I can think of one and that is the lack of good old chat channels. Like in the days wc3, d2, sc(was there alike system? didnt play the game) Where people from the same country were automatically invited and there they could make friends and invite them to custom games and all that FUN. Nowadays everything is just wrong. :I

krun

23 Posts

February 15 2012 13:51 GMT

#822

well, after hardcore laddering in the last 2 weeks just to achieve higher ranks in master, and playing 1 game each account just to be assigned to master, i'm sure i'm not going to ladder for the next like... 3 months? it's too cheesy, too stressful, too bm (not that it matters), loosing on ladders pissess me off too much, can't decide which match up i'm going to play, there is no additonal inventive to play it and no reason to ladder over custom games if i have people to practice.

Jinsho

United Kingdom3101 Posts

February 15 2012 13:53 GMT

#823

Playing isn't fun.

bokeevboke

Singapore1674 Posts

February 15 2012 13:54 GMT

#824

71% players stopped laddering. thats pretty huge

Garmer

1286 Posts

February 15 2012 13:58 GMT

#825

On February 15 2012 22:53 Jinsho wrote:
Playing isn't fun.

what? playing in general should be, but playing SC2 isn't...it's a boring game

b0rt_

Norway931 Posts

February 15 2012 14:00 GMT

#826

I'm confused. I was lead to believe a league like Plat would have around 20% of the playing population. Why is bronze so inflated? Players in diamond+ represent the top ~10%?

Lysenko

Iceland2128 Posts

February 15 2012 14:05 GMT

#827

On February 15 2012 22:54 bokeevboke wrote:
71% players stopped laddering. thats pretty huge

I said this earlier in the thread but it was easy to miss: sc2ranks isn't a great source for recent statistics because they take so long to collect all of them. Because of this, I'm not sure these numbers really mean what they seem to -- it doesn't make any sense that after 18 months of the game being out, with a fairly stable player population, the population would suddenly drop to 1/3 in the span of one 8-week season.

bokeevboke

Singapore1674 Posts

February 15 2012 14:09 GMT

#828

On February 15 2012 23:05 Lysenko wrote:

Show nested quote +

I was talking about the poll in the OP.

Toadvine

Poland2234 Posts

February 15 2012 14:11 GMT

#829

I uninstalled SC2 a few months ago, and subsequently stopped watching it almost completely. Nowadays I just occasionally check out GSL LR threads out of idle curiosity, more than anything else. I was a mid-Masters Protoss on EU before quitting, and the game simply wasn't very fun to me. I'm not opposed to high learning curves and losing a lot to gain experience - I played BW at about C+ on Iccup at one point, and also still play Quake Live to this day, and god knows that is a game that is hard to get into in 1v1s.

With that said, SC2 just has too much randomness; you lose too many games with the enemy playing like shit, and also win too many games with yourself playing like shit. Also, the higher you get on the ladder, the more cheese and retarded shit you see. At least on Iccup you would pretty much get normal games past a certain point.

darkscream

Canada2310 Posts

February 15 2012 14:11 GMT

#830

New season = everyone plays ladder

thread has become obsolete

Zorkmid

4410 Posts

February 15 2012 14:12 GMT

#831

I wonder if hiding the W/L for everyone below masters is a possible cause for the decline. It still pisses me off that I can't see it. It's more likely that the game has "run it's course" in a way. I'm betting that most of the "ladderers" from the first seasons are general "gamers" more than they are RTS players. A game generally has a lifespan of a year or so before you go on to the next game, despite there always being a hardcore following that play for much longer (TLers in SC2's case).

Alryk

United States2718 Posts

February 15 2012 14:13 GMT

#832

I prefer macromicro, peepmode, and practice with my friend.

Promises

Netherlands1821 Posts

February 15 2012 14:16 GMT

#833

I voted Laddering is too stressfull, but it's a combination of that and SC2 not being as much fun to me. The stressfull factor is big; you have to be pretty hyped up and super-focussed to have a game, a single mistake against a decent opponent often means you lose. The fun factor for me is (from a P point of view but also extending a bit to the other races) that there are less "fun" things to do. This might not be objectively true, it might just be me being nostalgic but in SC1 I'd get giddy over going for a reaver opening, or going for stormdrops, or even Maelstrom, and lategame Arbiter plays. I don't get that feel with SC2 somehow; stalkermicro feels less epic then DragoonMicro (mainly because it's easyer) and nothing feels as much fun as handling the reaver or performing stormdrops and the likes, or carriermicro for that matter. As said, it might well be just me longing for "the good ol' days", but those are the reasons I stopped playing (and am now playing LoL).

kju

6143 Posts

February 15 2012 14:20 GMT

#834

On February 15 2012 23:00 b0rt_ wrote:
I'm confused. I was lead to believe a league like Plat would have around 20% of the playing population. Why is bronze so inflated? Players in diamond+ represent the top ~10%?

Because casual gamers are the largest group of people who play the game and you can't get into diamond if you don't read a lil bit about strategies

Sated

England4983 Posts

February 15 2012 14:23 GMT

#835

--- Nuked ---

Zorkmid

4410 Posts

February 15 2012 14:24 GMT

#836

On February 15 2012 23:23 Sated wrote:

Show nested quote +

Top 10% baby! Yeah!

It's going to end up like BW, where most players are in D (Bronze) and it is very difficult to get out D (Bronze) because everyone higher up has been playing the game for so long that their skill level is pretty high despite being in a low league.

I'm still pretty sure that a "D" (with lots of games played) in bw would be masters in SC2.

SoleSteeler

Canada5459 Posts

February 15 2012 14:50 GMT

#837

It's interesting, before I only played maybe 20 games a season or so, with season 1 playing maybe 60-70 games. I thought I had no time to play so I had an excuse

For season 5, I was working overtime at work, so I thought I really have no time to play. But then I kept thinking... "Oh, I really wish I could play now..." Since I actually couldn't play. Anyhow, I then used my actual spare few moments to actually play, and played about 60 games season 5, despite only playing 1 day a week for a few hours. I'd just chain as many games as I could.

Just gotta keep hitting that find match button over and over and stop making excuses. You'll start having fun pretty quick.

Natespank

Canada449 Posts

February 15 2012 15:07 GMT

#838

Honestly, it's actually just ladder stress. I still play single player and vs ai matches. Whatever the cause, it's just ladder stress.

Also: we need a secondary statistics source before we go and conclude anything about the player base. How reliable is sc2ranks anyway? And what counts as an "active player"?

Anyway, like I said, because of school I can't spare the stress to ladder. I need to relax/have fun with my scarce free time.

NarutO

Germany18839 Posts

February 15 2012 15:12 GMT

#839

I think ladder is fine.

AgAu

United States5 Posts

February 15 2012 15:15 GMT

#840

The most common issue that I see happening with my friends is that there is so much great streaming content that they don't find time to play. They love watching games so much that they get engulfed by them. I'm sure my friends aren't the only ones who have been succumbed like this. I know there are days where I sit down at my computer and I can't help but want to catch up on SoTG or ITG. Catch up on the latest rounds of GSL. Try and watch the current MLG tournament over the weekend. Just trying to that and ladder consistently is rough. That's not including the running streams during the day by some great pros. With this community being so supportive, and loving of all the content that is available to us, I can see how it can be hard to actually sit down and play a ton of hours unless you are jobless/out of school.