I tend to think SC2 is in about as good a place as it's ever been -- the lack of new players on the Korean scene is about the only reason I wouldn't call this the golden era of SC2.
And while there are a lot of things I don't miss about previous eras of SC2 (the blink meta, Steppes of War, Khaydarin Amulet, Ghosts snipe-erasing Brood Lords, Brood Lord/Infestor), there are definitely some things I do miss. In no particular order:
1) Signature builds
The Parting push, the Stephano Roach max, the Byun 3-rax reaper -- I miss those brief, beautiful moments when a player had a strategy so mapped out that his opponents couldn't stop it even when they knew it was coming. They made a patch just for Byun! Twice!
2) Proleague
It's good to see team leagues coming back somewhat, but it's just not the same as Pro League. The best-of-ones, the all-kill format in the playoffs, the ace matches, the best players in the world making a lineup, the dynamics of team-kill matches in individual leagues, the opportunity for new Korean talent -- Proleague ruled.
3) Cheeses that took longer to develop
In general, I like the 12-worker start, but I miss when cheeses took long enough to develop that the "will he see it" tension lasted and lasted and lasted. Look at this game (from Proleague):
TY double-proxies against a nexus-first from Classic, Classic misses it with his later probe scout, and we wait...and we wait...and it looks like KT is about to win Proleague and his teammates are ready to celebrate, but still we wait...and then finally the rush gets there. I miss that feeling. (Btw, I still cannot figure out how to embed YouTube videos.)
4) CC/Nexus first and 3-hatch before pool builds
Back in the olden days, when you wanted to cheese, you cheesed, and when you wanted to open greedy, you didn't build any units. Full measures only.
5) IGN Fight Club
Best-of-9s between top players are fun. I've started to see them pop up again on Wardi's channel, and guess what? They're awesome. The "Champion vs. Challenger" format was great as well. Shout-out also to IGN Pro League, which was basically "Taeja attempts to carry a hilariously outmatched group of foreigners to victory against the best teams in the world and almost does it."
Well, what are some things you guys miss? (Missing something doesn't necessarily mean you want it to come back, btw.)
I miss the economy. I don't play LotV much for that reason alone. They have done so much balance tweaking due to this alone it is hard to point it all out.
The main things I miss are 1) teamleagues, I miss team identities and minor player identities and zenex so very much
2) LR threads with spoiler-free results where the outcome of each map was in a separate spoiler tag
But honestly, watching gsl now is largely the same thrill, and tastosis have only gotten better chemistry-wise over the years imo. Half the time they're just mispronouncing unit names and laughing their asses off, I love it.
this game now has BW syndrome, where nearly every game feels identical (for the first 5-8 minutes at least). the troubling part of this is that its not because players have adapted and refined their play, its because blizzard has repeatedly caved to community complaints instead of letting players adapt to the game and come up with their own solutions
in other words, i dont feel like I am constrained by the limitations of each race, i feel constrained by the limitations put on us by the community at large (in their relentless complaints) and the developer's intentions.
additionally, the dps of armies and ease of control has made engagements outside of harass almost always game ending, and the fights aren't even long enough to enjoy. SC2's best trait is the emphasis of harass, which can make the game feel like it has more depth, but these cheap, potentially game ending harassment are just another limit on the decisions you can make with units/choices in what to build.
i miss people being bad at this game, and the wild west feel of the early patches, because the variety was there regardless of these design choices and game mechanics. now its like "your strategy isnt effective because its not x, so you should do x." there are incredible, creative players who wanted to play in their own way, and this is simply not an option. I understand this is the case for BW too, and there is still plenty of retarded shit going on in BW.. why not sc2? it wasnt this way and the maturity of this game happened far too soon and feels artificial to me
remember forgg making like 20 hellions a game? or 1 base openings that would have high aggression that turned into epic macro games? everyone just gets bases for free now and there have been SO many intentional design choices that have encouraged this. sorry for the whine but it's true
i also miss team leagues a ton, the trash talk of early sc2, and the totally bizarre maps in private leagues that others hve mentioned. the kespa maps were mana from heaven, now every map is 2p map with a natural that has a ramp and a third with 2 entrances because "wahhhh"
WoL era: The BM, the BM, the BM. Naniwa thumbsing down Nestea and calling MLG a joke tournament. Parting losing a game to a guy who wrote "EZ" in Pylons at every opportunity (and some lighthearted jokes in the chat of that series). Any of a hundred things Idra did. Maybe it's the amount of money that's following SC2 and esports as a whole now but I don't see it anymore.
Brood War example but I was really disappointed how much negative feedback Larva got for disrespecting a foreigner by killing one of his starting workers G1, playing with his feet G2, and taking a nap G3. I want to see more of that. I want rivalries and personalities and conflict. It's a game about killing each other's armies, why are we so nice to one another?
Some of the early maps do bring back a lot of nostalgia. Especially some of the more obscure ones like tournament only maps. Terminus was a really nice map for its time.
HotS era: The maps were gorgeous. I didn't mind getting swarm hosted on Akilon Wastes and blink stalker all in'd on Yeonsu because both of those were beautiful maps. Also I blindly teched straight to immortals on PvP. Don't get me wrong, today's mapmakers aren't slouches, but it was a bit of an eye opener going from the 8 tilesets of BW to the diverse set in WoL, and then going from all the WoL tilesets to all the exotic ones in HotS.
I don't want it back because I like games being over in 15 minutes but I do miss the chess match that PvZ became. Taking a fourth became an interesting decision rather than "oh shit it's 5:00 and my main is already mining out".
I agree with you about missing signature builds and cheeses that took longer to develop.
In WOL there was a lot more to explore (and exploit). I miss when crazy builds and strategies surprised everyone in a major tournament that players would keep secret until then. When the game was less "figured out," there were often more exciting games.
I also miss some of the big names and personalities who made everything more interesting. Boxer, Flash, Jaedong, Idra, Huk, MarineKing, Nony, Day9, Incontrol, Apollo, DJ Wheat, White-Ra, MC, MVP, qxc, Nada, Jinro, Ret, Naniwa, Puma, Sheth, Select, Sen, etc. And it used to be huge for a foreigner to beat a Korean...any Korean.
It was weird for me being away from the scene for pretty much all of HoTS and much of LoTV and returning to a completely different game, different top pros, and casters. I do love taking trips down memory lane though so thanks for starting this thread!
hmm of course I miss Korean starcraft in all its glory (rip proleague), I miss King Sejong Station and then I know everyone hated them but I miss tankivacs. the only time I actually enjoyed TvT I also miss 4 player maps
Easily number one is Proleague and connected to it fantasy league. PL had the best games, strategies and stories and lasted long period of the year. Amount of time I spent on fantasy theory crafting... Oh boy
Other than that I miss 8 workers start making early game openers more committed and therefore interesting early game interactions.
I miss all the stuff Destiny did before he went political nut job. The days of Destiny, Kyle, debo ,deezer, CombatEX and others where amazing. Such a shame witch hunter sooks had to try and ruin him at every turn.
It was weird for me being away from the scene for pretty much all of HoTS and much of LoTV and returning to a completely different game, different top pros, and casters. I do love taking trips down memory lane though so thanks for starting this thread
Same thing for me. I stopped watching late WoL because I started to get bored with SC2 and was playing more WoW and started to watch just Brood war only. When I came back I was like "I have no idea who most of these people are". I'm glad I came back though. Still a lot of great Personalities involved in SC2.
The density of tournaments was really fun, too, but only because there were SO MANY people playing the game you kept seeing new faces pop up all the time.
HOWEVER: If you all miss it so much, come support the Gold Series Team Championship by watching the stream, sharing and commenting on our coverage, and participating in the LR thread. It's not Proleague, but it's the closest to it we have going on, and who knows where it might lead if it continues to grow.
It seemed that every weekend would have some kind of premier tournament with a sick prize pool. MLG, Dreamhack, IPL, NASL and of course GSL.
GSTL and pro league were fun too and I remember the hype when the great BW players transferred over to SC2.
The foreign scene used to be so interesting, The korean scene was way out in front but every so often we'd get a guy or girl who could mix it with the Koreans and it was so hype watching those games.
Plus you had fun personalities and drama . Idra, iNc (RIP), stephano, Naniwa, Ret etc. I was huge fans of some of them and would watch the streams with 1000's of others. Some of the pro's I hated because of the playstyle or the dumb shit they did. It all added to the emotion
When I think of Starcraft I still have vivid recollections of those games and personalities. I don't really care or remember anything from the past like...4 years.
Mr Bitter & Rotterdam casting together! Grubby playing! Mondragons roaches. MC's crazy shenanigans. Ret walking the thin line of building too many drones. It really was Wild West sometimes.
But if you go back and rewatch the VODs, you do notice that the more recent changes in overlay have improved the overall viewer experience a lot. I'm happy that we are were we are now. Let's keep it that way for years to come!
On May 08 2020 17:49 _fool wrote: Mr Bitter & Rotterdam casting together! Grubby playing! Mondragons roaches. MC's crazy shenanigans. Ret walking the thin line of building too many drones. It really was Wild West sometimes.
But if you go back and rewatch the VODs, you do notice that the more recent changes in overlay have improved the overall viewer experience a lot. I'm happy that we are were we are now. Let's keep it that way for years to come!
Oh yeah early WOL games are almost unwatchable, plus the level of play looking back then was hilariously bad
This has been an interesting thread, because everyone keeps saying proleague and when I thought about things I missed about older SC2, proleague never even popped into my mind.
Mostly I miss the feeling of a new game that everyone is excited about, and people winning games with insane wacky builds. It's really not something I want back, but when a new game that has potential to be an esport comes out, that's what I'm looking for in it.
One of the things I like the most in current SC2 is that the foreign and Korean scene are more equal nowadays, but I can't deny it was super exciting whenever a foreigner beat a Korean in the old days, even if it was just one map in a Bo3.
So yeah, mostly not things I'd want back, but I miss the feeling of these things.
On May 08 2020 17:49 _fool wrote: Mr Bitter & Rotterdam casting together! Grubby playing! Mondragons roaches. MC's crazy shenanigans. Ret walking the thin line of building too many drones. It really was Wild West sometimes.
But if you go back and rewatch the VODs, you do notice that the more recent changes in overlay have improved the overall viewer experience a lot. I'm happy that we are were we are now. Let's keep it that way for years to come!
Oh yeah early WOL games are almost unwatchable, plus the level of play looking back then was hilariously bad
The level of play wasnt bad, it was adapted to the bad balancing
On May 08 2020 20:17 Waxangel wrote: more live events in NA, mostly :o
^ this times a 100.
Red Bull Orlando and MLG Orlando were awesome events. I wish more would happen in Florida.
A lot of people are talking about map nostalgia, I would like for four player random spawn maps to return or even 3 spawn maps with asymmetry. As for worker count, I don't mind the worker count, but I wish some maps had main and naturals with more minerals per patch so they don't mine out as quickly.
Nothing you can reproduce. Some players, some hype that was there cuz it was fresh. other than that, not much tbh. Game is better than it ever has been. still need a protoss redesign or changes imo. Standard is too weak, bullshit is too strong. New patch has a good direction though
On May 08 2020 17:05 TheOneAboveU wrote: I also miss Proleague most.
HOWEVER: If you all miss it so much, come support the Gold Series Team Championship by watching the stream, sharing and commenting on our coverage, and participating in the LR thread. It's not Proleague, but it's the closest to it we have going on, and who knows where it might lead if it continues to grow.
The atmosphere in 2010-2012 was really cool, as a french following the rise of stephano was very great. Life and Taeja's game were great to watch too, I really miss seeing these two players on top. I miss the moments where hard working korean players like sacsri or Curious won a major tournament like a dreamhack. And I miss the time when I wasn't the only one among my friends/relatives that played or at least still followed the scene !
Other than that, I don't miss PL as much, in wc3 I love team match but I find it lame in sc2 maybe because the 2v2 is bad and the archon mod is wasted by the community (despite the facts the games are insanely goods and the pro love doing it). Same for the wol games, damn, most of them look so scrappy, once you're used to lotv, I have no idea how you can turning back. And the old meta... MMMM vs lingbane/muta was good but the current zvt is as good if not even better while we don't have mass sh with constant locust, pdd/autoturrets with 180 sec duration (or even more, I don't remember precisely the numbers around this madness), tempest at 4pop with 15 range ground/air and insane damage against massive. I am glad those times are gone even if 2019 wasn't that great either in this regard. + the gamble stuff with so much bo wins. Finally, it was quite obvious at the time that 90% of the casters hadn't any experience with high level sc2, damn that was bad. Fortunately, guys like tod, rotti, incontrol managed to get through.
I miss the time before disruptors. I would always go tank/mine/viking in TvP. It was like playing a type of speed chess and it was the most fun I ever had in SC2.
Nowadays everything is so knife edge that if you have 2 marines instead of 3 and a stalker pokes your natural the game is already over.
I miss the old days where you had more freedom to use different play styles - not forced to play in a specific way just to survive.
I unironically miss early WoL's TvT when the games felt like a trench war, it was really fitting to the match-up, was unique to TvT and despite what the haters say it wasn't as mindless as the HotS swarm host era
I just miss naniwa so very much. he truly was the best foreigner of his time (sure stephano was technically more successful but he abused zerg to a disgusting degree imo). Now he has a kid with this crazy hag and lives the student life I guess. Hope he's well
As you said, unique openings. Nexus first/CC first are long gone, 12 pool and double proxy gates are dead. We lost nearly every cheese and the ''macro cheeses'' too.
Wol economy, Wol early years to just before BL/Infest with Sniper wining GSL. Stephano, Lucifer, WhiteRa, when they fought each other in Europe. Mvp, MMA. When INnoVation was a cheeser Team Leagues. IPL bo9 Yeah, a little bit nostalgic.
On May 09 2020 03:02 Morbidius wrote: As you said, unique openings. Nexus first/CC first are long gone, 12 pool and double proxy gates are dead. We lost nearly every cheese and the ''macro cheeses'' too.
To be fair, there are definitely new strategies and cheeses -- I just saw Inno pull out a drilling-claw WM drop rush against Zest, which I've never seen before, and Scarlett and sOs definitely showed cheese isn't dead in the GSL this season. But yeah, I miss town hall first/the old 2-rax.
Also, an in-base proxy 2-gate led to this interaction from Idra, who was very entertaining and marketed himself better than any SC player in western history when you consider his popularity against his results:
Idra: What do you get out of this? Opponent: A win Idra: A horse could do this build and get a win some of the time Opponent: Not a dumb horse Idra: Yes a dumb horse
To this day, I think about the phrase "Yes a dumb horse" and will randomly crack up.
On May 09 2020 03:58 Mun_Su wrote: Wol economy, Wol early years to just before BL/Infest with Sniper wining GSL. Stephano, Lucifer, WhiteRa, when they fought each other in Europe. Mvp, MMA. When INnoVation was a cheeser Team Leagues. IPL bo9 Yeah, a little bit nostalgic.
I miss white-ra too, his game vs MC at the first GSL world championship is what got me hooked on sc2 MC got his revenge at dreamhack a couple weeks later though....
I'd have to say a clear delineation between early-mid-late game of WoL/HotS and Proleague: one of the great things about Proleague was that lesser teams could make razer-sharp cheese builds and beat better players and snipe them, or use unconventional strategies/unit comps to eke out a win. It was incredibly risky, and there were some downright insane edge of your seat moments.
Redeye as a WCS host, Kaelaris and Apollo casting together.
Day9 dailies.
Poopfeast420.
Lastly, I find myself something of a mutant fuck stick because I also liked long-as-balls swarmhost games that lasted until the heat death of the universe *shrug*.
No disruptors, no oracles, no widowmines, no liberators, no swarmhosts, no ravagers. Insanely strong Collosi. Pure Voidrays as an endgame composition. 3rax reaper a viable opener in all match ups. I do not miss instant fungle. Of all the new things, I like adepts, lurkers and cyclones. I miss MC and Huk playing 2 base all ins and nothing else for multiple years, finding success in tournaments.
#1 - more hype, more viewership, more activity -> creates a virtuous cycle that builds the scene. We have these giant crowds at MLG, Blizzcon, and other offline tournaments that really boosted the viewing experience of a tournament, and boosted the game's eSport cred to outsiders
#2 - team leagues / greater team identity -> it feels great to root for a team, and team leagues are some of the best content to watch IMO, whether it was GSTL, Proleague, Acer Teamstory Cup, etc.
#3 - bigger personalities -> whether it was Idra, MC, Huk,or legends like Slayers Boxer or Nada, some of the progamers back then seemed larger than life
#4 - rivalries -> due to points #2 and #3, we actually saw interesting rivalries that drove additional hype (like EG vs. TL, or player rivalries like Idra vs. Huk, Puma vs. MC, MMA vs. DRG)
#5 - excitement of new players -> because the scene was growing / larger, there were new stars that would emerge (e.g., Maru, Life, Taeja, Stephano), or superstars from other games that would join (e.g., Moon, Grubby, ToD, the non-stop speculation of when KesPa players would switch). Hell, Scarlet broke into the spotlight from playing in the open bracket at IPL 4. We still have new players, but not as much anymore
I miss loathing Cruncher for beating Idra. I miss BittttByyyyyBiiiiiittttt. I miss a bunch of StarCraft 2 nerds getting on and watching off hours poker on twitch(?) to cheer on Kiwikaki and spamming the chat with bitbybit whenever anyone went all in. I don't miss being an idiot and getting myself the banhammer because j couldn't help raging about balance on TL!
I love this game guys, with all it's quirks and stupidity. Don't have as much time for it as I once did, but I hope we can have another one of these threads in 10 years
One thing I'll never get over is how much more important micro and unit control is in BW PvP compared to SC2 PvP. PvP now and days is so random it hurts everyone's soul when we match each other and we know it.
I really hope they make some additional changes to the upcoming patch, because as everyone has stated, PvP is in a bad spot and none of the current changes really do anything to change it
On May 08 2020 20:31 omop wrote: Beta and everyone exploring new game for the first time. Also all the hype and stuff.
This is the biggest for me as well. Bw and wc3 community coming together to play the new blizz rts. Day9 did so much great stuff. Loved hdstarcraft and husky casting ladder games too.
I can understand why there's less of them - the scene became more professional, the edgy teenagers grew up, the players spent many years together so it's simply infeasible to hold a grudge for a long time. All those things are very positive. And yet I miss this extra spiciness of the old times. No more rivalries like Idra vs Huk, no more personalities like Stephano, no more dramas like Naniwa's.
I miss when players had unique strengths & weaknesses because they chose to focus on particular aspects of play. Some were known for awesome macro at the expense of being inefficient in fights, and others were known for out-smarting their opponents, some were known for crazy micro etc. Now everyone is so good, those differences are more reputation than fact.
First and foremost, I miss Incontrol. I watched his streams for years and years, even after I quit playing SC2 for a couple years.
From a game perspective, I miss the slower start with 6 workers. The 12 worker start is okay but it feels like it takes away a lot of the variety from the early bit of the game and as a result a lot of games feel very same-y for the first 5-8 minutes.
I also miss some of the older maps. This season's maps are far better than last season, but it stills seems like there are a lot of very large, very open maps that don't tend to provide as fun of games, especially in PvZ.
In general, I miss PvZ being a good match-up with a lot of variety. In 2018 and early 2019 the match-up was in a good place and we saw a lot of cool pro games with a variety of strategies on both sides. Almost every game now is adepts or archon drop into a 2-3 base all-in, with few macro games. I thought it was just me at first but hearing Artosis and Tasteless talk about the lack of variety during GSL casts and Artosis talk about why he is unhappy with the match-up on his personal stream has convinced me that this isn't just me. Hopefully with a map pool change up, the match-up will get better.
edit:
On May 09 2020 11:47 -Kyo- wrote: PvP that wasn't completely random as shit.
One thing I'll never get over is how much more important micro and unit control is in BW PvP compared to SC2 PvP. PvP now and days is so random it hurts everyone's soul when we match each other and we know it.
I really hope they make some additional changes to the upcoming patch, because as everyone has stated, PvP is in a bad spot and none of the current changes really do anything to change it
I agree with this 100%. PvP is straight up bad to play now. It has turned into a combination of a game of rock/paper/scissors and a game of chicken. Proxy robo builds combined with two base all-ins have basically broken the match-up and made it so the aggressor frequently has the advantage over the defender, even in situations or areas where the defender should have a clear advantage (say at their own natural expansion with multiple shield batteries).
Team Leagues and Nation Wars. I always liked team competiton in sc2. Specially with live plays^^ This moment when everyone was waiting for the next player to stand up. I miss this feeling so much TT
On May 10 2020 03:45 Big-t wrote: Team Leagues and Nation Wars. I always liked team competiton in sc2. Specially with live plays^^ This moment when everyone was waiting for the next player to stand up. I miss this feeling so much TT
Nation Wars is still here, right? I love those, it's entertainment for the whole family
On May 10 2020 04:43 Pentarp wrote: When Foreign Terrans were relevant. Like Thorzain.
Clem and heromarine are doing pretty good lately. Major has been to code S like 5 times. It's still far from other races, but foreign terran is at its best since a good couple of years
On May 10 2020 02:19 sM.Zik wrote: Proleague, 4 players maps, 6 workers start.
I've felt the same for quite some time. So much more distinctive design was allowed in maps back then, it likewise enabled much more distinctive play. Since all the maps were so much more different, it was much harder to have a meta so finely and sharply balanced on super particular points, so everything just seemed more open than it does these days.
I also miss the people. Sure, I miss the people who've moved on and don't play anymore, the OG SC2 scene was just amazing. But I really miss the people who can't come back. TotalBiscuit and InControl were absolutely special. They dedicated themselves to entertaining people, and gosh dangit I think they were great at doing it. They were both taken way too soon.
it was a thriving scene with NASL, MLG, Dreamhack, IPL, GSL
i miss painuser and HD casts of IPL fight clubs and team leagues, husky, day9, incontrol RIP, state of the game, inside the game, meta, and the tons of awesome content out there. and i miss fruitdealer, mvp, nestea, boxer, bomber, mma, not marineking because that jerk killed fruit dealer in season 2, dimaga, whitera, naniwa, jinro, thorzain, and qxc all kill of IM, and those are only the memories on the top of my head
Watching Nestea at his prime. Watching MVP at this prime. Ling-bane-muta zvt overlord drop openings in zvp less spell casters That short time when hydra were good
I miss Life and would be nice to watch him and serral in his prime in blizzcon finals. Also, player pool, mass koreans, strong teamlegues and rivalries without policltical correctness.
watching Mvp during his first GSL run absolutely destroying everybody just by being better at macro and micro than everybody else, and watching as he laid the foundation for Terran, then reinvented the metagame however many times over. I remember watching Life play in 2012, and thinking to myself "holy shit," -- I still haven't seen a Zerg who had his level of micro, timing, and decision-making. remembering a time when most players had strengths and weaknesses and their own style - like MC was an early-game killer and had great micro, but wasn't as good in the late-game, LosirA and Bomber were macro machines, Nestea just knew exactly when and how many drones he could get away with back when nothing was figured out yet, Ryung was a brilliant positional TvT player but weak in other matchups, MMA would multi-drop you to death but would float 1k minerals while doing so, Mvp for a long time would NEVER cheese even when the opponent was going blind CC first every game, Polt and Puma were TvP experts, inori and tails had some razor-sharp PvP builds that let you survive 4gate if you were perfect. nowadays, all the players are so well-rounded and even when somebody is strong in a particular matchup, it doesn't mean that they are unbeatable or their other matchups are weak. I also miss the ridiculous 2-month hot stretches, where a player would shock the world by beating everybody, then fade back into obscurity -- jjakji, Seed, Squirtle (somewhat), Sniper (even though I hated his playstyle), Genius, AcE, RorO. It's all the same players now. I miss the days when seeing a nuke/battlecruiser/carrier/broodlord was like seeing a unicorn. HuK mothership rushing Pinder on Steppes of War is still iconic. I think about some of the original WoL teams and their players a lot -- SlayerS, oGs, IM, ST, FXOpen, NSH, TSL.
I try not to think too hard about it anymore, but since other people have brought it up, I've never been nearly as excited about any player since Life came and went. There were a few of us—asha, cosmicspiral, maybe a couple others—who were lucky enough to catch on when he was playing in EWM weeklies in early 2012 and you could just tell he was something special. When he was on his game his play simply oozed confidence, whether it was through his controlled aggression, or his ability to pull off such greedy openings even when hard countered (the culmination of which was game 7 of the iron squid 2 finals). He was a joy to watch. And the way in which he ascended—that TL all-kill and heroics versus Slayers, the last wave of the zenex banner; his unprecedented TSL4 run; the royal road—it couldn't have been better. It was like icing on the cake that a player capable of such highs could also be so fucking clutch.
It seemed like a foregone conclusion that he would be a top-tier player forever. In the end, that certainty made the scandal all the more devastating.
I guess the other players I really strongly supported, Avenge and Pet, did pretty well for themselves all things considered—Avenge came to be startale's gstl ace in 2013 and went to a couple foreign tourneys, and Pet lasted longer than all his 2012 zenex brethren (and almost had kespa cup in the bag, don't forget!). And at least I got to watch my favorite player reach the top of the top, rather than suffer the unmitigated disappointment fans of B4, bbyong, and YoDa must've felt. But I'll probably always wish things could've gone differently.
I miss Life too, a dynamic, agressive Zerg player who could play agressive Zerg when it was by far the worst race to be agressive with. Life would embarass Rogue and Serral if he could play with the tools and the favorable metas LoTV gave to them.
I also miss Life a lot. When I saw him play, I thought to myself "this is the true successor of (BroodWar)-Jaedong". He had the same aura of ruthless brilliance in his play.
I also miss the early MLGs a lot. The format especially was mostly ridculously bad, but it guaranteed that there always were some unexpected performances. And with so many foreigners and koreans trying to rise to the top, that was quite something. I also miss - and this is the definition of nostalgia and how it makes you blend out all the bad memories - enduring the MLG streaming problems in the middle of the night, waiting endlessly for a series to start, which was then decided in 8 minutes by 2x 4gate.
On May 12 2020 18:51 Malinor wrote: I also miss Life a lot. When I saw him play, I thought to myself "this is the true successor of (BroodWar)-Jaedong". He had the same aura of ruthless brilliance in his play.
Weird how the great Zerg matchfixers opposite styles. Serral is a true sucessor to Savior's defensive, tech focused Zerg gameplay with a lot of tactical moves. Life is the clear sucessor of Jaedong, with relentless muta/ling agression backed up by a very solid macro and smooth transitions.
I love when Blizzard adds some videos in the patch balance, to show the difference between before and after. Even if it concerns only the biggest patchs, I think Blizzard would have explain their choices and bring to us confidence and clarifications regarding their vision of the game.
I was never quite into Life. But I just love his 2015 Blizzcon RO16 bop over Lilbow. Especially considering the mini foreigner hype leading up to the match. Plus there was some trash-talking too? The series was cheesy and funny as hell. Almost akin to Boxer bunker-rushing Yellow 3 times in a row in BW.
On May 14 2020 01:14 RKC wrote: I was never quite into Life. But I just love his 2015 Blizzcon RO16 bop over Lilbow. Especially considering the mini foreigner hype leading up to the match. Plus there was some trash-talking too? The series was cheesy and funny as hell. Almost akin to Boxer bunker-rushing Yellow 3 times in a row in BW.
libow ate so much shit for this series it was not a really proud moment for the community, so much toxicity
(1) 2010/11/12 GSL: pretty much games every day of the week; a full version of code A and code S; the interviews between Artosis, players and John the Translator (with Qs from GomTV forum); the freshness of the game; Artosis' gaming house tours of the Korean teams; stacked tournaments
(2) 2010/11/12/13 Twitch streams: Koreans constantly streaming on Twitch; interaction (to some extent) with foreign audience; remembering MKP taking a break and being amazed by how good Maru was; introducing us (well I speak for myself here) to kpop;
(3) Proleague / GSTL: watching bo1 series is a rare treat; the team mates sitting at the same bench discussing, the high fives and the ocassional BM shown towards opposing teams (e.g. Parting mimmicing Flash with the ruler); particularly proleague because its round-robin format ensured that you saw every player (A teamer at least) play at least one game every week offline;
(4) Before the points system & region lock: being able to attend live events in Europe with some of the top Koreans attending; regularly seeing foreigners and koreans compete in offline events; more variety in the foreigners qualifying (for code A & S)
(5) popularity of the game: having friends who played it, most of them stopped playing either at the end of WoL or early HotS
(6) The very early cheeses that were difficult to transition out of, i.e. when cheeses were truly all-in, e.g. 6pool, proxy rax, gate proxy in main base
(7) the maps that had a longer shelf-date on the ladder (maybe those still exist, haven't played consistently for a while now)
Sniper and his lords of Darkness ruining not only GSL and beating your favorite players but also ruining Fantasy proleague teams left and right while making LR threads filled with hate and salt/ silly narratives like that that sure caused alot of salt but my god were they funny.
On May 12 2020 02:31 Highrock1 wrote: Watching FruitDealer win the series in a time when zerg were utter garbage.
Honestly, Zerg itself wasn't that garbage, it was not fully explored.
Pros in those days did not spread much creep because they had the BW mentality on creep. Now we know how good it is. Same goes for unit compositions. I remember Fruitdealer using a mish-mosh of units - including Brood/infestor, which later went on to dominate the scene.
-pro league -fantasy pro league -personalities like nestea/mvp/mc; jaedong/flash; naniwa/stephano (this is the main reason that stopped me to follow the game i think) -the almost every weekend big tournaments with the constant fight koreans vs foreigners
On May 12 2020 02:31 Highrock1 wrote: Watching FruitDealer win the series in a time when zerg were utter garbage.
Honestly, Zerg itself wasn't that garbage, it was not fully explored.
Pros in those days did not spread much creep because they had the BW mentality on creep. Now we know how good it is. Same goes for unit compositions. I remember Fruitdealer using a mish-mosh of units - including Brood/infestor, which later went on to dominate the scene.
You're underestimating how bad the maps were back then for macro games. Most of those maps your third base was either behind rocks or almost as close to your opponent as you.
Tal'darim altar was such a sick map, minus the destructible rocks at your third. if they removed those tht map would be nice.
i think there is a huge bias against 4p maps because people can't adapt their strategy. are you really good at the game if you can only play: 1-2 builds per matchup only on maps that have a ramp for your main only on maps that are 2 ?
also, people neglect that other players deal with the same strategic restrictions due to map design.
I miss the balance team actually explaining their patches so we could at least understand what the general goal was. That being said, after the Observer fiasco and being openly mocked for their bad reasoning and broken English, can't exactly blame them for not even bothering now days.
On May 08 2020 12:38 Die4Ever wrote: speaking of crazy maps, surprising and map specific cheeses, exploits, and team leagues... this just happened on scvodarchives https://clips.twitch.tv/NurturingWanderingHeronMingLee
And this just happened again in the Ro16 of a GSL in 2020 lol
On May 14 2020 10:38 BabelFish1 wrote: I miss the balance team actually explaining their patches so we could at least understand what the general goal was. That being said, after the Observer fiasco and being openly mocked for their bad reasoning and broken English, can't exactly blame them for not even bothering now days.
The most recent patch (being tested) had a ton of notes
On May 14 2020 10:38 BabelFish1 wrote: I miss the balance team actually explaining their patches so we could at least understand what the general goal was. That being said, after the Observer fiasco and being openly mocked for their bad reasoning and broken English, can't exactly blame them for not even bothering now days.
The most recent patch (being tested) had a ton of notes
Yes ton of notes.. What will happen when Clem will roll over every zergs cause Banelings nerf impact directly their capacity to reach their target while the request comes mainly from Protoss ?
I would like clarifications about that
Then path notes says : "we beleive that", "we think", Blizzard actually doesn t work (i mean hard work) on SC2, they have no business interest.. And i m regretting days when patchs quality are better, .. before the free to play era.
EPT
![[image loading]](https://i.ibb.co/NNL3yvp/graph-9w.png)
