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Random and its place on the ladder - Page 3

Forum Index > SC2 General
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Vindicare605
Profile Blog Joined August 2011
United States16071 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-08-19 13:48:00
August 19 2012 13:47 GMT
#41
On August 19 2012 22:45 ThunderBum wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 19 2012 22:29 FeyFey wrote:
actually it is really hard to notice random players, as they normally choose their race beforehand and you will never notice if you play one. Unless you check their profile. Anyway if they are after the double wins for achievements (if you win you get one for the race and one for random race!), they normally announce their race, or tell you when you ask.
The ones not doing this most likely enjoy the advantage that comes with it. Well they only have the advantage if you let it happen. There are enough openers each race can do without scouting fast and falling behind. They are different from the standard, but in general you end up being better off against random players who abuse their random advantage.
Of course you can chose the easy way and leave against random players. (another reason why people play random, when i did random ago for another achievement i won every 5th game because someone left the game)

Anyway do ask the race at the start and do a worker scout anyway and do a random save build order. Random players hiding beind it, usually overextend themself one way or the other you can easily win with an aggressive early game.


In addition to this, I feel a common misconception about random is that they don't understand the race they're playing as well as a player who only plays one race. The thing with random is that their MMR is not necessarily indicative of their proficiency with a race (instead it's an average of the races), because they will likely have strong races and weak races, especially if the random players used to only play one race.


You're not looking at this like a random player.

Random players, most of them anyway, don't have strong or weak races, they have strong or weak match ups.

Personally TvZ and ZvT is currently my best match up. Meanwhile PvP and ZvZ have consistently been my weakest match ups.

When you play all 3 races you stop seeing things on a race basis but more on a match up basis.
aka: KTVindicare the Geeky Bartender
ThunderBum
Profile Joined November 2010
Australia192 Posts
August 19 2012 13:50 GMT
#42
On August 19 2012 22:47 Vindicare605 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 19 2012 22:45 ThunderBum wrote:
On August 19 2012 22:29 FeyFey wrote:
actually it is really hard to notice random players, as they normally choose their race beforehand and you will never notice if you play one. Unless you check their profile. Anyway if they are after the double wins for achievements (if you win you get one for the race and one for random race!), they normally announce their race, or tell you when you ask.
The ones not doing this most likely enjoy the advantage that comes with it. Well they only have the advantage if you let it happen. There are enough openers each race can do without scouting fast and falling behind. They are different from the standard, but in general you end up being better off against random players who abuse their random advantage.
Of course you can chose the easy way and leave against random players. (another reason why people play random, when i did random ago for another achievement i won every 5th game because someone left the game)

Anyway do ask the race at the start and do a worker scout anyway and do a random save build order. Random players hiding beind it, usually overextend themself one way or the other you can easily win with an aggressive early game.


In addition to this, I feel a common misconception about random is that they don't understand the race they're playing as well as a player who only plays one race. The thing with random is that their MMR is not necessarily indicative of their proficiency with a race (instead it's an average of the races), because they will likely have strong races and weak races, especially if the random players used to only play one race.


You're not looking at this like a random player.

Random players, most of them anyway, don't have strong or weak races, they have strong or weak match ups.

Personally TvZ and ZvT is currently my best match up. Meanwhile PvP and ZvZ have consistently been my weakest match ups.

When you play all 3 races you stop seeing things on a race basis but more on a match up basis.


I was a random player. Understanding a matchup does not translate to being able to play both sides equally.
Vindicare605
Profile Blog Joined August 2011
United States16071 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-08-19 13:56:06
August 19 2012 13:52 GMT
#43
On August 19 2012 22:50 ThunderBum wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 19 2012 22:47 Vindicare605 wrote:
On August 19 2012 22:45 ThunderBum wrote:
On August 19 2012 22:29 FeyFey wrote:
actually it is really hard to notice random players, as they normally choose their race beforehand and you will never notice if you play one. Unless you check their profile. Anyway if they are after the double wins for achievements (if you win you get one for the race and one for random race!), they normally announce their race, or tell you when you ask.
The ones not doing this most likely enjoy the advantage that comes with it. Well they only have the advantage if you let it happen. There are enough openers each race can do without scouting fast and falling behind. They are different from the standard, but in general you end up being better off against random players who abuse their random advantage.
Of course you can chose the easy way and leave against random players. (another reason why people play random, when i did random ago for another achievement i won every 5th game because someone left the game)

Anyway do ask the race at the start and do a worker scout anyway and do a random save build order. Random players hiding beind it, usually overextend themself one way or the other you can easily win with an aggressive early game.


In addition to this, I feel a common misconception about random is that they don't understand the race they're playing as well as a player who only plays one race. The thing with random is that their MMR is not necessarily indicative of their proficiency with a race (instead it's an average of the races), because they will likely have strong races and weak races, especially if the random players used to only play one race.


You're not looking at this like a random player.

Random players, most of them anyway, don't have strong or weak races, they have strong or weak match ups.

Personally TvZ and ZvT is currently my best match up. Meanwhile PvP and ZvZ have consistently been my weakest match ups.

When you play all 3 races you stop seeing things on a race basis but more on a match up basis.


I was a random player. Understanding a matchup does not translate to being able to play both sides equally.


That's true, I was just using myself as an example. For some reason I really get the current Terran vs Zerg metagame from both sides, but historically my ZvT was usually much better than my TvZ.

In the past my best match ups were ZvP and PvT, but for some reason I struggle holding off Immortal Sentry pushes so it has pushed down my proficiency with that match up.

But my point was, I don't think most Random players have strong or weak races more that they have strong or weak match ups. Each match up has its own set of skillsets and mechanics, not every one comes naturally to the same player.
aka: KTVindicare the Geeky Bartender
nanokwark
Profile Joined July 2010
Poland51 Posts
August 19 2012 13:54 GMT
#44
I play random my self and I would like to have option to show my race to my opponent.
...what
Profile Joined April 2011
England94 Posts
August 19 2012 13:57 GMT
#45
whenever I play random players I just proxy 11/11, they always play greedy and scout late on accounts of their so called 'random advantage'

its hardly an advantage if I'm just gonna cheese the shit out of you anyway
TheKefka
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
Croatia11752 Posts
August 19 2012 13:58 GMT
#46
I go nexus first against randoms lol
Cackle™
Vindicare605
Profile Blog Joined August 2011
United States16071 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-08-19 13:59:32
August 19 2012 13:58 GMT
#47
On August 19 2012 22:57 ...what wrote:
whenever I play random players I just proxy 11/11, they always play greedy and scout late on accounts of their so called 'random advantage'

its hardly an advantage if I'm just gonna cheese the shit out of you anyway


The one season I used to play Terran as, I got cheesed FAR less often than I do as Random.

I get hit with completely weird timings, and builds that I only see once or twice ever on the ladder.
aka: KTVindicare the Geeky Bartender
Adonminus
Profile Joined January 2012
Israel543 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-08-19 13:59:14
August 19 2012 13:59 GMT
#48
Try to learn some 1 gate fe against random zerg, it works and doesn't set you behind.
.Sic.
Profile Joined February 2011
Korea (South)497 Posts
August 19 2012 14:00 GMT
#49
now i think about it, i should play random. i would never waste time tilting and raging at my losses... "oh i lost as terran, well my best race is zerg anyways who cares trolol"
Clan MvP Member | http://sc2ranks.com/kr/3273340/SicMvP
Dfgj
Profile Joined May 2008
Singapore5922 Posts
August 19 2012 14:01 GMT
#50
Master league random here.

I'd rather have my race displayed or something so I can play a straight-up game rather than deal with people who just cheese/play suboptimally because they have to.
SgtCoDFish
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
United Kingdom1520 Posts
August 19 2012 14:02 GMT
#51
I often feel like I get cheesed more often as random, even though I rarely cheese.

I'd like random as it is to stay, but I'd also like the option to show my race; it can't hurt and has literally no downside.
Vallros
Profile Joined February 2011
Denmark64 Posts
August 19 2012 14:06 GMT
#52
i completely agree with OP. I'm a P in masters and i have never beaten a random(z) i think.
Calm like a bomb
J_Slim
Profile Joined May 2011
United States199 Posts
August 19 2012 14:06 GMT
#53
I'm a plat toss and I almost always just leave the match when playing randoms. I'm trying to learn certain builds vrs each race, and trying to guess which build would be best vrs a random is a waste of practice time. Sure, you could try to do a build that is 'safe' vrs everything, but not worth it, IMO. Especially with the % of randoms that cheese (6 pool, double proxy rax/gates, etc etc)
Legalize it!
RenSC2
Profile Blog Joined August 2011
United States1063 Posts
August 19 2012 14:07 GMT
#54
I play random exclusively. I don't tell anyone my race either, and I would be annoyed if the mechanics changed such that my opponent knew my race.

I get no pleasure out of copying builds and practicing the same build over and over again. It's just not fun. I like to make up builds on the fly and play games out in strange ways (sometimes very painfully). I prefer it when my opponent is in that state too and we can see who the better player is at scouting and adjusting... not who copied and executed the build order better.

I prefer that my opponent can't just follow his usual build that he's copied from a pro, watched pros execute 1000 times, and practiced 100s of times himself. I prefer that he actually has to think on his feet and play the game in a slightly uncomfortable position. I prefer that my opponent actually has to scout me if he wants to know anything about me. I prefer that many super early cheeses are only viable in specific matchups and my opponent would have to gamble extra hard to try it on me. I prefer the chaos of random and the interesting games it can create.

If you're playing against me on ladder, you're not going pro anytime soon. So the idea that it's not real practice is just garbage... you need to work on your mechanics and basic decision making, not worry about whether some specific build order is the absolutely most optimal against race X. Even if you have to play against randoms at the top of the ladder, just remember that if they're random at the top of the ladder, there's nothing to stop them from joining a Playhem Daily or a TL Open. So you better be prepared for them.

On August 19 2012 22:03 teamamerica wrote:
For people who are playing random but aren't doing it to throw off their opponents game plan (even if you say in start of game, I can't always trust you, from exp.), why don't you just consciously cycle through each race (play T->P->Z) or use a random number generator mod 3 to decide? It's not that hard to tab out in the start of the game and decide and than queue again.

As a Terran it doesn't affect me too much because 1rax cc is safe against everything except marine-tank-banshee allin and 4gate blink on some maps, but for Toss/Zerg I think it makes such a huge difference it's not worth playing out a normal game. If you're playing to get better, you'll never face a random in any tourny env. and if you're playing for fun, you might not enjoying playing vs a random for any variety of reasons from being behind from the start to random players propensity for being cheesy (not all, just my exp of masses of 2base pushes) to anything else.

Not saying I hate random at all or think it's stupid or anything; it just confuses me why people who say they're playing random to experience every race (i.e. not get a random advantage) don't just randomly choose their race, instead of playing random.

So random players should go through all that trouble to please you instead of simply clicking the button and finding a match? Easy choice.
Playing better than standard requires deviation. This divergence usually results in sub-standard play.
freerolll
Profile Blog Joined May 2011
Belgium1056 Posts
August 19 2012 14:08 GMT
#55
I play on ladder as random! Never has a player asked me for my race and have I refused to say it!
but to be honest i never announce my race at the start they realy have to ask me!
For people that say random are just cheesers You would be surprised. Also as I started with toss then switched to terran then started with random!
People who think they have an advantge is some matchup like the mirrors in my experience I win most of the mirrors because I think build orders are evenmore important!
last 20 ZvZ have won 18 just because of hatching first
Always give without remembering & always receive without forgetting.
Fuchsteufelswild
Profile Joined October 2009
Australia2028 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-08-19 14:16:49
August 19 2012 14:09 GMT
#56
I hate random. Playing versus random players seems less worthwhile and irrelevant to the other three match-ups. I also mostly find ZvZ boring, to the point that, because I want to enjoy the game, I often quit ZvZs. Having random means that if I want to play it out and just deal with zvz if it pops up, I'll possibly be at a further disadvantage than I usually would in that match-up, but you don't always feel like quitting if you haven't done it in the first 20 seconds.
What percentage of players play as random these days? I feel like most non-random players would prefer the random player's race to be revealed at the loading screen and some random players would not mind this either, so if 4% of players were random, the current set-up caters to 2% of the player-base.

On August 19 2012 22:05 Bojas wrote: Open 1 gate fe or even cheese the hell out of random players. Don't expect to play the same way you would if you knew their race beforehand.
So for the sake of practice and people trying to improve against non-random players, each game involving a random player is often not even relevant practice against the race the random player gets. Not everyone is going to be a top tournament player at any stage, but that doesn't mean that other people don't still want and enjoy the same training situation (such as not really having to worry about random players because of how few there are in tournaments).

On August 19 2012 23:07 RenSC2 wrote:
So random players should go through all that trouble to please you instead of simply clicking the button and finding a match? Easy choice.

How the hell do you find a problem with that? You play this game, surely your brain is capable of enduring the stress and the effort required to make a decision on which race to play at the particular moment and simply click the appropriate button first.
Pick a race, any race. Play it until you feel like swapping. Swap when that urge arrives. It does seem pretty easy.
You only need bother with random number generators and cycling your race after every game if you personally find the variety that important to you. If you're simply looking to improve your play as all of the three races, you shouldn't even need the random rolls, but some people don't seem to like making decisions or can't always decide, so instead of asking you to manually roll a die and tell the program which race you got, it just does it for you, but hides the result from the other player. People are not asking you to go to more trouble, simply to allow the result to be shown.
ZerO - FantaSy - Calm - Nal_rA - Jaedong - NaDa - EffOrt - Bisu - by.hero - StarDust - Welmu - Nerchio - Supernova - Solar - Squirtle - LosirA - Grubby - IntoTheRainbow - Golden... ~~~ Incredible Miracle and Woongjin Stars 화이팅!
soon.Cloak
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States983 Posts
August 19 2012 14:10 GMT
#57
On August 19 2012 21:53 Maluk wrote:
... If you don't know the race of your opponent, any specific opener you have is screwed. So basically every random player starts with a slight build order advantage.
I don't think this kind of advantage is game breaking, though ; it seems to compensate nicely for the fact that the random player will often be slightly worse with the race he'll end up having during the game than your average opponent who race picks.

Ya, this basically is exactly what I feel.
CrUnKeD
Profile Joined August 2010
United States6 Posts
August 19 2012 14:16 GMT
#58
While the metagame evolves random players have to evolve all 3 races, which creates much more combination of m/u types. Random players have a clear disadvantage because of that. If you can't ffe, do 3gate expo with pressure....deny their 3rd....get your immortals and sentrys up and you will have the upper hand.
Daswollvieh
Profile Blog Joined October 2009
5553 Posts
August 19 2012 14:17 GMT
#59
TvP - 1RaxFE
TvZ - 1RaxFE
TvT - 1RaxFE

TvRandom...

...1RaxFE

Nope, no effect at all
BeeNu
Profile Joined June 2011
615 Posts
August 19 2012 14:18 GMT
#60
As others have stated, Random players have an inherent advantage at the start of the game due to knowing the race of their opponent while their opponent doesn't know their race. Now I know a lot of Random players have told me that "but it's fair because we have to learn all three races huehueheu" which is a bullshit argument and you know it. If you're going to put yourself at a disadvantage by splitting your attention between 3 races then so be it, but it's still not right to put your opponent at an inherent disadvantage to "balance" it out because no matter how you slice it if you play random you will not ever get "real" or "normal" games and you're aren't ever actually learning all 3 races anyways, you're just getting small windows to what playing all 3 races is like. I've played Random myself a fair bit too but I don't delude myself by thinking I'm not giving myself an unfair advantage, I am giving myself an unfair advantage if I play random and I damn well know it. But when I do play random, probably 80% of the matches are cheese, this is entirely different than if I were to just randomly "pick" races because everyone uses fucked up build orders and absurd cheeses and it's an entirely different ladder experience.


Imo Blizzard should leave random except once the game starts it should show your opponent which race you have been given, but till then if you play random just know and accept that you're playing the game by giving yourself an unfair advantage, don't lie to yourself and convince yourself it's anything but.
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