|
On March 15 2012 02:37 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2012 02:24 Gosi wrote:On March 15 2012 02:08 blade55555 wrote:On March 15 2012 00:52 Warpath wrote:
just isn't fun. after playing broodwar for the relatively short time i did, the game is just too simple. I miss starting at a low rank and grinding everything you have to even step up half a rank.
I get to Masters the moment it comes out and I'm like "yay?" and i can probably take games off anyone below code A
Hitting C- was like a party and it's still incredibly low in the scope of everything, and the chances of be even beating a C+ are immensely small.
just doesn't bring the same sense of accomplishment. So true, masters doesn't feel like an accomplishment at all since if you git it season before you will most likely get it again unless you lost a lot on purpose or lost a lot in general. Iccup everyone started over every season and I remember reaching C-/C and celebrating. I remember beating my first B- player and felt like I was a boss lol. Good days  I think if they would to reset all ranks/MMR every season the ladder would be alot more fun. By playing one match season after season and get right back where you was the earlier season kills the desire to grind ladder for me and many others. That way, your rank may actually mean something too. If they would make the gap between each league bigger so not everyone can get into master by just having solid macro would make it much more fun too. I personally would love if they just removed all the lame names on the league and went with a iccup system or some ELO/True MMR system with only points like in most games today. This why you can say, yes I'm a B Terran or I'm a 2k Terran and people would kinda get your skill level you know. This doesn't work AT ALL in the current ladder system. Just me? I have always wondered, how many active users did Iccup have at a time? How did match making work? I was not one of those luckly people who got into the BW scene and always wanted to know.
ICCup exists, you can stop talking in past tense.
Right atm there are 800+ players on, I don't know how many when it is primetime.
Matchmaking:
You host a game with a map, name it like "D/D+Lost Temple T only", then press create game. Your game then will pop up in a list with other games, people can then join your game and then you play. Yes, you can for example practice specific matchups only, like grinding 100 ZvP's in a row.
Ranking:
You start as D rank player with 1000 points
You win/lose points after victory/defeat. To obtain the next rank, you need 1000 points. So D+ is 2000 points, C- is 3000 points etc and it gets harder everytime. Fact: To obtain D+ rank, you need a 33% winrate. But only few players manage to get that far. Yes, BW is pretty hard.
You can download free BW multiplayer and ICCup here:
http://www.iccup.com/starcraft/sc_start.html
|
On March 15 2012 02:30 SnuggleZhenya wrote:
My main problem with the ladder at this point is just the fact that it demands a lot of attention. Starcraft 2 ladder games require 100% of my attention, and its tiring. It is enjoyable, don't get me wrong, but it is also something that requires a level of effort that after a 12 hour day doing my normal stuff I am not always ready to put in. So, evne if I have an hour to spend on gaming, I don't always feel compelled to put that into SC2 ladder. It is generally all I can do to use up my bonus pool during a ladder season.
Totally this. There are nights where I'd ladder for two hours, lose EVERY damn game and walk away from the computer feeling like I'd accomplished nothing. Those two hours generally feel more constructive levelling in WoW or at least getting some kills in LoL or whatever.
I love Starcraft 2, I really do... But I swear sometimes the matchmaker feels like it's throwing players at you who were born specifically to counter your style.
|
On March 15 2012 02:07 Epoch wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2012 00:52 Warpath wrote:
just isn't fun. after playing broodwar for the relatively short time i did, the game is just too simple. I miss starting at a low rank and grinding everything you have to even step up half a rank.
I get to Masters the moment it comes out and I'm like "yay?" and i can probably take games off anyone below code A
Hitting C- was like a party and it's still incredibly low in the scope of everything, and the chances of be even beating a C+ are immensely small.
just doesn't bring the same sense of accomplishment. no you can't take games off of anyone below code A after just getting masters, not even close.
take games != 100% win rate, what i mean is that i could take like 1 in 10 games off "grandmaster" players, not professional players that by all means can play in Code A (like MorroW as someone said)
I didn't mean that i said "now I'm in masters, i can now, at this exact moment, take top3 in MLGs", obviously.
On March 15 2012 06:04 blubbdavid wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2012 02:37 Plansix wrote:On March 15 2012 02:24 Gosi wrote:On March 15 2012 02:08 blade55555 wrote:On March 15 2012 00:52 Warpath wrote:
just isn't fun. after playing broodwar for the relatively short time i did, the game is just too simple. I miss starting at a low rank and grinding everything you have to even step up half a rank.
I get to Masters the moment it comes out and I'm like "yay?" and i can probably take games off anyone below code A
Hitting C- was like a party and it's still incredibly low in the scope of everything, and the chances of be even beating a C+ are immensely small.
just doesn't bring the same sense of accomplishment. So true, masters doesn't feel like an accomplishment at all since if you git it season before you will most likely get it again unless you lost a lot on purpose or lost a lot in general. Iccup everyone started over every season and I remember reaching C-/C and celebrating. I remember beating my first B- player and felt like I was a boss lol. Good days I think if they would to reset all ranks/MMR every season the ladder would be alot more fun. By playing one match season after season and get right back where you was the earlier season kills the desire to grind ladder for me and many others. That way, your rank may actually mean something too. If they would make the gap between each league bigger so not everyone can get into master by just having solid macro would make it much more fun too. I personally would love if they just removed all the lame names on the league and went with a iccup system or some ELO/True MMR system with only points like in most games today. This why you can say, yes I'm a B Terran or I'm a 2k Terran and people would kinda get your skill level you know. This doesn't work AT ALL in the current ladder system. Just me? I have always wondered, how many active users did Iccup have at a time? How did match making work? I was not one of those luckly people who got into the BW scene and always wanted to know. -snip- it gets harder everytime. Fact: To obtain D+ rank, you need a 33% winrate. But only few players manage to get that far. Yes, BW is pretty hard. http://www.iccup.com/starcraft/sc_start.html
This was the best part. the higher your rank, you were playing players that were consistently good, not ones that can cointoss 50% of the time and simply grind the rankings
|
feel more constructive levelling in WoW
I hope you aren't serious.
|
On March 15 2012 09:48 HejaBVB wrote:I hope you aren't serious.
It actually is more constructive. You can make long lasting friends in WoW.
|
Matchups have become predictable. There's hardly ever any creativity and Blizzard doesn't help with the constant nerfs.
|
It used to be ladder fear for me, but mostly now it's just stress. I want to play a game to have fun, and when grinding on ladder results in losing streaks and frustrating games it isn't fun for me. I still play random lobbies and customs with my CSL team because laddering feels more like a chore than it is fun.
|
I've actually been fairly dedicated to the game, it being essentially the only game I've played for the past year and a half. I've improved a lot since I've started. I was originally gold when I started, now I am top diamond. The thing thats kept me playing has been my dedication and drive to reach master's league. I got to the point where I was playing master league players every other game. I was feeling really good about myself and the game...
And then I went on a terrible losing skid where I won 3 out of 22 games. And that about killed my drive. I've gotten to the point where I find it hard for myself to play because I just get frustrated when I lose to a zerg or a protoss. Its easy to blame unfairness in a loss because essentially each race is playing by different rules. It would be like if they changed basketball so one team always had six players who were forced to be below six feet tall, and the other team had 5 players that had to be above six feet. The same basic mechanics are used by each team, and the same skills are required. But when you lose, its hard not see see a disadvantage from whatever side you're on. From the team of 5 you say: "unfair, they outnumber us." And from the team of 6 you'd say: "unfair, they're taller than us." Even if its at a point where each side wins equally, its still frustrating to lose to someone who plays with inherently different advantages and disadvantages. And these aren't just disadvantages that you encounter when facing an opponent with different skill-sets, these are disadvantages that are forced on you by the game. Zerg will always be able to get workers faster than you if they're left unchecked. Protoss is the only race that had a static defense which can attack air and ground. Terran is the only race that has a flying, cloaked attacking unit. These are advantages that you can not get rid of. And while its fun to watch a game that operates like this, and is interesting to watch to be balanced; it can be really frustrating to play with these kind of innate advantages and disadvantages.
|
It would be fun if I could switch race and start from the beginning, but even then seems kinda of dumb. I've been playing this game for years and I still feel as if I don't know what i'm doing.
|
On March 15 2012 03:08 bri9and wrote:
Probably because the chat windows are so small.
Oh wait.. nevermind.
Actual reasons:
- the game is too hard for most
- people don't like to lose
- there is zero sense of community
I don't really care about any of those reasons but I can assure you other people do.. I really think they missed the boat when they dropped all of the good stuff WC3 did. (Race specific ladder ranking, tournaments, chat, etc).
Actually I think there is an even greater reason less people are playing the game (in general not 1v1). There is no map/mode like SCBW's Big Game Hunters. BGH was a great game mode because it was incredibly simple to play but skilled players could still use their superior abilities to overcome things. I'm not saying SC2 needs to develop a BGH community, but the map represents something that BW had but SC2 does not. BGH was very easy to learn and had a high skill ceiling for the casual player who would play BGH. SC2 on the other hand has many more elaborate cheeses and all ins that require very specific responses or high skill to stop. This leads to a lot of situations where a player feel like they got an undeserving lost.
So basically Blizzard should look to address making all ins easier to handle for the defender (defenders advantage or new worker fighting mechanics) and making early game simpler so that something like BGH can develop (pushing back macro mechanics or only changing tier 1-1.5 units so that there are no hard counters and can have longer battles).
|
|
|
Making you play to earn points to unlock stuff is a really good incentive. Games like LoL and HoN really bank off that.
|
i wrote about 2 paragraphs on my idea's about this... then realized my ideas were destroying my motivation which added to my argument. so i deleted it because i did not want to finish too depressing.
|
On March 15 2012 11:20 Leeto wrote:
Making you play to earn points to unlock stuff is a really good incentive. Games like LoL and HoN really bank off that. But what should you be able to unlock? Right now the only unlockable thing is portraits, and you get these mostly by playing very much.
What would be fun would be an additional fun mode, where you can unlock things by playing the normal ladder. Similiar to a browsergames. (just for motivation) Maybe like a Base you can walk through and upgrade over time. (i know this is just dreaming as s.th. like this will never ever be added)^^
|
On March 15 2012 02:35 jidolboy wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2012 02:29 knOxStarcraft wrote:
It's because people don't know how to have fun unless they get something for it. I play ladder because I have fun playing the game and I want to get better. Idk why people are so fascinated with getting a fucking league promotion since who you play is all based on mmr anyways.
It seems like if people aren't rewarded with useless shit they have no motivation to play games at all, which is sad because playing games should be about having fun not getting a fucking portrait.
School could be another reason why people have stopped playing though, as exams are coming up pretty soon for university students. Seriously, who so offensive? You need to try to understand other people's POV more. Some people like you may have fun by improving your skill while others have fun by getting promoted whether it'll be 3rax all in, 4 gate or 6 pool all game. And there are those who like collecting portraits.
I know they do and I see their POV, I'm simply saying that it's pretty sad that that's what it takes for them to have fun. I'm sure you'd agree that promotions in this game are relatively meaningless and getting a portrait that only means you played a lot is also pretty pointless.
|
On March 17 2012 11:02 knOxStarcraft wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2012 02:35 jidolboy wrote:On March 15 2012 02:29 knOxStarcraft wrote:
It's because people don't know how to have fun unless they get something for it. I play ladder because I have fun playing the game and I want to get better. Idk why people are so fascinated with getting a fucking league promotion since who you play is all based on mmr anyways.
It seems like if people aren't rewarded with useless shit they have no motivation to play games at all, which is sad because playing games should be about having fun not getting a fucking portrait.
School could be another reason why people have stopped playing though, as exams are coming up pretty soon for university students. Seriously, who so offensive? You need to try to understand other people's POV more. Some people like you may have fun by improving your skill while others have fun by getting promoted whether it'll be 3rax all in, 4 gate or 6 pool all game. And there are those who like collecting portraits. I know they do and I see their POV, I'm simply saying that it's pretty sad that that's what it takes for them to have fun. I'm sure you'd agree that promotions in this game are relatively meaningless and getting a portrait that only means you played a lot is also pretty pointless.
But i think it's a fact that when you can collect something more player will have the motivation to keep playing on the ladder and this is what everyone wants.
|
There's basically two tangible rewards from playing ladder atm, portraits and the "prestige" of a high ladder rank badge.
- because the average skill of the playerbase keeps going up, the easiest way to keep a shiny badge is to only play your 1 game per season. Most people who are serious enough to have hit a temporary skill barrier have probably already done so, whether that's in platinum or masters. For many people, playing ladder is just like running on a treadmill that keeps getting faster and faster, until they get winded and fall off.
- portraits aren't super prestigious because all they indicate is that someone runs a bot or worker rushes in bronze, most of the time. they could partially address this by making wins count for more if you're in higher leagues, or only granting the best portraits for XXX wins in plat/diamond/master whatever. Maybe throw in some custom unit skins like the Thor.
Edit : Also I think a lot of the fun factor is gone from the matchups. Even in silver league, play has become quite standardised and everyone know what the "right" units and builds are for each matchup, even if they don't execute them right. Terran keeps getting their units nerfed everytime they figure out an effective way to use them(reapers, hellions, thors vs P, ghosts). So atleast HotS will help fix that up.
|
I hate losing so I don't play. When I lose I get fucking mad about my own shitness.
|
On March 15 2012 10:05 Darknat wrote:
Matchups have become predictable. There's hardly ever any creativity and Blizzard doesn't help with the constant nerfs.
this
i play zerg and the only matchup with any creativity left is ZvT, and as another thread points out, terrans have kinda disappeared from ladder.
playing ZvP, all i ever do is go against early zealot pressure followed by 2 base allin timing. if you beat the timing you tech up to broodlords and win or just overwhelm by streaming roachling towards the P's natural thanks to your overwhelming econ advantage, if you dont beat the timing the game is obviously over.
rinse and repeat, after 3 ZvPs in a row of this dont wanna play ZvP anymore for that day
playing ZvZ, all i ever do is either play lingbaneling wars or should i go mutalisks or hydras to counter his mutalisks. again, after 3 games in a row of lingbaneling or mutalisk, don't wana play ZvZ anymore for that day
ZvT at least there's marine-tank, drop play, banshee harass, reactor hellions, thor-hellion, marauder-hellion, marine-marauder, etc. there's still some variety in the matchup
|
Hm, I don't know if that's the reason people stop playing on ladder. I think it's kinda normal that there are playstyles which dominate in a matchup?
I'm not rly into SC:BW but was it very different there?
btw.: although there are clearly less players know then after the release of the game there a still many players compared to nearby any other RTS on the PC. So it's most likely a normal effect which Blizzard should try to stop as best as they can by regular updates (e.g. on the UI) and advertisements for the game.
In the modern buisness it's quite hard to get players to stick for one game for a long time. Look at COD. Every year another game and still it breaks every record.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
