to hydras with good positioning. Now you need to invest more heavily into tanks to get the same effect, terrans going to be forced to choose from pure bio or pure mech, and I think mechs going to win out because there really isn't a viable way for a pure bio army to deal with banelings+infestors.
no rofl. All you have to do is get +1 vehicle weapons and its the same. its just to give zerg a better chance vs the early-mid game tank/etc push.
No, it isn't. Splash Damage is going to be reduced greatly even with upgrades, and the extra armor is going to help even more against the reduced splash damage.
I don't even see how you can argue that a 35% damage nerf to a unit with splash damage, literally the single heaviest damage nerf we've seen up until now, is going to be "the same".
because blizzard doesnt understand their game very well and are doing weird kneejerk changes to T (tank/cruiser).
you obviously understand their game way more than blizzard. j/k
seriously though, blizzard needs to keep in mind EVERY REGION and EVERY LEVEL. for example, 2 gate proxy may not work that well in high level play, but if 1 million people quit starcraft because the plat-bronze player can't handle it then starcraft is no good.
unlike a sport where different levels can have different rules, starcraft is the same for everyone, every level. any change must account for everyone. let them do their job, and you do yours which is to play
never said that. but the tank/cruiser changes are HUGE when they arent really a big issue right now. which is stupid imho .
about the rest if it negativly affects top level play it should not be done.
simple example:
at training/bronze level of play normal 7 pool will beat the vast majority of the players simply because they dont know proper buildorders or how to counter. does this mean we have to increase pool buildtime now because the bottom 10% of the players have problems with it?
games always have to be balanced for the top few % of the playerbase.
On August 29 2010 05:50 Deadlyfish wrote: You dont like MMM? I dont like zerg strategy. Mainly because all they have are like 5 units. Thats it.
Every zerg starts out with zerglings, maybe a few banelings. Then he either goes roach or muta. Rarely goes hydra. Late game it's pretty much the same, maybe even a few corrupters.
Same thing.
What the fuck?
A zerg player doesn't have the option to go for any other units early game, as that's all the units he has. How is that the same thing?
He said Terran was boring to watch, i said Zerg was boring to watch.
Obviously, both statements are an exaggeration.
No there is a difference to that. Terran is boring to watch because it pursues a single strategy all game long(as was shown in the MLG). Zerg may be boring to watch for you because you simply don't understand it or you may feel that they do the same thing over and over again, when really, all they're doing is reacting.
You're saying that all Terran ever does is MMM? Why do siege tanks need to be nerfed then? I rarely see Terran go MMM vs another Terran or a zerg. I simply just dont see the problem.
because blizzard doesnt understand their game very well and are doing weird kneejerk changes to T (tank/cruiser).
and if you watch any vods/reps of the last 1-2 weeks youll notice that bio dominates all matchups.
its rauder + few tanks/vikings/banshees tvt bio + tanks tvz pure bio spam + maybe ghosts tvp
but game is still still changing on a weekly basis. fotw is played 100% in current tournaments. add the maps that promote gimmick/very aggressive/allin play and you have the tournaments we have now.
that said its still hugely entertaining and if people werent such crybabies there we wouldnt have to deal with all the terrible balance tears and complains.
imho these changes are going to shift TvZ away from bio, ironically. Bio only worked as well it did in TvZ because a few tanks (4ish) in a mid/lategame push could just completely negate Banelings and do huge damage to hydras with good positioning. Now you need to invest more heavily into tanks to get the same effect, terrans going to be forced to choose from pure bio or pure mech, and I think mechs going to win out because there really isn't a viable way for a pure bio army to deal with banelings+infestors+mutaling/hydra.
tl;dr: Its a huge nerf to biomech, and I think its going to force terran to pick either or in TvZ. And Mech will probably win.
good point. but i dont see how mech has any chance of working at this stage of gameplay. evry Z now knows how to use mutas vs thors so having 3-4 thors wont shut down infinite mutas anymore. more thors means less tanks. less tanks means you get overrun by roaches onground.
also ultras > mech.
there is a reason why people switched away from it. Zs discovered ultras rape mech and Z discovered that thors arent invincible muta eaters.
imho T will just get more tank heavy in their bio/tank combo tvz since its the only thing that has the early power plus is "safe" against evrything.
On August 29 2010 06:45 theqat wrote: Tanks are a huge issue right now. Critical mass of tanks beats everything and that's a problem, no matter how difficult it is to get to critical mass
hive > tanks
P has no huge problem with tanks.
even tvt is way less about tanks then it ever was before.
where is the huge issue? and why is evryone playing bio heavy/pure bio if its so bad?
we have maps that are mostly perfect for tanks( and most people are still moving just one ball into tank lines) and still you see ppl driving away from tank play how can they be such a big issue then?
I was just going to come and ask this question, then I see this thread. :D
I haven't watched the whole tournament, but I was hoping for at least a bit of entertainment this afternoon. Uh, not so far. I truly haven't been excited by anything I've seen; Nothing memorable sticks in my mind.
There are some decent matches, but too many that are either over instantly due to a weird counter-timing-push, or something stupid like Voidrays.
And it's not like the "balance" even feels or looks off that much. Nothing seems stupidly imbalanced. However, I think the concerns that people voiced during beta, regarding SC2's possible failings as a great spectator game, are certainly turning out to have some weight to them.
Obviously this is mostly a subjective impression. I can only speak for myself, but though I can watch Day[9]'s dailies all day long, I'm not finding these tournament games interesting or exciting to watch at all.
There a some way to be still creative as a toss agaisnt a terran : proxy gate/canon, and of course fake build. As a Fake build make a Twilight Council then hide a templar archives unstead of a dark shrine. The terran will build raven, by the time you get storm and you got control of the game (it worked twice agains 650 diamond player).
From what i see, terran is a better race cause they can counter more quickly by moving facto and starport to tec lab/reactor.
On August 29 2010 06:45 theqat wrote: Tanks are a huge issue right now. Critical mass of tanks beats everything and that's a problem, no matter how difficult it is to get to critical mass
hive > tanks
P has no huge problem with tanks.
even tvt is way less about tanks then it ever was before.
where is the huge issue? and why is evryone playing bio heavy/pure bio if its so bad?
we have maps that are mostly perfect for tanks( and most people are still moving just one ball into tank lines) and still you see ppl driving away from tank play how can they be such a big issue then?
I didn't say bio was bad, smart guy. Terrans can do whatever they want and win because everything they have is overpowered. Go watch Strelok vs. Dimaga from 2-3 weeks back and see how tank critical mass kills what should counter it perfectly. Protoss don't have "no problem" with tanks, it's just that Terrans got too lazy to make them and micro them because bio works so well for so little effort
Anyway I know from your post history that you're incredibly thick and won't get it but smart people know that Blizzard is doing the right thing and we'll all look back on your foolishness and laugh later
On August 29 2010 04:40 cr4ckshot wrote: If you want to see innovative play, big money tournaments aren't the source. You may get a glimpse of creative plays, but that's pretty much it.
*cough*TLO*cough*
On August 29 2010 07:03 Ketara wrote: I agree with the OP in this thread, the MLG tournament is boring.
All these PvP games, clearly Zealots need to be nerfed.
On August 29 2010 04:44 Rea-Rea wrote: How to beat a terran going MMM against protoss...
Storm, collosi, stalkers, immortals. Storm is key.
Yea, let's just magically poof all those units to our base and research everything. Timing pushes will never happen. I've tried it all, and really, I lose probably 75% of the time against MMM. Today I got early Colossi, got an observer out, saw medivacs going for a drop and raped them. Check the observer...everything is almost replenished at his base. Ok...so I keep pumping out Colossi, I don't see any Vikings coming out, and I figure if he does, my ground forces should steamroll the MMM because he'll have to cut that. Well he get's about 9 vikings which dominate my Colossi within seconds, nothing my stalkers could do about it. His ground forces, well after watching the replay his 4 rax never stopped producing, so they were as they would be. I get rolled. I completely outplay him, take out a HUGE portion of his army from the drop, and I lose because he got MMM+Vikings...all off one base. I don't think the kid even had stim.
Edit- And for a race that has been known to have fairly week anti-air, it seem kind of stupid to have air-to-air only units be able to shoot their money unit down.
Watching Augustwerra vs SKS, thewind and thestc vs reniehour all korean pro game replays from sc2rep.com I was more entertained than i've been the entire mlg. I'm starting to believe PvP is almost as boring as ZvZ.
On August 29 2010 06:45 theqat wrote: Tanks are a huge issue right now. Critical mass of tanks beats everything and that's a problem, no matter how difficult it is to get to critical mass
hive > tanks
P has no huge problem with tanks.
even tvt is way less about tanks then it ever was before.
where is the huge issue? and why is evryone playing bio heavy/pure bio if its so bad?
we have maps that are mostly perfect for tanks( and most people are still moving just one ball into tank lines) and still you see ppl driving away from tank play how can they be such a big issue then?
I didn't say bio was bad, smart guy. Terrans can do whatever they want and win because everything they have is overpowered. Go watch Strelok vs. Dimaga from 2-3 weeks back and see how tank critical mass kills what should counter it perfectly. Protoss don't have "no problem" with tanks, it's just that Terrans got too lazy to make them and micro them because bio works so well for so little effort
Anyway I know from your post history that you're incredibly thick and won't get it but smart people know that Blizzard is doing the right thing and we'll all look back on your foolishness and laugh later
sorry that im not into crying constantly about balance or am as biased as you.
all i see is " QQ T totally unbeatable. evrything totally OP!" and some random flames/taunts. if you post like that then the bnet forums might be a better place for you. :>
finals over! overall good tournament. bit boring at the end and playerbase couldve been better but still great entertainment overall. IEM was better from the setup,casting,games and players. but mlg was till great stuff and im glad that sc2 is slowly kicking off now.
Protoss don't have "no problem" with tanks, it's just that Terrans got too lazy to make them and micro them because bio works so well for so little effort
So your implying that the current progamers who practive an average of 8 hours a day are too "lazy" to use optimal strategies.
Tbh unless Terran go Full mech, Bio is really the only other option (for "Standard" play) especially with the upcoming Siege "nerf" (30+15armored) and BC nerf 10 down to 8. It almost seems like the devs want Terran to go "omfg imba bio" strats. As air units are pretty much like paper (BC's not counting.) For this reason im probably going to roll zerg. - This is in reply to the "Terran Imba", "omg Terran only bio" posts. As far as the MLG goes iv only watched one or two games - probably boring (seen too many husky/HD casts on youtube so gets pretty boring, no offence to either of them.)
I enjoyed the tournament. I thought there were quite a few good series (socke vs drewbie, huk vs kiwkaki in winners bracket final, etc.) and the casting was top notch. I'm a little disappointed in the stream quality for the HD version, but other than that it seemed like a well run tourney. Ideally we would of gotten less mirrors at the end, but there is no way to control that. Overall I thought it was an enjoyable experience and I look forward to future MLG events.
It only dawned on me how stupid the format is when we got the final...and essentially as a spectator we're robbed of what I feel a proper final should be...equality and not defecit or set advantage.
Man zerg ALWAYS gets lings so zzzzzz and those Protoss all they do is get zealot/stalker zzzzzzz. Seriously what is the point of this thread? It makes no sense and doesnt even stick to the topic. I enjoyed MLG a lot. No one forced you to watch it.
I think the casters just got really unlucky with the matches they got. Day 1 was completely boring games, I don't think any TvT's have been casted, even though its a much more fun MU than PvP.
the thing that makes sc2 watching for me so boring is the lack of positional play. In sc1 you had so much positioning that played into it. In sc2 im just watching 2 a move armies go back in forth. I haven't been very enthralled with any sc2 tourneys ive seen so far.
I am not gonna comment on the skill of the players.
But overall I do think that in terms of how interesting it was to watch mlg was really below the level of the past IEM.
After a while I even stopped caring and just didnt watch anymore. Maybe it is because I know the EU players better, or that they just play more interesting.
And I mean it was a great event, good casting, but it kinda missed that "omg"-feeling when watching the games.
The reason why MLG might have been boring could be due to the fact the calibre of player in MLG was lower than the calibre of player at IEM.
Also, Cauthonluck v HuK was a total joke. Terran player floating 1000 minerals and queueing up 4-5 units at each barracks being called "a good macro player". :/
It´s so freaking easy to control the ball, so extremelly efective for the cost, that the oponent must play to hard counter it or its dead. Check every pro semi-long replay, when T make no mayor mistakes, he ALWAYS lose less units (money wise), plus with mules he can out mine the oponent with a much less workers.
The balance isue is the fact that the ball not need any complex micro, and to beat the ball you need at the very least some skill.
I had a blast watching this tournament. I especially enjoyed watching the match Socke got knocked down to the lower bracket. The casting was absolutely top notch; I thought the Husky/Day9 combo was awesome, but all four of them were entertaining. Slush had a great run, and it was fun to see a Zerg stick it out for a while.
Who would have expected Protoss taking the top 3 spots? And only one American in the top 5?
This game is completely boring which is the problem ESPECIALLY PROTOSS! The game is getting so old to watch. There is really nothing entertaining about 3/4 of the races and really the only thing that i think is enjoyable to watch compared to BW is MMM vs Baneling Muta. There are no dynamics in SC2 and protoss just showcases it extremely. Force field, graviton beam, storm, feedback, are all meh (Storm because of how little damage it does and because of smart casting :/ )
Every single spell in this game has ZERO dynamics in it compared to BW where pretty much all spells were dynamic and that was what created excitement
I find SC2 boring to watch in general after a couple of games. I found myself frequently switching to the Halo stream because it was a lot more fun. I don't even follow FPS at all.
On August 29 2010 07:36 OHtRUe wrote: This game is completely boring which is the problem ESPECIALLY PROTOSS! The game is getting so old to watch. There is really nothing entertaining about 3/4 of the races and really the only thing that i think is enjoyable to watch compared to BW is MMM vs Baneling Muta. There are no dynamics in SC2 and protoss just showcases it extremely. Force field, graviton beam, storm, feedback, are all meh (Storm because of how little damage it does and because of smart casting :/ )
Every single spell in this game has ZERO dynamics in it compared to BW where pretty much all spells were dynamic and that was what created excitement
This.
Dimaga v Tarson has been THE BEST THING to watch of all the SC2 coverage. Dimaga v Tarson was better than MorroW v IdrA. Although Tester v IdrA (in Day9's KotB) was also pretty epic. Every game feels so bland and it's generally in the hands of the Terran to lose the game, rather than the Z/P to win the game (excluding mirror match ups, which aside from some TvT are all awful).
The maps really do make the games end up being pretty short. Once we get some bigger maps, I'm sure we'll get some longer/more exciting games. A lot of these games were just over so fast, there really wasn't much to hold your interest.
Although, some of the longer games like Socke vs Drewbie I was on the edge of my seat, and didn't want it to end.
I didn't watch the whole thing, but the end was great! Huk massing phoenix vs kiwi, after kiwi had been massing stalks every game was awesome! Took some kahunas.
Making a thread to talk about T being too strong when the top 3 finalist in the tourney were P's doesn't bode well for your argument. The game is evolving and you should take a chill pill. :D
On August 29 2010 07:41 starcraft911 wrote: Making a thread to talk about T being too strong when the top 3 finalist in the tourney were P's doesn't bode well for your argument. The game is evolving and you should take a chill pill. :D
The Terran players who participated in the MLG thing were pretty average. Almost NONE of the top top EU Terrans participated (MorroW, DeMusliM, Tarson, TLO etc) and very few NA/Canadian Terrans are as good as the EU ones.
One of the best write ups I read here for a long time. MMM can kill everything, it doesnt even need scouting. And the reason for this is Stim on Marauder, which causes those issues. MMM doesnt have a true weakness. Its fast, its cheap, its making a ton of damage, its easy to control. Due to reactors and the ability to support 5 rax of one base Terran can also reinforce their MMM Ball in a really short time. Even as a Zergplayer I feel like trading armies isnt really good for me, because MMM is also in small numbers VERY effective. Even more than in big battles, because Medivacs heal a ton and u can perform this Maruader/Stim Micro.
Ï don't see the problem, a couple of weeks ago the complaints were about tanks. Now they are about MM. In another three weeks they will be about banshees and then it will be thors or some such. It is mostly that people have build orders that don't handle these things as well since it is the newer flavour with different timings.
question thread without a poll is kinda fail, but to answer the question directly, I'd say yes. The tourney was boring, the play didnt feel top tier, I watched only a few matchups and over probably 15 games I cant remember a single expansion going down.
It was all the things that make playing ladder lame, thrown into a live event.
Fun Fact: #1 New Falvour which cause Complaining about a longer time are all Terran #2 Marauder and MMM was ALWAYS a problem, since the first Betabuild, but Blizzard just ignored EVERY word about em. #3 thats not funny
Yeah I have to admit the event was really boring to watch. I found myself switching to Halo 3 a lot, just because it was a lot more exciting to watch, even if the Halo players weren't top caliber. It's like the difference between waiting in line at the DMV to watching Game 7 of the NBA Finals Live.
Excitement oozes out of the Halo streams; Puckett commentating, players talking trash, BRs blazing, the victory celebration, the crowd (especially the woman that always roots of Instinct every event, lawl). It's amazing.
Then I switch to SC2 and it's just....BLAHH. Even when Huk won, he calmly shook his opponents hand and talked to his friends and acted as if he just finished ordering a meal from McDonalds. Sure, you might want to be respectful, but you just WON. CONGRATZ, GET ROWDY. I just wanted to see some emotion, some excitement, some passion, anything! It's small stuff like this that gets other people excited and makes esports grow.
On August 29 2010 08:01 Spiffeh wrote: Then I switch to SC2 and it's just....BLAHH. Even when Huk won, he calmly shook his opponents hand and talked to his friends and acted as if he just finished ordering a meal from McDonalds. Sure, you might want to be respectful, but you just WON. CONGRATZ, GET ROWDY. I just wanted to see some emotion, some excitement, some passion, anything! It's small stuff like this that gets other people excited and makes esports grow.
I'd rather watch a Holland footballer ninja-kick a Spaniard in the chest than watch him shake his hand. Riled emotion makes stuff more intense, more funnier, and more dramatic. Imagine watching Harry Potter without Aveda Kedava and the Cruciatus Curse. It'd be horrible.
On August 29 2010 08:01 Spiffeh wrote: Then I switch to SC2 and it's just....BLAHH. Even when Huk won, he calmly shook his opponents hand and talked to his friends and acted as if he just finished ordering a meal from McDonalds. Sure, you might want to be respectful, but you just WON. CONGRATZ, GET ROWDY. I just wanted to see some emotion, some excitement, some passion, anything! It's small stuff like this that gets other people excited and makes esports grow.
I'd rather see professionalism to be honest.
There is nothing unprofessional about celebrating a victory. You aren't celebrating the other player's loss, rather your win. Every sport ever people cheer and celebrate for their victory. Even in BW people do victory dances, celebrate, etc. It's fun, it makes it more interesting, allows you to follow a player because you like him and his style, it just helps growth of the game. To say nothing after winning a big tournament...kind of stiff if you ask me.
On August 29 2010 04:40 cr4ckshot wrote: If you want to see innovative play, big money tournaments aren't the source. You may get a glimpse of creative plays, but that's pretty much it.
What sort of evidence do you have for a statement like this?
It's logical reasoning. Big money encourages plays that win. Innovative is unreliable.
Shit, broodwar never had room for creativity right?
On August 29 2010 08:01 Spiffeh wrote: Then I switch to SC2 and it's just....BLAHH. Even when Huk won, he calmly shook his opponents hand and talked to his friends and acted as if he just finished ordering a meal from McDonalds. Sure, you might want to be respectful, but you just WON. CONGRATZ, GET ROWDY. I just wanted to see some emotion, some excitement, some passion, anything! It's small stuff like this that gets other people excited and makes esports grow.
I'd rather see professionalism to be honest.
There is nothing unprofessional about celebrating a victory. You aren't celebrating the other player's loss, rather your win. Every sport ever people cheer and celebrate for their victory. Even in BW people do victory dances, celebrate, etc. It's fun, it makes it more interesting, allows you to follow a player because you like him and his style, it just helps growth of the game. To say nothing after winning a big tournament...kind of stiff if you ask me.
I would say it is a matter of human nature. In any sport you have different types of people doing different things. There were rowdy and flashy players in SC2 MLG. They just didn't make it to the semis, this time.
If you look at a team you often see the people that play offensive positions in a team be flashier than those playing defensive positions. SC2 is a defensive and very methodical game. It is kind of like chess in the type of players it attracts. At the chess tournaments I was at (low level) the losers showed much more emotion than the winners.
On August 29 2010 07:40 Wrongspeedy wrote: I didn't watch the whole thing, but the end was great! Huk massing phoenix vs kiwi, after kiwi had been massing stalks every game was awesome! Took some kahunas.
Bad tournament, so glad I didn't pay for HD (free stream had decent quality, gotta give em that) just bad players overall (seriously, NA just doesn't have top notch players, no matter what you say. There might be some good talents but they could never compete with Eu/Asia) and very boring builds and sometimes just atrocious diamond newbies (diamond league so they gotta have skill) that made my skin crawl.
HD and Husky performed better than expected even though they still have less game knowledge than the avg 700 diamond I meet on ladder. HD saying that he probably plays about 1 game per week explains it all. Just by playing 10 games a day, and never having played RTS in your life before, you will gain more knowledge in a month than those 2 combined can muster up.
Day9 and JP had good casting with excellent humour and just overall came across as comfortable and relaxed. That trollface thing just cracked me the fuck up. brb gonna watch drewbie vs socke now =
i thought it was pretty good for what was pretty much a test run tournament that's being overshadowed by a huge EU tournament and a huge KR tournament. i think both of these tournaments which went all out for SC2 made MLG look worse than it really was.
overall, just sounds like more complaining and taking things for granted, which seems more and more typical of SC2 forums as the days go on.
not quite sure where to ask this but.. is there a replay pack any where? theres a few games that werent casted that i want to watch...
as for hdh, they just need to work on their knowledge of the game, like use flash cards to practice unit names or something calling a carrier a colossus 3 times is just kinda lol...
I'll have to respectfully disagree with many of the previous posters; I thought this was an excellent tournament to watch.
I'd like to think that the casters did the best that they could with what they were given. You could see the casters looking around with confused looks on their faces at many times during the event, and there were some significant periods where nothing was happening in between games. But I think a lot of those issues are due to complications with the way Battle.net is set up and several of the casters and players being relatively unfamiliar/new to these kinds of events.
As for the gameplay, I thought it was fantastic. The drewbie vs Socke games in particular were fantastic. Yea, there was a lot of MMM, but that's what the majority of Terran players are using right now. I enjoyed seeing how players dealt with those comps and it was sooooo refreshing to see a race other than Terran win a major tournament for once.
On August 29 2010 07:37 darkmetal505 wrote: I find SC2 boring to watch in general after a couple of games. I found myself frequently switching to the Halo stream because it was a lot more fun. I don't even follow FPS at all.
I watched both halo and tekken the whole time.
Both excited and fun to watch, i was literally yelling and cheering lol.
I think the reason as to why we see so similar playstyle is because the majority of players are from the US. If we look at the IEM, we had players from all 3 servers, so there were more divergence in playstyle. I also think its because the players at IEM were better overall.
The tournament finals were like watching the RO16 in the HDH it was just pretty bad play, watching 2 1base protoss try to 4gate each other isn't all that exciting or fun to watch. I believe Idra said it best about the NA players when he highlighted HuK in particular that he is just a FOTM all in player and that highlights most of the play we saw in MLG.
I am _really_ hoping for a shift in terran playstyle cause the bio play in like...all matchups is getting tiresome and i as terran really dont enjoy it at all
On August 29 2010 08:47 {ToT}ColmA wrote: I am _really_ hoping for a shift in terran playstyle cause the bio play in like...all matchups is getting tiresome and i as terran really dont enjoy it at all
The tournament finals were like watching the RO16 in the HDH it was just pretty bad play, watching 2 1base protoss try to 4gate each other isn't all that exciting or fun to watch. I believe Idra said it best about the NA players when he highlighted HuK in particular that he is just a FOTM all in player and that highlights most of the play we saw in MLG
I disagree about HuK. He was actually one of the few players this tournament to display any creativity at all.
There were definitely a few good matches, but overall I'd agree that there were too many boring, uncreative, and/or badly played matches as well. But the thing is, this is so young in the game's life, and many of the established top players were off in Korea. Over time, more good NA players will emerge and I think the level of play can only go up from here.
A: The game is a month old B: It was the first time MLG held an SC2 tourney
You should probably stop trying to spread so much negativity because the fact is the game WILL evolve and MLG is a great avenue to further expose a brilliant game. We have to support this game so the community will grow, and then the tournaments gain momentum bringing in more competition and diverse gameplay. I kinda think blizzard MIGHT just know what they are doing by the way. Give it some time. Okay so a few of you may think it was boring, well I don't like Arena American football as opposed to how American football is traditionally played, but I don't go on forums pushing the issue and blasting how it virtually eliminates the running game.
Please support SC2. And if you want Zerg to be in the finals...get your ass in the game and raise your level of play.
On August 29 2010 08:52 kilgr20 wrote: it can't be boring when you get stuff like this happening.
LMAO...
Anyway, one of the reasons i dont like the upcomming patch is that, while siege tanks and reapers might be too strongs vs zerg, they are balanced or really underpowered vs protos and terran. By making an all round nerf blizzard is just making these units useless. IMO they should just have nerfed the splash dmg and buffed the dmg from 50 to 55 or so, so that the overall result was that it would be weaker vs zerg (small units) and marines, while still decent vs protos and mauruders. And they still have not fixed the fact that it is very difficult for zerg to respond to all the different openings of terran. They could fix this by changing the map pool, as steppes of war/LT and kulas are to terran favored. Units like the thor is now useless as they dont hard counter mutas. Why not buff 250 mm cannon instead of nerfing the ultra?
IMO the above suggestion would be better as they would allow for useless units to be usefull. But blizzards logic is: Unit A is to powerful in 1 specific situation. Lets make a general nerf. IMO by having that approach blizzard is not gonna be succesful in making a good esport game.
Anothing though, I kind of believe that bio is just as entertaining to spectate as mech. In the future though i hope we will see more use of nukes/drops, when people get better af defending 1base allins/2 base allins (though blizzard could do us all a favor and fix the mappol and make all maps more like meta cross positions).
As the commentator it would be amazing, Though Day9 And JP were amazing.. Husky and HD seemed a bit nervous to be on camera.. Until American commentators are screaming at the top of their lungs it just wont be the same.
On August 29 2010 09:00 Xunaka wrote: Until American commentators are screaming at the top of their lungs it just wont be the same.
It's really tough finding a commentator who both knows the game inside and out, and has an awesome yelling/casting voice. There isn't an SC2 commentator around who I think has the right voice for it, though I'd say Tasteless has one of the better voices
On August 29 2010 04:34 hadoken5 wrote: To close I just want to say that I KNOW that this is NOT the case on the KR servers. So is it just that on the KR servers they learned to counter it? Or is it that they just don't do it good enough? What you guys think
you didnt see thestc completely wipe out tester with just marauders and dropships? even after he had 3 expos he still kept doing it cos its aggressive, effecient and fun to play.
To be clear, I thought the commentary was all really good. I preferred having HD or Husky cast with Day[9], since that resulted in a good blend of enthusiasm and knowledge. But even the worst of the casting was more interesting than a lot of the games were to me. I definitely think they were just making the most of what they got. "Hey PvP, everyone's favorite mirror", for example.
I just found myself sort of zoning out and not paying attention to the games, and even those that were sort of fun at the time I can't recall at all.
My list of memorable moments (with just a hint of sarcasm):
Voidray counter-push killing some zerg who'd been dominating all game. A number of games where someone was in control, then overextended a tiny bit, and suddenly got countered and GG'd out in roughly 15 seconds. .... There was some game where a huge blog of colossi headbutted in the middle of the map, and everyone tried to figure out why one guy won.
Other than that it's this big mess of undifferentiated micro and early timing pushes. Just seems very featureless compared to many other E-sports broadcasts. Much better than WoW arena has been recently, however.
Other than that, there are no big exciting moments that stick with me. Now, that could very well be due to my minimal knowledge and skill in SC2, and have nothing to do with the game. But I could watch and enjoy BW with roughly the same amount of knowledge.
Before anyone says it - yes, it's very early in SC2's life. I don't expect it to be as good as BW yet. I'm sure it will get better. Just expressing my disappointment, not making any objective judgments.
On August 29 2010 08:44 Xunaka wrote: The tournament finals were like watching the RO16 in the HDH it was just pretty bad play, watching 2 1base protoss try to 4gate each other isn't all that exciting or fun to watch. I believe Idra said it best about the NA players when he highlighted HuK in particular that he is just a FOTM all in player and that highlights most of the play we saw in MLG.
lol, those finals had sooo much skill it's amazing how clueless you are
analogkensho you just choose the wrong event to start watching. IEM was much better, just about every mu was exciting and innovative with a lot of macro games. This time, there were few elite players and short games imo.
On August 29 2010 08:52 kilgr20 wrote: it can't be boring when you get stuff like this happening.
Rofl
I came here thinking about posting something about the sc2 tournament while bashing console "gamers" at mlg but then i saw this and now i can't stop laughing
On August 29 2010 08:44 Xunaka wrote: The tournament finals were like watching the RO16 in the HDH it was just pretty bad play, watching 2 1base protoss try to 4gate each other isn't all that exciting or fun to watch. I believe Idra said it best about the NA players when he highlighted HuK in particular that he is just a FOTM all in player and that highlights most of the play we saw in MLG.
Did you miss all the micro the players were doing? Or how HuK went phoenixes and did some insane ff's to stop stalkers from leaving then lift them up? Games were great. Just because you didn't understand them doesn't make them bad.
It's a live tournament. It's not going to be like Youtube channels where the casters just pick and choose awesome games that have already been played.
In a live event, sometimes it's just a one-sided stomp fest. You aren't always going to get awesome games. IEM lucked out and got a lot of must-see games. HDH#1 didn't even pick up until maybe the quarter-finals.
A live event means anything can happen and that's great. To me.
Yea, sorry, the finals were the nail in the coffin for the tournament being "boring." I think it's just the Z's and T's who don't want to bother with watching P's. Think how P's felt when there was nothing but TvT and TvZ in TEM. You deal with it and enjoy the intense micro going on. If you don't get the subtleties, it's going to be boring regardless.
1. Not enough games casted. We missed epic series between good players and instead had to view the amateurs who had yet to prove themselves (and ended up being awful). Sure, broadcast amateurs if they get far and defeat notable players.
This has happened before thanks to open registration. During one of the initial World of Warcraft circuits (trying to remember if this was MLG, but Im 99% sure it was) there was a really crappy team that was made from random registrants that was absolutely horrible, while other good games happened.
2. Multiple streams, yet no way to cover more than one Starcraft 2 game at a time? I enjoy the Korean Starleague Prelim format, (example video):, + Show Spoiler +
12:02, and again at 21:53 is when they "segue" into a new game already in progress. the first game was played in full. also they give regular updates during the games of the ones they arent broadcasting.
where the commentators can easily jump game to game (joining ones in progress, as there is a referee or observer account in each game) for maximum viewage and enjoyment. I think it's very important to view as many games as possible and decrease the amount of "filler time." People in IRC joking about how we were having a live Day9 daily because there were such huge gaps of times between games.
My worry here is it seems unlikely MLG will change since they don't even provide multiple streams for their 'flagship game,' Halo 3. I honestly doubt they don't have the money/resources to do it, they probably feel it's just unneeded. I think it is, and I think as the biggest gaming event in North America, you should be setting an example to the world that we can also run an awesome event. For future events, I'd like to at least see two different streams for Starcraft II with the two pairs of commentators available, if it's simply impossible to "jump" between games like the Korean Prelims do.
Edited in my full response to be more detailed from the main thread
1. Not enough games casted. We missed epic series between good players and instead had to view the amateurs who had yet to prove themselves. Sure, broadcast amateurs if they get far and defeat notable players.
2. Multiple streams, yet no way to cover more than one Starcraft 2 game at a time? I enjoy the Korean Starleague Prelim format, where they can easily jump game to game (joining ones in progress) for maximum viewage and enjoyment. I think it's very important to view as many games as possible and decrease the amount of "filler time." People in IRC joking about how we were having a live Day9 daily because there were such huge gaps of times between games.
As far as the actual tournament being "boring," I'd have to agree that the finals were lackluster compared to some of the other games we saw on the stream. Drewbie vs Socke and some other series were fun to watch though. I assume games that were not streamed had some exciting moments too.
These are good criticisms
They could have had 2 concurrent streams with their 2 sets of casters, so we could choose which games to watch.
That and I didn't like the format of a 64 man double elim. I would have liked to see seeded group play into a final 16 or something.
Step 1. Tons of crazy stuff being tried out Step 2. 1-2 strategies for each race are found to be solid SC2 CURRENTLY Step 3. Tweaks of said strategies (fundamental game understanding progresses) Step 4. New strategies, counter-strategies and counter-counter-strategies and additional tweaks Step 5. A good not so monotone game!
So what you're saying is that you're bored of watching terran games, from what I understand. Personally, I think this tournament was extremely interesting following up last weeks TvT and TvZ lineup, as it had a ton of protoss which we didn't see much in the IEM and not only did we see TvP but we also saw PvP! As long as it doesn't revert to TvX all day every day I can't complain, and the casters (Specifically Day9 + JP) kept it really interesting for me. So no, I don't think MLG was the most boring tournament yet, far from it.
1. Not enough games casted. We missed epic series between good players and instead had to view the amateurs who had yet to prove themselves. Sure, broadcast amateurs if they get far and defeat notable players.
2. Multiple streams, yet no way to cover more than one Starcraft 2 game at a time? I enjoy the Korean Starleague Prelim format, where they can easily jump game to game (joining ones in progress) for maximum viewage and enjoyment. I think it's very important to view as many games as possible and decrease the amount of "filler time." People in IRC joking about how we were having a live Day9 daily because there were such huge gaps of times between games.
As far as the actual tournament being "boring," I'd have to agree that the finals were lackluster compared to some of the other games we saw on the stream. Drewbie vs Socke and some other series were fun to watch though. I assume games that were not streamed had some exciting moments too.
These are good criticisms
They could have had 2 concurrent streams with their 2 sets of casters, so we could choose which games to watch.
That and I didn't like the format of a 64 man double elim. I would have liked to see seeded group play into a final 16 or something.
MLG only run one stream per game, even for Halo which has been their bread and butter since 2004.
The only thing I didn't like about the bracket was how poorly it was organised in regards to finding out who was playing who.. having a 3rd website updating you and no on screen visuals to tell you wasn't good. They could easily add some on screen graphics to show who is playing who and the brackets, It's not as if they couldn't squeeze it into the dead air between games rather than just forcing the commentators to repeat themselves over and over.
On August 29 2010 04:44 Rea-Rea wrote: How to beat a terran going MMM against protoss...
Storm, collosi, stalkers, immortals. Storm is key.
MMM+ghost versus gateway (or immortals, not much difference) + HT is pretty balanced. The problem is that its the only end-game composition Protoss can go for... Vikings roflstomp all air units and Collosi. It makes it a bit boring of a matchup for Protoss once it reaches the late-ish game.
Imho changing Vikings to 8+6 to light would allow Phoenixes to counter them for cost (well, assuming they have to fly over marines heads to shoot the vikings, not really, but it would still be good to try it).
Then Collosi and Carriers would both be theoretical late game options, and there would be a real reason to fight for air superiority in TvP... Terran would want to negate carrier/void ray/Collosi threat by maintaining air superiority, and Protoss would want to take it so that they could use those units.
Thors might even see use as a counter to phoenixes, and Terran might try and keep a higher concentration of marines in late-game as anti-air even if its a bit harder to deal with storms or Collosi as a result.
In short, the matchup becomes much more interesting in the end-game.
Phoenixes already counter them way well enough, watch Lz versus Incontrol from MLG.
Personally i think that 1 of the more important things that makes Esport exciting to watch is the commentators, for me the korean babble (which i can not understand for a word really) is awesome, hearing them yell reaver a million times or plague or Drone micro to kill a scout(they go nuts over that) awesome. Commentators make or break Esport watching for me currently, not to say the commentators are bad in any way, perhaps i am just to spoiled and used to watching BW with koreans who have over 9000 words per second(1 of the reasons i enjoyed KlazartSC's English commentaries aswell ). On top of that, if you have a crazy (korean) crowd going nuts in the back when hts storms or a reaver takes out a lot of scv and the crowd is just screaming(korean girlz who go nuts on storm are the best ), it gives much more feeling to the game and is more exciting for me to watch.
Finals were not that great to watch.. I mean yeah there was a lot of good micro, but 3 PvP for the Finals.. -_- And what the heck was the race repartition .. 8 Protoss 14 Terrans and 3 Zergs ?!
On August 29 2010 04:44 Rea-Rea wrote: How to beat a terran going MMM against protoss...
Storm, collosi, stalkers, immortals. Storm is key.
yeah right, just instant tech to t3, while t1 - t1,5Units are ripping through u ^^
i ll have to agree with this whole topic
ofc there are counters (which are like 10times harder to pull off, than this mm to mmm play), but its borring to watch
I love how ppl think medivacs are not high tier units, just hillarious. MM is matched with good unit composition at T1,1.5 GW+Storm is counter for MM GW+Storm is soft counter for MMM MMM+Ghost is matched with GW+Storm it's smooth transition for both races
That being said, MMM is the most ulgiest play ever. In sc1, because of the horrible pathing system + limit on group control controling your marines was so important. In sc2 it just seem like move stim attack and repeat. It's frustrating to watch. THAT being said, the problem isn't just MMM. Urgg, it just seem to be one ball of units v other ball of units. SC2 is not as good as SC1 when it comes to watching it as 'esport'. It will never be even with time, unless something changes.
On August 29 2010 09:42 Airazor wrote: shame people don't use the terran spells much, seems like the old raven could be a fucking machine if you mass them up.
dodging seeker missiles could be on par with avoiding scourge, haha maybe not though.
one day, one day..
Mass ravens? That'll never happen since it's a support unit.
totally quote this... they have to change pathing or it's not fun to watch
-------- That being said, MMM is the most ulgiest play ever. In sc1, because of the horrible pathing system + limit on group control controling your marines was so important. In sc2 it just seem like move stim attack and repeat. It's frustrating to watch. THAT being said, the problem isn't just MMM. Urgg, it just seem to be one ball of units v other ball of units. SC2 is not as good as SC1 when it comes to watching it as 'esport'. It will never be even with time, unless something changes.
On August 29 2010 08:44 Xunaka wrote: The tournament finals were like watching the RO16 in the HDH it was just pretty bad play, watching 2 1base protoss try to 4gate each other isn't all that exciting or fun to watch. I believe Idra said it best about the NA players when he highlighted HuK in particular that he is just a FOTM all in player and that highlights most of the play we saw in MLG.
lol, those finals had sooo much skill it's amazing how clueless you are
esp considering that kiwikaki has quite a winning rec vs idra lolz
Do you guys remember when all terran did in SC1 TvZ was mech? There were months where that strategy was almost always used. Then the meta game changed and the builds changed. Patching every time trends occur just ruins a game. I think patching slowly will better help determine what is a fad and what is a problem.
I thought that the games were very entertaining. I think people focus on the macrocosm of the game, such as the unit composition, base count, etc. I found it extremely entertaining by focusing on micro and using each unit to the best of their ability. I mean take game 1 (or the fourth total game) of the finals between Kiwi and Huk. I still have no idea how Kiwi was able to push up the ramp and take out Huks army. It was totally amazing. Do you hate football because all they do is run and pass? Basketball because they only dribble pass and shoot? Appreciate the little things that add up in every game.
On August 29 2010 04:40 cr4ckshot wrote: If you want to see innovative play, big money tournaments aren't the source. You may get a glimpse of creative plays, but that's pretty much it.
What sort of evidence do you have for a statement like this?
It's logical reasoning. Big money encourages plays that win. Innovative is unreliable.
Shit, broodwar never had room for creativity right?
...
I wasn't around for the old days of brood war but from what I understand it was less hardcore as it is now (example: I think people were allowed to talk in game?) and had alot more innovation. I think saying big money/hardcore/serious tournaments are not the best place for innovation is probably an accurate statement unless the person practiced the innovation for a long time and is planning to surprise people with a build they wont know how to counter.
In any case, on topic, I hate to say it but the games are only interesting when Terran loses. Everyone knows now that Terran is basically the huge overdog in every matchup and in general people cheer for the underdog unless the overdog is some famous player that everyone likes.
It's the first month before ANY patches. It may be a bit early to reach the "this is boring" verdict. Also, this will probably change as maps become larger for tournaments (i.e. custom maps).
On August 29 2010 04:40 cr4ckshot wrote: If you want to see innovative play, big money tournaments aren't the source. You may get a glimpse of creative plays, but that's pretty much it.
What sort of evidence do you have for a statement like this?
It's logical reasoning. Big money encourages plays that win. Innovative is unreliable.
Shit, broodwar never had room for creativity right?
...
I wasn't around for the old days of brood war but from what I understand it was less hardcore as it is now (example: I think people were allowed to talk in game?) and had alot more innovation. I think saying big money/hardcore/serious tournaments are not the best place for innovation is probably an accurate statement unless the person practiced the innovation for a long time and is planning to surprise people with a build they wont know how to counter.
Uh... that's exactly what happens in BW and it continues to be the most hardcore environment it is. We've seen plenty of risky/creative strategies debuted in Starleague finals.
On August 29 2010 13:41 Plexa wrote: If you found the final boring, it's because you don't understand PvP. I don't blame you, it's a complicated matchup despite it's simple appearance.
As someone who was attending the event, the only boring part was 3 hours of PvP, the games themselves were great.
I dunno but the games were pretty damn interesting to me. Maybe that's because I was watching from behind the players' backs (lol competitor pass ftw).
On August 29 2010 12:52 Fayth wrote: yeah terran MMM so easy so powerful bla bla bla
top 3 protoss protoss protoss
Maybe even more fun if you had showed up! D: They called your name but you were nowhere to be seen
On August 29 2010 12:52 Fayth wrote: yeah terran MMM so easy so powerful bla bla bla
top 3 protoss protoss protoss
What makes this even funnier is that Terran almost has to go MMM vs Protoss, that or banshee+marine. They just have so few options against Protoss since Mech is so mediocre vs them and they have to go AA in case of VR.
So they were forced down one upgrade path and still lost while doing it. I still think TvP favors T overall to be honest but complaints about T being grossly OP are so darn exaggerated. There is an imbalance but it is small and can be corrected with small changes.
I mainly found it boring because there were no Zerg left in the later stages of the tourny. It's not so much that I find watching other races boring, it's just that I don't play them, and so I don't understand them. It also makes the 'cool' or 'wow' moments not as cool.
On August 29 2010 12:52 Fayth wrote: yeah terran MMM so easy so powerful bla bla bla
top 3 protoss protoss protoss
The problem isn't that MMM is too powerful, it's that it's boring as hell to watch. If the other Terran units would be used more instead of MMM spam, that'd be great. Oh wait, tank nerf.
At least watching Banelings slaughter Marines is fun.
if they have two sets of casters why not put up 2 streams and have 2 sets being streamed simultaneously? I understand that the casters need water breaks etc but i know they're capable of fairly constant casting
they didn't show like 75% of the sets I was most curious about T_T!!!!!!!! awful tournament set up IMO I get more of my starcraft fill from community run tournaments than I got from this day9 and the other casters were being cock teases, telling us how fucking awesome a set was or how incredible a game was and all these storylines, none of which I could see for myself
I think the main problem about MMM is that its too easy to play. Everone can mass, click stim and kite a little. Its the easiest army to control in the game, and its somehow one of the most powerfull armies which does not require very much tech or gas. This is the main issue i have with Bio these days.
On August 29 2010 15:26 Zegu wrote: well not sure about the rest of it, but the last 3 matches were all PvP, so the bio ball cant be that op
I didn't see enough to say but you can't really draw that conclusion. I think a lot of Terrans eliminated each other and the games where I did see a Terran lose it was due to an error or losing to early cheese. Maybe someone that watched a lot of the earlier part of the tournament can provide more detail. I thought the last game between Socke and Drewbie typified late game PvT. It's almost impossible to crack the Terran defense and all the mules just put them further and further ahead. Imo you shouldn't be able to get hit by so many storms and still win so easily. What I personally found concerning was Drewbie wasn't even trying to dodge the storms with his Vikings. It was still a very entertaining game though and great tournament.
Its easy why we see such things. It's called FOTM. Don't expect these kids to pass up on the op strategy of the month, expecially when there are money involved.
Marrauders = Dragoons with Stim which can be healed. I think this sums it up pretty well.
On the other hand, Meck requires positioning and a much higher skill into execution overall, so no doubt that's why it makes less of an appearance.
Personally I believe the marrauder was a big mistake from Blizzard's part. Terran was always the race with potent units that were hard to use but gave great results in the hands of a skilled player. Now it seems to me they have abandoned this concept all together.
It's sad really, because all this will do is limit the lifetime of the game.
I long for the beta days of seeing zergs competing in the top 4, the most recent tournaments have been filled in the semifinals/finals with either
A.TvT B. PvP C. Most games end up being short because of the cheese popularity emerging.
I think HuK really showed how to squash cheese, and really provided a look into probably an emerging popularity of use of fenixes to counter the 4gate and at least make PvP somewhat fun to watch.
On August 29 2010 17:07 forgottendreams wrote: I long for the beta days of seeing zergs competing in the top 4, the most recent tournaments have been filled in the semifinals/finals with either
A.TvT B. PvP C. Most games end up being short because of the cheese popularity emerging.
I think HuK really showed how to squash cheese, and really provided a look into probably an emerging popularity of use of fenixes to counter the 4gate and at least make PvP somewhat fun to watch.
Did you even watch the IEM series at GamesCom? No Protoss in the Ro8 and it was almost all TvZs through the finals.
On August 29 2010 17:07 forgottendreams wrote: I long for the beta days of seeing zergs competing in the top 4, the most recent tournaments have been filled in the semifinals/finals with either
A.TvT B. PvP C. Most games end up being short because of the cheese popularity emerging.
I think HuK really showed how to squash cheese, and really provided a look into probably an emerging popularity of use of fenixes to counter the 4gate and at least make PvP somewhat fun to watch.
Did you even watch the IEM series at GamesCom? No Protoss in the Ro8 and it was almost all TvZs through the finals.
Yeah, this. I love the QQ though.
We haven't seen enough Protoss! >Look at the MLG top 3 We haven't seen enough Zerg! >Look at the IEM top 4
If you count the top 4 of these last 2 tournaments you get: 3 Terran 3 Protoss 2 Zerg
That's literally as balanced as it can possibly be.
Personally I think the coverage [I do not mean the casters with this, just the style of it] adds to the "this is boring" sign, because due to the huge breaks inbetween games the tension is somewhat lost. We also have online tournaments with big periods of waiting, but the casters there usually continue "blabbering" to provide entertainment and that is what is missing. Ad breaks do not help keeping "the immersion" either.
I cannot belaive even protoss players are now starting to whine.
Stalker, Zealot is tier1 too and we see them all game long, do you want us to go Thor to get it slaugthered by stalkers in a second? or Tank (to get stomped by immortals or chargelots or blinkstalkers or phoneix do you know what I mean ?) or do you want us to play air mech, and have billion stalkers instantly under us get stomped again or mothership vortex+storm+feedback?
I had all these, and I hate to admit Terrans are not playing mmm because its easy, we play it because its the most suitable way to counter Protoss. In Sc2 Protoss has a little bit different kind of Zerg production system with Warpgates.
Maybe it's just me but it felt like the kiwi vs huk finals were just another match. Didn't seem like a finals game at all. I dunno whats to account for that. The atmosphere of the tournament? Not enough hype?
On August 29 2010 17:07 forgottendreams wrote: I long for the beta days of seeing zergs competing in the top 4, the most recent tournaments have been filled in the semifinals/finals with either
A.TvT B. PvP C. Most games end up being short because of the cheese popularity emerging.
I think HuK really showed how to squash cheese, and really provided a look into probably an emerging popularity of use of fenixes to counter the 4gate and at least make PvP somewhat fun to watch.
Did you even watch the IEM series at GamesCom? No Protoss in the Ro8 and it was almost all TvZs through the finals.
Yeah, this. I love the QQ though.
We haven't seen enough Protoss! >Look at the MLG top 3 We haven't seen enough Zerg! >Look at the IEM top 4
If you count the top 4 of these last 2 tournaments you get: 3 Terran 3 Protoss 2 Zerg
That's literally as balanced as it can possibly be.
lol how are people taking the results from two tournaments to analyze balance?
if you put dimaga and idra in a high stakes tournament and they dont place top 8 or even top 4 then something is definitely wrong IMO
On August 29 2010 14:36 Vokasak wrote: I don't get the point of this thread. You might as well be saying tanks and vultures are boring in BW so TvP is a bad matchup. What?
Ridiculous analogy. Tanks and Vultures gave Terran a completely different style of attacking from the other races, where they would allow the player to slowly establish and defend territory and encroach towards the enemy base. And it made for interesting gameplay on both sides - The Terrans needed to know when and where to siege, how to provide vision for the Tanks, create minefields, use the Vultures to "tank" for the Tanks as well as harass the enemy workers - and the opponent could utilize mine drags, Zealot bombs, send units to absorb initial volley of tanks/mines and then charge in and so forth.
Whereas MMM is incredibly boring to play and watch, and there's nothing special beyond some basic kiting.
Once again, the problem is not that MMM is OP compared to the other races, it's that it's a boring build that also happens to be the most popular Terran build right now, and the situation will only get worse after the Siege Tank nerfs.
I think it's a fair statement, as there have been better tournaments, but it wasnt bad by any means. They did a good job overall, and some things are out of their control (like how games play out, balance etc). Some things they could control that I felt hurt it:
I preferred single elim/BO5s personally. Made it unnecessary long imo. I do get the charm of fighting your way out of the LB, so not a big complaint.I think it was painful early on because of the fillers, but later LR's were pretty interesting. Maybe in future (seeded) tourneys this wont be an issue.
Also, the choice of what to show could have been better. IEM also did a better job updating you on the untelevised matches, and made more effort to show you the last game of a bo3/5 in progress.
I also got the feeling the overall players were stronger at IEM. This might be a little skewed perception since they had a lot more matches, with a lot being filler random ladder guys. But when it was good, it was real good.
Props though on the commentators. SC is such an amazingly esport friendly game, with a strong community. You have people like day9, HDH etc that are popular and are experienced. If you compare the other MLG games where they had community "stars" commenting, they looked like fish out of water and clearly never done it. MLG deserves credit for being savvy enough to capitalize on this as it greatly helped the event.
On August 29 2010 17:07 forgottendreams wrote: I long for the beta days of seeing zergs competing in the top 4, the most recent tournaments have been filled in the semifinals/finals with either
A.TvT B. PvP C. Most games end up being short because of the cheese popularity emerging.
I think HuK really showed how to squash cheese, and really provided a look into probably an emerging popularity of use of fenixes to counter the 4gate and at least make PvP somewhat fun to watch.
Did you even watch the IEM series at GamesCom? No Protoss in the Ro8 and it was almost all TvZs through the finals.
Yeah, this. I love the QQ though.
We haven't seen enough Protoss! >Look at the MLG top 3 We haven't seen enough Zerg! >Look at the IEM top 4
If you count the top 4 of these last 2 tournaments you get: 3 Terran 3 Protoss 2 Zerg
That's literally as balanced as it can possibly be.
Don't make a fool out of yourself by using these stats. The toss played really bad at IEM, especially white ra was just painfull to watch. That being said, I think dimaga and idra are better players than morrow, who just abused like hell (can't blame him, $$$) Give it up already, T players even admit it, it is not balanced and it won't be in 1.1
Morrow played brilliantly(game on blistering sands, almost flawless). Seriously, Idra made alot of mistakes. I think actually, that day. Morrow was the better player.
On August 29 2010 17:07 forgottendreams wrote: I long for the beta days of seeing zergs competing in the top 4, the most recent tournaments have been filled in the semifinals/finals with either
A.TvT B. PvP C. Most games end up being short because of the cheese popularity emerging.
I think HuK really showed how to squash cheese, and really provided a look into probably an emerging popularity of use of fenixes to counter the 4gate and at least make PvP somewhat fun to watch.
Did you even watch the IEM series at GamesCom? No Protoss in the Ro8 and it was almost all TvZs through the finals.
Yeah, this. I love the QQ though.
We haven't seen enough Protoss! >Look at the MLG top 3 We haven't seen enough Zerg! >Look at the IEM top 4
If you count the top 4 of these last 2 tournaments you get: 3 Terran 3 Protoss 2 Zerg
That's literally as balanced as it can possibly be.
Don't make a fool out of yourself by using these stats. The toss played really bad at IEM, especially white ra was just painfull to watch. That being said, I think dimaga and idra are better players than morrow, who just abused like hell (can't blame him, $$$) Give it up already, T players even admit it, it is not balanced and it won't be in 1.1
He was just shooting down the other guys point by the fact that he used dumb statistics but the statistics he was using didn't even back up his point.
On August 29 2010 17:07 forgottendreams wrote: I long for the beta days of seeing zergs competing in the top 4, the most recent tournaments have been filled in the semifinals/finals with either
A.TvT B. PvP C. Most games end up being short because of the cheese popularity emerging.
I think HuK really showed how to squash cheese, and really provided a look into probably an emerging popularity of use of fenixes to counter the 4gate and at least make PvP somewhat fun to watch.
Did you even watch the IEM series at GamesCom? No Protoss in the Ro8 and it was almost all TvZs through the finals.
Yeah, this. I love the QQ though.
We haven't seen enough Protoss! >Look at the MLG top 3 We haven't seen enough Zerg! >Look at the IEM top 4
If you count the top 4 of these last 2 tournaments you get: 3 Terran 3 Protoss 2 Zerg
That's literally as balanced as it can possibly be.
And what do you get if you count the Ro8's? you get 3 Zerg and 13 other races.
On August 29 2010 17:07 forgottendreams wrote: I long for the beta days of seeing zergs competing in the top 4, the most recent tournaments have been filled in the semifinals/finals with either
A.TvT B. PvP C. Most games end up being short because of the cheese popularity emerging.
I think HuK really showed how to squash cheese, and really provided a look into probably an emerging popularity of use of fenixes to counter the 4gate and at least make PvP somewhat fun to watch.
Did you even watch the IEM series at GamesCom? No Protoss in the Ro8 and it was almost all TvZs through the finals.
Yeah, this. I love the QQ though.
We haven't seen enough Protoss! >Look at the MLG top 3 We haven't seen enough Zerg! >Look at the IEM top 4
If you count the top 4 of these last 2 tournaments you get: 3 Terran 3 Protoss 2 Zerg
That's literally as balanced as it can possibly be.
And what do you get if you count the Ro8's? you get 3 Zerg and 13 other races.
Imo, the problem is that only the TOP-zergplayers have a chance of competing with the "other races" (Dimaga and Idra, who are undisputed the best in the west^^). If u followd MLG, the only zerg that impressed my was slush. but when it came down to it, even he got knocked out, allthough he played really well. The field of players at MLG was MUCH weaker compared to ESL´s gamescom, thats why the matches were "boring". Btw, i missed the entertaining interviews (HAHA @TaKe´s english). Comparing the matchup diversity, at Gamescom it was mostly ZvTs all the way in the final rounds. At MLG, the casted mach-ups were almost exclusivly PvTs, except the top three matches. The strategy in all games was very similar. At Gamescom, it was mostlyl Reaper into expo vs z that wend roach/ling into muta/b-ling. At MLG i dont wanna here MMM or 4-Gate ever again...
At both events the matchup diversity lacked severly. But Gamescom had more entertaining strats and better execution overall.
We will see what happens in the upcomming GSL, were the top of the Best of the very TOP players are gonna be competing. The dimension of that event in itself will lead to a better and more fun viewer experience not to mention the crazy korean strategies that we will hopefully get to see. The casted matchups will definetly be much more diverse (hopefully even including ZvZs^^).
Last but not least, with TASTELESS casting HOW could an event EVER be boring...
On August 29 2010 06:01 BrahminKing wrote: I personally dont find it boring. I came from Warcraft III and I'm very much used to seeing the same strategies used over and over again only with slight variances. Like for instance orc going bm/sh grunt/raider/spirit every match up every map. The entertainment value(at least for me) doesnt come down to the strategy used but how its utilized. Seeing how they use it and how other players react is enjoyable as there is always variances. There is no such thing as 2 perfectly identicle games.
Same here. Allthough, just so people dont get twisted views of Wc3, there was a broad variety of strategies there as well. Just the BM/SH grunt/raider/sw was the most effective one.
I just dont get all these hate against a specific strategy.
The reason why it was boring is because the only good players were KiWiKaKi, Socke and HuK towards the later stages of the tournament and they were all P players. I'm not going to mention any particular names but god knows how some of the weaker players made it that far.
qxc played terribly too. Disappointing. Reaper opening versus P doesn't work, qxc. I thought we established that in phase 1 of the beta.
On August 29 2010 20:23 Endorsed wrote: Morrow played brilliantly(game on blistering sands, almost flawless). Seriously, Idra made alot of mistakes. I think actually, that day. Morrow was the better player.
I didn't see Idra make a lot of mistakes that game. His opponent's early game army was faster than his and mid-game army was stronger than his. The brief Window where he had the advantage after his Ultras popped he got hosed by bad pathing.
On August 29 2010 17:07 forgottendreams wrote: I long for the beta days of seeing zergs competing in the top 4, the most recent tournaments have been filled in the semifinals/finals with either
A.TvT B. PvP C. Most games end up being short because of the cheese popularity emerging.
I think HuK really showed how to squash cheese, and really provided a look into probably an emerging popularity of use of fenixes to counter the 4gate and at least make PvP somewhat fun to watch.
Did you even watch the IEM series at GamesCom? No Protoss in the Ro8 and it was almost all TvZs through the finals.
Yeah, this. I love the QQ though.
We haven't seen enough Protoss! >Look at the MLG top 3 We haven't seen enough Zerg! >Look at the IEM top 4
If you count the top 4 of these last 2 tournaments you get: 3 Terran 3 Protoss 2 Zerg
That's literally as balanced as it can possibly be.
And what do you get if you count the Ro8's? you get 3 Zerg and 13 other races.
You can't really compare players like idra and dimaga with Lastshadow, kiwi, huk and Sjow... These 2 Zergs are just way better players. We saw how well Z did in Raleigh, where you had very good Zerg-Players like Slush and Machine. But as soon as the Zerg-Players aren't absolute genius-gosus like IdrA, they won't stand a chance in those kind of tournaments.
I laddered against a mid-diamond T the other day, who really didn't put up a fight the entire game. My only goal that game was to outmacro him, and I did without a real challenge. Right after he gg's, he says something along the lines of, "I usually try to end it fast with an early MM push. My cpu is too bad to handle late game".
A little suspicious, I watch the replay, and am floored when halfway through I realize he doesn't keybind his army, and has a worker count of 20 on two bases. Its just insane how a player like that can be ~800 Diamond.
Basically, the incredible potency of MMM can be achieved with pretty basic control (i.e. box, a-move, stim).
On August 29 2010 23:39 Skcali wrote: I laddered against a mid-diamond T the other day, who really didn't put up a fight the entire game. My only goal that game was to outmacro him, and I did without a real challenge. Right after he gg's, he says something along the lines of, "I usually try to end it fast with an early MM push. My cpu is too bad to handle late game".
A little suspicious, I watch the replay, and am floored when halfway through I realize he doesn't keybind his army, and has a worker count of 20 on two bases. Its just insane how a player like that can be ~800 Diamond.
Basically, the incredible potency of MMM can be achieved with pretty basic control (i.e. box, a-move, stim).
Not sure how this is very relevant to the thread, but what you describe is very common. I know of several Terran players that do absolutely nothing but MMM. They forget supply, they forget mules, they have a suboptimal build order... Essentially they play at gold level, but they average around mid diamond. It's.... depressing.
On August 29 2010 07:24 TurpinOS wrote: 1 base infestor rush by slush was so boring, same build as always.
Oh wait....
That was CatZ. And it failed horribly. Props to him for trying something new, though.
:D woulda worked a lot better if i wasnt so nervous, i forgot my lair for a bit, if i had 10 more energy on those infestors when they ran in, i coulda killed all the scvs, instead i had to wait and he transfered more than half. its a fun strategy i came up with, either way Lz played great an won.
Patch incoming soon and it looks good, its little changes that need to be done, that's all. MLG was AWESOME!
I can't believe how many people complain about TvP MMM without even noting how incredibly awful Mech is against P (and Z too, now that anyone can do the magic box trick and eat your thors.)
Imho changing Vikings to 8+6 to light would allow Phoenixes to counter them for cost (well, assuming they have to fly over marines heads to shoot the vikings, not really, but it would still be good to try it).
Once again, the problem is not that MMM is OP compared to the other races, it's that it's a boring build that also happens to be the most popular Terran build right now, and the situation will only get worse after the Siege Tank nerfs.
Absolutely. Why must everything devolve into balance complaints and counter-complaints?
Let's face it, my grandmother could MMM her way into diamond league and she has had all of her limbs amputated. This is not a balance complaint, I'm just saying it's absurdly easy to execute. If I wanted to see Terran bioballs all day, I would just play ladder. There's nothing fun about watching pros do it.
Imho changing Vikings to 8+6 to light would allow Phoenixes to counter them for cost (well, assuming they have to fly over marines heads to shoot the vikings, not really, but it would still be good to try it).
Yeah except that phoenix > vikings already.
What's the math behind this? I've never actually seen phoenixes take on vikings successfully.
On August 29 2010 14:36 Vokasak wrote: I don't get the point of this thread. You might as well be saying tanks and vultures are boring in BW so TvP is a bad matchup. What?
Ridiculous analogy. Tanks and Vultures gave Terran a completely different style of attacking from the other races, where they would allow the player to slowly establish and defend territory and encroach towards the enemy base. And it made for interesting gameplay on both sides - The Terrans needed to know when and where to siege, how to provide vision for the Tanks, create minefields, use the Vultures to "tank" for the Tanks as well as harass the enemy workers - and the opponent could utilize mine drags, Zealot bombs, send units to absorb initial volley of tanks/mines and then charge in and so forth.
Whereas MMM is incredibly boring to play and watch, and there's nothing special beyond some basic kiting.
Once again, the problem is not that MMM is OP compared to the other races, it's that it's a boring build that also happens to be the most popular Terran build right now, and the situation will only get worse after the Siege Tank nerfs.
You missed the point entirely. I don't care what you consider boring or not. Some people hated TvT in BW and found it boring and some people found ZvZ boring. Neither of those made the matchup flawed in any way.
So you find MMM boring. Fine, whatever. You have every right to have an opinion about what interests you and what doesn't. Just don't expect any changes to compensate for your tastes.
Imho changing Vikings to 8+6 to light would allow Phoenixes to counter them for cost (well, assuming they have to fly over marines heads to shoot the vikings, not really, but it would still be good to try it).
Yeah except that phoenix > vikings already.
What's the math behind this? I've never actually seen phoenixes take on vikings successfully.
dunno how it is for bigger numbers but I coincidentally had 3 phoenixes fight 3 vikings today in the unit tester. The phoenix barely barely won. The vikings are of course a bit cheaper though. I personally prefer phoenix speed over viking range though.
Of course. The reason you're seeing all these new Terran pros is because the race is OP. You honestly think guys like Silver and Drewbie (no offense) are in the same league as players like Idra, Cool, etc. It's so obvious, it's silly that it even needs to be debated. It's something that needs time to fix though -- I've been saying it since the Beta, but Blizzard needs a balanced game for SC2 to succeed as an esport, but it doesn't yet appear as bad as it actually is. We have to wait until really good players start using Terran, turning the game into a joke.
I was at the tournament and thought all the matches were awesome. Especially Socke vs Drewbie. That being said, I think Marauders are too potent in all match-ups. Why move to Tier 2 when your Tier 1 units are ideal?
On August 30 2010 07:23 Graven wrote: Of course. The reason you're seeing all these new Terran pros is because the race is OP. You honestly think guys like Silver and Drewbie (no offense) are in the same league as players like Idra, Cool, etc. It's so obvious, it's silly that it even needs to be debated. It's something that needs time to fix though -- I've been saying it since the Beta, but Blizzard needs a balanced game for SC2 to succeed as an esport, but it doesn't yet appear as bad as it actually is. We have to wait until really good players start using Terran, turning the game into a joke.
Imho changing Vikings to 8+6 to light would allow Phoenixes to counter them for cost (well, assuming they have to fly over marines heads to shoot the vikings, not really, but it would still be good to try it).
Yeah except that phoenix > vikings already.
What's the math behind this? I've never actually seen phoenixes take on vikings successfully.
dunno how it is for bigger numbers but I coincidentally had 3 phoenixes fight 3 vikings today in the unit tester. The phoenix barely barely won. The vikings are of course a bit cheaper though. I personally prefer phoenix speed over viking range though.
Most of the Huk/Kiwikaki games were pretty exciting, I don't get why people think PvP is so boring.
It's still a terrible terrible matchup in my opinion. How many games had at least one of the players go 4 gate?
The phoenix game was one nice exception.
The Phoenix game and the Socke/Drewbie series were the highlight of the event imo. But it was a pretty boring watching all the Terran do cookie cutter builds. MMM is so strong that you really don't have to deviate to much from it to be successful. And that is going to just create boring predictable matches.
But with all this talk about Terran and MMM, It's pretty ironic that all the finals matches were PvP
A lot of intense and action packed series. All the commentators were great to watch - funny as hell and kept me on the edge of my seat during the matches.
To say the whole tournament was boring and unprofessional is outright ridiculous.
In fact, this whole thread looks some kinda weird cover for more terran balance bitching and nothing to do with MLG at all.
Imho changing Vikings to 8+6 to light would allow Phoenixes to counter them for cost (well, assuming they have to fly over marines heads to shoot the vikings, not really, but it would still be good to try it).
Yeah except that phoenix > vikings already.
What's the math behind this? I've never actually seen phoenixes take on vikings successfully.
dunno how it is for bigger numbers but I coincidentally had 3 phoenixes fight 3 vikings today in the unit tester. The phoenix barely barely won. The vikings are of course a bit cheaper though. I personally prefer phoenix speed over viking range though.
Phoenixes and Vikings are about on par one to one, however Vikings cost slightly less, so for cost Vikings win or its even. However, in order to fight the Vikings, a Phoenix must fly over the MMM ball, whereas, due to their 10 range, the Vikings should ALWAYS be safe from getting shot from GTA units. Since both vikings and phoenixes are balanced so as to SUCK versus ground to air units, this puts phoenixs in a HORRIBLE position against Vikings. Hence, in late-game, a Terran can spawn marauders without fear since they will ALWAYS maintain aerial superiority.
If Protoss could counter Vikings for cost with Phoenixes, vying for aerial superiority would be a part of the matchup, much like it is in TvT. Much cooler and more interesting late-game. Sadly, Marauder/Vikings makes PvT late-game boring as hell and anyone who wants to debate that hasn't watched a high-level PvT that lasted past the mid-game.
it's kinda true, sc2 is already pretty stale right now, and gets boring fast. In beta and at the beginning of release I could watch tournaments streams all day, no I often don't even bother to watch the finals. Imho it has a lot to do with the teeny tiny maps. But I'm optimistic as there will be two more expansions that should atl east add about 3 units per race combined.
On August 30 2010 07:31 SuperJongMan wrote: Go Mech. They cry. Go Bio. They cry. ... What's a terran to do? Mass auto turrets?
I never complain on pros going mech, that requires skill timing and execution. Furthermore I think it creates exciting games.
I wish blizz would nerf something other then tanks next patch.
inpenetrable tank lines and waiting on 3 bases vs 8 bases until the opponent mines out and can never break T's defense ending in the opponent losing because of cost-effectiveness of T mech sure makes for entertaining games...
idk what people expect from terran always whining i get shit talk from people even after i lose saying "play a real race" =/ i been terran my whole life =(
On August 30 2010 10:25 GiantEnemyCrab wrote: idk what people expect from terran always whining i get shit talk from people even after i lose saying "play a real race" =/ i been terran my whole life =(
Seriously. I was like born terran. Weren't we all?
On August 29 2010 04:40 cr4ckshot wrote: If you want to see innovative play, big money tournaments aren't the source. You may get a glimpse of creative plays, but that's pretty much it.
What sort of evidence do you have for a statement like this?
It's logical reasoning. Big money encourages plays that win. Innovative is unreliable.
So Bisu's corsair dt was not innovative when he used it to win against zerg?
On August 29 2010 04:40 cr4ckshot wrote: If you want to see innovative play, big money tournaments aren't the source. You may get a glimpse of creative plays, but that's pretty much it.
What sort of evidence do you have for a statement like this?
It's logical reasoning. Big money encourages plays that win. Innovative is unreliable.
So Bisu's corsair dt was not innovative when he used it to win against zerg?
It won games. That's the key thing! Using builds that depend on luck is not a good way to win money over a long period of time.
I can´t see why the OP is complaining about a lack of creativity when the last 300 professional PvTs in SC1 are mostly goons and zealots with arbiters vs tanks, vultures and sci vessels; ZvTs are 2 or 3 hat muta into lurker/ling .. etc. Players find builds that work and give you the win if you play better than your opponent, period (if you ever listened to Day9, who has a shitload of knowledge and experience in the subject you would know what i´m talking about). Games are still great because of all the little individual plays/micro battles and adaptations they have, and there were also very intense games in the MLG (Like Last Shadow vs Slush), i remember seeing cheese from TT1 for example, and amazing micro battles in the semi´s and finals PvPs... some games were great, some weren´t.. game is still pretty new, if you don´t like the important tourneys because players take it seriously just don´t watch them.
On August 30 2010 10:54 nicoaldo wrote: I can´t see why the OP is complaining about a lack of creativity when the last 300 professional PvTs in SC1 are mostly goons and zealots with arbiters vs tanks, vultures and sci vessels; ZvTs are 2 or 3 hat muta into lurker/ling .. etc.
At least those are fun to watch and those army compositions have a fun dynamic to them. MMM ball is essentially a moving blob of death when stimmed.
I loved this MLG. Sure the quality of the games could haven been better and it was a shame the good zergs got knocked out so early, but the production values and the coverage was pretty awesome. I can't wait for the next MLG (Dallas?).
Imho changing Vikings to 8+6 to light would allow Phoenixes to counter them for cost (well, assuming they have to fly over marines heads to shoot the vikings, not really, but it would still be good to try it).
Yeah except that phoenix > vikings already.
What's the math behind this? I've never actually seen phoenixes take on vikings successfully.
dunno how it is for bigger numbers but I coincidentally had 3 phoenixes fight 3 vikings today in the unit tester. The phoenix barely barely won. The vikings are of course a bit cheaper though. I personally prefer phoenix speed over viking range though.
Phoenixes and Vikings are about on par one to one, however Vikings cost slightly less, so for cost Vikings win or its even. However, in order to fight the Vikings, a Phoenix must fly over the MMM ball, whereas, due to their 10 range, the Vikings should ALWAYS be safe from getting shot from GTA units. Since both vikings and phoenixes are balanced so as to SUCK versus ground to air units, this puts phoenixs in a HORRIBLE position against Vikings. Hence, in late-game, a Terran can spawn marauders without fear since they will ALWAYS maintain aerial superiority.
If Protoss could counter Vikings for cost with Phoenixes, vying for aerial superiority would be a part of the matchup, much like it is in TvT. Much cooler and more interesting late-game. Sadly, Marauder/Vikings makes PvT late-game boring as hell and anyone who wants to debate that hasn't watched a high-level PvT that lasted past the mid-game.
I disagree but this is not the thread for balance discussions anyways.
On August 30 2010 07:23 Graven wrote: Of course. The reason you're seeing all these new Terran pros is because the race is OP. You honestly think guys like Silver and Drewbie (no offense) are in the same league as players like Idra, Cool, etc. It's so obvious, it's silly that it even needs to be debated. It's something that needs time to fix though -- I've been saying it since the Beta, but Blizzard needs a balanced game for SC2 to succeed as an esport, but it doesn't yet appear as bad as it actually is. We have to wait until really good players start using Terran, turning the game into a joke.
"new Terran pros" like.... Drewbie? What? Have you been around for SC1?
Btw. I completely forgot to say that I thought this was a very well organised tournament with high production value. It was a smooth watching experience and when the matches were great it was a lot of fun. The matches werent always that great (PvP..) but thats just bad luck. I still have some issues with husky and HD's commentary but still, thumbs up for this tourney.
Matches were boring as hell as far as I'm concerned. Many of the 'pros' at MLG had lack-luster APM, poor use of macro mechanics and above all else boring cheese and or cookie cutter builds. I really hope a patch from Blizzard hits soon because if the quality of matches at other tournaments continues this same route then e-sports SC2 is gonna die before it even gets fully going. There is no way that a viewer base will be sustained if boring, predictable matches become the norm. With the exception of one or two series in the MLG I could predict the winner of each match about five to seven minutes in - usually based on how the first battle goes. A game that can be decided by who wins the first (and sadly usually the only non-totally-one-sided) battle is not only not balanced, but boring, un-entertaining and just generally isn't good. I don't know whether it is the lack of skill for the average American player or simply that the game is too easy to play but something needs to be changed - and soon. If I have to watch another boring tourney like this again I'm going back to watching BW.
On August 30 2010 10:54 nicoaldo wrote: I can´t see why the OP is complaining about a lack of creativity when the last 300 professional PvTs in SC1 are mostly goons and zealots with arbiters vs tanks, vultures and sci vessels; ZvTs are 2 or 3 hat muta into lurker/ling .. etc. Players find builds that work and give you the win if you play better than your opponent, period (if you ever listened to Day9, who has a shitload of knowledge and experience in the subject you would know what i´m talking about).
At least these compositions take skill to control, and different builds leading to them have different timings. Both protoss and terran in bw have a ton of builds to lead to the mid game, and late game is fun to watch with arbiters, sv's and general control of the armies.
On August 30 2010 10:54 nicoaldo wrote: I can´t see why the OP is complaining about a lack of creativity when the last 300 professional PvTs in SC1 are mostly goons and zealots with arbiters vs tanks, vultures and sci vessels; ZvTs are 2 or 3 hat muta into lurker/ling .. etc. Players find builds that work and give you the win if you play better than your opponent, period (if you ever listened to Day9, who has a shitload of knowledge and experience in the subject you would know what i´m talking about).
At least these compositions take skill to control, and different builds leading to them have different timings. Both protoss and terran in bw have a ton of builds to lead to the mid game, and late game is fun to watch with arbiters, sv's and general control of the armies.
Exactly Vitamin, exactly. In Brood War army compositions could be made viable through unit control, and while the LATE GAME may have revolved around very specific compositions getting to that point was more or less up to the players. In SC2 this is simply not the case - when a battle occurs between Player A and Player B, and Player A has the 'right composition' to beat B's - there is no amount of unit control, micro, positioning, or strategy B can do to win, Player A's army will steamroll through with a simply A-move.
On August 30 2010 10:54 nicoaldo wrote: I can´t see why the OP is complaining about a lack of creativity when the last 300 professional PvTs in SC1 are mostly goons and zealots with arbiters vs tanks, vultures and sci vessels; ZvTs are 2 or 3 hat muta into lurker/ling .. etc. Players find builds that work and give you the win if you play better than your opponent, period (if you ever listened to Day9, who has a shitload of knowledge and experience in the subject you would know what i´m talking about).
At least these compositions take skill to control, and different builds leading to them have different timings. Both protoss and terran in bw have a ton of builds to lead to the mid game, and late game is fun to watch with arbiters, sv's and general control of the armies.
Exactly Vitamin, exactly. In Brood War army compositions could be made viable through unit control, and while the LATE GAME may have revolved around very specific compositions getting to that point was more or less up to the players. In SC2 this is simply not the case - when a battle occurs between Player A and Player B, and Player A has the 'right composition' to beat B's - there is no amount of unit control, micro, positioning, or strategy B can do to win, Player A's army will steamroll through with a simply A-move.
Agreed, it's really sad to see the concepts of "Terrible Terrible Damage" (Units overall doing tons of damage, especially in Lower Tiers) and little to no unit microing ( A lot of "Micro" oriented spells though; Graviton Beam lol, Neural when people actually attempt to use them, people feeling gosu with Force Field) take over the game really.
It's all about unit composition now, and some very basic and common sense practices like flanking.
BW was a great game because there was a lot of control required to engage in a battle ( Reavers, Lurkers, Marine and Medic control, Dragoon control, Siege Tanks, etc) but in Sc2 it's just all 1a and so we lose all this awe and shock we had around manual control.
It's not like there's absolutely no control but the difference between BW and Sc2 is just so drastic
I always wonder when people get all nostalgic for how great Brood War matches were ... is that the BW people are playing today? Or was it the state of the game 12 years ago when BW was first released?
I hate to ring the "the game is pretty new" bell, but ... well ... it is. A year from now I bet we'll be laughing at someone who tries an MM ball because changes will have been applied to the game, players will have worked out other responses, and in general the game we'll be playing then won't be the same as this one.
I got really tired of watching the same Morrow/Lz builds by every Terran that went against the few Zerg opponents there. Then it became MMM. Protoss were the only interesting ones to watch.
On August 29 2010 04:40 cr4ckshot wrote: If you want to see innovative play, big money tournaments aren't the source. You may get a glimpse of creative plays, but that's pretty much it.
What sort of evidence do you have for a statement like this?
It's logical reasoning. Big money encourages plays that win. Innovative is unreliable.
So Bisu's corsair dt was not innovative when he used it to win against zerg?
It won games. That's the key thing! Using builds that depend on luck is not a good way to win money over a long period of time.
On August 30 2010 05:54 Smiggins wrote: Another reason i wish marauders weren't in sc2.
They should be T2 and then it's fine :D
Something like you need a factory to build them? If Terran just has marines/reapers early roach could be a HUGE problem. Early stalker push would also be very strong since they kite marines very well
All right, so I got into watching BW when SC2 beta phase 1 ended. I played BW around when it came out, but never got big-time into it because I was like 4 years old at the time. When beta came out I started playing ladder which made me want to get better- so I started watching SC2 as well. Then, as I said above, beta ended so I started watching BW.
So just to set the record straight, I started watching both games around the same time.
In my opinion, BW is way more fun to watch.
There are some good reasons, too- I love the massive amounts of action that goes on in BW- you generally have skirmishes going on EVERYWHERE with massive amounts of expos, as opposed to SC2 where you may get 2 or 3 expos and you have 1 core army and then a small group of harassers, or something of the sort.
I could go into it in more , but basically, I like how BW has players using their army everywhere, rather than in one giant ball marching towards the opponent at certain periods in the game. I think SC2 might develop to the point to where it's more entertaining to watch- I hope so, at least. Until then, I watch SC2 purely to improve my skill level.
needs time to mature. suspend your nostalgia and go back to brood war 2001, watch elky vs garimto and tell me that isn't the most boring thing you've ever seen
Something does need to be done because MMM is like the default build versus every match. It used to be varied with Mech vs Z and Tank/Viking in TvT, but now everything is MMM unless you cheese build
On August 31 2010 05:20 blagoonga123 wrote: Wait I don't get it.
Were you bored of ZvT in BW because every game was MM + Tank or Vessel with the zerg trying to counter it?
I was bored of Brood War in general because I got so pissed of every time a Terran ruined a great match-up by going mech. It's truly what made me quit BW, man it pissed me of when I saw that early gas. Good bye entertainment, hello torment!
So I guess I'm trying to say that variation is overrated, entertaining unit combinations is more important. Micro and macro in Starcraft 2 is far too easy to have the wow-factor of Brood War though. Have you guys seen how slowly CellaWerra plays? And he's doing great!
I enjoy watching Starcraft 2 but its success as an e-sport will rely more on its popularity among casual gamers than on its qualities as a competitive game.
On August 31 2010 05:20 blagoonga123 wrote: Wait I don't get it.
Were you bored of ZvT in BW because every game was MM + Tank or Vessel with the zerg trying to counter it?
well, bw is amazing because the game evolves (im not saying sc2 wont evolve...) terran MM + Tank/Vessel vs zerg isnt comparable to zvt in sc2...
in bw, tvz was based on terrans push, and zerg's need to get a third gas and to delay that push till they teched to darkswarm: this meant keeping the MM at the terrans main by muta harass, lurker contain, etc...
also, the all games arnt just MM+Tank/Vessel.. a new trend has come where terrans are going bio -> mech which zergs are having a hard time dealing with... flash's genius goliath -> MM push g1 MSL finals vs jd a couple days ago.. straight mech is also a very viable option.. other openings are 2 port wraith, valk play.. the list goes on
this kind of play hasnt been discovered in sc2 yet... (again, not saying it wont come up, just that it took bw a decade to reach where it has now, sc2 has only been out for a lil over a month. beta not included)
I really dont get whats with all the "Terran does only mmm" crap. Well so protoss does only zssi and zerg does only zbm. Wtf is wrong with you people? What the hell are we supposed to build in the first part of the game?? Battlecruisers? We do marine marauders, protoss does zealot stalker and zerg does zergling roach or slight variations. What else is there to do? We add medivacs - you add immortals We add ghosts - you add hts and so on... What do you want us to do? What do we have to build to make you feel better about the game? Fast tanks and get owned by -blink stalkers/immortals/chargelots/vrays/zerglings/burrow roaches/mutalisks or what? Mass reapers to the end of time??
On August 31 2010 05:50 sadyque wrote: I really dont get whats with all the "Terran does only mmm" crap. Well so protoss does only zssi and zerg does only zbm. Wtf is wrong with you people? What the hell are we supposed to build in the first part of the game?? Battlecruisers? We do marine marauders, protoss does zealot stalker and zerg does zergling roach or slight variations. What else is there to do? We add medivacs - you add immortals We add ghosts - you add hts and so on... What do you want us to do? What do we have to build to make you feel better about the game? Fast tanks and get owned by -blink stalkers/immortals/chargelots/vrays/zerglings/burrow roaches/mutalisks or what? Mass reapers to the end of time??
Have you ever played bw? We all start out by building battlecruiser, carriers, devourer and guardian.
If you had the korean guy who gets every single scan on the map in sc2 aswell, then it would be awesome to watch, its still pretty fun to watch with HDStarcraft and stuff but not as funny as BroodWar.
If it's boring to watch for you then simply don't watch it. I'm sure the thousands of viewers on stream enjoy watching SC2, so it's obviously not boring for them.
You can't sum up the spectator experience of an entire game with a single adjective. It depends on the match. Some matches are boring, some are spectacular. Just like Football, just like BW, just like any game.
On August 31 2010 05:50 sadyque wrote: I really dont get whats with all the "Terran does only mmm" crap. Well so protoss does only zssi and zerg does only zbm. Wtf is wrong with you people? What the hell are we supposed to build in the first part of the game?? Battlecruisers? We do marine marauders, protoss does zealot stalker and zerg does zergling roach or slight variations. What else is there to do? We add medivacs - you add immortals We add ghosts - you add hts and so on... What do you want us to do? What do we have to build to make you feel better about the game? Fast tanks and get owned by -blink stalkers/immortals/chargelots/vrays/zerglings/burrow roaches/mutalisks or what? Mass reapers to the end of time??
protoss does Zealot stalker sentry coloxon because it counters MMM, same with the zergling baneling muta.
I don't watch for Macro, I watch for Micro. Seeing a series of perfectly placed forcefields or storms, seeing colossi v. colossi; baneling v. baneling, etc. There's so much great micro the repetitive macro doesn't bother me at all. And just the chess game of scouting and counter-scouting, where to put your forces, managing scans, etc. is so exciting. I prefer watching way way more than playing.
IEM's TvZ games that used MMM v Zerg units were immensly fun to watch and very exciting. MLGs TvZ games had many errors, lack of inspiration in the race's proper ability. Overall, the calibre of player was lower so of course the games are going to be lower quality. I also think a double elimination method of play is boring to watch - there's no drama in the games when they're played.
I'd suggest waiting for HDH 2 and GSL - both of these should be amazing events: both have a superb, awesome calibre of player in them and it's (as far as I know) single elimination. To reiterate the drama - Dimaga's fist pump when he came third at IEM was awesome, more awesome than Day9's casting skill.
On August 31 2010 05:50 sadyque wrote: I really dont get whats with all the "Terran does only mmm" crap. Well so protoss does only zssi and zerg does only zbm. Wtf is wrong with you people? What the hell are we supposed to build in the first part of the game?? Battlecruisers? We do marine marauders, protoss does zealot stalker and zerg does zergling roach or slight variations. What else is there to do? We add medivacs - you add immortals We add ghosts - you add hts and so on... What do you want us to do? What do we have to build to make you feel better about the game? Fast tanks and get owned by -blink stalkers/immortals/chargelots/vrays/zerglings/burrow roaches/mutalisks or what? Mass reapers to the end of time??
protoss does Zealot stalker sentry coloxon because it counters MMM, same with the zergling baneling muta.
Ye right cuz if terran wouldnt do mmm then toss would go straight for carriers, mothershipS, reavers and infested terrans.....riiight. Protoss does zeal, stalker, war of the worlds crap cuz its a good unit combo against ANYTHING. Also cuz they cant build anything else at that time in the game. Does a toss ever stop building zealot stalker sentry even in one hour long games? NO! OFC not....Neither does terran stop building mmm. You all expect terrans to invent some crazy strat besides mmm like AugustWerra BC rush vs P(nice games btw) or whoever invented the 5 rax reapers vs Z. Then go whine about imba terrans on forums so blizz can make you look smarter. Instead of whining about mmm go invent some strategy that wtfpwns mmm so we can go whine on the forums about it.
Edit; just in case anyone was wandering the BC nerf is cuz of how August used them vs P. At least i believe he was the first to use the proxy starport BC strat first. Or he is the only one i saw dunno....:D
Almost every game I see by check is exciting to watch. He's very aggressive with fantastic unit control.
There are a few of him on youtube, and day9 has a few casted as well.
I think koreans in general, with a more micro heavy approach, are a bit more fun. A lot more players here are really heavy heavy macro and not as much micro.
Man people LOVE to go on and on and on about the stuff they hate. I personally love to watch sc2. I like watching it just as much as I used to enjoy watching cs demos (NiP v 3D on de_nuke anyone?).
I couldnt disagree more with the op. I watch a ton of streams and replays and try my best to stay up to date on tournies and I dont see the gameplay getting stale at all. I still see people trying new stuff everyday and I dont expect that to change for quite some time.
I fail to see the point of these "this is what I fucking hate about sc2" threads. Most of the time they come across as whine threads started by people who arent as good at the game as they want to be so they need to come up with reasons why the game sucks...which is sad.
If you dont like sc2 go play/watch something else and dont waste your time writing a book about why you dont like it on a site FILLED TO THE BRIM with people who love this game.
need boxer and ra to come back. I don't find games boring to watch, but I find 1v1 boring to play even as a random player. At high levels of play, Zerg has no room for anything creative imo except maybe early aggression against either P or T. PvT is actually my favorite mu to watch, P can go phoenixes or use void ray in army composition or go robo for a lot of creative play - i do feel mmm is too strong, but it's still good to watch imo. Watch Tester vs Ensnare from gom tourney, really entertaining watching Tester deal with Terran on maps that I feel are Terran advantageous. With that said, I only watch the big tournaments because I appreciate solid play a lot more than shitty, creative play, but I would prefer solid and creative play - that's really rare to see in tournament play though. Pimpest plays was done once a year in brood war and it rarely had big tourney stuff, so I feel it's an unfair evaluation, especially as young as sc2 is, to say it's boring to watch.
I want to agree, but I will disagree. Strategy games, especially Starcraft go through their phases. BW had it's share of very strong builds, but people figured out how to counter them. Right now MMM is all the rage, but people will figure out how to counter it.
I hope so much that Blizzard doesn't step in and try to "balance" things, so MMM isn't so effective, because I think it's balanced just fine. As a Protoss player, I found storms to be extremely effective... Lots and lots of storms.
MMM is not that amazing. I mean, sure, its strong, but players of any race who know its coming can wipe it out consistently, especially as the game progresses--tanks will still one-shot stimmed marines and marauders, chargelots and forcefields work wonders until you can get out storm templars or colossi, and banelings just decimate them, esp. with fungal growth.
Sure, right now MMM is a bit easier to execute than its counters. But once people get more experienced stopping it, it won't be nearly as effective.
SC2 CAN be very boring to watch. Always depends on the players.
In most cases, it's very boring to watch though. It has a lot to do with the unit movement, too! I just hate how all the units cramp into one giant unit ball that rolls back and forth over the map.
TvX games are completely uninteresting. you just have the terran massing up an insanely powerful army on 2 bases while the z/p frantically tries to survive.
all mirror matchups aren't that interesting, either.
in my opinion zvp is the most interesting matchup to watch.
i feel that once terran gets its fair share of nerfs and gets to the point where they can't go the entire game without scouting and still win and actually have to expand to keep up, then it will be interesting to watch. but as of now i can't watch a TvX without getting bored out of my mind.
In comparison to SC:BW, it definitely is boring to watch (Beta was really interesting with all the new builds and stuff, but now that everyone has pretty solid build orders....). As a spectator sport overall, SCII is okay.
lol its not the game thats boring .. its the players ..
what we are seeing in the game is decisions and actions of the gamer/player ..
if the player/gamer amateur, we are going to see shit quality games, where there are poor decision making, less macro, less multi-task, same strat every match up. and thats what we ALL SEE in SC2 .. so many of these amateurs also flood the internet with silly live streams while them using the same strat/BO over and over .. its not fun really
if the player was an foreign pro, meaning they are a top dog in a sponsored team.. it would still suck because he is going to use a single SOLID B.O./strat so that he can win the game.
if the player is korean in a good team in korea, these guys are ex pros or their culture is really conducive for gaming. we MIGHT see some great plays from them. but the problem with these guys is that most of their opponents are like the players above. so you might see a faceroll but some of them might actually put up a good fight!
NOW .. if the players were current pros .. you will see:
- NO balls of units vs ball of units - aggressive B.O. - different Openings into mid, and late - improved meta game - Godly multitask - Good decision making - NO ONLY 1 CONTROL GROUP - UNITS UPON UNITS UPON UNITS PUMPED -CLASH EVERWHERE
Oh come on... TvZ in BW was pretty much as diverse as it is now. TvP was ONLY tank vulture. TvT was also more boring than SC2. In my eyes there's no big difference, but people just like to complain.
It's not that you see new units being used every game, but the (subtle) strategic choices the players make, that makes watching interesting. I noticed how i started enjoying watching brood war matches more and more, the more I understood the game. When I read battlerepors on TL and then watched the game I was amazed by the depth of the game. Beforehand I could just have thought well Terran went MM and Zerg got Lurkers and Defilers, same as every other TvZ.
Lets compare a TvX to a ZvP: TvX: "Ok what could happen here?Any one of 2 things can happen when Terran goes MM as usual: -Game ends within first push OR -Game does not end in the first push and Terran just expands and gets more MM regardless of what opponent has. And the other player has to counter MM which you already know what that will be like, and Terran seems to stick with MM no matter what. So the opponent will have to stay with MM counter. And then the game just goes on to who has more "stuff" and whether or not Terran knows how to dodge storms."
ZvP: Although this can end with a 4gate push, if the Zerg player fends it off and then there is so much that can happen here as both races REACT to what the other is doing, as opposed to "getting MOAR". If Zerg gets hydras to counter gateway units, Protoss gets colossi, then Zerg gets roaches, then Protoss gets immortals, then Zerg gets corrupters to kill colossus, so that it's hydras are more effective, then a huge battle occurs where Zerg will usually lose but Protoss will not have enough to make a push as Zerg will quickly recreate their army by the time Protoss gets there and then both players have to rebuild their army, and the whole reacting to the opponent's army so that I can stomp it begins again.
I know it is mostly Zerg that needs to react but Protoss also needs to react a bit.
Now wouldn't it be great if ALL the races needed to react to what their opponent was doing? Wasn't the whole point of light and armored units to make it so that people would have to react more? Wasn't it supposed to be so that the question you asked yourself was "Am I getting the right units?" rather then "Am I getting ENOUGH units"? Wasn't the whole point of unit types to make it so that if your opponent is going heavy on these types of units, I don't need to make MOAR I need to make "smart".
BUT WAIT, this like ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS! I don't want that to happen! However you may want it more then you think. A lot of people originally didn't like that idea. However a lot of the people who play Zerg enjoy adapting to what the opponent is building, however the reason as to why they THINK they don't like it is because their opponent does not have to adapt to what THEY are doing, leading them to say that this is a stupid idea. I would say that if ALL the races had to quickly respond to what they opponent is doing it would force them to stay away from a single all-powerful strategy.
I think this guy is making a point.
MMM doesnt have hard counters whereas it counters a lot of stuff. Even baneling/FG doesn't counter good enough that strategy coz terran can abuse drops easily.
Its all about will P overcome the endless stream of MM from tons of barracks or not. IPlayable, just not worth to watch :-(
Terran: massing MMM all game, even not bothering to build enough vikings. Minerals were skyrocketing to 10000.
Protoss: Using colossi, HT, Archons, feedbacks and handling drops to counter MM. And P actually was defending all the time despite having superior army.
Terran: massing MMM all game, even not bothering to build enough vikings. Minerals were skyrocketing to 10000.
Protoss: Using colossi, HT, Archons, feedbacks and handling drops to counter MM. And P actually was defending all the time despite having superior army.
I just don get it.
Yeah I saw that replay. He went pure Bio the entire game, think he got out like 2 or 3 siege tanks super late, and just kept hammering the Toss. The Protoss player went Coli, HT, Archons.
Both players were very good though. The Terran had very good bio micro and the Protoss was a sharp shooter with feedback.
I agree with MMM being far too dominant and fairly OP right now. However, something needs to be considered when speaking to variation in strategies.
Consider Terran in BW. Marines/Tanks/Science Vessels are by far the most popular and dominant army composition in BW, and there is truly VERY little deviation from that ever, the only change you'll ever see is pure mech.
It's not like BW had a massive amount of variation in unit usage compared to SC2's current state. In ZvT, even Z had to stick to a fairly straightforward comp (Lings, Lurkers, Defilers, Ultras, sometimes muta harass earlier on), in order to deal with the "standard" Terran comp.
Some will disagree with this, but strategy really comes from how you use your units on the map in question, and not the actual army composition. That's not to say I wouldn't love to see a MMM nerf so that more units can see some usage in high level play.
starting a long OP with "i mean..." is lame, and why does this fucking thread have 20 god damn pages. the question you ask is completely opinionated... your just making another bw vs sc2 shitstorm
Boring, i dont think so and i think its going to get better. The tournament will have better organisation, caster will get better, the gameplay will evolve.. i hope!
Yes it is boring. It also doesn't seem like anyone is making an effort to play creatively. I see nothing but mass one base play, and sadly it seems to be superior to any kind of macro game.
I don't know if it's just me, but despite the supposed function of the marauder to allow the terran to be on the offensive, i find it a poorly designed unit, not only in graphical animation, but in use. It's plain boring to watch, not to mention how very good, to the point of counter, they are versus a variety of different units. That should not happen. Their function should be more limited.
It's not boring, IEM was a lot of fun to watch (not everything, this never happens but some match were good). MLG was disapointing though but it comes more from a weaker player pool than anything else, you can't expect good but not pro players and unknown players to come up with very strong and original plays.
Let's look forward to GSL.
As for the MM discussion, yeah there is a bit of strangeness there when T is able to do it all game long. My main issue with it has more to do with stimpack than anything else. The main problem I have with stimpack is not necessarily the damage boost but it has more to do with the combination of Stim Marauders + Concussive shell, if I could run from a stimmed bioball without losing 1/4 or 1/3 of my army I would find it way better but as it is now if you are caught up in a bad position, Terran press T and roll over your force. The second issue I have with it is the fact M&M is too effective against buildings with stim but I'm not sure how to change this.
You are talking about MM being in every T game but what about zealots? are you saying they are NOT in every game? If you nerf MM and no1 builds bio balls anymore you'll be saying helioon/tank are boring because terran goes it every game. And if you nerf MM then T will not longer be able to do anything, terran army is so immobile, MM is the only way to harass/move about the map.
On August 31 2010 05:27 Thoro wrote: All right, so I got into watching BW when SC2 beta phase 1 ended. I played BW around when it came out, but never got big-time into it because I was like 4 years old at the time. When beta came out I started playing ladder which made me want to get better- so I started watching SC2 as well. Then, as I said above, beta ended so I started watching BW.
So just to set the record straight, I started watching both games around the same time.
In my opinion, BW is way more fun to watch.
There are some good reasons, too- I love the massive amounts of action that goes on in BW- you generally have skirmishes going on EVERYWHERE with massive amounts of expos, as opposed to SC2 where you may get 2 or 3 expos and you have 1 core army and then a small group of harassers, or something of the sort.
I could go into it in more , but basically, I like how BW has players using their army everywhere, rather than in one giant ball marching towards the opponent at certain periods in the game. I think SC2 might develop to the point to where it's more entertaining to watch- I hope so, at least. Until then, I watch SC2 purely to improve my skill level.
I think this a result of the current map pool as well as the current state of the meta game. Maps like steppes of war are not exactly conducive to multiple expansions, but maps like Melalopolis commonly has large macro games with 3-4 bases each. If you look at Nada vs TLO game 2, Nada was building his fourth as TLO was securing his nat. Once bigger maps start to be the norm, I think we'll see a lot more big macro games.
On August 31 2010 08:12 Highways wrote: I think the #1 problem right now is marauders.
They are good against anything, hence every Terran game is a 1 dimensional marauder spam.
Nerf these please.
This. Nerfin marauders would be such a great thing. I mean just buff something to compensate, maybe hsm with bigger range and faster speed or give reaper some lategame buff or something. I don't even really know why but watching marauders is so freakin' boring. That's pretty much the only thing I have to complain about sc2 as a spectator sport
Kinda agree wit the Maurader thing. The patch will help Z and such, but I feel there's still going to be problems, because they weren't touched. Neither was Z buff wise.
Highways is right. Marauders break TvT and TvP. You'd expect a player stuck with tier 1 to be at a disadvantage against tier 2 and 3, but in the glorious realm of SC2, he in fact has his opponent at a disadvantage. This is simply poor design, attributable almost entirely to a single poorly conceived unit. What happens if the Marauder was weak? Protoss wouldn't be forced to build a billion units off of one base, and Terran wouldn't be forced to do the same in response. We'd see more quick expansion builds and longer, better macro games. TvT is even worse, because you're forced to build Marauders throughout the game or have very little chance of winning. They are simply far too effective vs buildings and mech for their cost.
How do marauders break TvT? It's tanks that break it...
EDIT: And I don't think it's boring. Wasn't MMM ball all anybody did at the beginning of the beta, and it changed over time after that? I think the game will continue to evolve. Furthermore, what makes a game "exciting" has a lot more to do with unit composition. I think Morrow's play vs Idra in the IEM tournament was very exciting.
sc2 is currently getting more and more boring for me.
i personally blame mostly the terrible small maps but some other issues take part in this too.
i jsut cant stand all the shitty allins and "cheese" games anymore. what i like about sc was the fight for important areas, big macro fights, impressive micro etc.
now we see mass MMM or 4gate shit aclicked into the enemy till it dies in like 75% of the matches. where is the impressive macro? where are the constant fights for control of a piece of terrain? where is the impressive micro ? (and no, spamming psistorm or kiting with mmm is not impressive micro)
the few games that actually get to 3bases or more are usually way better but sits rare.
imho sc2s gameplay currently centers around gimmicks,cheese and allins. which was fun at the start. but the 40th time you see a Z die to 4gate aclick on blistering or a P to early rauder pushes its plain boring. no matter if you watch it, are the one losing or the one winning (im random. i know all the situations from both sides).
blizzard seems to actually promote that. with their announced changes and with them beeing happy with their terrible mappool. if nothing about that changes (either from blizz side or the community in some way) in the next 1-2 months guess ill just quit.
On August 31 2010 08:56 HalfAmazing wrote: Highways is right. Marauders break TvT and TvP. You'd expect a player stuck with tier 1 to be at a disadvantage against tier 2 and 3, but in the glorious realm of SC2, he in fact has his opponent at a disadvantage. This is simply poor design, attributable almost entirely to a single poorly conceived unit. What happens if the Marauder was weak? Protoss wouldn't be forced to build a billion units off of one base, and Terran wouldn't be forced to do the same in response. We'd see more quick expansion builds and longer, better macro games. TvT is even worse, because you're forced to build Marauders throughout the game or have very little chance of winning. They are simply far too effective vs buildings and mech for their cost.
On August 31 2010 09:36 BeMannerDuPenner wrote: sc2 is currently getting more and more boring for me.
i personally blame mostly the terrible small maps but some other issues take part in this too.
i jsut cant stand all the shitty allins and "cheese" games anymore. what i like about sc was the fight for important areas, big macro fights, impressive micro etc.
now we see mass MMM or 4gate shit aclicked into the enemy till it dies in like 75% of the matches. where is the impressive macro? where are the constant fights for control of a piece of terrain? where is the impressive micro ? (and no, spamming psistorm or kiting with mmm is not impressive micro)
the few games that actually get to 3bases or more are usually way better but sits rare.
imho sc2s gameplay currently centers around gimmicks,cheese and allins. which was fun at the start. but the 40th time you see a Z die to 4gate aclick on blistering or a P to early rauder pushes its plain boring. no matter if you watch it, are the one losing or the one winning (im random. i know all the situations from both sides).
blizzard seems to actually promote that. with their announced changes and with them beeing happy with their terrible mappool. if nothing about that changes (either from blizz side or the community in some way) in the next 1-2 months guess ill just quit.
I do agree with this. I think the races are very well balanced and well thought-out for the most part (the reaper is broken in TvZ). It's the maps that promote all-in plays or cheesy tactics.
at this point i feel its less exciting to watch then REALLY good BW players, but I don't think its really a fault of the game more so the skill of the players currently playing sc2. BW professional have the game to a science they can't really do rather boring 1 base safe plays to win because people know how to exploit every aspect of that game. Once sc2 develops in the next few years I fully expect for sc2 to be just as exciting.
To be honest, I am truly stunned that Blizzard still cannot seem to see how outright ridiculous the marauder is - they are by far the most broken unit in the game. Its not even about whining that Terran is OP or anything, but because of how insanely powerful the marauder is, there really is not that much incentive for Terran players to get anything else but them as the core unit. Massing a T1 unit which can handle T2/T3 units of other races on more than an even scale just isn't particularly fun to watch.
I think they should be designed to be somewhat similar to the Warcraft 3 Orc wolf raider - the concussive shell should be like ensare, manually casted with a limit imo. It promotes more micro and tense moments to see if the terran players reaction with the marauder would be able to stun the retreating/incoming unit in time etc. Wolf raiders were also good against buildings, but did crap damage against almost every other unit. Thats how units should be, strengths and weaknesses, and frankly, there is almost no weakness with the marauder right now (especially for a T1 unit) aside from their inability to hit air.
my PvT is still counter marauders but the games are going more into mid-late games now (20+ minutes) which I must say very nice when you can just keep macro up and strategy to win the game. It's just the game is so young (1 month release + beta ) and people want to win they are competetively thus they stick with the method that will grant them a lot of wins. It won't help those people on the long run but they are thinking like why change a winning method.
On August 31 2010 09:36 BeMannerDuPenner wrote: i personally blame mostly the terrible small maps but some other issues take part in this too.
i disagree. for example, in PvT, a protoss is almost forced the one base because of the treat of early marauder preasure, if he FEs and the terran feels like he can just walk in with a handfull of marauders and snipes the nexus, wich in turns spells GG for the protoss player. the toss can only expand well once he reaches T3.
On August 31 2010 09:36 BeMannerDuPenner wrote: i personally blame mostly the terrible small maps but some other issues take part in this too.
i disagree. for example, in PvT, a protoss is almost forced the one base because of the treat of early marauder preasure, if he FEs and the terran feels like he can just walk in with a handfull of marauders and snipes the nexus, wich in turns spells GG for the protoss player. the toss can only expand well once he reaches T3.
How are people this stupid?
HE'S SAYING THE MAPS ARE TOO SMALL. If the maps were bigger do you think a handful of marauders would arrive in time to stop the FE? The map pool right now promotes extremely aggressive builds by terran (the turtle race) which is causing problems for P and Z due to the balance design of the races (referring to 200/200 supply counts).
Vanilla StarCraft is also boring. It has very little strategic diversity compared to Brood War (not to mention that it's imbalanced). Also, look at Reign of Chaos. Is vanilla WarCraft III really a good game compared to The Frozen Throne?
I'm not a huge fan of SC2 (I think it's an ok game but not as good as Brood War) but I still won't judge it untill the expansions are out.
Yes, SC2 is boring to watch. I know the expansions aren't out yet, but none of the pros are playing with the same mindset as when Starcraft came out. People know what to look for this time around and it's just not there at the moment. Maybe there will be a few different build orders invented, but its difficult to see much more than one-base strategies being useful.
To the secondary... "topic" in here, take stim away from Marauders.
On August 31 2010 09:36 BeMannerDuPenner wrote: i personally blame mostly the terrible small maps but some other issues take part in this too.
i disagree. for example, in PvT, a protoss is almost forced the one base because of the treat of early marauder preasure, if he FEs and the terran feels like he can just walk in with a handfull of marauders and snipes the nexus, wich in turns spells GG for the protoss player. the toss can only expand well once he reaches T3.
Uh a bigger map means it takes longer for the units to get there allowing you to FE with much more safety...
No one can justify the ridiculous speed that marauders snipe nexus. Not to mention medivacs shipping them around with no speed upgrade needed. From BW I thought it was understood Stim works with marines because their Hit Points are so low and AoE can easily wipe them out. But with marauders it's hardly a downside at all. The marauder can already slow enemies letting them pick off opponents or escape, and they have plenty of HP to tank, don't really see why they need a damage and speed boost.
[IEM game between Idra vs Morrow; Morrow makes a mid-game push with marine, marauder, very few medivacs and a few tanks and takes down Idra's whole offensive force]
"Again, so much of what we are gonna slowly learn about SC2 is that it's not about THIS unit mix or THAT unit mix. It's about aggression timing, expansion timing, and little subtle control technique."
Maybe the problem is that some people here think they know what to watch for. If the Street Fighter community can let go of SFIII and jump on the SFIV wagon, why can't we do the same for our game?
I think the OP can't grasp the amount of practice, natural talent and skill that is needed to right click nexuses and hatcheries with stimed T1 10+10 dmg units.
But on a serious note. Indeed MMM is extremely boring to watch since there is nothing impressive (skill-wise) about the control or the overall strategy. People use MMM 1 control group balls from medium platinum up to 1000++ diamond there they have a second group for emp.
If I pretend my balance complaint thread is actually about the state of how enjoyable the game is for viewing it won't get removed! Damn I'm pretty fucking smart aren't I.
On August 31 2010 10:02 itzbrandnew wrote: HE'S SAYING THE MAPS ARE TOO SMALL. If the maps were bigger do you think a handful of marauders would arrive in time to stop the FE? The map pool right now promotes extremely aggressive builds by terran (the turtle race) which is causing problems for P and Z due to the balance design of the races (referring to 200/200 supply counts).
go play 1v1 on some of the 8 Player maps that have walking distances of up to 2 minutes.. nexus/CC/hatches still get sniped with very little you can do about it, and because of the size of the maps, marauder drops are even more powerfull and often cost you entire bases.
i admit, i might be wrong and properly designed maps with the proper size might indeed take away from the insane early aggression that almost foces one-base play... current 8 player maps are however not able to do that.
On August 31 2010 11:03 DminusTerran wrote: If I pretend my balance complaint thread is actually about the state of how enjoyable the game is for viewing it won't get removed! Damn I'm pretty fucking smart aren't I.
It was until some whiny Terran bitches decided to come try to start shit. MMM is in every match up because it's so powerful. Balance topic or not, there is a serious issue here.
On August 31 2010 10:07 vOddy wrote: Vanilla StarCraft is also boring. It has very little strategic diversity compared to Brood War (not to mention that it's imbalanced). Also, look at Reign of Chaos. Is vanilla WarCraft III really a good game compared to The Frozen Throne?
I'm not a huge fan of SC2 (I think it's an ok game but not as good as Brood War) but I still won't judge it untill the expansions are out.
roflmao I doubt you've even played Vanilla SC somewhat regularly vs other ppl.
I'd say one of the problems w/ SC2 is that big armies just.. don't look as impressive. For one thing, the bad visual clarity takes away from my enjoyment and a 200/200 big moving ball is just kinda boring to watch tbh. Whereas BW everything is just so clear and crisp, and a 200/200 army moves in a big sprawling fashion taht just looks much more impressive to watch. There's also a big difference in sound quality, where in SC2 things just sound muddled for the sake of "realism".
One of my major gripes is also that SC2's screen of view is just much bigger and zoomed out, and this in turn just makes things less personal and intense, and it really doesn't make me feel for the game as much as BW did. It's not really the units per se that are the problem, but more like the presentation for me.
I agree that certain matchups are increasingly boring to watch. The same builds again and again are becoming less entertaining. But I think this applies to more than just MMM.
On August 31 2010 10:48 ImGonnaRideYou wrote: Day[9]'s most recent daily (#167):
[IEM game between Idra vs Morrow; Morrow makes a mid-game push with marine, marauder, very few medivacs and a few tanks and takes down Idra's whole offensive force]
"Again, so much of what we are gonna slowly learn about SC2 is that it's not about THIS unit mix or THAT unit mix. It's about aggression timing, expansion timing, and little subtle control technique."
Maybe the problem is that some people here think they know what to watch for. If the Street Fighter community can let go of SFIII and jump on the SFIV wagon, why can't we do the same for our game?
Unit composition isn't what bores me about SC2, I agree what Day9 said about the units. These "strategies" people use might not work in the near future of SC2, the only reason they work now is because people don't know all the core timings of all races and of course people are figuring it out. Oh I forgot to add, I don't like about 90% of the new units that came out for SC2 and it's obviously safe to say that I'm biased for this reason, which is what makes me not like these compositions as opposed to other people saying other things.
What bores me about SC2 is that a lot of the mechanics are so easy now, and it's just not amazing to watch people do things (mainly send out a force to attack). In Brood War you were limited on the number of units you can put on 10 hotkeys and was pretty difficult to control so much units. It was amazing to watch these players control so many units at once along with other things that have changed in SC2.
At your question, I'm not going to join the wagon because "that" group of people is doing it too with their own game. Circumstances are different for every game and I'm not going to follow something just because "other" people are doing it.
There you have it, those are my reasons why I don't like SC2, but hey 2 expansions are coming out so there's a chance my mind will change!
To the people complaining about how quickly maurauders kill main buildings. It was exactly the same in SC1, where it was common to send 8 or so marines (and two medics) or 4 zealots to snipe an expo hatch/nexus.
On August 31 2010 11:55 ComusLoM wrote: To the people complaining about how quickly maurauders kill main buildings. It was exactly the same in SC1, where it was common to send 8 or so marines (and two medics) or 4 zealots to snipe an expo hatch/nexus.
If those 8 marines had stim sniping a hatchery, then yeah it is the same as SC1, but the 4 zealots... would be really slow sniping the nexus as opposed to 4 marauders that have 20 damage instead of the zealots 16. In the end that extra damage would end the life of that nexus/hatchery
The problem is everything is too easy. Nothing requires any serious skill. You either pick your build correctly and time your attack with some luck and steamroll a guy, or lose. Watch some "pros" play, and look at how little they're punished for their inconsistent worker production. In fact, very often they'll deliberately stop at under 30 workers because this game is just so small. It's Brood War for idiots, imo.
I think I might even enjoy watching SC2 more than SC:BW. The problem with SC:BW is that you pretty much know who's going to win: Flash or Jaedong. Flash is the undisputed heavy-weight champion of SC:BW for all time. Nobody in the history of SC has ever been better than Flash is right now, including Boxer, Nada, Savior, Bisu, and every other great player to ever play the game. It's also very likely that no one will ever be better than Flash. As awesome as it is to watch his perfect play with attacks timed to what seems like the millisecond, it does get a bit...mundane watching games where there is a clear favorite.
I think the problem with this whole argument is in your definition of interesting. Personally I find really good micro far more interesting then random ass unit makeups. I play protoss and I pretty much use every unit in the game except maybe dark templars they all have a place. Sure early game most PvT look very similar, but that is ok, a standard early game build isnt a bad thing, but once you counter the reapers the games start looking very different
On August 31 2010 12:21 HalfAmazing wrote: The problem is everything is too easy. Nothing requires any serious skill. You either pick your build correctly and time your attack with some luck and steamroll a guy, or lose. Watch some "pros" play, and look at how little they're punished for their inconsistent worker production. In fact, very often they'll deliberately stop at under 30 workers because this game is just so small. It's Brood War for idiots, imo.
Then you've got thousands of dollars to win. Get out there and claim all that easy money.
I don't think at all that SC2 is boring to watch. In fact, when I watch most streams, I'm very tempted to play this game. It might be a bit blasphemous to say this on TeamLiquid, but I have not even bought this game yet. I mostly lurk, and watch a lot of streams. I find it amazing some of the things these players pull off, and how much effort goes into polishing the subtleties of this game. In fact, this game is beautiful due to that reason. It's very surprising what one missed action implies so much for a later part of the game.
I come from a baduk(Go/Weiqi/Igo) community, where these types of implications are exactly what makes that game exciting. One small mistake at move 5, and you could be suffering from an unexpected shape mistake at move 150+. It's VERY interesting to me. I find a lot of similarities between the two games, and it is in that way I view Starcraft II's tournament play.(When to attack, when to defend, when is the right time to extend, etc.) I also have to ask what exactly is wrong with a standard opening? Isn't refinement something you WANT to have in a game? Especially in a game that's aiming for "professional" atmosphere. This is also a pattern in baduk. The better you are, the more consistent you are at the smaller things(The pros are exactly this. They review a lot amateur play, and usually point out the inconsistencies. They generally preface this is as being a "usual" amateur play).
I think the bigger issue here is that most people do not appreciate some small subtle steps in the process, but look at the final result. As with Go(and really all other games), it's not whether you win or lose, but it's honestly all about how you got to that certain point. Don't get me wrong, EVERY game has balance issues, and they are dealt with as time goes on, but when the question asked is "Do you enjoy watching SCII?" I would say absolutely yes.
Why not just be upfront and be honest that you just wanted to point out (again) how "overpowered" Terran is at the moment.
Why pretend as if this really is about watching Starcraft 2. I don't understand how moderators just let so many people make thread after thread about how overpowered Terran is at the moment.
Note that nowhere in my post I'm stating that Terran is or is not overpowered. That's not the point. The point is that NOTHING that anyone posts is new or refreshing concerning this topic.
It's all been said and done a thousand times already, yet people still make these threads, mostly out of frustration.
Now I understand that people are entitled to their opinion, but it really feels as if this new generation of Starcraft 2 players are all used to WoW and other games in which the only conversation about the game was about how OP a class is or something. That carried over to Starcraft 2 and whether it's in-game or on the forum, all we see is "discussions" about imbalance.
I do not find watching Starcraft 2 boring at all, as long as it's high level play. Be it MMM, cheese, macro or anything else. As long as that person does what he/she can and must do to have good macro, micro and overall game sense to win the game.
Sure some games are more exciting then others, but I don't watch a basketball or a soccer game just in hopes that someone is going to score in a ridiculous manner. I'm watching to see two teams playing at their best.
I don't know man, it just feels that these kind of threads have no point in the end. No one ever changes his/her mind and it's only back and forth blaming and flaming and telling others that they don't know what they're talking about. It's not like it's going to get us somewhere. Not at this level of communication anyways.
On August 31 2010 12:09 dj.ricecakes wrote: heavy infantry with fact and port support.... boring or seen before in almost every tvz match of sc bw
do you understand what the OP is trying to say? first of all, will you go bio vs a toss in BW? I think not, ud get owned. Yet in SC2 you can go bio in ALL matchups. Hence why the OP is saying that SC2 is a little boring to watch sometimes.Blizz should make it so that you can't just use one build with tiny variations against every race. Or it will get very boring sooner or later.
On August 31 2010 13:59 Vaporeon wrote: I never play BW nowadays but still find it 100x more entertaining than anything sc2.
This. But Sc2 is interesting as long as there is good players playing. I enjoy Korean games mostly, and some of the Europeans/NA players can be really fun to watch.
On August 31 2010 12:21 HalfAmazing wrote: The problem is everything is too easy. Nothing requires any serious skill. You either pick your build correctly and time your attack with some luck and steamroll a guy, or lose. Watch some "pros" play, and look at how little they're punished for their inconsistent worker production. In fact, very often they'll deliberately stop at under 30 workers because this game is just so small. It's Brood War for idiots, imo.
Then you've got thousands of dollars to win. Get out there and claim all that easy money.
Exactly this. If you think everything's too easy, then go smash. What's that? You can't beat the lamest pro, let alone the best? Hm, maybe it's not so easy then huh?
After playing and watching sc2 for quite a while now, i watched Flash vs Jaedong MSL finals and dam it was soooo much more awesome than any sc2 matches to date.
Another thread crying about how OP Terran is. I guess at least the original post was "subtle" about it. What are you complaining about exactly? Terran players are a bunch of noobs that abuse easy builds? Blizzard sucks by making such a broken race? Either way there are plenty of threads about this already so this should be closed down to save some space for other threads.
On August 31 2010 15:03 positron. wrote: Another thread crying about how OP Terran is. I guess at least the original post was "subtle" about it. What are you complaining about exactly? Terran players are a bunch of noobs that abuse easy builds? Blizzard sucks by making such a broken race? Either way there are plenty of threads about this already so this should be closed down to save some space for other threads.
Another one who can't accept the plain truth about Terran. Sigh.....
In my opinion, people are saying SC2 because of mmm and the likes. Well IMO what makes SC2 boring to watch is it's not about execution, it's about countering.
What I mean by this is in BW you both have a build and the one who does it better is ahead. In SC2 you make something to counter your opponent and you're ahead. Watching people think is not as entertaining as some super fast clicking you could dream to do.
IMO what blizzard tried to do with SC2 was start closing that massive disparity gap between pro and semi-pro players, which in BW was massive. But this brought a downfall in the watch ability of it because its all too easy to do now. And the disparity gap is still not closing. However this game has many years to evolve and there are 2 more expansion packs to come things will change.
On August 31 2010 17:01 red_hq wrote: IMO what blizzard tried to do with SC2 was start closing that massive disparity gap between pro and semi-pro players, which in BW was massive. But this brought a downfall in the watch ability of it because its all too easy to do now. And the disparity gap is still not closing. However this game has many years to evolve and there are 2 more expansion packs to come things will change.
hmm 1 year per game release .. its only 1/3 for sc2 .. 2/3 will come in the following years .. what might change? idk .. but if the trend is to "add stuff" like what blizzard doing .. metagame wont improve .. it will just change and change because of the "added stuff" ..
I find the game quite entertaing to watch (and play). Most of my concerns regarding the visibility and the art style of the game were resolved. The graphics are crisp and immersive and by now I have 0 problems to follow what's going on. Is this thread really about "watching the game" or rather about balance concerns? At least with regard to SC vanilla after one month, this game is lightyears ahead in entertainment value.
SC2 is not going to be as good of a spectator sport as BW. That just seems to be the reality of it. When the developers made the game they had a set of priorities and this either didn't make the list or was a fail execution.
I actually think that SC2 is fun to watch, borderline really fun to watch, but not nearly as good as BW. Small tweaks like we saw in the last patch (though know they were not meant to) will not fix this and the large changes that would are not going to happen due to a combination of Bliz not caring so much or not being willing to make changes that will result in huge amounts rebalancing. The latter I do not fault them for.
I cannot remember who made the (semi) recent spotlighted thread about how to make the game have more "wow" moments (chill, plexa or etc.) It was good and apparently ignored.
Agreed, the fact that the mmm ball is viable versus everything else is getting boring to watch. I have seen too many games where the terran player just sticks with the same unit composition for the entire game no matter what the enemy throws at him and the fact that it often works is just wrong imo.
You often see the other player pulling off creative strategies to deal with it and those are the games that become mildly interesting, so at least the other races are experiencing improvement because of this effect.
It isn't nearly as entertaining as Brood War imo. But that could be just because in my subconscious I know that the stage they are playing on isn't as big as the Brood War one, so my opinion might be skewed.
To be honest... I don't think a lot of the players are all that good. When I watch S-Class Brood War play... they play so pristine and smoothly. Everything they do is perfect and then when I watch Starcraft 2 I see so many mistakes and errors (not just little ones, big mistakes) from the supposed "Top Players" but I guess the game has only been out a little over a month...
What bores me about SC2 is that a lot of the mechanics are so easy now, and it's just not amazing to watch people do things (mainly send out a force to attack). In Brood War you were limited on the number of units you can put on 10 hotkeys and was pretty difficult to control so much units. It was amazing to watch these players control so many units at once along with other things that have changed in SC2.
There you have it, those are my reasons why I don't like SC2, but hey 2 expansions are coming out so there's a chance my mind will change!
I was never the biggest Broodwarrior, but that's one of the reasons why I have more interest in SC 2. Brood War play - however great the demand for technical skill and speed - has left me cold in the few matches I've seen because so much of it seems to be about overcoming or exploiting the game interface, pathfinding, and such. It seems to me that
Executing Mutalisk micro, shuttle yoyos, mass mining while macroing off 3+ bases (with like 10 factories...) might be demanding and thus impressive in that sense, but 11 mutalisks having the same volume as 1 just seems silly to me. I generally have a pretty high tolerance for purely 'game' elements in RPGs and such, but for some reason, that kind of thing in Starcraft really annoys me.
The way units tend to fight in SC2 twigs my BS sensor a lot less, so I can enjoy the game more. A terran ball seems less like an ugly blob to me and more like the creation of a larger unit - instead of 10 guys with guns; a platoon of soldiers. And perhaps also that even though top level gamers are way way above my skill, there's still a sort of approachability to it.
I mean, the AI for units could be completely stripped out so units don't fire at all without target fire commands to increase the micro requirement for the game. And maybe you can't group units at all and can only issue commands to one unit at a time. Then it would be an amazing feat just to have your guys fight in a battle! But I don't really think it'd be a better game; just harder in a rather pointless way. Obviously, that's a bit of an extreme example though.
That being said, I hope that you don't lose what you enjoy in BW. But it doesn't seem like it'll go away soon.
On August 31 2010 18:02 Victim wrote: I was never the biggest Broodwarrior, but that's one of the reasons why I have more interest in SC 2. Brood War play - however great the demand for technical skill and speed - has left me cold in the few matches I've seen because so much of it seems to be about overcoming or exploiting the game interface, pathfinding, and such. It seems to me that
Executing Mutalisk micro, shuttle yoyos, mass mining while macroing off 3+ bases (with like 10 factories...) might be demanding and thus impressive in that sense, but 11 mutalisks having the same volume as 1 just seems silly to me. I generally have a pretty high tolerance for purely 'game' elements in RPGs and such, but for some reason, that kind of thing in Starcraft really annoys me.
I don't like hating on other peoples opinions... but that is what makes a game dynamic...
Those are the kind of things that makes games EXCITING. Starcraft 2 is just so... obvious. Units counter other units, so you just build the counter to them. There is very little room for creativity...
Don't get me wrong... there are clever things you can do in Starcraft 2, such as TLO's EMP OC+Nuke (while not that effective, still interesting). But for the most part of Starcraft 2 games I watch... just seems to be the same thing. Broodwar would be a very boring game if there wasn't Muta Stacking, Reaver+Shuttle micro, Stop Lurkers, etc. That is the problem with Starcraft 2... it doesn't have any of those things.
Oh well, opinions are opinions... however I really feel the need to discount yours. The reason why Broodwar is alive still are the very problems you seem to have with it.
Things die too fast and battles end too quickly. Giving stim to marauders would be like giving stim to a goliath or a goon or a hydra in brood war. Then they go ahead at make it CHEAPER along with giving marines a + to HP upgrade?
All damage was scaled down in broodwar. It was easier to make a comeback because advantages were much more gradual. In sc2 if your army is caught out of position for just a split second and your opponent even has a hair of common sense, you lose any chance of winning with one swift decisive battle. Whether you lose your expo or your army the game is decide right there and then.
I enjoy watching SC2 far more than I enjoy SC1. Probably because I havent really followed the SC1 scene since 2003 or such, and dont have such huge amounts of nostalgia and admiration for BW. I was actually more into WC3 the last few years (BLASPHEMY!). I know this is the place where BW is the holy grail and anyone dissing it will probably be deemed a total noob, but it doesnt really matter to me.
Few points that really degrade the BW experiment for me, and I would imagine that it would be the same for anyone who starts watching them in this day and age: 1) The game looks like utter crap. It would be okay if the resolution could be upped, but alas. 2) The metagame has evolved so greatly, I find it difficult to follow different strategies. Stuff just happens and usually I tend to have no idea who is even in the lead.
I think a person who is very into BW and understands all the tactical nuances, will enjoy it greatly. For any newcomer, SC2 is infinitely easier to understand and much more pleasing to the eyes, with much more modern tools that allow you to follow pretty much every nuance of the game. SC2 is obviously by far the most E-sports -friendly game they've done, and ultimately has far more potential of bringing more people into the scene.
On August 31 2010 19:47 Bagi wrote: I enjoy watching SC2 far more than I enjoy SC1. Probably because I havent really followed the SC1 scene since 2003 or such, and dont have such huge amounts of nostalgia and admiration for BW. I was actually more into WC3 the last few years (BLASPHEMY!). I know this is the place where BW is the holy grail and anyone dissing it will probably be deemed a total noob, but it doesnt really matter to me.
Few points that really degrade the BW experiment for me, and I would imagine that it would be the same for anyone who starts watching them in this day and age: 1) The game looks like utter crap. It would be okay if the resolution could be upped, but alas.
I actually think purely design-wise it's better than SC2 in almost every aspect. The resolution is lower and that's the only thing that makes it "look old", other than the fact that it's 2D (only because developers don't ever make any 2D games anymore however more fitting it is for some genres).
2) The metagame has evolved so greatly, I find it difficult to follow different strategies. Stuff just happens and usually I tend to have no idea who is even in the lead.
Seriously? I showed a game of BW to a "recent" non-BW RTS player (he's been playing the Supreme Commander series only) and he immediately could tell who was winning in most situations, and more often than not why players were doing what they were doing.
Oh and you also have to take into account the fact that listening to english-speaking casters obviously helps a ton in understanding what's going on during a game and who's winning and why.
People saying SC2 will evolve like SC1 are wrong to be honest. When SC1 came out the idea of a "build order" and "optimising an advantange" in the same sense as it's used today were not even thought about. SC2 has the knowledge of SC1 behind. It'll be a lot tougher to evolve, and what's more interesting is that if MMM can compete with two different Protoss t3 tech paths (High Templar/Colossi) and win despite proper/near perfect use of the Colossi/High Templar why would Terran players *want* to deviate? There's nothing stopping MMM being a total beast army, and it has exceptional mobility and risk > reward benefits (if you lose a fight as MMM you can stim and run away, likewise if the opponent loses a fight against MMM you can't run away due to stim/conc. shells).
it is fun to watch but I enjoy BW games more the implicity and the high skill cap makes it easier for the eyes and far more impressive to watch the pros. Not saying that the sc2 guys suck but I mean honestly do we see a lot of awesome micro in sc2? no! cause the engine is too good for most old awesome stuff and the units don't have as nice spells for the crowds to go wild over so I'd say overall no.
Also the maps that are on the ladder currently don't make for fun games. Delta quadrant looks promising but gief andromeda and fighting spirit those were awesome maps for sweet games same with Python, HBR, Tau Cross, Neo Medusa and Outsider.
On August 31 2010 18:00 tbrown47 wrote: It isn't nearly as entertaining as Brood War imo. But that could be just because in my subconscious I know that the stage they are playing on isn't as big as the Brood War one, so my opinion might be skewed.
To be honest... I don't think a lot of the players are all that good. When I watch S-Class Brood War play... they play so pristine and smoothly. Everything they do is perfect and then when I watch Starcraft 2 I see so many mistakes and errors (not just little ones, big mistakes) from the supposed "Top Players" but I guess the game has only been out a little over a month...
You're absolutely right. Top players of today won't be the top players of tomorrow, perhaps except one or two. They play bad compared to what i've seen possible in other RTS, and even broodwar. So far i have only seen a few games where they did play well, and they were korean top players. European and American except a few, are lagging behind by a lot.
There's something we have to remember. If i want to be professional at playing an instrument, it will take years. It's not possible to do it in a few months even if i practice 8h a day, unless i have a rare natural talent for it. All amazing pianists have years of experience. Most top players of today aren't really that good tbh, compared to how good they could be, i see a lot of mistakes all the games. They tend to 1a, instead of splitting army and attacking in 2, 3 or 4 directions at the same time when possible, idle army, etc etc. I remember a game where Ensnare did that, while the zerg was going with his big army around, he couldn't compete with him attacking from everyside, and having great control on all of those little armies. Ensnare ended up winning with apm about 250 + average.
This is why there are a lot of top unkown top players, its hard, but not that hard to be top right now.
I never even played Broodwar seriously, and yet I still enjoy watching it, far more then Starcraft 2 which I play everyday. All of Broodwars 'flaws' were what made the top players look so impressive to me. That they could play so perfectly on what was a very old and clumsy game in my eyes.
SC2 on the other hand, is probably the damn smoothest playing RTS ever to grace this earth. I don't think you'll see the kind of evolution in SC2 you saw in SC1. As has been mentioned before, alot of the techiques from SC1 carry over, at least the theoretical ones. Evolution will happen, we'll find some more 'magic box' like tricks, and build orders will change with each patch and certain shifts in the meta-game (caused by big tournaments likely) but the RTS world is in a very different place now than it was back in 2001.
Overall, I think you'll just see a shift away from one-base play into more expanding and macro play, but I think big balls of MMM will be a central feature of SC2 for many, many years to come.
I would say all the MUs are fun to watch except ZvZ and TvZ. Creativity is what makes for great games, and in ZvZ and TvZ, there is none. Yes, terrans don't always go reapers to x in TvZ. Terrans not opening with reapers are being creative not to get an edge, but to show they can do a less optimal opening and still win. PvT is so exciting to watch because P actually have a fighting chance to win; same with ZvP.
In this moment i think that is a lot of repetition going on, because that a lot of terrans use mmm and the others two races the only think that do is dealing with that. MLG was a sample of that. But with time sc2 is going to be less repetitive, i hope so
I like how the OP didn't mention BW a single time and this thread still devolved into SC2 vs BW. I guess it's impossible to evaluate SC2 as its own game.
On August 31 2010 19:09 kidcrash wrote: Things die too fast and battles end too quickly. (...)
All damage was scaled down in broodwar. It was easier to make a comeback because advantages were much more gradual. In sc2 if your army is caught out of position for just a split second and your opponent even has a hair of common sense, you lose any chance of winning with one swift decisive battle. Whether you lose your expo or your army the game is decide right there and then.
With Mech constantly getting hit with the nerfbat its no wonder terrans are going with MMM. Thors have been pretty much reduced to babysitting mineral lines against mutalisks and tanks are getting a pretty signifcant nerf in the next patch which is going to hinder their ability to take out zerg/banelings. Hellions role is too similar to that of reapers. Then theres the issue of mobility which both Z and P players are finally exploiting. MMM seems like the only alternative to a ground army.
I do agree though it is boring and I get sick of playing it constantly myself hopefully they end up doing something with mech to give terran more choice without making it imbalanced (although if you ask me a force with such lack of mobility probably deserves to hit like a truck).
On August 31 2010 22:06 Cofo wrote: I like how the OP didn't mention BW a single time and this thread still devolved into SC2 vs BW. I guess it's impossible to evaluate SC2 as its own game.
Even wc3 is more entertaining Hah i didn't use BW No seriously Broodwar has 10 times better and clearer graphics which is really great when shown on Tv
On August 31 2010 22:06 Cofo wrote: I like how the OP didn't mention BW a single time and this thread still devolved into SC2 vs BW. I guess it's impossible to evaluate SC2 as its own game.
If I had've evaluated SC2 as its own game instead of being to sequel to the best RTS of all time I would not have paid $150 for the CE. Instead I was blinded by the fact it was Starcraft and ended up wasting my money.
I just don't think SC2 is a very good game. I don't find it fun to watch for many reasons. I don't find it interesting to play. Comparing it to Brood War is what people should be doing rather than falling into the trap of "BUT IT'S STARCRAFT" like I did when I bought it.
The game really needs to improve if it's going to even reach the success of WC3...
I agree with a lot of people that the "terran is op" "nerf this nerf that" rubbish needs to stop. There are far more basic things like: - Making units more interesting - Tightening unit control - Improving sound design - Cleaning up the graphics - Battle.net needs to be usable
You can sit there trying to balance the hell out of everything your entire life. It is impossible. Balance should be achieved like it was in Brood War by having a higher skill cap so player skill overcomes minor imbalances. That is what makes a game truly exciting to watch and amazingly fun to play.
Depends on players IMHO. If I am watching 2 pro players in a tournament, I´d be very excited. If I am watching 2 bronze players in a random match, I´d be bored maybe.
On August 31 2010 22:06 Cofo wrote: I like how the OP didn't mention BW a single time and this thread still devolved into SC2 vs BW. I guess it's impossible to evaluate SC2 as its own game.
Because its a sequel to SCBW. It should improve on the original, not be worse.
If sc2 was called something else and not made by blizzard and had different race names and unit models, it wouldnt be as big as it is today even if the game was the same. The only reason people are playing sc2 is because they hope it will be as good as SC1 and things get fixed for the better. People WANT sc2 to do good, because they want to see a game comparable and better than BW.
I did not get any Beta and so I tried to get into the game by watching it via Day9 Streams. I just got no feeling for it. Everything looks fancy and polished and unfortunately also completely chararcterless. I like watching BW Mutalisks more than SC2 Mutalisks, I like the Zerglings more, I like the Marines more. At first I thought it was because I was used to the way BW looked but even after a lot of watched games I still found that SC2 units were boring. And the interesting Thors and Colossi seemed over the top, interesting at first but nothing I would want to navigate or watch more than 10 times. Also I noted that all games tended to boil down to one big battle and whoever won that won the game - I have not watched any SC2 since some point during Beta so this might be totally off by now but overall at some point I came to the conclusion that I would stick with SC:BW, playing and watching.
On August 31 2010 12:21 HalfAmazing wrote: The problem is everything is too easy. Nothing requires any serious skill. You either pick your build correctly and time your attack with some luck and steamroll a guy, or lose. Watch some "pros" play, and look at how little they're punished for their inconsistent worker production. In fact, very often they'll deliberately stop at under 30 workers because this game is just so small. It's Brood War for idiots, imo.
Then you've got thousands of dollars to win. Get out there and claim all that easy money.
Firstly, I am very highly ranked on the EU ladder (1400+) and am more than competitive with all of these guys. If I needed the money it would certainly be an avenue I'd explore. I'm not delusional, I don't think I'd beat everybody, but I'd be in the running for sure.
Unfortunately you must have have misunderstood the first part of my post where I said it's about picking the correct build (luck) and timing (lots of luck as well). True skill in Brood War is about insane multitasking and micro, something which simply doesn't exist in SC II. The game is dumbed down to such an extent that random elements play a much larger role than they should.
Watch BratOK vs WhiteRa Go4SC2 game 2 on Lost Temple and tell me that's pro level play. Observe BratOK's worker production, ok? That is WarCraft III, sir. Zero punishment for neglecting economy.
On August 31 2010 12:21 HalfAmazing wrote: The problem is everything is too easy. Nothing requires any serious skill. You either pick your build correctly and time your attack with some luck and steamroll a guy, or lose. Watch some "pros" play, and look at how little they're punished for their inconsistent worker production. In fact, very often they'll deliberately stop at under 30 workers because this game is just so small. It's Brood War for idiots, imo.
Then you've got thousands of dollars to win. Get out there and claim all that easy money.
Unfortunately you must have have misunderstood the first part of my post where I said it's about picking the correct build (luck) and timing (lots of luck as well). True skill in Brood War is about insane multitasking and micro, something which simply doesn't exist in SC II. The game is dumbed down to such an extent that random elements play a much larger role than they should.
Watch BratOK vs WhiteRa Go4SC2 game 2 on Lost Temple and tell me that's pro level play. Observe BratOK's worker production, ok? That is WarCraft III, sir. Zero punishment for neglecting economy.
feel pretty much the same way. when i play against a 1050 rated T that produced 22 workers the whole game and just allins from one base till his mins run dry i facepalm and wish the game was more like broodwar where he coudlnt even win bnet public games.
i win and lose so many where i dont really know why. im not so cocky that i think im a great player when i kill a Z with a hellion+rauder attack/a 4gate or when i kill a T cause he suddenly has 2 charged voidrays in his base from a hidden stargate. this isnt skill. i could teach a 8 year old how to execute such stuff. but currently this game is more about catching the enemy offguard in one way or another then actually outplaying em.
I agree, MMM is just so boring to watch. Brood war is so much better for e sports.
Reaver-shuttle, two units working together like that. And stacked mutalisks. Vultures. It's just so much fun and requires so much skill compared to stimmed and a-moved mmm.
But sc2 is evolving all the time, maybe we will see better and more creative play in the future.
On August 31 2010 12:21 HalfAmazing wrote: The problem is everything is too easy. Nothing requires any serious skill. You either pick your build correctly and time your attack with some luck and steamroll a guy, or lose. Watch some "pros" play, and look at how little they're punished for their inconsistent worker production. In fact, very often they'll deliberately stop at under 30 workers because this game is just so small. It's Brood War for idiots, imo.
Then you've got thousands of dollars to win. Get out there and claim all that easy money.
Unfortunately you must have have misunderstood the first part of my post where I said it's about picking the correct build (luck) and timing (lots of luck as well). True skill in Brood War is about insane multitasking and micro, something which simply doesn't exist in SC II. The game is dumbed down to such an extent that random elements play a much larger role than they should.
Watch BratOK vs WhiteRa Go4SC2 game 2 on Lost Temple and tell me that's pro level play. Observe BratOK's worker production, ok? That is WarCraft III, sir. Zero punishment for neglecting economy.
feel pretty much the same way. when i play against a 1050 rated T that produced 22 workers the whole game and just allins from one base till his mins run dry i facepalm and wish the game was more like broodwar where he coudlnt even win bnet public games.
i win and lose so many where i dont really know why. im not so cocky that i think im a great player when i kill a Z with a hellion+rauder attack/a 4gate or when i kill a T cause he suddenly has 2 charged voidrays in his base from a hidden stargate. this isnt skill. i could teach a 8 year old how to execute such stuff. but currently this game is more about catching the enemy offguard in one way or another then actually outplaying em.
First of all, nothing is easy when its human vs. human. Look at football (soccer), all you do is kick a ball and run, easy. What makes it hard is that you have to do it better than others.
Your also contradictiong yourself. In my opinion, if you caught someone offguard with voidrays you OUTPLAYED them. If your good your not going to be beaten or caught offguard by the examples you gave. And if you can teach the tactic to a 8-year-old who then goes on beats player X, chances are that the 8-year-old was better than player x to start with. Hence, he outplayed him. The better player beats the worse one.
So, give SC2 sometime to develop and try to be more objective. BW was "easy" as well when it came out...
On August 31 2010 12:21 HalfAmazing wrote: The problem is everything is too easy. Nothing requires any serious skill. You either pick your build correctly and time your attack with some luck and steamroll a guy, or lose. Watch some "pros" play, and look at how little they're punished for their inconsistent worker production. In fact, very often they'll deliberately stop at under 30 workers because this game is just so small. It's Brood War for idiots, imo.
Then you've got thousands of dollars to win. Get out there and claim all that easy money.
Unfortunately you must have have misunderstood the first part of my post where I said it's about picking the correct build (luck) and timing (lots of luck as well). True skill in Brood War is about insane multitasking and micro, something which simply doesn't exist in SC II. The game is dumbed down to such an extent that random elements play a much larger role than they should.
Watch BratOK vs WhiteRa Go4SC2 game 2 on Lost Temple and tell me that's pro level play. Observe BratOK's worker production, ok? That is WarCraft III, sir. Zero punishment for neglecting economy.
feel pretty much the same way. when i play against a 1050 rated T that produced 22 workers the whole game and just allins from one base till his mins run dry i facepalm and wish the game was more like broodwar where he coudlnt even win bnet public games.
i win and lose so many where i dont really know why. im not so cocky that i think im a great player when i kill a Z with a hellion+rauder attack/a 4gate or when i kill a T cause he suddenly has 2 charged voidrays in his base from a hidden stargate. this isnt skill. i could teach a 8 year old how to execute such stuff. but currently this game is more about catching the enemy offguard in one way or another then actually outplaying em.
First of all, nothing is easy when its human vs. human. Look at football (soccer), all you do is kick a ball and run, easy. What makes it hard is that you have to do it better than others.
Your also contradictiong yourself. In my opinion, if you caught someone offguard with voidrays you OUTPLAYED them. If your good your not going to be beaten or caught offguard by the examples you gave. And if you can teach the tactic to a 8-year-old who then goes on beats player X, chances are that the 8-year-old was better than player x to start with. Hence, he outplayed him. The better player beats the worse one.
So, give SC2 sometime to develop and try to be more objective. BW was "easy" as well when it came out...
So if i build stalkers only while hiding stargates in an obscure location on the map and get voidrays, and beat TLO because he didnt see the stargates and got only marauders, it means i outplayed him and im better than him? cool! I guess
Wrong bro. Sorry your logic is just so flawed it hurts. Pros lose games in ladder all the time, does that mean that the random ladder scrub who beat them that one game, even though they would have lost in a best of 5, is better than the pro? no.
The chances of your plan working are slim to none. TLO is a good enough player that judging from your army size, he could tell you are tech switching, and he would try and scout for that. Also stargates are a huge investment and hiding them somewhere on the map is super risky. If TLO didn't just push you and kill you when you tried to tech switch, he would probably be prepared for the voidrays anyway. Also, pros don't just make marauders.
But what do I know, go challenge him and tell me how it went.
On September 01 2010 02:16 Beef Noodles wrote: The chances of your plan working are slim to none. TLO is a good enough player that judging from your army size, he could tell you are tech switching, and he would try and scout for that. Also stargates are a huge investment and hiding them somewhere on the map is super risky. If TLO didn't just push you and kill you when you tried to tech switch, he would probably be prepared for the voidrays anyway. Also, pros don't just make marauders.
But what do I know, go challenge him and tell me how it went.
Totally disagree. I love watching SC2! this may be in part because the game is still kind of being figured out, so theres so much new play all the time. i mean in brood war right now, people FLIP OUT when a new strategy comes along because everyone's done it b4. in sc2 though, there are new strats coming out everyday.
On September 01 2010 02:16 Beef Noodles wrote: The chances of your plan working are slim to none. TLO is a good enough player that judging from your army size, he could tell you are tech switching, and he would try and scout for that. Also stargates are a huge investment and hiding them somewhere on the map is super risky. If TLO didn't just push you and kill you when you tried to tech switch, he would probably be prepared for the voidrays anyway. Also, pros don't just make marauders.
But what do I know, go challenge him and tell me how it went.
thats why voidray rushes never win right? ohwait watch mlg matches, watch tlo vs whitera/tester etc
if you consider getting a surprise voidray charged is outplaying the enemy, fine. i dont.and i dont even want to argue about such stuff. not to mention that you pretty much didnt get my point to begin with.
On September 01 2010 02:24 Deindar wrote: Totally disagree. I love watching SC2! this may be in part because the game is still kind of being figured out, so theres so much new play all the time. i mean in brood war right now, people FLIP OUT when a new strategy comes along because everyone's done it b4. in sc2 though, there are new strats coming out everyday.
what you say is definitly true. but i dont see whats exciting about the "new" strats. it doesnt matter much if a P 1a's a zeal/stalker/immortal army in or a zeal/stalker voidray. it doesnt matter much if the terran 1as with rauder hellion or rine/thor. in the end the battles are 90% decided by who build what when and look like some kind of unit arena where 2 balls engage eachother and the winner wins the game.
i just miss the amazing macro ,micro, fights for mapcontrol and positioning. cause all of that is mostly gone. its mass up Rock, hope when you attack the enemy doesnt have enough Paper and done.
sc2s gameplay is more like wc3 then broodwar atm with all the "ball A meets ball B, winner takes the game" and 1/2 base play. which is terrible in my opinion and gets boring very fast.
On September 01 2010 02:08 bRuTaL!! wrote: First of all, nothing is easy when its human vs. human. Look at football (soccer), all you do is kick a ball and run, easy. What makes it hard is that you have to do it better than others.
This is just ridiculous.
Tic Tac Toe is difficult because it's played against another human being? Every game has a skill ceiling and StarCraft II's is low -- at least compared to Brood War. Checkers is played against another human, but the game has already been cracked by computers. It is impossible to beat an algorithm! Chess is more complex and even though there are very sophisticated computer programs out there, the best human players will still beat them more often than not. Games are like puzzles, all of them can be cracked. Some simply take longer than others, and that is a measure of their complexity and relative skill ceiling. StarCraft II is more like checkers than chess, and it is not debatable that it requires considerably less skill to play well. This means it simply doesn't offer players the same framework to apply creativity within, and is therefore boring. The game is simply too small and not demanding enough.
STORM !!! STORM !!! STORM !!! OMG !!!! ...................... BOOM ~ Amazing all the marines are dead with that much bannelings. ...........OMFG that terran players doing triple drop ships snipe the nexuses !!!!!!!! ..... Early game is boring yes even broodwar . Midgame to late is awesome.
First of all, nothing is easy when its human vs. human. Look at football (soccer), all you do is kick a ball and run, easy. What makes it hard is that you have to do it better than others.
Your also contradictiong yourself. In my opinion, if you caught someone offguard with voidrays you OUTPLAYED them. If your good your not going to be beaten or caught offguard by the examples you gave. And if you can teach the tactic to a 8-year-old who then goes on beats player X, chances are that the 8-year-old was better than player x to start with. Hence, he outplayed him. The better player beats the worse one.
So, give SC2 sometime to develop and try to be more objective. BW was "easy" as well when it came out...
So if i build stalkers only while hiding stargates in an obscure location on the map and get voidrays, and beat TLO because he didnt see the stargates and got only marauders, it means i outplayed him and im better than him? cool! I guess
Wrong bro. Sorry your logic is just so flawed it hurts. Pros lose games in ladder all the time, does that mean that the random ladder scrub who beat them that one game, even though they would have lost in a best of 5, is better than the pro? no.
Well, duh. In a single match the best might not win, its the same for every game. But if your good enough to keep TLO at bay while you get voidrays and use them effectively enough to win, then you cant be too bad.
But also, if you know your a lot better than someone else then its smart to cover all bases, even if does make sense for your opponent to do those things...
I guess what it comes down to is "Are voidrays OP?"
I personally don't think so, but they are very annoying because they can with the game in seconds if you are not careful (very similar to how siege tanks can win in seconds if a line of them siege up your natural as zerg if you are not careful). But people will start to take more and more precautions to avoid this.
Look at BW. Reavers could win the game in seconds with a couple good scarabs. Everyone knew this, so they were constantly on their toes, and eventually reavers stopped doing insane amounts of damage because players were ready for them.
Honestly, well-played SC2 is a blast to watch. The "issue" if there is one, is that right now too many "top" players don't actually play that well. So you have a lot of cookie cutter build, unimpressive mechanics, and games which just aren't that great--its like watching replays of my friends who are somewhat better than me play basketball. Sure, they're a bit better, but they aren't nearly good enough to make it entertaining for spectators.
SC2 is the same way. The truly elite players have produced some fantastic games in the short period the game has been out. Crazy and original strategies (see: TLO), amazing macro (see: Idra) and micro (lots of the top Koreans). They've been well-played, dramatic, highly competitive and unpredictable, and fun as hell for hardcore and casual fans alike (as evidenced by Husky and HD getting millions of views by broadcasting lots of the best replays--if they weren't fun for casual fans to watch, no way would those guys get that many views).
But the game is young. There aren't many players who can perform at that level. So you have lots of uninspiring, samey matchups where people just do the expected thing, or curbstomps when one of those supposedly "elite" daimond players goes against a real progamer.
I don't think this is a problem with the game. I don't even think its a "problem" with the playerbase, in the sense of there being something that Blizzard or players could have done differently. It is simply an inevitable result of a flood of relatively new players coming into a new game.
As time goes on, we will see more truly elite players emegre, and the bar for truly elite will get higher (for instance, right now Idra's mechanics are pretty much unparalleled. But thats just because he has more practice than everyone else. As other players get better, those kind of top notch mechanics will become the norm for the most elite players). That will inevitably result in more competitive, better played, and ultimately, more fun and exciting games for spectators.
Finding enjoyment in watching a game is completely subjective, but keep in mind we are talking about a game that even the current pros haven't figured out yet.
I'm sure if we could go back in time and watch BW games, a month after its release, between "top level players" of the time we'd be bored to tears. Once again though, if the design of the game and the development of play over time doesn't excite your eyes and brain parts it's really not that big of a deal, you'll find something else to enjoy.
I think SC2 will become much more exciting once those Korean casters from BW start commentating...then you'll have the "G GEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"
I enjoy watching the game, and who knows...there are still a bunch of changes that will be made + more potential strategies.
The problem is that almost every commonly used terran unit has decent health for its cost, does high amounts of damage and is range 5-10. This means that you can have a unit composition that is something like marine, marauder, viking, ghost, banshee medivac and still be 1aing. Also, marines and marauders are almost identical from a micro perspective which really hurts things (engage, press T and kite).
Protoss needs to get zealots in the front, blink micro stalkers, storm with HTs and turn them into archons, kite with colossi and FF with sentries. Zerg needs to create traps for their banelings to take advantage of, surround with zerglings, micro mutas (magic box and stacking for different situations) as well as a number of other things I don't notice because I don't play zerg. Terran doesn't really have the same variety in how their units need to be used.
i have to laugh at you if you think mmm is still even a decent strategy agenst any good protoss. there are a few key elements to the protoss build that make it almost useless. i will go 4 gate heavy on sentrys and stalkers every time agenst mmm and havent lost a single game agenst the mmm in quite a while to it. the real key to winning the fight is to cut the opponents army in half with force feilds allowing your ranged to take down half their army before the other half touches you and then the second half will just fall with you in a huge supply lead after the fight i will usually follow up with an expand second after the mmm push dies
On September 01 2010 02:40 Beef Noodles wrote: I guess what it comes down to is "Are voidrays OP?"
I personally don't think so, but they are very annoying because they can with the game in seconds if you are not careful (very similar to how siege tanks can win in seconds if a line of them siege up your natural as zerg if you are not careful). But people will start to take more and more precautions to avoid this.
Look at BW. Reavers could win the game in seconds with a couple good scarabs. Everyone knew this, so they were constantly on their toes, and eventually reavers stopped doing insane amounts of damage because players were ready for them.
thats not the point at all. the point is that very easy stuff hitting a "lucky" timing/situation instnatly ends the game.
reavers require amazing control and much commitment. when i see someone killing his enemy with great reaver drop play i go crazy and applaud it .
when i see someone winning cause he rushed for a hidden stargate and managed to get it charged i get angry cause a game that couldve been entertaining got a boring skillless end.
thats the difference. and that applies to lots of things in sc2.
btw voidrays are terribly designed and either destroy games or are completly useless. but not OP.
On September 01 2010 02:43 awesomoecalypse wrote: But the game is young. There aren't many players who can perform at that level. So you have lots of uninspiring, samey matchups where people just do the expected thing, or curbstomps when one of those supposedly "elite" daimond players goes against a real progamer.
I don't think this is a problem with the game. I don't even think its a "problem" with the playerbase, in the sense of there being something that Blizzard or players could have done differently. It is simply an inevitable result of a flood of relatively new players coming into a new game.
As time goes on, we will see more truly elite players emegre, and the bar for truly elite will get higher (for instance, right now Idra's mechanics are pretty much unparalleled. But thats just because he has more practice than everyone else. As other players get better, those kind of top notch mechanics will become the norm for the most elite players). That will inevitably result in more competitive, better played, and ultimately, more fun and exciting games for spectators.
Quoted for emphasis. I absolutely agree with this point. Yes, SC2 is easier to play mechanically than SC:BW. That doesn't mean people have come anywhere close to reaching the maximum skill potential.
When SC1 first came out, 1 base all-ins were the norm, and battles WERE blob vs blob (slightly less so only because poor pathing disallows clumping). As the game developed, players learned how to safely expand and games became much more macro oriented. When it's 5 base vs 5 base, there's so much more opportunity for harassment and action all over the map, which a lot of people complain is missing from most SC2 games. I strongly believe that we will see a similar development in SC2 as players get better, and perhaps just as importantly, the maps get better (there are very few ladder maps that are large enough/designed well enough to encourage heavy macro play).
It's hard to compare a game that people had 10 years to perfect their skill at, to one that's been officially released for ten months, but I think the main shortcoming right now is unit diversity. Think of SC vanilla when it was first released. No medics at all, no DTs, no lurkers, etc. SC2 still has two expansions coming that hopefully add new units and with them alot of new strategy possibilities. Just adding a couple units with new and different roles within an army exponentially increases your strategic options and makes the game way more interesting to watch.
For now, like in BW metagame, we'll just have to wait until the other races develop and perfect counters with what they've got. Overall, Blizzard could have done alot worse with the sequel. Somehow they've avoided complete disaster with a sequel to the best game ever created.
I understand your point, but in the early days of BW losing a reaver didn't cost you the game. Why? Because people were terrible and "small" investments of minerals and gas were not going to break your chances of winning. When people become as good at SC2, investing in a starport and 1-2 voidrays and losing them will almost surely cost you the game.
It is absolutely fun to watch, but I also agree that it's not up to BW's level yet.
My problems: - Poor sound design: Other than perhaps some of the zerg building noises, the soundscape in SC2 is almost universally inferior to BW. Most mech units share the same explosion sounds, unlike in BW where a science vessel or a carrier died in a sound that was instantly recognizable. Most attack sounds are weak, the zealot, hydra, and siege tank being the biggest disappointments. Nothing has the sheer bass or omph that the BW sounds have. I also hate that really annoying high-pitched squeal noise that terran units make when they die.
- Not enough impressive micro: There is nothing impressive about focus fire or kiting micro, yet that's all we see in 90% of the games, MMM balls especially. This isn't a balance issue, but a lot of units and spells need to be redesigned to require much more precise micro and positioning. We need more things like shuttle/reaver micro, lurker control, dark swarm use, and muta micro.
- Not as visually exciting: I brought this complaint up several times in the past, but I still don't like how units in SC2 cluster up so much into tight balls. Not only does it gimp melee units by making it harder to break ranged balls, but it's just not as fun to watch. I love how in BW, units stay apart and battles are spread out completely across the screen with bullet and explosion fury everywhere. In SC2, it's a tiny little bunched up ball against another tiny little bunched up ball with only the occasional concave or spread. BW also has much more visually impressive AoE spells because they can be made larger without imbalancing the game. In SC2, thanks to the new pathing and smart casting, AoE spells have to be tiny little patches of effects in order to preserve balance. It makes for a balanced, yet less fun game.
- Bnet 2.0 Sucks: Already discussed this a million times, no need to repeat it.
- Maps are too small: Also a no-brainer
Fix all these and we might have a worthy successor to BW yet.
On September 01 2010 02:08 bRuTaL!! wrote: First of all, nothing is easy when its human vs. human. Look at football (soccer), all you do is kick a ball and run, easy. What makes it hard is that you have to do it better than others.
This is just ridiculous.
Tic Tac Toe is difficult because it's played against another human being? Every game has a skill ceiling and StarCraft II's is low -- at least compared to Brood War. Checkers is played against another human, but the game has already been cracked by computers. It is impossible to beat an algorithm! Chess is more complex and even though there are very sophisticated computer programs out there, the best human players will still beat them more often than not. Games are like puzzles, all of them can be cracked. Some simply take longer than others, and that is a measure of their complexity and relative skill ceiling. StarCraft II is more like checkers than chess, and it is not debatable that it requires considerably less skill to play well. This means it simply doesn't offer players the same framework to apply creativity within, and is therefore boring. The game is simply too small and not demanding enough.
Sc2 is way more complicated than chess. In chess, there is no realtime, no 3D space, nothings hidden, no need to multitask, no need for fast fingers. Doesnt make it any lesser of a game. In fact it makes it a lot more reliable to find who is better with a single match. Complicated doesnt equal better.
BW is a lot closer to being "solved" than SC2 is thought. And the pros of BW are a lot closer to the skillcap of BW than the ones in Sc2 are to sc2s. So if you want to say that Sc2 is boring with those definitions, thats fine but dont claim bw is exciting at the same time.
Im fine if someone says that Sc2 boring, thats theyre opinion and taste, cant argue with that. But it does irritate me that some claim Bw to be sooooo exciting at the same thime. It screams unobjectiveness. You might prefer one over the other but theyre far too similar for one to be boring and other to be exciting.
I am still more and more bored by SC2. The game is just 2 weeks out and I am already bored. BNet 2.0 just SUCKS as hell - I am really really unhappy with it and IMO its worse than BNet1. Most matchups are also dead boring, I just say TvT. Every fuckin game the same tank/viking bullshit.
We need more things like shuttle/reaver micro, lurker control, dark swarm use, and muta micro.
Tricks like these are slowly being discovered, however.
For example, Colossi with the range upgrade combined with warp prisms with the speed upgrade can kite nearly any ground force if properly used. Drop the Colossus at full range, get off a few attacks, when enemies move closer pick it up and retreat, then do it all over again. Its not quite the same as reaver dropping, but it is definitely more impressive micro than just a-moving, which is all many people thought the Colossus was capable of.
Mutas have a micro trick now, magic boxing. Ironically, it is the exact opposite of their stacking trick in BW. But its damn useful, and is a big part of why you hardly ever see Thors used as the sole muta counter in a T army. Something similar has also been employed with banelings, to spread their splash damage as far as possible and to make them more effective against tanks.
People have also figured out ways to use Zealot charge in non-attacking situations, allowing them to charge across long map distances.
more of these tricks will come in time. The game is young. Give it time to grow.
Lets compare a TvX to a ZvP: TvX: "Ok what could happen here?Any one of 2 things can happen when Terran goes MM as usual: -Game ends within first push OR -Game does not end in the first push and Terran just expands and gets more MM regardless of what opponent has. And the other player has to counter MM which you already know what that will be like, and Terran seems to stick with MM no matter what. So the opponent will have to stay with MM counter. And then the game just goes on to who has more "stuff" and whether or not Terran knows how to dodge storms."
I really wish over the top hyperbole like this would be a banable offense, jesus christ
The whole thing is nonsense. If you go straight mmm, you can't just waltz in without scouting. If you don't micro, you will get torn up
On September 01 2010 02:08 bRuTaL!! wrote: First of all, nothing is easy when its human vs. human. Look at football (soccer), all you do is kick a ball and run, easy. What makes it hard is that you have to do it better than others.
This is just ridiculous.
Tic Tac Toe is difficult because it's played against another human being? Every game has a skill ceiling and StarCraft II's is low -- at least compared to Brood War. Checkers is played against another human, but the game has already been cracked by computers. It is impossible to beat an algorithm! Chess is more complex and even though there are very sophisticated computer programs out there, the best human players will still beat them more often than not. Games are like puzzles, all of them can be cracked. Some simply take longer than others, and that is a measure of their complexity and relative skill ceiling. StarCraft II is more like checkers than chess, and it is not debatable that it requires considerably less skill to play well. This means it simply doesn't offer players the same framework to apply creativity within, and is therefore boring. The game is simply too small and not demanding enough.
Sc2 is way more complicated than chess. In chess, there is no realtime, no 3D space, nothings hidden, no need to multitask, no need for fast fingers. Doesnt make it any lesser of a game. In fact it makes it a lot more reliable to find who is better with a single match. Complicated doesnt equal better.
BW is a lot closer to being "solved" than SC2 is thought. And the pros of BW are a lot closer to the skillcap of BW than the ones in Sc2 are to sc2s. So if you want to say that Sc2 is boring with those definitions, thats fine but dont claim bw is exciting at the same time.
Im fine if someone says that Sc2 boring, thats theyre opinion and taste, cant argue with that. But it does irritate me that some claim Bw to be sooooo exciting at the same thime. It screams unobjectiveness. You might prefer one over the other but theyre far too similar for one to be boring and other to be exciting.
Sigh, you're confusing the issue because you misunderstood my analogy. I never compared BW (or SC II) to chess, I compared the relationship between chess and checkers to the relationship between BW and SC II. Just because checkers and chess are both played on an 8x8 grid, doesn't mean they require the same skill to master. One is simply an easier version of the other. SC II is an easier version of BW, and is therefore less interesting. It may have gotten stale for you, but compared objectively, BW is the much more demanding, interesting and exciting game.
On September 01 2010 02:08 bRuTaL!! wrote: First of all, nothing is easy when its human vs. human. Look at football (soccer), all you do is kick a ball and run, easy. What makes it hard is that you have to do it better than others.
This is just ridiculous.
Tic Tac Toe is difficult because it's played against another human being? Every game has a skill ceiling and StarCraft II's is low -- at least compared to Brood War. Checkers is played against another human, but the game has already been cracked by computers. It is impossible to beat an algorithm! Chess is more complex and even though there are very sophisticated computer programs out there, the best human players will still beat them more often than not. Games are like puzzles, all of them can be cracked. Some simply take longer than others, and that is a measure of their complexity and relative skill ceiling. StarCraft II is more like checkers than chess, and it is not debatable that it requires considerably less skill to play well. This means it simply doesn't offer players the same framework to apply creativity within, and is therefore boring. The game is simply too small and not demanding enough.
Sc2 is way more complicated than chess. In chess, there is no realtime, no 3D space, nothings hidden, no need to multitask, no need for fast fingers. Doesnt make it any lesser of a game. In fact it makes it a lot more reliable to find who is better with a single match. Complicated doesnt equal better.
BW is a lot closer to being "solved" than SC2 is thought. And the pros of BW are a lot closer to the skillcap of BW than the ones in Sc2 are to sc2s. So if you want to say that Sc2 is boring with those definitions, thats fine but dont claim bw is exciting at the same time.
Im fine if someone says that Sc2 boring, thats theyre opinion and taste, cant argue with that. But it does irritate me that some claim Bw to be sooooo exciting at the same thime. It screams unobjectiveness. You might prefer one over the other but theyre far too similar for one to be boring and other to be exciting.
Sigh, you're confusing the issue because you misunderstood my analogy. I never compared BW (or SC II) to chess, I compared the relationship between chess and checkers to the relationship between BW and SC II. Just because checkers and chess are both played on an 8x8 grid, doesn't mean they require the same skill to master. One is simply an easier version of the other. SC II is an easier version of BW, and is therefore less interesting. It may have gotten stale for you, but compared objectively, BW is the much more demanding, interesting and exciting game.
"Easier"
That word doesn't even belong in the context. A game is only as easy or hard as who you are playing against. A game is not inherently "easy" or "hard" unless it is a singleplayer game.
You know, the one thing that I really hate is when people tell others what they do and don't like. I'm not talking about this thread, but recent attitudes in general. Someone says that SC2 is boring, someone says that they like it -- "no you don't you actually hate it it's a noob game for noobs". Someones says that watching SC2 is boring, someone says that they like it -- "no you don't there's no skill there's no finesse there's no excitement you actually want to watch BW".
SC II is an easier version of BW, and is therefore less interesting. It may have gotten stale for you, but compared objectively, BW is the much more demanding, interesting and exciting game.
I'm not trying to single you out, but posts like this are similar. 'Objectively'? Really? Really? Really? He says that he doesn't find SC2 boring; OF COURSE that's objectively wrong. He actually finds it much less exciting than BW, he's just deluded himself into believing otherwise. Anyone who doesn't feel the same way is simply wrong, and you're right. I'm tired of this, I really am. I thought that the Starcraft community would be better than this.
On September 01 2010 02:08 bRuTaL!! wrote: First of all, nothing is easy when its human vs. human. Look at football (soccer), all you do is kick a ball and run, easy. What makes it hard is that you have to do it better than others.
This is just ridiculous.
Tic Tac Toe is difficult because it's played against another human being? Every game has a skill ceiling and StarCraft II's is low -- at least compared to Brood War. Checkers is played against another human, but the game has already been cracked by computers. It is impossible to beat an algorithm! Chess is more complex and even though there are very sophisticated computer programs out there, the best human players will still beat them more often than not. Games are like puzzles, all of them can be cracked. Some simply take longer than others, and that is a measure of their complexity and relative skill ceiling. StarCraft II is more like checkers than chess, and it is not debatable that it requires considerably less skill to play well. This means it simply doesn't offer players the same framework to apply creativity within, and is therefore boring. The game is simply too small and not demanding enough.
Sc2 is way more complicated than chess. In chess, there is no realtime, no 3D space, nothings hidden, no need to multitask, no need for fast fingers. Doesnt make it any lesser of a game. In fact it makes it a lot more reliable to find who is better with a single match. Complicated doesnt equal better.
BW is a lot closer to being "solved" than SC2 is thought. And the pros of BW are a lot closer to the skillcap of BW than the ones in Sc2 are to sc2s. So if you want to say that Sc2 is boring with those definitions, thats fine but dont claim bw is exciting at the same time.
Im fine if someone says that Sc2 boring, thats theyre opinion and taste, cant argue with that. But it does irritate me that some claim Bw to be sooooo exciting at the same thime. It screams unobjectiveness. You might prefer one over the other but theyre far too similar for one to be boring and other to be exciting.
Sigh, you're confusing the issue because you misunderstood my analogy. I never compared BW (or SC II) to chess, I compared the relationship between chess and checkers to the relationship between BW and SC II. Just because checkers and chess are both played on an 8x8 grid, doesn't mean they require the same skill to master. One is simply an easier version of the other. SC II is an easier version of BW, and is therefore less interesting. It may have gotten stale for you, but compared objectively, BW is the much more demanding, interesting and exciting game.
The problem with your analogy is that Checkers is easier than Chess because it's not as strategically deep. They take the same mechanical skill. The reason SC2 is easier than BW is almost purely mechanical difficulty.
On September 01 2010 02:08 bRuTaL!! wrote: First of all, nothing is easy when its human vs. human. Look at football (soccer), all you do is kick a ball and run, easy. What makes it hard is that you have to do it better than others.
This is just ridiculous.
Tic Tac Toe is difficult because it's played against another human being? Every game has a skill ceiling and StarCraft II's is low -- at least compared to Brood War. Checkers is played against another human, but the game has already been cracked by computers. It is impossible to beat an algorithm! Chess is more complex and even though there are very sophisticated computer programs out there, the best human players will still beat them more often than not. Games are like puzzles, all of them can be cracked. Some simply take longer than others, and that is a measure of their complexity and relative skill ceiling. StarCraft II is more like checkers than chess, and it is not debatable that it requires considerably less skill to play well. This means it simply doesn't offer players the same framework to apply creativity within, and is therefore boring. The game is simply too small and not demanding enough.
Sc2 is way more complicated than chess. In chess, there is no realtime, no 3D space, nothings hidden, no need to multitask, no need for fast fingers. Doesnt make it any lesser of a game. In fact it makes it a lot more reliable to find who is better with a single match. Complicated doesnt equal better.
BW is a lot closer to being "solved" than SC2 is thought. And the pros of BW are a lot closer to the skillcap of BW than the ones in Sc2 are to sc2s. So if you want to say that Sc2 is boring with those definitions, thats fine but dont claim bw is exciting at the same time.
Im fine if someone says that Sc2 boring, thats theyre opinion and taste, cant argue with that. But it does irritate me that some claim Bw to be sooooo exciting at the same thime. It screams unobjectiveness. You might prefer one over the other but theyre far too similar for one to be boring and other to be exciting.
Sigh, you're confusing the issue because you misunderstood my analogy. I never compared BW (or SC II) to chess, I compared the relationship between chess and checkers to the relationship between BW and SC II. Just because checkers and chess are both played on an 8x8 grid, doesn't mean they require the same skill to master. One is simply an easier version of the other. SC II is an easier version of BW, and is therefore less interesting. It may have gotten stale for you, but compared objectively, BW is the much more demanding, interesting and exciting game.
The problem with your analogy is that Checkers is easier than Chess because it's not as strategically deep. They take the same mechanical skill. The reason SC2 is easier than BW is almost purely mechanical difficulty.
Fine. Mechanical difficulty is why Brood War was superior to WarCraft III (is this even up for debate?), so why wouldn't BW be better than SC II because of this? SC II hasn't made up for this deficiency by making the game harder in other ways. In fact it is easier on every level. Mechanical difficulty is an integral part of an RTS game, and inherent to its strategic depth. SC II simply can not ever be as deep as BW, because things are so much easier to do.
On September 01 2010 04:08 Redmark wrote: You know, the one thing that I really hate is when people tell others what they do and don't like. I'm not talking about this thread, but recent attitudes in general. Someone says that SC2 is boring, someone says that they like it -- "no you don't you actually hate it it's a noob game for noobs". Someones says that watching SC2 is boring, someone says that they like it -- "no you don't there's no skill there's no finesse there's no excitement you actually want to watch BW".
SC II is an easier version of BW, and is therefore less interesting. It may have gotten stale for you, but compared objectively, BW is the much more demanding, interesting and exciting game.
I'm not trying to single you out, but posts like this are similar. 'Objectively'? Really? Really? Really? He says that he doesn't find SC2 boring; OF COURSE that's objectively wrong. He actually finds it much less exciting than BW, he's just deluded himself into believing otherwise. Anyone who doesn't feel the same way is simply wrong, and you're right.
Correct. They're wrong now, but once their understanding improves they will realize the game isn't as interesting as BW, and doesn't have the potential to be, either.
On September 01 2010 02:08 bRuTaL!! wrote: First of all, nothing is easy when its human vs. human. Look at football (soccer), all you do is kick a ball and run, easy. What makes it hard is that you have to do it better than others.
This is just ridiculous.
Tic Tac Toe is difficult because it's played against another human being? Every game has a skill ceiling and StarCraft II's is low -- at least compared to Brood War. Checkers is played against another human, but the game has already been cracked by computers. It is impossible to beat an algorithm! Chess is more complex and even though there are very sophisticated computer programs out there, the best human players will still beat them more often than not. Games are like puzzles, all of them can be cracked. Some simply take longer than others, and that is a measure of their complexity and relative skill ceiling. StarCraft II is more like checkers than chess, and it is not debatable that it requires considerably less skill to play well. This means it simply doesn't offer players the same framework to apply creativity within, and is therefore boring. The game is simply too small and not demanding enough.
Sc2 is way more complicated than chess. In chess, there is no realtime, no 3D space, nothings hidden, no need to multitask, no need for fast fingers. Doesnt make it any lesser of a game. In fact it makes it a lot more reliable to find who is better with a single match. Complicated doesnt equal better.
BW is a lot closer to being "solved" than SC2 is thought. And the pros of BW are a lot closer to the skillcap of BW than the ones in Sc2 are to sc2s. So if you want to say that Sc2 is boring with those definitions, thats fine but dont claim bw is exciting at the same time.
Im fine if someone says that Sc2 boring, thats theyre opinion and taste, cant argue with that. But it does irritate me that some claim Bw to be sooooo exciting at the same thime. It screams unobjectiveness. You might prefer one over the other but theyre far too similar for one to be boring and other to be exciting.
Sigh, you're confusing the issue because you misunderstood my analogy. I never compared BW (or SC II) to chess, I compared the relationship between chess and checkers to the relationship between BW and SC II. Just because checkers and chess are both played on an 8x8 grid, doesn't mean they require the same skill to master. One is simply an easier version of the other. SC II is an easier version of BW, and is therefore less interesting. It may have gotten stale for you, but compared objectively, BW is the much more demanding, interesting and exciting game.
The problem with your analogy is that Checkers is easier than Chess because it's not as strategically deep. They take the same mechanical skill. The reason SC2 is easier than BW is almost purely mechanical difficulty.
Fine. Mechanical difficulty is why Brood War was superior to WarCraft III (is this even up for debate?), so why wouldn't BW be better than SC II because of this? SC II hasn't made up for this deficiency by making the game harder in other ways. In fact it is easier on every level. Mechanical difficulty is an integral part of an RTS game, and inherent to its strategic depth. SC II simply can not ever be as deep as BW, because things are so much easier to do.
How can we say at this point that SC2 is "easier" than BW? Muta stacking wasn't around in BW for years. Who knows what challenging mechanical tricks will come around, given we have at least two expansions and multiple patches?
On September 01 2010 05:07 HalfAmazing wrote: Mechanical difficulty is an integral part of an RTS game, and inherent to its strategic depth. SC II simply can not ever be as deep as BW, because things are so much easier to do.
Mechanical difficulty may have an impact on how competitive a game can be, but it has absolutely nothing to do with strategic depth. Look at Chess.
On September 01 2010 05:07 HalfAmazing wrote: Mechanical difficulty is an integral part of an RTS game, and inherent to its strategic depth. SC II simply can not ever be as deep as BW, because things are so much easier to do.
Mechanical difficulty may have an impact on how competitive a game can be, but it has absolutely nothing to do with strategic depth. Look at Chess.
strategy in BW revolved around mechanical skill. Your strategies would change, and effectiveness of those strategies would change depending on your mechanical skill. Thus strategic depth was a lot more evident in BW, sorry to say bro.
On September 01 2010 05:07 HalfAmazing wrote: Mechanical difficulty is an integral part of an RTS game, and inherent to its strategic depth. SC II simply can not ever be as deep as BW, because things are so much easier to do.
Mechanical difficulty may have an impact on how competitive a game can be, but it has absolutely nothing to do with strategic depth. Look at Chess.
Sir, please... I specifically said RTS. The strategy in an RTS game is a direct results of how capable you are mechanically. They are intertwined. You can be the most brilliant strategist, but if you're physically incapable of executing your brilliant plan, you're not going to win. It is silly to separate strategy from mechanics in an RTS game.
Starcraft 2 is boring because Blizzard nerfed to oblivion the most exciting spells of the game (hunter seeker missile, neural parasite) some cool strats and units (Protoss drop -> look at warp-prism cost, buildtime and stat, same for the nydus canal which now takes forever to be build, same for the motership which was once a really impressive unit) while buffing boring strat (Zerg camping : speed increase on creep)...
Starcraft 2 relative boringness at this point can mostly be blamed on Blizzard incompetence, I've faith in Blizzard though, I think that after several failpatch like the one incoming they will end up asking top diamond players what they think could improve the game.
On September 01 2010 05:29 TeWy wrote: Starcraft 2 is boring because Blizzard nerfed to oblivion the most exciting spells of the game (hunter seeker missile, neural parasite) some cool strats and units (Protoss drop -> look at warp-prism cost, buildtime and stat, same for the nydus canal which now takes forever to be build, same for the motership which was once a really impressive unit) while buffing boring strat (Zerg camping : speed increase on creep)...
Starcraft 2 relative boringness at this point can mostly be blamed on Blizzard incompetence, I've faith in Blizzard though, I think that after several failpatch like the one incoming they will end up asking top diamond players what they think could improve the game.
Yeah I agree, it seems like pretty blatant blizzard fails in sc2. There are some pretty glaring problems that shouldnt have made it past internal testing let alone through beta. Seems to me like blizzard just cares about the bells and whistles of sc2 (cool looking UI, cool explosions, cool deaths, ridiculous units, etc.) rather that sitting down and understanding the gameplay shortfalls, while making the game simple as hell for anyone to play.
Oh well. Once people stop playing sc2 because they start getting bored of the same old, they might start to care a little. Probably when HOTS rolls around they will start to care and make some much needed changes to entice people to buy the expansion. Sadly if its going to take that long ill be moving on to something else way before that.
In the fall/holidays when the new games come out, i can already imagine people ask "sc2? you still play that game?" lol.
Starcraft 2 relative boringness at this point can mostly be blamed on Blizzard incompetence, I've faith in Blizzard though, I think that after several failpatch like the one incoming they will end up asking top diamond players what they think could improve the game.
i really doubt that. most of the new units and changes promote simple " lets face in the middle,aclick and see who wins the rockpaperscissor!" play.
look at the collossus for example. its the most easy to use "aoe dmg" unit (minus airsplash like sairs) in the history of starcraft. its the perfect example of what blizzard did/is doing with sc2. flashy animations, very powerful and so simple to use that evry 7 year old can use it and be happy about burning things down. yeah that stuff is fun for one time ( did you see the mass collosus fight at mlg? sure it was funny to see all the lasers. but it was deadboring and random gameplay wise) but gameplay wise it will never be remotly as entertaining to use,play against or watch as a reaver.
now tanks get nerfed which further turnes the game away from positional play and more into mass mm 1a'ing .
also blizzard doesnt have a exactly great history with balance or listening to the top. broodwar was a very lucky strike. look at wc3 , its imbalanced, boring and "easy". people are playing the same maps for years and years and nothing ever changed much in gameplay.
these comparisons between BW and SC2 are stupid and not just because SC2 is in its infancy.
we're using ladder maps with tiny rush distances and highly abusive terrain in tournaments. of course infantry timing pushes are going to be very effective on steppes of war and blistering sands. of course certain cheese/cliff abuse will make players drop games on kulas ravine and lost temple. tbh i think you could cut those 4 maps (half the damn map pool) and have a more enjoyable spectator game.
hopefully iccup is on to something good by using its custom maps in its league games.
On September 01 2010 04:08 Redmark wrote: You know, the one thing that I really hate is when people tell others what they do and don't like. I'm not talking about this thread, but recent attitudes in general. Someone says that SC2 is boring, someone says that they like it -- "no you don't you actually hate it it's a noob game for noobs". Someones says that watching SC2 is boring, someone says that they like it -- "no you don't there's no skill there's no finesse there's no excitement you actually want to watch BW".
SC II is an easier version of BW, and is therefore less interesting. It may have gotten stale for you, but compared objectively, BW is the much more demanding, interesting and exciting game.
I'm not trying to single you out, but posts like this are similar. 'Objectively'? Really? Really? Really? He says that he doesn't find SC2 boring; OF COURSE that's objectively wrong. He actually finds it much less exciting than BW, he's just deluded himself into believing otherwise. Anyone who doesn't feel the same way is simply wrong, and you're right.
Correct. They're wrong now, but once their understanding improves they will realize the game isn't as interesting as BW, and doesn't have the potential to be, either.
I found Redmark's post to be very relevant to this situation.
On that note, I do prefer BW to SC2 spectatorwise, but playing-wise SC2 is much much much easier. (D- iccup player here)
On September 01 2010 05:43 taintmachine wrote: these comparisons between BW and SC2 are stupid and not just because SC2 is in its infancy.
we're using ladder maps with tiny rush distances and highly abusive terrain in tournaments. of course infantry timing pushes are going to be very effective on steppes of war and blistering sands. of course certain cheese/cliff abuse will make players drop games on kulas ravine and lost temple. tbh i think you could cut those 4 maps (half the damn map pool) and have a more enjoyable spectator game.
hopefully iccup is on to something good by using its custom maps in its league games.
Hopefully the custom maps catch on.
to see large tournaments using custom maps, and having players ask "what map is that" and find out its a custom map because blizzard maps suck would really be a slap in the face to blizzard and might make them think twice, especially with the expansions needing to sell.
Mechanical difficulty is also a flawed argument in that nobody wants to take it to an extreme. Say a Brood War player/watcher/fan, like HalfAmazing, thinks that SC2 is too mechanically simple, and therefore strategically shallow (which is, imo, wrong, as shown by Cofo, but, for the sake of the argument, assume it is true), and Brood War is much more mechanically difficult, which I think everyone agrees on.
Now, what if there were a game, named Brood War 2, that required double the apm of Brood War to control units properly? It's much more mechanically difficult, is it a better game? Is it more strategic? What if it required triple? What if the game needed you to move every unit on each waypoint, so that you had to micro each unit individually per block of terrain? It would be mechanically difficult beyond any RTS game, and it would follow logically that Brood War 2 would be the most strategically deep game. But it doesn't mean it'll be the most fun game.
If, say, Brood War 2 removed defilers from the game. No unit replaces it, it's just Brood War only without pathfinding and control groups and defilers. Zergs would be fucked late game, yet would Brood War 2 be the most strategically deep? Obviously no, so clearly mechanical difficulty is secondary, at best, to strategic depth. The game itself is what determines strategy.
To conclude my long meandering point: mechanical difficulty is not necessarily key to the game. Otherwise, the best game would be the hypothetical, which is preposterous. No one wants to, or could, play a game where you had no aid from the computer. The point at which there is ENOUGH aid is where opinions differ. Brood War has less, SC2 has more, but whether that's a good or bad thing is SUBJECTIVE OPINION. I think Brood War is less fun than SC2 because you have to wrestle the computer the entire way in Brood War. I also think that a game that plays itself is electronic masturbation and not in fact a game. My cutoff point of too much aid is somewhere between SC2 and the self-playing game. Yours might be between BW and SC2. Yours might even be between BW2 and BW, and that BW should be even more mechanically difficult. But these are all opinions, and are all subjective. No one is wrong for wanting aid, or not wanting aid. The argument boils down to, at its core, some people preferring to play BW and some people preferring to play SC2. Saying that SC2 to you is a better game because it's simpler to play is subjective, and can't be proved wrong. Saying that BW is a better game to you because it's harder to play is subjective, and can't be proved wrong either. But saying either game is OBJECTIVELY better is absolutely wrong. Whoever makes that claim is essentially saying that his or her opinion is the right one, which is ridiculous in the extreme.
Now, saying which one is more competitive is much more arguable, in that there are objective facts or comparisons to be made. Assuming competitiveness is determined by skill cap and strategic depth, we can contrast the games. It is easier to control units in SC2. This is a fact. SC2 and BW differ in strategies and strategic depth. This is also a fact. But is it less competitive? No one has reached the skill cap yet, and no one is, imo, even approaching it, due to imperfect use of macro mechanics of every race, as well as in-game decision-making, which is further emphasized by the increased damage of SC2. No one has reached the end of the strategic depth yet, which is why there are new strategies every week and shifts in the trends of strategies used. Until both of those are reached, it's impossible to judge competitiveness since no one knows which is harder and which is deeper. Until that happens, anyone making judgements on the games' competitiveness is at best making an educated guess, and at worst talking out of their ass. Since BW has been out for over 10 years and there are STILL shifts in strategies, I think there will be a long wait before we find out the truth.
On September 01 2010 05:07 HalfAmazing wrote: Mechanical difficulty is an integral part of an RTS game, and inherent to its strategic depth. SC II simply can not ever be as deep as BW, because things are so much easier to do.
Mechanical difficulty may have an impact on how competitive a game can be, but it has absolutely nothing to do with strategic depth. Look at Chess.
strategy in BW revolved around mechanical skill. Your strategies would change, and effectiveness of those strategies would change depending on your mechanical skill. Thus strategic depth was a lot more evident in BW, sorry to say bro.
exactly!
i might be able to think like flash, but there is no way in hell that i will be able to execute any of his strats. i can know all timings and builds/counters and etc. but if i cant execute any of that it all equals squat.
IMO the things that made bw so brilliant was being able to watch pros accomplish/execute plays that i know i could never pull off even though i have the same mouse and keyboard that they have.
like the soccer analogy: essentially, it comes down to a bunch of grown ass men running around a filed kicking a ball. but theres so much depth that goes into scoring that makes soccer such an intense, low scoring game- both mechanically and strategically (ie. looking for openings and being able to pursue them)
this, coupled with the unique depth of bw's strategy and plays (use of darkswarm, positioning, mines, lurker strength in early/midgame, etc) and the unpredictably/spectator factor (mines/reaver scarabs/retarded fucking goon ai) made it so entertaining to watch and an instant hit in all our hearts.
sc2 has the strategy (in a different sense.. i know i only picked things that are bw unique but those are the things i miss most lol) but the intensity of having to push forward/attack an opponent and having to f2 back to your base to pump out 10 more tanks/vultures as your current ones pop out just in time from 10 factories spread across two screens AND having to micro and keep an eye on the minimap at all times AND having to keep money low AND over above all of that out think your opponent is so fucking demanding (mentally and physically) - NOTE: i cant do any of this lol... im just a D+ iccup player.. but i awe at those who can
what sc2 is lacking (maybe not zerg so much cause of queens larva and creep spreading) is that intensity of having to choose between controlling your units and production at all times.. this is negated so easily with multi building select and the 1a trap that we can all fall into. having to carefully utilize each hot key group in bw (units/building/cc decisions) was key to success.. the most organized and well planned out layout would have an advantage. here, i can have all my units in 1 hotkey (if i bother, i can use more for special units/casters/different types) but the average player can easily move a 200/200 army across the map in one click. <- this was, and still is, such a fucking impossible thing to do perfectly in bw with the limits of ten hotkey groups (for me atleast im not gosu haha)
its rare to see a bw pro (or anybody over D) not use all his hotkeys groups (1-0). finding that mechanical balance, in a game that already has the strategic balance (that has been built over the last decade) is rare- only the best pros can do it "perfectly".
can you IMAGINE doing this:
while macroing without mbs? that too its goons vs mines lol.
if i had buis's micro here, i would have been so fucking ecstatic if i pulled that off. but then i would look at the top right and see 1.5k min sitting in my bank and be like "oh fuck.. while i was microing... flash pumped out 15 more tanks and im falling behind.. time to go macro.. oh shit.. he has more vultures.." this isnt as much of a problem in sc2 as while im microing, i can just hit 6 to select all my games (or W or whatever) and warp in 10 more goons without having to take my screen of the action.
the little cute micro tricks and things do exist in sc2.. but the huge mechanical demand and the decisions that are put on the gamer- macro vs micro- is (present, but) far far far less than it is in bw.
I don't think anyone who saw Tester vs. Rainbow in the KotB would call that stuff "boring". The mirrors kind of bad, but that's how it works sometimes. Watch game 2 of NaDa vs. TLO, and even TvT is exciting as hell.
Answering the original question: Yes. T being the dominant race that it is in SC2 the game is boring when in all the matches it simply boils down to MMM vs X and if X can pull a win.
In points: > Battles end too quickly. The countering rock-papers-scissors design choice is too effective. > Units clump up too tightly to one another making them indistinguishable during battle. > Spells/Abilities are either gruesome (Conc. Shells/EMP) or are flat out terrible (Infestor). > The sounds of units in battle are also indistinguishable, especially dead/dying units. > Maps are terrible. > T being too dominant a race in every level of play save for the elite top. Their options, openings and strategies are unmatched. > The exclusion of LAN. This is a big blow to me as an avid Blizzard gamer. > Micro. Save for flanking and kitting, there is much less to do with unit micro then there was in BW. > Macro, non existent. >Absence of moving shot (Oh Micro, Where Art Thou?). > Graphically cluttered. I cannot tell how many units I have standing and where they are exactly during battles.
On September 01 2010 05:29 TeWy wrote: Starcraft 2 is boring because Blizzard nerfed to oblivion the most exciting spells of the game (hunter seeker missile, neural parasite) some cool strats and units (Protoss drop -> look at warp-prism cost, buildtime and stat, same for the nydus canal which now takes forever to be build, same for the motership which was once a really impressive unit) while buffing boring strat (Zerg camping : speed increase on creep)...
Starcraft 2 relative boringness at this point can mostly be blamed on Blizzard incompetence, I've faith in Blizzard though, I think that after several failpatch like the one incoming they will end up asking top diamond players what they think could improve the game.
That would be great but shouldn't Blizzard have already done this while SC2 was still in development? Contact a group of pro gamers and top level ICCUP players to play SC2 and scrutinize every detail and critique everything there is to the game play so that they can be sure that it can, at least, be on an even footing with BW. They knew that BW was a behemoth, a legend in the realm of RTS games, and yet they didn't take all the necessary precautions and steps to insure that the same legacy holds true for the sequel. They just wanted to release the game ASAP to impress shareholders with sales figures. One could argue that the beta was implemented to achieve that very same concept. Keep in mind, the beta, although being a closed beta, had thousands and thousands of people playing of which only a small percentage were great players. The voices of these players couldn't and wouldn't be heard over the roar and banter of scrubs. It was an earnest effort but it didn't quite workout as it was suppose to.
Balance and game mechanics can be adjusted after a game is done and released but there are some subtle traits and attributes in a game that cannot be implemented post-release if they aren't discovered before hand during the game's design and purposely implemented. Blizzard aren't expected to be pros at their own games and they aren't. This knowledge would come from professional players and a select group of the community.
The Mothership was such a letdown .
On September 01 2010 05:38 tacrats wrote: Oh well. Once people stop playing sc2 because they start getting bored of the same old, they might start to care a little. Probably when HOTS rolls around they will start to care and make some much needed changes to entice people to buy the expansion. Sadly if its going to take that long ill be moving on to something else way before that.
In the fall/holidays when the new games come out, i can already imagine people ask "sc2? you still play that game?" lol.
Agreed on both accounts. Blizzard won't care unless their sales begin to drop and since the game is still new they are either in denial of the problems that plague the game or just knowingly ignore them. If they wait long enough before they address the issues it may be too late. ATM I think they are banking everything on the expansions to come, they won't bother to update and patch WoL since HotS is only 18 months away. They would make bigger bucks from their team if they'd just redirect their attention to WoW.
On September 01 2010 05:29 TeWy wrote: Starcraft 2 is boring because Blizzard nerfed to oblivion the most exciting spells of the game (hunter seeker missile, neural parasite) some cool strats and units (Protoss drop -> look at warp-prism cost, buildtime and stat, same for the nydus canal which now takes forever to be build, same for the motership which was once a really impressive unit) while buffing boring strat (Zerg camping : speed increase on creep)...
Spells in general are much weaker then they were in BW. Let's compare the spells of one BW unit to it's SC2 counterpart, the Defiler to the Infestor. Defilers have Dark Swarm, Plague and Consume. Infestors have Fungal Growth, Infested Terran and Neural Parasite.
DS nullified ranged attacks and so T find themselves at a huge disadvantage when the Defiler enters the arena. Plague inflicts 295 damage to any unit or structure caught in it's radius, this thwarts any late game mass of tier three units and can wreck havoc against T buildings. Consume quickly recharges the Defilers energy to keep him chugging along in the battle. Fungal growth is suppose to fill the void left by DS and yet it falls short, the damage is mundane and doesn't turn the tide around in a TvZ confrontation, it's main use is to hold the T blob in place so that Banelings can come crashing into them. This is diffused by the fact that units caught in the FG can still fire at the incoming Banelings requiring the Z to gather a significant Baneling force and wager on the chance of his Banelings outrunning the firepower from the T's blob. This is further aggravated by the map design in SC2, maps are smaller and full of small pathways and obstacles that make flanking for the Z very difficult. This, of course, favors T play. Infested Terran is a waste. The unit is slow, clunky and doesn't impact battles the way that it's suppose to. As T or P, or even Z, would you really care if your opponent throws down a few Infested Terran during a confrontation? I would be indifferent. Neural Parasite, a spell with potential that, for some reason, had to be nerfed to the point that it too is a waste. 12 Seconds doesn't cut it, the spell takes a while to cast and does little to turn the tide of a battle.
On September 01 2010 03:03 Spawkuring wrote: It is absolutely fun to watch, but I also agree that it's not up to BW's level yet.
My problems: - Poor sound design: .. - Not enough impressive micro: .. - Not as visually exciting: .. - Bnet 2.0 Sucks: ..
- Maps are too small: ..
Fix all these and we might have a worthy successor to BW yet.
Good post, all of your points are excellent. I edited the post to save space, for those interested the original post is on page 26.
@All the people saying "wait for the expansions", didn't Blizzard say that the expansions were to be strictly single player and no multiplayer changes would be added that would not be added to the stock game for free through patches? I seem to recall that was their initial statement, but I guess I could have missed an update.
I think almost every single person here who is "Bored" with SC2 has one of a few major issues here:
1) You're comparing a Vanilla Title against a well-fleshed out expansion for a game that was previously a relatively new concept. BroodWar is an expansion, Compare SC1 to SC2, not SC:BW to SC2. Even if you think "SC2 should be better than BW, wtf is this guy smoking?" the fact is that maybe Blizzard didn't share your opinion that SC2 should be a BW Clone with prettier graphics. Maybe they have alternate ideas that your unbelievably god-like psychic powers could't detect.
2) The original Starcraft + Expansion was around for *Twelve Years*. Starcraft 2 has been in retail for *2 Months*. 12 Years is a lot longer for people to learn a game inside and out. Expecting people to be 100% Pro at the game after its just been released is retarded. Nobody was a BW "Pro" two months after the XPac was released, and the progamers made just as many boneheaded mistakes as they do now with a new release.
3) The game isnt finished yet. We're all aware of this. Bugs need fixed, Maps need tweaking, Bnet 2.0 has serious issues, Balance Changes are required, all of these basic mechanical changes need to be looked at and altered over the course of *YEARS* to reach the level of SC:BW. Expecting anything less is just stupid and you're letting yourselves down.
Edit: For anyone saying "SC2 is liek, zomg, so fuckin easy compared to BW" ... Where the hell are your pro-league earnings ? Lets see the Trophies and Checks folks, because honestly you arn't fooling anyone with your bullshit. If you're not winning top level events playing against the best the game has to offer, it ain't "easy".
On September 01 2010 06:38 tacrats wrote: Mechanical difficulty may have an impact on how competitive a game can be, but it has absolutely nothing to do with strategic depth. Look at Chess.
Different games, that is like saying that fog of war don't add strategic depth becouse chess don't have it. Even the best players can't control everything, and that is big part of decision making. What you will focus on, when, it forces you to predict how battle will play out, when you can go back with screen to macro hence the complains that in SC2 you can do almost all macro with hot keys.
PVT its mech vs zealot/goon + arbiter or carrier - terran wall off vulture/tanks - the occasional all in BIO build
PVP - zealot/goon into reavers / usually to HT + archons
PVZ - toss FE zealot/goon HT and archons - Zerg lings into hydras maybe surprise mutas then transition to ultra
So on paper everything is basically set... but you could diverge alot, Seige expand, or vulture harass, DT rush, DT rush, reaver drop, Corsair reaver, ling all in,
slight variations.... but there are less variations possible in SC2 i think...
My opinion is that SC II is not in particulair boring to watch, certainly high level games I really enjoy their decision making process and this will just get better in time, but there is 1 factor I'm a bit worried about and that is the "oehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh AAAAAAAAAAA" factor, which there was so much in awesome Wc3 games
As ex professional Player and shoutcaster i've realised, played, withnessed and even casted amazing moments, moments that literally take my breath away, 2 amazing hero saves on less than 10 hp in a superclose/deciding fight is just breathtaking, and whenever you love a game like I did in wc3 those moments make playing it so worth it, after 2k games of SC II i had seriously little "AAAAAAAA" moments, the best I got was like "wow sick fight" , "ah fucking nice game", but then its the overall feeling that reigns surpreme, not 1 moment, 1 shot, which decides fight, I kinda miss the beauty of those moments which made Wc3 as good as it was ( guess this opinion aint to shared on Team Liquid, but trust me, high level Wc3 was beautifull and unique ), and even Brood war ( even though im a noob at it and got little knowledge ), i did see those amazing things in few games in my life that I watched, with Surrounds being so incredible easy in SC II and their not being a lot of units which you can micro to its fullest potential , I am a bit worried about this fact, maybe it will come in time ~ otherwise I feel SC II for the big main stream audiance will get fairly boring to watch within a year ;(
Thats a good question. Personally i find it much more fun to play the game, than to actually watch it. First i thought that the level even on the "pro scene" is not high enough for generating games which are exiting to watch from start to finish. But with broodwar, i enjoyed the old games so much, say Elky and Xds Grrrr, that the level of play might not be the only reason. Perhaps we are so adapted to broodwar, that we need more time with sc2. Perhaps the game needs more time for itself to become better and for this reason, generate better games. Broodwar made Starcraft what it is today, so we should wait what sc2 will become with furthermore patches and its expansions and until then, tell Blizzard what sucks about it. Overall, its still a great game.
On September 01 2010 06:38 tacrats wrote: Mechanical difficulty may have an impact on how competitive a game can be, but it has absolutely nothing to do with strategic depth. Look at Chess.
Different games, that is like saying that fog of war don't add strategic depth becouse chess don't have it.
No, it's not like saying that at all.
It's like saying fog of war, like mechanical difficulty, is not a requirement for strategic depth, because chess doesn't have it. Which is true.
Only a few months into the game and some games are totally action packed. I remember watching TLO vs. Nada and that game on steppes of war was very fun to watch.
The skill ceiling for SC 2 is so so high. Using SHIFT to queue commands enables so much that people will discover. The easy to use control groups is another. The queue links. People will get ridiculously good in time and it will be insane to watch :o .
People thought all these little changes would noobify SC 2, but instead it will simply free APM for the true awesome and will leave us with awesome games with action all over the map all the time.
People will get scary good at sc 2 in time @_@;; Better maps will come out, etc. If you think that the level of play we see now at the pro level is the peak, then yes, sure, it will become boring, but it really is very far from the peak.
At the moment TvZ is barely watchable. Gosc2 today only confirmed that. I had about enough of watching mass reaper games. These games are barely watchable to begin with and one can only hate it after 10+ such games.
On September 02 2010 07:35 RotterdaM wrote: My opinion is that SC II is not in particulair boring to watch, certainly high level games I really enjoy their decision making process and this will just get better in time, but there is 1 factor I'm a bit worried about and that is the "oehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh AAAAAAAAAAA" factor, which there was so much in awesome Wc3 games
As ex professional Player and shoutcaster i've realised, played, withnessed and even casted amazing moments, moments that literally take my breath away, 2 amazing hero saves on less than 10 hp in a superclose/deciding fight is just breathtaking, and whenever you love a game like I did in wc3 those moments make playing it so worth it, after 2k games of SC II i had seriously little "AAAAAAAA" moments, the best I got was like "wow sick fight" , "ah fucking nice game", but then its the overall feeling that reigns surpreme, not 1 moment, 1 shot, which decides fight, I kinda miss the beauty of those moments which made Wc3 as good as it was ( guess this opinion aint to shared on Team Liquid, but trust me, high level Wc3 was beautifull and unique ), and even Brood war ( even though im a noob at it and got little knowledge ), i did see those amazing things in few games in my life that I watched, with Surrounds being so incredible easy in SC II and their not being a lot of units which you can micro to its fullest potential , I am a bit worried about this fact, maybe it will come in time ~ otherwise I feel SC II for the big main stream audiance will get fairly boring to watch within a year ;(
It's Rotterdam!
I agree with you in a sense... I am a really bad WC3 player, just couldn't ever get good no matter how much practice (I am much better at SC, strangely enough) but I loved watching WC3 pro games. I totally know what you mean about the nail biter moments. I think that's due to the whole hero/higher HP units thing.
For me, StarCraft is more fun to watch overall, but the battles in WC3 were definitely pretty epic. You have to admit, there was a lot of "downtime" in WC3 from a spectator's point of view... sure, the pros are super busy and executing everything perfectly, following creep patterns just right, but for an observer it looks like he's running around killing AI units. You even had the whole upkeep situation, so you'd literally have times where both sides were not building armies because they wanted to stay in low or medium upkeep. At least in SC2 when battles are not progressing, you watch them making strategic decisions in how they tech up and build their army.
haha i feel the opposite actually, In wc3 there was atleast always creeping while even in pro sc II games atm i've seen games which consisted of the first 15 min pure macro and nothing but a few scouts :D then the whole creep/backstab situation are a lot more exciting than absolutely nothing ;P and playing upkeep style sure brings dead moments into the game, certainly late game there were moments wc3 was boring cause a undead waited his gold mine out, but in sc there are moments like that as well, just most of the time its mid game when both players are trying to secure their 2nd/3rd expo :D just after that the action explodes ~.
On September 02 2010 07:35 RotterdaM wrote: My opinion is that SC II is not in particulair boring to watch, certainly high level games I really enjoy their decision making process and this will just get better in time, but there is 1 factor I'm a bit worried about and that is the "oehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh AAAAAAAAAAA" factor, which there was so much in awesome Wc3 games
As ex professional Player and shoutcaster i've realised, played, withnessed and even casted amazing moments, moments that literally take my breath away, 2 amazing hero saves on less than 10 hp in a superclose/deciding fight is just breathtaking, and whenever you love a game like I did in wc3 those moments make playing it so worth it, after 2k games of SC II i had seriously little "AAAAAAAA" moments, the best I got was like "wow sick fight" , "ah fucking nice game", but then its the overall feeling that reigns surpreme, not 1 moment, 1 shot, which decides fight, I kinda miss the beauty of those moments which made Wc3 as good as it was ( guess this opinion aint to shared on Team Liquid, but trust me, high level Wc3 was beautifull and unique ), and even Brood war ( even though im a noob at it and got little knowledge ), i did see those amazing things in few games in my life that I watched, with Surrounds being so incredible easy in SC II and their not being a lot of units which you can micro to its fullest potential , I am a bit worried about this fact, maybe it will come in time ~ otherwise I feel SC II for the big main stream audiance will get fairly boring to watch within a year ;(
It's Rotterdam!
I agree with you in a sense... I am a really bad WC3 player, just couldn't ever get good no matter how much practice (I am much better at SC, strangely enough) but I loved watching WC3 pro games. I totally know what you mean about the nail biter moments. I think that's due to the whole hero/higher HP units thing.
For me, StarCraft is more fun to watch overall, but the battles in WC3 were definitely pretty epic. You have to admit, there was a lot of "downtime" in WC3 from a spectator's point of view... sure, the pros are super busy and executing everything perfectly, following creep patterns just right, but for an observer it looks like he's running around killing AI units. You even had the whole upkeep situation, so you'd literally have times where both sides were not building armies because they wanted to stay in low or medium upkeep. At least in SC2 when battles are not progressing, you watch them making strategic decisions in how they tech up and build their army.
Agreed, but again I think this is an argument of Dynamics.
In sc2 there is no battle Dynamics. The winner of a battle is pre-determined by unit composition and size.
However what we see in Wc3 and BW is the outcome of battles being determined by control. Of course unit size and composition still matters but control is still a large part of it, which is what makes it exciting. You watch the battle not knowing what to expect.
In sc2 there is no battle Dynamics. The winner of a battle is pre-determined by unit composition and size.
I'm gonna have to disagree with that. The dynamic may not be as micro intensive as BW or WC3 (yet, let's see how it develops) but to say it's all about composition is exaggerating.
There is a lot to a battle to make sure it turns out right...
Just earlier I lost to a terran timing push... tanks/marines, and I went into a mini-rage about how I hate Terran. In retrospect, I fucked up the battle. All my banelings plowed into his tanks, wasting their splash damage and allowing his marines to mop up.
If I'd have flanked properly and timed the zerglings to hit from the front as soon as the banelings came from behind, I'd have taken that battle easily.
I still think that as SC2 develops, more and more micro and tricks will come into play. Right now everyone is racing to perfect their strategy and overall game control. Once they start to reach the top of that and strategy changes slow (what we considered good just a month ago is now practically "old school" already in SC2), they'll need to look for any advantage they can... that's when micro and tactics will start to become refined.
In general when compared to SC1 ... SC2 so far has been a little bit more boring to watch. In general games are shorter and more decisive imo ... leading to short and generally uninteresting games. That's not to say there haven't been good games to watch, but I think on average SC2 games are definitely more boring.
IMO I think the auto clump ai needs to be edited, it would allow for much longer battles, eg mmm engaging templar, runinng a z army into tanks, getting 1 control group of marines being fungal growth etc. However this might be more of a help to a certain race compared to another.
In sc2 there is no battle Dynamics. The winner of a battle is pre-determined by unit composition and size.
I'm gonna have to disagree with that. The dynamic may not be as micro intensive as BW or WC3 (yet, let's see how it develops) but to say it's all about composition is exaggerating.
There is a lot to a battle to make sure it turns out right...
Just earlier I lost to a terran timing push... tanks/marines, and I went into a mini-rage about how I hate Terran. In retrospect, I fucked up the battle. All my banelings plowed into his tanks, wasting their splash damage and allowing his marines to mop up.
If I'd have flanked properly and timed the zerglings to hit from the front as soon as the banelings came from behind, I'd have taken that battle easily.
I still think that as SC2 develops, more and more micro and tricks will come into play. Right now everyone is racing to perfect their strategy and overall game control. Once they start to reach the top of that and strategy changes slow (what we considered good just a month ago is now practically "old school" already in SC2), they'll need to look for any advantage they can... that's when micro and tactics will start to become refined.
the thing is, yes SC2 requires micro, but the micro can be easily perfected. It's like saying PvZ timing push, if you don't micro you die. Yeah, well all the micro you need is a guardian shield or two, FF the ramp, and make immortals target roaches/spines... It's very easy to do.
In SCBW it's very easy to get out macroed. I mean marine micro vs zealots in SC2 is soo easy vs double ten gate... How about a 4 pool in bw? You can get oblitarated so easily.
It's pretty much like this. In BW... Omg he lost with a better army composition, insany micro by player X. In SC2... Omg he lost with the bigger army, terrible army positioning and unit control. BW micro is just harder.
In sc2 there is no battle Dynamics. The winner of a battle is pre-determined by unit composition and size.
I'm gonna have to disagree with that. The dynamic may not be as micro intensive as BW or WC3 (yet, let's see how it develops) but to say it's all about composition is exaggerating.
There is a lot to a battle to make sure it turns out right...
Just earlier I lost to a terran timing push... tanks/marines, and I went into a mini-rage about how I hate Terran. In retrospect, I fucked up the battle. All my banelings plowed into his tanks, wasting their splash damage and allowing his marines to mop up.
If I'd have flanked properly and timed the zerglings to hit from the front as soon as the banelings came from behind, I'd have taken that battle easily.
I still think that as SC2 develops, more and more micro and tricks will come into play. Right now everyone is racing to perfect their strategy and overall game control. Once they start to reach the top of that and strategy changes slow (what we considered good just a month ago is now practically "old school" already in SC2), they'll need to look for any advantage they can... that's when micro and tactics will start to become refined.
But in all honestly, is the control THAT big part of a deal in Sc2? I mean yes you have a great example there, but really if the terran player had a pure mech composition you're banelings would been useless.
I know I'm stretching things a little far but bear with me, if you don't have enough of something and you don't have the right somethings in Sc2 you will fall flat on your face. Wether this is due to giving units a more direct counter, the lack of a really fleshed out meta game, it does matter what you are walking into the fight with.
In BW for example, dark swarm could be the end of an entire Terran push, it didn't even matter if you had like 3 lurkers, Dark Swarm is fucking scary and used properly will chase a big force away. However, not wielding Dark Swarm properly will also just be your downfall.
Irradiate would completely nullify the use of mutalisks, but with some good control you can counter it.
But in Sc2, how much of your control is really effecting the out come of your battle? I mean your baneling example as I said is great but the fact that you had enough banelings and enough lings probably helped you more then the fact that you could have controlled it a certain way.
I am certain though that there will be better micro plays and it will become integrated into the game as things develop, this I agree.
Sorry if I'm not too clear or concise, my inadequacies in language limit my brain
In sc2 there is no battle Dynamics. The winner of a battle is pre-determined by unit composition and size.
I'm gonna have to disagree with that. The dynamic may not be as micro intensive as BW or WC3 (yet, let's see how it develops) but to say it's all about composition is exaggerating.
There is a lot to a battle to make sure it turns out right...
Just earlier I lost to a terran timing push... tanks/marines, and I went into a mini-rage about how I hate Terran. In retrospect, I fucked up the battle. All my banelings plowed into his tanks, wasting their splash damage and allowing his marines to mop up.
If I'd have flanked properly and timed the zerglings to hit from the front as soon as the banelings came from behind, I'd have taken that battle easily.
I still think that as SC2 develops, more and more micro and tricks will come into play. Right now everyone is racing to perfect their strategy and overall game control. Once they start to reach the top of that and strategy changes slow (what we considered good just a month ago is now practically "old school" already in SC2), they'll need to look for any advantage they can... that's when micro and tactics will start to become refined.
But in all honestly, is the control THAT big part of a deal in Sc2? I mean yes you have a great example there, but really if the terran player had a pure mech composition you're banelings would been useless.
I know I'm stretching things a little far but bear with me, if you don't have enough of something and you don't have the right somethings in Sc2 you will fall flat on your face. Wether this is due to giving units a more direct counter, the lack of a really fleshed out meta game, it does matter what you are walking into the fight with.
In BW for example, dark swarm could be the end of an entire Terran push, it didn't even matter if you had like 3 lurkers, Dark Swarm is fucking scary and used properly will chase a big force away. However, not wielding Dark Swarm properly will also just be your downfall.
Irradiate would completely nullify the use of mutalisks, but with some good control you can counter it.
But in Sc2, how much of your control is really effecting the out come of your battle? I mean your baneling example as I said is great but the fact that you had enough banelings and enough lings probably helped you more then the fact that you could have controlled it a certain way.
I am certain though that there will be better micro plays and it will become integrated into the game as things develop, this I agree.
Sorry if I'm not too clear or concise, my inadequacies in language limit my brain
You bring up some valid points, and I'd definitely agree that SC2 has a much more "Rock, Paper, Scissors" feel to it.
Oh well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I hope that the game will continue to develop, both from player input and Blizzard patching it.
I doubt it will ever be quite the same style as BW, but hopefully the pure RPS aspect changes a bit.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/HJhZL.png)
![[image loading]](http://pds9.egloos.com/pds/200803/16/04/d0032604_47dbea7a3d7de.jpg)
Hah i didn't use BW 
