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Hi all,
I have been playing starcraft 2 since around season 3, and in that time i've watched a thousand VODs and streams. Watching builds, and" pro-play" has taught me ton on this game. It has gotten me from the lowest of the low to where i am now. However, what it hasn't taught me is creativity. In fact, if i may be bold, it has suppressed my creativity. Let me explain why.
If you watch a casted vod, or a pro's stream, they tend to talk a lot about build orders. I have often heard remarks such as "this build beats this", "that's not a great move" and even "that's just plain wrong". Now, they are quite a bit better than most of us so they are justified to make comments such as those. However, in my opinion, i think those comments should be taken with a grain of salt. I have seen on occasions pro players mention how a specific move in the game is wrong and how it should not be done. Then, the same pro player (on a separate occasion), see the same manuever pulled off in a way they didn't perceive happening and them reverse their stance and trust in it.
Now, the point of this thread is not to point out the contradictions in the starcraft community, but rather to point out that not everything is fact. There are things that certain players will speak ill on, and then have their opinions changed. The point i'm trying to make is, don't necessarily take everything you hear as fact. This is extremely detrimental to lower level players (platinum and below). When i first started playing i watched a ton of vods and streams (as i've previously stated), and i truly believed that that was how things needed to be done. At one point i was able to do the 4-gate with my eyes closed, and practiced it so much because others were. However, herein lies the problem. I was too afraid to try anything else or stray from the norm. I was so afraid anything else i tried would be wrong that i simply didn't. It's a huge roadblock for a lot of players.
Watching pro players and listening to what they say isn't bad though. It's priceless information that should be tried and mimiced. By mimicing a build you learn a new possibility and a new timing that you didn't know before. But again, when a lower level player mimics a build, often they don't know the build like the pro does. For example, if in a build you should cut probe production at 45 probes, or if the build only works against certain things that the pro scouted, but at no point does the pro mention this, it can often get overlooked. I refer back to my previous statement about taking everything with a grain of salt. It doesn't mean don't try that build. It just means don't be afraid to try new things with it. The pros haven't tried everything. If for example you are following a terran opener that the pro said is only meant to take out the first stalker, don't believe that's the only path to victory. If you take out that stalker and you find that it can also do some additional harassment or damage, why not try it? Why only stick to what you've been told and what you know? Try what you like. Try what feels right. If it feels right to push the toss' base after you take out that stalker and it works, why not try it again? See what it works with, and what it doesn't. Do what ever you feel like doing. It's your game, isn't it?
Now, i'm no pro, i'll be the first to admit that. But i do strongly believe that when a player hears a pro say something, they take it as concrete. They are absolutely terrified to move because they feel they can't. Now, again, i believe that watching the pros is awesome. Not only is it good for the growth of the community and the game, but learning new things, and mimicing successful builds is good for improvement. Just try new things. Don't only do what you perceive to be strong, and don't think that anything else is not strong. We're still very very early into this game, and not everything has been tested. Not by a long shot. I'm still learning new things today that i haven't seen anyone discuss. For example, did you know that on shakuras (i haven't tested on all maps), if you have your harvester sitting right in the nook of a geyser (bottom left corner - right geyser), they protoss can't build an assimilator until you move? Had that done to me today. Things are constantly being discovered, and you should be the ones discovering them. Less than 1% of the sc2 population are pro players, so why should they be the ones discovering everything? Go into the game, and remember, it's YOUR game. If you want to proxy robo, Go for it! If you want to all-in and bring your scv's, why not (btw, i'm not condoning this - i absoutely fkn hate when T does this to me  )? You can literally try anything you want, so don't be afraid. Creativity is not dead, you just need to relearn how to use it.
I hope this post was a little insightful, and gave at least one person some motivation to have some fun and be creative. I'm no player, i just want people to improve. GL HF!
- I'm a rank 1 platinum player desperately trying to improve.
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new coming ups gets nerfs
so they don't appear as often
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standard logic is: if pros dont do it, then it sucks.
but that just isnt true. pro zergs still 14 gas 14 pool in zvp, and that sucks.
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Point of this thread was not to discuss up-coming patches, but rather to discuss what people feel they "shouldn't" be trying. If 4-gate is dead because a pro said so, and another pro pulls it off, does that mean it's back in action? Not necessarily. The player should find out for themself. Every opinion is relative in this game. Every meta-game is different for each league, so you should be learning what's right for you and your playstyle.
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Creativity needs to go hand in hand with viability, there's no point doing a "proxy robo" because it's a pointless risk that doesn't provide enough benefits. You need to understand that the pros play and understand the game so much better than the casual player and all your "creativity" has probably already been done by the pros and subsequently scrapped because it just isn't worth doing. Any good creativity is turned into a build order, and optimised to give great success!
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heart of the swarm is coming why be creative now?
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only problem is that a lot of these "creative" ideas offers little to no yield compared to just basic strategies and assumptions.
creative =/= smart.
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@Bearwidme - I think you're missing my point. Yes, viability is crucial. That goes without being said. However, i don't think that should shape your entire view on the game. That's what happened to me. I believed that the pro players knew all and thus i shouldn't do any thinking for myself. I now know that not to be the case and almsot have to relearn the entire game just to be more creative. We put too much emphasis on what they say, and not enough on what we think. Why should we suppress our own creative thoughts simply because a pro has never mentioned it? And also, the proxy robo example was just an example. I've seen it fail, and i've seen it work. I saw it work on White-Ra's stream one time. It being viable is not the point. The point is to do whatever you think could work, or whatever you would like to do.
@dreamlogistics - Hmm. So are you going to just let the pros do all the thinking when that comes out too? If no one ever thinks but a select few, there will be little improvment and little development in the game as a whole.
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There's no such thing as "metagame" in lower leagues, there's just two people who don't have the skill to execute proper builds smashing their mans against each other until someone wins. It's true that there's stuff that works in plat/diamond/masters that doesn't work at the pro level, but that's not because you're playing some different game where new amazing strategies open up, it's just because you and your opponent aren't that good. Abusive builds that force multitask, map awareness, lots of scouting, or super-tight macro from your opponent are highly effective in low leagues because your opponents aren't good enough to deal with it, not because they're "creative" or something.
The reason most people tell you to follow standard builds that pros have come up with is because they work really well and are reactive enough to handle whatever wonky shit your opponent throws at you. If you play standard, scout appropriately, and execute, you will beat every "creative" strategy that a non-GM player can throw at you unless it's some sort of straight build-order loss, which is rare. It's not like the pros don't run into randoms on ladder that try to throw absurd shit at them; they're just good enough to say "hey you're doing something funky, better figure out what's up," scout you, and counter the shit out of it because their standard boring cookie-cutter build gives them enough wiggle room to deal with most any "creative" strategy.
For example, the gas-blocking trick you mention in your OP (it's more of a tactic than a strategy but w/e)... if I pull 3 workers for a couple seconds, your blocking worker is dead as shit, and I can just adjust my build slightly to accommodate the gas being marginally later, which is gonna pay off for me in the end because you lost a worker that I didn't. Cute shit works against people who don't know how to deal with it, but you inevitably hit a brick wall when you're in GM and your opponents have seen everything under the sun 50 times and know how to deal with it without even thinking.
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well people discover stuff all the time, but since you only watch pro players its most likely that they will popularize something. I am mostly surprised that pros don't do alot of stuff that doesn't cost many actions but would increase army strength highly.
another problem against creativity is the Blizzard nerf hammer that will fall down upon everything, especially if the race is currently considered the strongest. Also on pro level you have to train something new for a long time, before it actually works, micro/timing and everything has to be way better, before you can beat standard play.
I don't mind really, i play the way i like it and commit taboos like medivac energy if i wanna be aggressive. Or get a raven that will never join fights against zerg, simply because it gives so many resources having that raven out and alive.
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@corpuscle Hmm, maybe i didn't affectively get my point across. The point of this thread was not to suggest trying "cute" shit just because it might work. It was to suggest that yes, pro builds are good, but don't be afraid to try something new. Spanishiwa's queen style of zerg play was almost unheard of before he intorduced it. But if he didn't do what he felt he wanted to, we might never see it today. The point of the article is to explore and create. Not to ride the uptight train all the way to boredom. If you live in a straight-jacket forever, you'll never spread your "wings".
This thread is getting a lot of negative outcry. Maybe i should have expected that from the internet, but it was simply meant to show people that you don't HAVE to have such a closed-off mindset.
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lower level players need to worry about executing a build rather than choosing a build.
you need to understand what you're doing; doing retarded crap on a whim doesn't help you learn.
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I've had similar conversations with other friends about starcraft. And at this moment, I wish I had better examples... but without them...
I get the feeling that we discourage new tactics or ideas. One example among my Sc2 friends is when I was watching this cheesy tactic that I thought was an interesting idea. They would quickly dismiss the idea without actually trying to explore the tactic further. And perhaps it is my group that is in the wrong, but I get the feeling that even here, there is a "right" or standard way of play and there is other. It doesn't feel as though innovations can occur, because well the pros didn't do them. I remember the MLG where BFH became common in TvZ; for months I've complained about BFH because of 4v4, 3v3 (to friends). But of course, what does that matter, it was not 1v1. But as we and the nerf showed, there was something to them that just wasn't quite seen yet.
I'm not sure how many examples of this can exist. There are probably units that could be exploited further which is not done so now, but the game does have limits. The one thing I would love to see is community embrace and discuss new ideas instead of hurrying to dismiss new ideas as bad because pros don't do something. And perhaps this happens and I don't see it, I would certainly like to hope so.
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I would tend to agree that if i play to learn / win doing normal strats i can't really experiment and have fun unless i want to get smashed completely which is not fun and there fore forces you to play standard which after x amounth of games just isent as fun i supose this is one of the reasons ppl drop levels as well (and not just to smash lower level players).
im not sure u cna really fix it some strategies are just better than others and if you use them u will get ranked higher and then changing to a worse strategy will just give you those losses.
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On January 13 2012 17:51 corpuscle wrote:
If you play standard, scout appropriately, and execute, you will beat every "creative" strategy that a non-GM player can throw at you unless it's some sort of straight build-order loss, which is rare. It's not like the pros don't run into randoms on ladder that try to throw absurd shit at them; they're just good enough to say "hey you're doing something funky, better figure out what's up," scout you, and counter the shit out of it because their standard boring cookie-cutter build gives them enough wiggle room to deal with most any "creative" strategy.
I would hope the OP wasn't referring to absurd (maybe cheesy) strategies that amateur players may use against the pros. I was thinking that he was referring to new strategies, things that might be less tested but can be very effective. After all build orders evolve as the game changes, so at some point, what you might have called absurd becomes "standard".
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I agree with you, and I have had the stance of trying to get as little information in the "how-to-do" line of thinking throughout the years in numerous different fields. It kills out-of-the-box thinking, and forces the user into following a set of rules, which really are helpful for the non-creative thinkers. Those who like to abide by rules, like to put things into boxes with labels on them - simply to make it easier to govern and control. And it is easier being successful following guidelines, than being forced to be creative.
However, I do know that those are merely guidelines on based on experience, in an ever evolving game, and it is really up to one self to stray from guidelines/rules. Unfortunately it limits the way of thinking for many people, and therefore the potential of their development.
I, myself can't/won't, so I find my own awkward way, and play - for me - intuitively. It is also more fun.
Concerning picking up strategies - once successful, then figured out, and forgotten, is still valid, because people forget the counter, or why it was invalid. Ie Kyrix' massbaneling bust style from GSL Season 2 or 3, then dismissed and forgotten. Only for NesTea to pick it up again in the recent up/down matches, and won. Many people just go with what is hot right now, and dismiss things that others have dismissed, not knowing why. Most people are just copy-cats.
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On January 13 2012 18:00 Eventine wrote:
I get the feeling that we discourage new tactics or ideas. One example among my Sc2 friends is when I was watching this cheesy tactic that I thought was an interesting idea. They would quickly dismiss the idea without actually trying to explore the tactic further. And perhaps it is my group that is in the wrong, but I get the feeling that even here, there is a "right" or standard way of play and there is other. It doesn't feel as though innovations can occur, because well the pros didn't do them. I remember the MLG where BFH became common in TvZ; for months I've complained about BFH because of 4v4, 3v3 (to friends). But of course, what does that matter, it was not 1v1. But as we and the nerf showed, there was something to them that just wasn't quite seen yet.
it's easy to say "hey this unit we should use it more."
it's hard to explain how.
you have to consider: how do i produce enough of these units for this to be effective? how can i transition out of this build so it isn't a 1 trick pony? what is the long term goal? is this less effective than standard? in what circumstances is this more potent? how do i survive common timings/reactions/moves by the other player?
THESE ARE NOT EASY QUESTIONS.
constant scv production, unit production, efficient mechanics and general game competence must always be constant (FROM BOTH PLAYERS).
that's why only professionals are qualified to showcase and revolutionize match ups/styles.
On January 13 2012 18:10 aebriol wrote:
It's easy for someone to say "well I always knew blue flame hellions were too strong" ... but coming up with a build that is safe, gives good economy, can defend against counter attacks, incorporate scouting well, etc etc ... most of us don't understand the game well enough to do so.
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On January 13 2012 17:51 corpuscle wrote:
If you play standard, scout appropriately, and execute, you will beat every "creative" strategy that a non-GM player can throw at you unless it's some sort of straight build-order loss, which is rare. It's not like the pros don't run into randoms on ladder that try to throw absurd shit at them; they're just good enough to say "hey you're doing something funky, better figure out what's up," scout you, and counter the shit out of it because their standard boring cookie-cutter build gives them enough wiggle room to deal with most any "creative" strategy.
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I would hope the OP wasn't referring to absurd (maybe cheesy) strategies that amateur players may use against the pros. I was thinking that he was referring to new strategies, things that might be less tested but can be very effective. After all build orders evolve as the game changes, so at some point, what you might have called absurd becomes "standard".
Precisely what i meant. I'm not suggesting that by "creative" you do some kind of cheesey one-base all-in. I'm only saying that for the game to develop and grow, new strategies will be implemented. Just don't be afraid to try implementing them yourself if you find they work.
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First off, pros play a lot more games than the rest of us - at least normally. They know what different openings mean, in terms of economy, getting ahead or behind, etc.
When you want to improve on your game, you should therefore find a pro you like, and copy - exactly - what they do for the first 5-6-7 minutes of the game.
That will get you into mid high diamond guaranteed. Simply being able to execute - within 3-4 seconds - the first 6-7 minutes of the common builds pros use in all matchups.
Now that said - what you have done - is just learning how to set yourself up for the midgame. You have removed your inefficient opening that made it impossible for you to have the economy, production buildings, units, upgrades correct.
Then you can basically do whatever you want and learn as you go and be creative - because now you have a good setup to work from.
And ... it's 99.99% (or more) certain that you will not, on your own, come up with a better opening in any matchup than Stephano, Dimaga, NesTea, MMA, MvP, MarineKing, Huk, MC or Oz (some of the better ones out there). It just won't happen. So if you copy their openings exactly, you will be better off than you are at the moment anyway.
But once you have that opening done right ... why, you can be as creative as you like. And it won't just be some gimmicky stuff that won't work well because you neglected your economy behind it ... because you will already have setup a good foundation.
(by exactly I mean: same supply, buildings, workers, units, stuff in production, worker saturation on each base).
It's easy for someone to say "well I always knew blue flame hellions were too strong" ... but coming up with a build that is safe, gives good economy, can defend against counter attacks, incorporate scouting well, etc etc ... most of us don't understand the game well enough to do so.
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I don't want to discourage people from trying new stuff either, and I apologize if I came off like a dick (I tend to do that). I just don't want people to think they're being clever and creative by coming up with some gimmicky build that relies on their opponents being bad, which is what 90% of lower-league players who devise their own builds come up with. Spanishiwa was GM already when he came up with his build, and it works and people accepted it because it was proven to be effective against high-level players, not just because it was some bizarre concept that some random diamond dude came up with. I could come up with a million builds that would work in diamond because I can exploit the fact that my opponents aren't hip enough cats to know that I'm doing something weird, but that doesn't make it a viable build, and that means it's actually a bad idea to rely on it if I want to improve.
I feel like a total asshole trying to stifle creativity and all, but really, it's hard to figure out what's working because it's actually brilliant and what's working because your opponent's just a derp. It sucks, but it's the truth. Pretty much anybody that isn't GM or almost GM isn't playing in an intense enough environment for their builds to be truly put to the test (and even then it's flaky), and I don't think it's conducive to improvement to keep doing a build that, for all you know, only works because your opponents aren't on top of their shit.
edit since I don't want to double post:
Precisely what i meant. I'm not suggesting that by "creative" you do some kind of cheesey one-base all-in. I'm only saying that for the game to develop and grow, new strategies will be implemented. Just don't be afraid to try implementing them yourself if you find they work.
I didn't mean cheesy one base allins or anything. At the pro level, things like taking a third/fourth gas at a weird time will tip your opponent off, since there's so much information to be gleaned from seemingly basic things like that. Obviously that doesn't work at lower levels because your opponent might just not know when to take his gas at his natural (I sure don't!), but people who are really fucking good will know what to do about it.
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EPT
