Random Race

On April 12 2017 22:52 Thieving Magpie wrote:
I personally would rather no race be visible at any point until you scout the opponent. I think it would lead to more standardized builds and more interesting lines of play.

On April 12 2017 22:52 Thieving Magpie wrote:
I personally would rather no race be visible at any point until you scout the opponent. I think it would lead to more standardized builds and more interesting lines of play.

On April 12 2017 14:08 lunareaping wrote:
I understand people enjoy playing random, but why can't we have it so the chosen race is depicted during load screen so the other player can open accordingly

On April 12 2017 23:20 Aegwynn wrote:

I always scout even if they tell me their races, not because i don't trust them but i feel like they tell me only because they don't want me to scout them. Never seen anyone lie about his race so far anyways.
I like the way random works i don't see any problem here at all.

On April 12 2017 14:24 Cascade wrote:
Let me sum up this common points in this discussion.

1) Playing random is harder than sticking to one race.

2) The opponent not knowing which race you are is an advantage for the random player.

3) 1) is a stronger effect than 2). Proof: none of the top players play random.

4) Some random players want the advantage in 2). Other random players don't, and tell their race at the start. Opponents, understandably, don't always trust them though.

5) Many players are frustrated by playing vs random, as they don't know how to open. It seems like especially toss struggle on 4 player maps, where it can be coin-flippy when choosing opening BO.

I think that's most of it. Most of what you'll read below will be variations of this I think, but often less civilized. Point 5) for example often turns into "random players are filthy cheesers!!! signed: toss player".

On April 13 2017 00:04 BSJ_ACOLYTE wrote:
There are three playable races: Terran, Protoss & Zerg. Random is not a race; it's a feature that picks one of the three aforementioned races for you.

As far as I can tell, the only sensible reason to pick Random is grinding the Random portraits.

Do I think the loading screen should show the matchup? I do.

2nd best option: allow reasonable decent human beings who choose the Random option to reveal the matchup by choice.

BSJ_ACOLYTE wrote:
sensible reason

On April 13 2017 00:40 BSJ_ACOLYTE wrote:
Entitlement? I for one do not feel entitled to anything. I'm just trying to reason (an optimistic endavour, I know).

I cannot even remember the last time I played against someone who choose Random. Granted I only play casually these days but still.

On April 13 2017 01:04 Charoisaur wrote:
This has been discussed since wol release.
I think it's ok in most circumstances but in some situations (last scout on 4 player map in mirror) it becomes unfair.
However I don't think they will ever change it considering they haven't done it in 7 years despite heavy complaints.

On April 13 2017 01:14 Jandos wrote:


Are you serious ? What becomes unfair ? YOU are the one who want unfair advantage against your random opponent.
If you playing random you need to be good at all three races. That is the point of playing random, you worked and studied harder so you should be in better position against your opponent who play only one race. You have moment of surprise which you deserve.

On April 13 2017 01:12 BSJ_ACOLYTE wrote:
What is preventing people from rolling a dice at home? What sensible reason is preventing the players from knowing the matchup?

wow what a disgusting sentiment - you people are unworthy of being alive

On April 13 2017 01:33 Jandos wrote:


From two days old troll account I take it as honor.
Anyway, it is the same principle as in real life. People who studied and worked harder than others are usually rewarded later. People who were lazy complain why they arent in same position.

On April 13 2017 01:42 DickMcFanny wrote:
I'm one of those random players who tell their race at the start of the game.

I don't consider myself at a disadvantage and wish my race were displayed to stop the hostility.

There's no unfair DISadvantage in playing random; you wouldn't get mad at someone for practicing three times as much as do, would you? So why should there be a competitive advantage?

I used to play in Master but now I play only like 50 games a season and I'm in platinum.

On April 13 2017 00:04 BSJ_ACOLYTE wrote:
There are three playable races: Terran, Protoss & Zerg. Random is not a race; it's a feature that picks one of the three aforementioned races for you.

As far as I can tell, the only sensible reason to pick Random is grinding the Random portraits.

Do I think the loading screen should show the matchup? I do.

2nd best option: allow reasonable decent human beings who choose the Random option to reveal the matchup by choice.

On April 13 2017 01:28 WeddingEpisode wrote:
You've got to be kidding that Random is not an advantage.

With Random the Random opponent potentially gets full map scouting time advantage until their 3 Reaper
producing rax are spotted; as if 3 rax isn't hard enough, this can be masked. Random puts the non-random at a terrible disadvantage. I wish that Random were eliminated or else people could refuse Random matches on ladder.

On April 12 2017 22:52 Thieving Magpie wrote:
I personally would rather no race be visible at any point until you scout the opponent. I think it would lead to more standardized builds and more interesting lines of play.

On April 12 2017 22:57 LightSpectra wrote:


sounds like a cheeser's paradise to me

On April 12 2017 23:01 Darkhorse wrote:
I've played a decent bit of random on the ladder and I always immediately tell my opponent what race I got. But as Cascade already mentioned most of them don't believe me and scout me anyway (totally understandable, I've never done this but I've had people I played against tell me they were something they weren't which I also don't mind I find it pretty amusing).

I honestly don't think it affects play too much. Just means someone has to scout slightly earlier (not a huge deal) and Terrans/Toss will wall their ramp every time just in case you happen to be Zerg. Your scout arrives at your opponent before you have to make a big decision anyway unless you are planning on a proxy or some kind of cheese. And sometimes if you're on a four player map and can't reliably get a scout in before you have to make one of those decisions you have to just bite the bullet and do a safe build.

On April 13 2017 04:21 Odowan Paleolithic wrote:
I don't have a problem with scouting (and metagaming) against random. I do however believe the random is not actually statistically random due to PRNGs. And it is quite skewed toward zerg.

On April 13 2017 06:09 LegoesRockRaider wrote:
I would personally very much like to see the race and spawn location of my apponent at the beginning. Instead of showing all the possible start locations at the start of the game, it could show where the opponent actually spawned. I don't think games should be decidet by whenever you scout your opponent first or last on a four player map.

Also i don't thing protoss have as hard a time on 4 player maps vs random, as they used to have. Now they can just make adepts and be good vs everything

On April 13 2017 08:48 Phredxor wrote:
I play random and I've only ever cheesed once that I can recall. Am i doing it wrong?

Random is more fun for some people.

On April 12 2017 22:57 LightSpectra wrote:


sounds like a cheeser's paradise to me

On April 12 2017 14:08 lunareaping wrote:
I understand people enjoy playing random, but why can't we have it so the chosen race is depicted during load screen so the other player can open accordingly

On April 13 2017 14:50 ChristianS wrote:
I made a big thread about this during LotV beta. I thought I laid out pretty nicely why it is against the spirit of competition for one player to start out with an information advantage, but people didn't seem to agree, and mostly I got flamed by a bunch of random players and little productive conversation came of it.

It's a bit different now, though, because race MMR is separate now, isn't it? So to go back to Cascade's 5 point breakdown, point 1) doesn't really apply any more. However good you are with the race you spawn as, that's about how good your opponent is with theirs, or else your MMR's wouldn't be similar so you wouldn't get matched.

So you should be about as good as your opponent with the race you rolled, but if you are, you have an information advantage thst will slightly inflate your winrate, making you face better opponents than you should be facing for your skill with that race. In the process you don't really learn how to defend early aggression because most cheeses are race specific and must be chosen before a scout could reach you, so your learning on all three races is impaired.

Honestly the only reason I can see for keeping random advantage at this point is just "i like it the way it is," either because you play random and like the advantage or because you don't play random but like the interesting strategy around facing random players. The latter of these is, I think, extremely rare.

Edit: as a quick qualifier, I don't know how random MMR currently works. Possibly it gives you a unique "random MMR" and matches based on that. Thinking about it now, that's probably the case because it doesn't seem to resolve what race you are until after you've found an opponent.

But if that's the case, it shouldn't be. It must suck for random players to have different skill levels with different races, but keep matching opponents somewhere in the middle. Like, if you're really good with Terran, okay with Zerg, and terrible with Protoss, your MMR will settle somewhere in the middle. So you'll win nearly every game as Terran, lose nearly every game as Protoss, and only your Zerg games will be remotely competitive (and, by the usual logic of MMR) interesting and fun).

On April 13 2017 14:50 ChristianS wrote:
I made a big thread about this during LotV beta. I thought I laid out pretty nicely why it is against the spirit of competition for one player to start out with an information advantage, but people didn't seem to agree, and mostly I got flamed by a bunch of random players and little productive conversation came of it.

It's a bit different now, though, because race MMR is separate now, isn't it? So to go back to Cascade's 5 point breakdown, point 1) doesn't really apply any more. However good you are with the race you spawn as, that's about how good your opponent is with theirs, or else your MMR's wouldn't be similar so you wouldn't get matched.

So you should be about as good as your opponent with the race you rolled, but if you are, you have an information advantage thst will slightly inflate your winrate, making you face better opponents than you should be facing for your skill with that race. In the process you don't really learn how to defend early aggression because most cheeses are race specific and must be chosen before a scout could reach you, so your learning on all three races is impaired.

Honestly the only reason I can see for keeping random advantage at this point is just "i like it the way it is," either because you play random and like the advantage or because you don't play random but like the interesting strategy around facing random players. The latter of these is, I think, extremely rare.

Edit: as a quick qualifier, I don't know how random MMR currently works. Possibly it gives you a unique "random MMR" and matches based on that. Thinking about it now, that's probably the case because it doesn't seem to resolve what race you are until after you've found an opponent.

But if that's the case, it shouldn't be. It must suck for random players to have different skill levels with different races, but keep matching opponents somewhere in the middle. Like, if you're really good with Terran, okay with Zerg, and terrible with Protoss, your MMR will settle somewhere in the middle. So you'll win nearly every game as Terran, lose nearly every game as Protoss, and only your Zerg games will be remotely competitive (and, by the usual logic of MMR) interesting and fun).

On April 13 2017 15:20 Thieving Magpie wrote:


Its not even that complicated.

Players like not having to think. If they know the opponent, then they can autopilot the "build" for that matchup. People who are okay with random do so because the enjoy the idea of playing without that rigid structure in mind. Things are exploratory, and about flowing through the rhythm of the match based on exploration and the generation of new information affecting your decisions.

On April 13 2017 14:58 Cascade wrote:

Random is treated like a fourth race in terms of by-race MMR: us.battle.net.

On April 13 2017 22:12 esReveR wrote:


If the system was capable of doing this, then it would be fair to reveal the race we (random players) got.

I'm not sure how the game is programmed as far as when it actually chooses our race. I know that sometimes the game bugs and it gives you your race's mouse pointer on the load screen so you know what race you have early (though that bug is very rare), so it has to be chosen by the time the load screen pops up. But, it might already have your opponent matched before it chooses your race. The change you propose to the MMR system might drive a nightmare of a coding change for Blizzard that they probably wouldn't want to do.

On April 13 2017 16:30 Tyrhanius wrote:

No, it's just playing vs random is playing from behind, because the other knows your race and you don't, so you can't find an optimal build, while he can ever cheese you or get a better macro opener knowing your race.

And of course scouting really early put you behind.
But you have the fact you master your race more than the other, so the random often compensate that cheesing you (which don't require to master your race like a macro game), so that's why no one like to play vs random.

On April 13 2017 08:48 Phredxor wrote:
I play random and I've only ever cheesed once that I can recall. Am i doing it wrong?

Random is more fun for some people.

On April 13 2017 21:37 ChristianS wrote:

Alright then. Random players out there: would you not prefer to get matched based on the MMR of the race you roll? I think a lot more people (myself included) would be interested in playing random if the MMR did this, because otherwise the fear is that if you roll your good race you'll demolish them, and if you roll your bad race you'll get demolished, neither of which is a particularly interesting game.

On April 14 2017 11:33 Arghmyliver wrote:


When I worked as a Barista in my little hometown coffee shop, I liked the rainy days the best. Something about those days seemed to make everyone behave a little differently. A tiny little change in routine that made the day feel a little more unrehearsed. It was just rain. You can plan for rain (although it doesn't always show up when you expect it to), you can carry an umbrella or a jacket to be safe or you can decide you don't mind getting a little wet. The coffee didn't cost any more on rainy days, and the shop would still open and close at the same time. I didn't like these days because I'm evil and I like to see everyone miserable. It wasn't because coffee shops probably get slightly more business on rainy days. I still had to walk in the rain after my shift, and I still got paid the same regardless of the weather. I had no malevolent or selfishly greedy ulterior motive, I just liked the little mix-up.

On April 15 2017 01:07 Arghmyliver wrote:
I think the player who plays better still wins, hence the fact that we don't see top level random players. This might mean the better player in a matchup, I recently matched a random player twice in a row, beat his Protoss and lost to his Terran (incidentally he cheesed as toss). I don't know if he's a better player overall than I am since these two random ladder encounters amount to such a tiny data set, but I don't think he won or lost because he was playing random.

I also disagree that ladder play should exactly mirror pro play. While there is a professional level which plays a large part in the scene Starcraft is, at its core, a game that is played recreationally. There is a difference between professional and casual competition. I just don't see any convincing arguments that the ability to play random in its current form unbalances the game in any significant way.

On April 14 2017 23:06 SwiftRH wrote:
The problem with playing against random is that their mmr is the same as yours so you start the game with a disadvantage simply because you do not know what race their are and they do. On average they have the same skill with the races that offset any skill deficit that you may get from having to play all three races because their mmr is the same as yours hence they have the same skill with all 3 races on average that you do with your one.

On April 15 2017 03:02 Aiobhill wrote:


But - you know - that same MMR includes their initial information advantage. And to be equally redundant as you are, they got their MMR playing with that advantage.

On April 18 2017 19:12 Ouija wrote:
Can someone please post a replay where they lost a game due to the enemy player choosing random rather than their own mistakes?

I'll wait...


Also what is everyones deal with "knowing" how to open? I dont see randoms complaining that they dont know their own race before the game starts so they can't have a game plan for it.

On April 18 2017 21:26 esReveR wrote:
The advantage random players get by their opponents not knowing their race is way over-exaggerated in this thread. There are safe openers and cheeses (if you don't have a heart) you can do with each race that are good enough as a base to use in every match up. Once you scout, you just tailor that opener to the race they are.

The summation of the complaints I see here is that people are sad they can't use a cutesy timing attack for a specific match up because they don't know what the match up is in time to do it properly. Sorry... that's not a legitimate complaint. Random players generally only know a few of the match ups as well as you know yours. Their disadvantage is about on par, or potentially worse than your pseudo-disadvantage. If you play a solid game, you will win regardless.

On April 18 2017 22:05 SeeDs.pt wrote:
i've only been playing team games lately, sometimes as random or against random, and if i'm not mistaken there's a list of players at the top with their respective races (think it's the part about sharing control). I was thinking to check at home if this was possible in 1v1 and if it worked as i remember in 2v2 but if any of you can confirm/check that in the meanwhile let us, or me, know

On April 19 2017 03:00 Lssfs234 wrote:
There's a difference - albeit evidently a difference too subtle for some - between being at an advantage (lucking out with build order advantage e.g.) and being at an unreasonable advantage (one player arbitrarily having more information available to them at the start of the game) and being overall advantaged (more likely to win).

Of course, what one person deems unreasonable other might not.

On April 19 2017 21:14 xtorn wrote:


Nr 3 is interesting. Apart from Balloon who used to play for Startale and later mYi, have there really been no other famous random players?

1) Playing random is harder than sticking to one race.

2) The opponent not knowing which race you are is an advantage for the random player.

3) 1) is a stronger effect than 2)

On April 20 2017 04:10 Cyro wrote:



"1)" is cancelled out by MMR at all levels except pro - the random player gets matched against weaker players so that their winrate does not change.

"2)" is not and disrupts the game

On April 12 2017 14:24 Cascade wrote:
Let me sum up this common points in this discussion.

1) Playing random is harder than sticking to one race.

2) The opponent not knowing which race you are is an advantage for the random player.

3) 1) is a stronger effect than 2). Proof: none of the top players play random.

4) Some random players want the advantage in 2). Other random players don't, and tell their race at the start. Opponents, understandably, don't always trust them though.

5) Many players are frustrated by playing vs random, as they don't know how to open. It seems like especially toss struggle on 4 player maps, where it can be coin-flippy when choosing opening BO.

I think that's most of it. Most of what you'll read below will be variations of this I think, but often less civilized. Point 5) for example often turns into "random players are filthy cheesers!!! signed: toss player".

On April 20 2017 06:33 reneg wrote:


I was sure this was right - so I did a quick search and found basically all of those points:

http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/362859-why-you-should-be-playing-random-on-ladder

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/362544-why-you-shouldnt-be-playing-random-on-ladder

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/closed-threads/349727-just-change-random-to-something-fair

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/closed-threads/399830-random-option-dont-make-sense

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/304196-vs-random

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/429413-does-random-pay-off

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/closed-threads/428793-random-players-are-using-random-to-their-advantage

And the one I felt most clearly represented this thread:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/legacy-of-the-void/492927-random-advantage

On April 20 2017 07:17 phodacbiet wrote:


I agree. Seriously, is it that hard to scout with your first worker? If you don't want to scout, just open a safe build e.g. pool first, wall off, dont skip msc, etc etc. Keep in mind, most Random players are best with 1 race, and are mediocre with the 2 other races relative to the MMR you're at, so the non-random player is at an advantage aside from not knowing the random player's starting race for the first minute.

On April 20 2017 07:44 starkiller123 wrote:


I think it is more that some people can never stop complaining about things

On April 20 2017 07:17 phodacbiet wrote:
I agree. Seriously, is it that hard to scout with your first worker? If you don't want to scout, just open a safe build e.g. pool first, wall off, dont skip msc, etc etc. Keep in mind, most Random players are best with 1 race, and are mediocre with the 2 other races relative to the MMR you're at, so the non-random player is at an advantage aside from not knowing the random player's starting race for the first minute.

On April 20 2017 09:11 Dracover wrote:


It's not just the first probe (other than the fact scouting with your first probe does change your build order) if it's PvR you have to wall at your main.

If you scout a zerg and then what? if they open with seedlings you basically can't do a standard 19 nexus as you have no wall and no way of making a wall against a flood. If you heavily invest in gateways then you slow your tech.

If it's terran you actually want that pylon back at your nexus not at your ramp to defend against drops

If it's protoss even on a pylon scout by the time your probe gets to your opponents base your gas timing is already off. It's there too late and your gases should have gone down already

So YES it does make a difference.

Should it be removed? I'm personally not fussed just pretend there's 4 races in this game and the 4th requires you to play a bit differently.

My personal issue with randoms is they have strong races and weak ones. So if they get their strong race they will win otherwise you roll them. At least that has been my experience just makes the games not fun.

On April 20 2017 07:27 ChristianS wrote:

1) If it's bad design, the fact that it doesn't come up that often isn't a reason not to change it.

2) The question at hand is not what the best strategic response to not knowing your opponent's race. It's whether that should be the case in the first place. My opponent doesn't have to scout with first worker just to know what matchup he's in; why should I?

On May 05 2017 02:38 ZenithM wrote:
The question also is: do random players like playing with their race hidden? Is it a feature, with the deception element being there as intended by Blizzard? Or do random players just play random because they like playing all 3 races all the time? There is probably a fraction of players who like the misinformation aspect, and another who doesn't care.

On April 12 2017 23:01 Darkhorse wrote:
I've played a decent bit of random on the ladder and I always immediately tell my opponent what race I got. But as Cascade already mentioned most of them don't believe me and scout me anyway (totally understandable, I've never done this but I've had people I played against tell me they were something they weren't which I also don't mind I find it pretty amusing).

On May 05 2017 02:38 ZenithM wrote:

The question also is: do random players like playing with their race hidden? Is it a feature, with the deception element being there as intended by Blizzard? Or do random players just play random because they like playing all 3 races all the time? There is probably a fraction of players who like the misinformation aspect, and another who doesn't care.

The fact that Blizzard didn't make the simple UI change (displaying the random race at loading screen) tells me that they do intend for that "deception" element to be there. In the end if that's their design choice then it's likely meant to be played this way and it's a bit useless to complain about this.

On May 05 2017 02:38 ZenithM wrote:

The question also is: do random players like playing with their race hidden? Is it a feature, with the deception element being there as intended by Blizzard? Or do random players just play random because they like playing all 3 races all the time? There is probably a fraction of players who like the misinformation aspect, and another who doesn't care.

The fact that Blizzard didn't make the simple UI change (displaying the random race at loading screen) tells me that they do intend for that "deception" element to be there. In the end if that's their design choice then it's likely meant to be played this way and it's a bit useless to complain about this.

On May 05 2017 04:04 ChristianS wrote:
At least it should be apparent that the random player should have the option to reveal their race if they choose. Because of assholes like JimmyJRaynor here, even if neither player in the game wants random advantage to be there, they don't have that option because the random player's opponent has no way to know if he lied.

On May 05 2017 04:36 kyllinghest wrote:
Its a part of the game. Most people will state which race they are, and if they dont you can just play a safe build and aim for a long game.

On May 05 2017 04:04 ChristianS wrote:

That's some awfully dense logic there.

1) If random players like having their race hidden, it should stay (what about all of the other players in the game? do their opinions matter too?)

2) You're guessing that Blizzard intended it, so since it's intended design, there's no reason to criticize it or have a conversation about whether it's good or bad?

At least it should be apparent that the random player should have the option to reveal their race if they choose. Because of assholes like JimmyJRaynor here, even if neither player in the game wants random advantage to be there, they don't have that option because the random player's opponent has no way to know if he lied. Of course I'd go a step further and say that random advantage has no place in a competitive game anyway, but you don't need to follow me there to acknowledge that the current system could clearly be improved.

On May 05 2017 05:14 ChristianS wrote:

But as established already, you can't trust that anyway because people like JimmyJRaynor lie to get an advantage.

On May 05 2017 22:42 ZenithM wrote:


Why are you talking about logic? People like to throw the big L word when they want to look smart on the Internet. I'm just discussing the fact that it might be intended by Blizzard, just because of the fun provided by the deception element (fun mainly for the random player, of course). In this thread, people are mainly taking the side of the opponent, discussing if it's annoying or not, disruptive or not, balanced or not and all that. But in the end, on the other side, random players might find their fun in the very fact that their race is hidden, that's all I was trying to say. A lot of elements in competitive games are fun for one side, but annoying for the other side (one might even say it's fun BECAUSE it's annoying to the other party).

I do think you'd see a LOT less people picking random if it was displayed at loading screen. Maybe to the point where the option is completely irrelevant. The existence of matchmaking, combined to the fact that nearly no one at the top end of the ladder mains Random, makes it a non-issue balance-wise, so it's not really urgent for Blizzard to deal with it. You might get annoyed the few games you have to play vs randoms, but you'll be annoyed the same way you're annoyed by proxies or perceived OP units or something. If random was truly game-breaking, you'd see a lot more people picking it.


That's part of the game. Is it good or bad, I don't know. But it's balanced (through MMR), and fun for at least one person in the game.

On May 06 2017 03:22 reneg wrote:


I know, a huge portion of this game is playing with incomplete/imperfect information. To be upset that your opponent would lie to you or that you wouldn't know what you're going up against when they actively select a random race just doesn't make sense.

it's not like they selected zerg (obscura) to keep you from knowing they chose Z or something. They have a chance of getting anything.

On May 06 2017 03:50 Thieving Magpie wrote:


Seems like the best middle ground is just to make all race picks obscure.

On May 06 2017 03:50 Thieving Magpie wrote:


Seems like the best middle ground is just to make all race picks obscure.

On May 07 2017 00:23 ChristianS wrote:

People's main problem with this has been mentioned several times. Have you responded and I missed it?

Here, let's go around one more time. I want to be able to watch top level games from pro players, see a build that makes me say "oo, wow, that's cool," and then boot up the client and try to work out that build myself to use on ladder. Obscuring everyone's race picks does solve the random advantage problem, but it removes a feature I consider much more critical. Put it this way: I seem to care about changing the current random system more than most people on this website, and even I would rather keep the current broken system than fuck up the possibility for anybody to do race-specific builds on ladder.

On May 07 2017 06:38 Thieving Magpie wrote:


Right now people master specific races because, once your opponent knows what race you are, they go on autopilot.

How different would the metagame become if they don't see that? What if they don't know Innovation picked protoss when facing SOO until he already walled off his expo with a forge first FE? Only to be wrecked by the fact that Soo had actually gone for a terran reaper strat?

Safe builds become the norm as the timing pushes gets pushed back for standard macro play. Risky maneuvers and race specific maneuvers starts being normalized depending on how well you know your opponent instead of just making builds on the blind.

It would be fantastic to watch.

On May 07 2017 12:04 ChristianS wrote:

But presumably with this change, off-racing would have the same detriments that playing random does at the pro level. In which case pros would all still just play one race and race-specific builds would be popular in pro play, because on the off-chance they off-raced, you just need to survive until the lategame and they'll suck and you'll beat them.

You seriously don't think this would just result in pros playing by the old rules 99% of the time, while ladder players have to figure out their own builds because they're playing a different game than pros?

If you don't want people to be able to copy builds from pros then that's fine, but don't pretend that's not what would happen.

On May 07 2017 14:51 ChristianS wrote:
But as long as their main race is better it would almost always be a mistake to off-race. It's the same reason all the Random players stopped playing Random - you'll just suck in the lategame if your off-race cheese fails. Why would Innovation off-race as Protoss just to FFE, when FFE is a long game-focused strat and he's just gonna get crushed in the lategame because he's not as good with Protoss?

Sure, you might get the occasional off-race cheese. In what normally would be a TvT, one player might throw a proxy oracle to get a free win. But that would be such a huge risk that most builds could still safely be matchup-focused, while ladder never could, meaning you still couldn't copy most pro builds. You could say "oh that's cool," but you couldn't go try it out yourself.

On April 12 2017 14:24 Cascade wrote:
Let me sum up this common points in this discussion.

1) Playing random is harder than sticking to one race.

2) The opponent not knowing which race you are is an advantage for the random player.

3) 1) is a stronger effect than 2). Proof: none of the top players play random.

4) Some random players want the advantage in 2). Other random players don't, and tell their race at the start. Opponents, understandably, don't always trust them though.

5) Many players are frustrated by playing vs random, as they don't know how to open. It seems like especially toss struggle on 4 player maps, where it can be coin-flippy when choosing opening BO.

On April 13 2017 00:40 BSJ_ACOLYTE wrote:
Entitlement? I for one do not feel entitled to anything. I'm just trying to reason (an optimistic endavour, I know).

I cannot even remember the last time I played against someone who choose Random. Granted I only play casually these days but still.