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I haven't played since I think season 1, or beginning of season 2, i really cannot remember, because a multitude of things...
1. Smurfs - I can never learn when i get raped in 3-5 minuites, over and over..
2. Stress - Fear of above, no fun just annoyance.
3. Other games - LoL, ps3, skyrim, dota2 etc.
4. Lack of social interaction - I feel it's inferior to sc1:bw by a long shot. Probably not the only one who feels this..
5. BM - I can honestly say that when I played, i never met a nice person, moreso LOLNUB, YOU SUCK, blah blah same old stuff, everytime. Yeah it's just a game but after awhile it gets kinda degrating and makes the game unplayable because for one - it is a game and i'm just trying to enjoy myself, not listen to little kids bragging and putting me down all day smurfing..
Many more, just yeah. Don't see why sc2 had to stray away from sc1 so much, it baffles me. I'll probably never play again tbh, I thought about trying to reinstall today after so long but then remembered my experiences before and I just don't see the point, and i doubt much has changed..
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One of the things that I really don't understand about battle.net psychology is why people get stressed about laddering.
Laddering is a somewhat meaningless* exercise that, over time, determines your relative ranking among a geographical location. Knowing your ranking helps you improve because you will know how to target your efforts toward improvement. For example: If you are in bronze or silver then you know that your game set is fundamentally wrong. If you are in gold, platinum or diamond, then you know that you can supplement your improvement from fundamentals with strategy. If you are masters, then you know your shortcomings are coming from meta-game, strategy and finesse.
*Meaningless: I don't mean in the sense that its fruitless or not meaningful. I mean that the outcome does not really affect you in a financial way or determine your true value as a player.
People really should not stress about ladder. This does not mean stop being competitive. It means don't get upset if you lose or feel that losing will hurt you in any way. Losses should be a more positive experience, especially if you can identify exactly why you lost. It should be an even more positive experience when you don't know what the hell happened. Not knowing how you lost means that there is so much more for you to learn and that adventure in itself can be very entertaining.
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Just started laddering a lot again. Having more fun than ever. Seems like it's harder than it used to be, for my rank, but still having a lot of fun.
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its one of the hardest things to achieve, but they have to somehow stop people dropping leagues.
I can only imagine how bad it must be as a bronze/silver to have a masters player or even diamond/plat player smashing them on ladder
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On March 13 2012 23:18 SherlockTV wrote:
One of the things that I really don't understand about battle.net psychology is why people get stressed about laddering.
Laddering is a somewhat meaningless* exercise that, over time, determines your relative ranking among a geographical location. Knowing your ranking helps you improve because you will know how to target your efforts toward improvement. For example: If you are in bronze or silver then you know that your game set is fundamentally wrong. If you are in gold, platinum or diamond, then you know that you can supplement your improvement from fundamentals with strategy. If you are masters, then you know your shortcomings are coming from meta-game, strategy and finesse.
*Meaningless: I don't mean in the sense that its fruitless or not meaningful. I mean that the outcome does not really affect you in a financial way or determine your true value as a player.
People really should not stress about ladder. This does not mean stop being competitive. It means don't get upset if you lose or feel that losing will hurt you in any way. Losses should be a more positive experience, especially if you can identify exactly why you lost. It should be an even more positive experience when you don't know what the hell happened. Not knowing how you lost means that there is so much more for you to learn and that adventure in itself can be very entertaining.
Sure, it's easy to talk. Ladder anxiety is irrational, you can't just decide not to care. It's easy to make the case that losses are positive on the ladder, doesn't stop people from raging when they lose. After a loss, I can see that I lost because I engaged in a choke, but that doesn't make me any less angry after being pwned by forcefields after a 50 minute game. It just isn't enjoyable to lose, no matter what you tell yourself.
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The 1v1 game does have a fun element missing, instead it is a bit stressful. In part due to so many "hard counters" in the game imo. Real lack of soft-counter/versatile units leads to a lot of stress in game as your army can get smashed very hard sometimes. It's more like Russian roulette then fencing. Ever enjoyed cloaked banshee rush as a zerg? etc. Terrans have got it best in this regard as they have a solid unit in the marine.
Also Blizzard simply does not support the game, a serious error in their part. The idea of automated tournaments would get several of my friends who have quit SC2 back into playing again. A lot of players who quit probably never even heard of teamliquid or the tournaments that are run privately. It was only chance that I met another player on starcraft who introduced me to this side of SC2. For these players (and I honestly do think they make up the majority of players who have since quit SC2) a small amount of information awareness would of vastly swelled the numbers of hardcore players/people still laddering.
I think last but not least, starcraft is just hard. I know people who are medicore at other games, absolutely utterly suck at starcraft. It's hard on their psychology. Again, I think this is due to the prevalence of hard counters throughout the game which makes it a difficult game to be good at. Because of hard counters when these guys lose a game, it's not due to strangulation by a better player. They just get smashed with a hammer. Harsh.
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basicly their bad in 1v1 and play the other brackets cuzz they can be whatever in it. Newest trend in europe is the diamond masters 2v2 3v3 4v4 players who are silver bronze in 1v1. Their funny bad and think pretty highly of their skills. Next to that i know allot of friends who ha dladder fear in sc2
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In my opinion there is next to no in-game community. There is TL which is fucking enormous, and doesn't have a "community" feel, and the clans are few and far between.
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500k is still an amazing number...just compare it with other rts games!
Personally, I still like laddering and I'm playing about 50 games per week.
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Been laddering again, It was over 3 months since I played and I fell down to low diamond from mid masters. People got a lot better. Have played some really insane nice games lately. Really long macro games, cheese is almost gone around high diamond.
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If I had an iPhone app or web app to log into battle.net chat and see who's around it would probably get me online more frequently. Right now just loading up the game is probably my biggest barrier to playing. Steam has a little app now so I can check that pretty easily.
The next biggest would be that it's easier and less stressful to just watch SC games to unwind after work rather than to ladder. Lately I started playing SWTOR for that purpose as well -- it's just super easy and more social.
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Personally the main reasons are:
1. Ladder is repetitive, especially for zerg players. If you don't like to all in the options are mutalingbling, infestor ling, or roach ling. All of which have the same opening vs T and P
2. Ladder is purposeless, you can be first master in your division and 25th master in another, so what is the purpose of reaching first place in your division when really your division is shit compared to other divisions?
3. Apart from people from my own clan I have no reason to interact with people other then receiving or giving rage comments in games.
4. SC2 is made of pure hard counters and no soft counters, meaning that if you don't scout you lose. This makes lower league players lose or win based on luck as in most cases they don't have the apm required to scout effectively. Hence, in my opininion the huge deminuishing numbers in bronze/silver/gold.
5. and final point, SC2 has a HUGE learning curve, this puts of casual gamers by definition, and this has been a problem with all RTS games (except maybe AoE cause AoE was just epic in the mid 90's hehe).
6. Custom maps are UTTER SHIT! Most of them involve afkers/trolls/bm and apart from the usual high rated once (which are very repetitive) the others are usually buggy/boring/monotone.
PS: I still play the game but completely casually and play maybe 5-10 ladder games x season just to maintain my diamond status trololol
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Some of what you listed has to do with customs. The simple improvement of letting people create and name lobbies and allowing people to actually see them would solve most of the problem there.
As for Ladder a couple things would go a long way.
1) An unranked ladder (LoL's unranked ladder is very popular, I don't think very many people play 5v5 ranked and solo ranked doesn't mean anything in a team game)
2) No reward for playing - I play at least a game of Tribes: Ascend everyday to get my "Win of the Day" which gives me points that are actually useful for something
I also think Clans and in game tournaments would boost ladder play dramatically because people would have a reason to practice. Still think unranked would help here. A lot of people would like to practice without being judged.
Currently there is no reason for people to practice and ladder points can't be used for anything. Under the current system what reason is there to ladder?
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On March 13 2012 20:18 nBk wrote:
I haven't played since I think season 1, or beginning of season 2, i really cannot remember, because a multitude of things...
1. Smurfs - I can never learn when i get raped in 3-5 minuites, over and over..
2. Stress - Fear of above, no fun just annoyance.
3. Other games - LoL, ps3, skyrim, dota2 etc.
4. Lack of social interaction - I feel it's inferior to sc1:bw by a long shot. Probably not the only one who feels this..
5. BM - I can honestly say that when I played, i never met a nice person, moreso LOLNUB, YOU SUCK, blah blah same old stuff, everytime. Yeah it's just a game but after awhile it gets kinda degrating and makes the game unplayable because for one - it is a game and i'm just trying to enjoy myself, not listen to little kids bragging and putting me down all day smurfing..
Many more, just yeah. Don't see why sc2 had to stray away from sc1 so much, it baffles me. I'll probably never play again tbh, I thought about trying to reinstall today after so long but then remembered my experiences before and I just don't see the point, and i doubt much has changed..
I didn't play between end of season 1 till end of season 5 and I must say, the amount of BM had gone down drastically. Out of the ~150 ladder games I have played since returning, I think maybe 5 people have BM'd. Sure lots of people leave without GG, but at least they aren't chat raging.
I think most of the people that have left were first time RTS players who got in a bit over their head. My one buddy never played an RTS before and became extremely discouraged after being placed in bronze and not being able to move out. Especially when he saw me placing high diamond in season 1. I tried to teach him some things about the game, but I think the saying 'can't teach an old dog new tricks' came into play. Being 26 leaves very little time to learn such an in depth genre.
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On March 14 2012 23:50 Siffer wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2012 20:18 nBk wrote:
I haven't played since I think season 1, or beginning of season 2, i really cannot remember, because a multitude of things...
1. Smurfs - I can never learn when i get raped in 3-5 minuites, over and over..
2. Stress - Fear of above, no fun just annoyance.
3. Other games - LoL, ps3, skyrim, dota2 etc.
4. Lack of social interaction - I feel it's inferior to sc1:bw by a long shot. Probably not the only one who feels this..
5. BM - I can honestly say that when I played, i never met a nice person, moreso LOLNUB, YOU SUCK, blah blah same old stuff, everytime. Yeah it's just a game but after awhile it gets kinda degrating and makes the game unplayable because for one - it is a game and i'm just trying to enjoy myself, not listen to little kids bragging and putting me down all day smurfing..
Many more, just yeah. Don't see why sc2 had to stray away from sc1 so much, it baffles me. I'll probably never play again tbh, I thought about trying to reinstall today after so long but then remembered my experiences before and I just don't see the point, and i doubt much has changed..
I didn't play between end of season 1 till end of season 5 and I must say, the amount of BM had gone down drastically. Out of the ~150 ladder games I have played since returning, I think maybe 5 people have BM'd. Sure lots of people leave without GG, but at least they aren't chat raging. I think most of the people that have left were first time RTS players who got in a bit over their head. My one buddy never played an RTS before and became extremely discouraged after being placed in bronze and not being able to move out. Especially when he saw me placing high diamond in season 1. I tried to teach him some things about the game, but I think the saying 'can't teach an old dog new tricks' came into play. Being 26 leaves very little time to learn such an in depth genre.
I've personally been forced to not 1v1 until I reclaim my rightful place on the 4v4 random ladder. Once I dump that bonus pool and get my 750 Team League portrait, I'll be playing 1v1 again. As for my buddies who have simply been on 1v1 ladder lockout since S2, I don't really know what their excuse is? Cowardice comes to mind.
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Though I used to be afraid to ladder, now I love it for the reasons that make people afraid: it's a pure competition, with no blame on anyone but yourself if you lose. Most games want to hold your hand and give you a bunch of "outs" to keep you from the fact that you suck. If you can accept that you suck, competition becomes fun again. I recently got demoted to silver from gold--I don't care, I know I'll get back up there and keep improving (when I get time to play).
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alot of the reasons i can read here seems to come from people not knowing teh full potential of this game,
the problem they telling their half widsom as a FACT and thats quite anoying reading bronze-gold player say THIS or THIS is fact THIS is imba etc ...
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Would be great if they'd change ranking system to elo system and for getting elo high enough you would get portraits and maybe different textures for units and maybe even different mouse cursors and ui layouts.
Also laddering is too stressful but they could fix that by adding non competitive 1v1 ladder.
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Personally, I am still very interested in SC2 and it is my favorite game by far, but as a busy college student I just don't have much time to play anymore. I play when I am on break and stuff and I usually get pretty high on the ladder (top 25 - top 8 in my masters division) but then I go back to school and I can't really play because I lose nearly all of my games due to being out of practice and playing versus highly ranked players, most of whom are still playing just as much as they did when they reached that rank.
So basically, for me, my reason for not playing is that my skill level fluctuates a lot based on how much I can practice, and when I don't have time to practice I don't really feel like spending my free time losing a bunch of games just to get my ladder rank to my appropriate skill level. For this reason, I still watch and read about SC2 in my free time, but choose to try out other games instead when I have the opportunity to play.
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On March 14 2012 23:54 dUTtrOACh wrote:Show nested quote +On March 14 2012 23:50 Siffer wrote:On March 13 2012 20:18 nBk wrote:
I haven't played since I think season 1, or beginning of season 2, i really cannot remember, because a multitude of things...
1. Smurfs - I can never learn when i get raped in 3-5 minuites, over and over..
2. Stress - Fear of above, no fun just annoyance.
3. Other games - LoL, ps3, skyrim, dota2 etc.
4. Lack of social interaction - I feel it's inferior to sc1:bw by a long shot. Probably not the only one who feels this..
5. BM - I can honestly say that when I played, i never met a nice person, moreso LOLNUB, YOU SUCK, blah blah same old stuff, everytime. Yeah it's just a game but after awhile it gets kinda degrating and makes the game unplayable because for one - it is a game and i'm just trying to enjoy myself, not listen to little kids bragging and putting me down all day smurfing..
Many more, just yeah. Don't see why sc2 had to stray away from sc1 so much, it baffles me. I'll probably never play again tbh, I thought about trying to reinstall today after so long but then remembered my experiences before and I just don't see the point, and i doubt much has changed..
I didn't play between end of season 1 till end of season 5 and I must say, the amount of BM had gone down drastically. Out of the ~150 ladder games I have played since returning, I think maybe 5 people have BM'd. Sure lots of people leave without GG, but at least they aren't chat raging. I think most of the people that have left were first time RTS players who got in a bit over their head. My one buddy never played an RTS before and became extremely discouraged after being placed in bronze and not being able to move out. Especially when he saw me placing high diamond in season 1. I tried to teach him some things about the game, but I think the saying 'can't teach an old dog new tricks' came into play. Being 26 leaves very little time to learn such an in depth genre. I've personally been forced to not 1v1 until I reclaim my rightful place on the 4v4 random ladder. Once I dump that bonus pool and get my 750 Team League portrait, I'll be playing 1v1 again. As for my buddies who have simply been on 1v1 ladder lockout since S2, I don't really know what their excuse is? Cowardice comes to mind.
Cowardice doesn't enter into it. When you play 4v4 you have 3 big reasons you might lose a game (your teammates). When they play 1v1, they only have themselves to blame and the state of the game itself. At a certain point, most people stop assuming it's them and stop playing because "it's a dumb game".
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EPT
