xkcd

by **You, sir, name?** » Sun Mar 18, 2012 10:02 pm UTC

After losing a lot of games in a row, I resorted to

I feel this may make me a terrible person.

by **Koa** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:57 pm UTC

I ran into a guy in a chat channel who in some sense said that the reason he sucks is because he didn't have anyone to talk to about the game. I studied his play in several games, and then played against him myself. I then talked to him for about an hour about every specific mistake he did in the games and provided him some general concepts for improving. I liked how it went so I figured I'd post some of the chatlog involving the general concepts. I figure most of the people reading this are sc2 theorists rather than players, but maybe this will help/interest someone who is/was stuck in a lower league.

Spoiler:

by **Xeio** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 2:28 am UTC

Anyone played the starcraft master map by blizzard? There's some crazy crap in there.

Also, more achievements, if you're into that sort of thing.

by **EdgarJPublius** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 4:41 am UTC

Played an interesting game.

It pretty much ended when my push of 2:1 BCs got eaten by an absurd number of 3:3 archons.

Except I'd been frustrated by his proxy 2gate earlier in the game, and some other recent obnoxious games, so Instead of GGing I lifted up into a corner expecting that he'd quickly send some Phoenixes or voids.

Instead, the game went on a little longer (presumably while he scouted the rest of the map) until he said that he couldn't get me because he was at 200 supply of archons and GGed out.

by **You, sir, name?** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 7:49 am UTC

Xeio wrote:Anyone played the starcraft master map by blizzard? There's some crazy crap in there.

Also, more achievements, if you're into that sort of thing.

Did the first 26, got stuck at banshee kiting. Got as far as two orange health marines surviving (after trying for about an hour) when I rage quit.

EdgarJPublius wrote:Played an interesting game.

It pretty much ended when my push of 2:1 BCs got eaten by an absurd number of 3:3 archons.

Except I'd been frustrated by his proxy 2gate earlier in the game, and some other recent obnoxious games, so Instead of GGing I lifted up into a corner expecting that he'd quickly send some Phoenixes or voids.

Instead, the game went on a little longer (presumably while he scouted the rest of the map) until he said that he couldn't get me because he was at 200 supply of archons and GGed out.

You should have informed him, after he gg'd, about the stalemate mechanism.

by **Koa** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 8:41 am UTC

Or kill his own units to free supply

by **Xeio** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 1:26 pm UTC

You, sir, name? wrote:Did the first 26, got stuck at banshee kiting. Got as far as two orange health marines surviving (after trying for about an hour) when I rage quit.

Yea, I felt like they could have reduced the number of marines on that one, I got up to there as well. Though I skipped the banelings one because I kept missing hold position so my zealots would run into their own death though and got frustrated.

Apparently the only micro I'm really good at is blink (saved all my stalkers for the achievement first try).

by **Yakk** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 1:28 pm UTC

I think I haven't completed like 2 of them. Remember you can "skip" over missions.

There are two baneling ones that are hard -- zealots vs banelings, and marines+ghosts vs banelings.

They both took a few tries. Zealots was about spreading your zealots out, and ghosts was about backing your force up, then spam sniping every baneling.

Banshee was, if not the hardest, among the hardest ones.

by **Game_boy** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 2:08 pm UTC

You, sir, name? wrote:
You should have informed him, after he gg'd, about the stalemate mechanism.

Or that you can kill your own units. I doubt the map was mined out or he had no bases/no workers/<50 minerals to make one

by **Xeio** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 3:21 pm UTC

Yakk wrote:They both took a few tries. Zealots was about spreading your zealots out, and ghosts was about backing your force up, then spam sniping every baneling.

I was doing ok for a while on the ghost one. And then suddenly OHGOD.

My problem with the zealots was that I kept missing hold position so they'd run towards the banelings like idiots.

I think it saves your positions so hopefully I should be able to try it later and pick up where I left off.

by **Yakk** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 3:59 pm UTC

It saves which ones you win. You can also warp to random ones.

by **EdgarJPublius** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 6:16 pm UTC

Koa wrote:Or kill his own units to free supply

Yeah, we had a laugh about it in chat after, he was a good sport about the whole thing.

by **Yakk** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 4:02 pm UTC

The only starcraft master one I cannot pull off now is the tank+medivac against 3 stalkers.

Wow, that one is hard. I suspect I might need faster mouse speed, or maybe lots of caffeine.

(#30 I think)

by **Koa** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 4:34 pm UTC

That one is more about rhythm than it is about twitch reflexes.

by **Yakk** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 5:33 pm UTC

My problem is dropping the tank without wasting time with the medivac moving.

I either have to move down to the tank in the dropship to drop, then back up to the tank to pick up, then back down to the portrait to drop...

or figure out some other means.

The medivac also has an annoying tendency to move after being shot. So after each drop, I need to get it to hold, or it drifts out of pickup range...

So now I need to right-click the tank, hold, drop the tank, hold, right-click the tank, hold, drop the tank, hold -- all in 1.44 seconds, and do it in nearly perfect rhythm so that the pick up occurs during the shot sequence, and the drop occurs ASAP so the tank can get a shot off.

Pickup, hold, drop, hold in 1.44 seconds is 167 APM, at 83 APM mouse and 83 APM keyboard in sync, with the mouse actions being on two different parts of the screen.

by **Xeio** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 7:04 pm UTC

Yea, it makes you wish for a key to drop off the units in the medivac without needing to specify a location.

Is it cheating to use macro keys?

by **Yakk** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 7:18 pm UTC

Ah. Shift-click drop, target the medivac as the location. You'll drop right where you are!

by **WarDaft** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 10:07 pm UTC

Xeio wrote:
You, sir, name? wrote:Did the first 26, got stuck at banshee kiting. Got as far as two orange health marines surviving (after trying for about an hour) when I rage quit.
Yea, I felt like they could have reduced the number of marines on that one, I got up to there as well. Though I skipped the banelings one because I kept missing hold position so my zealots would run into their own death though and got frustrated.

Apparently the only micro I'm really good at is blink (saved all my stalkers for the achievement first try).

I imagine the number was so that you couldn't afford to be hit by more than one marine once for every shot you got off.

I can't visually estimate distance well enough, so I don't think I'm getting this one.

Ah. Shift-click drop, target the medivac as the location. You'll drop right where you are!

If you tell the Medivac to hold position then it actually will until you misclick the unload command. This doesn't actually help unfortunately. Also I don't quite see how shift helps either.

Well, 27 and 28 to go. I don't get the feeling of "hmm, this is hard" when I'm doing them, I get the feeling "hmm, this is stupid and arbitrary", so I'm probably not going to do them either. Although 28 is probably one of the more practical ones.

by **Game_boy** » Sat Mar 24, 2012 1:01 am UTC

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmes ... _id=323013

So much rage in this thread.

by **Xeio** » Sat Mar 24, 2012 2:05 am UTC

Mixmatched SC1/2 is kind of gross...

by **Jesse** » Sat Mar 24, 2012 9:29 am UTC

MKP is a boss. That is all.

by **Diadem** » Sat Mar 24, 2012 1:28 pm UTC

I can never keep up with all those acronyms for all the different tournaments and leagues.

But they are switching back from SC2 to a mix of SC2 / BW? Why is that? Is BW still that popular?

by **Jesse** » Sat Mar 24, 2012 7:22 pm UTC

MarineKingPrime.

Btw, totally worth getting Gold Membership for MLG, current streams are HuK vs. Heart (Free stream), MC vs. ThorZain, Oz vs. Rain & Parting vs. Alive.

by **Diadem** » Sat Mar 24, 2012 8:47 pm UTC

Ehm my post was a reply to Game_boy's post. Which I guess was completely unclear, so my apologies for that.

Is there, though, while we're talking about it, a nice overview / introduction to the various leagues and ladders around in the sc2 world. Including their relative importance and stuff like that. Liquipedia has a lot, but all their information seems baneling proof (ie: spread out all over the place)

by **Jesse** » Sat Mar 24, 2012 9:06 pm UTC

Diadem wrote:Ehm my post was a reply to Game_boy's post. Which I guess was completely unclear, so my apologies for that.

Is there, though, while we're talking about it, a nice overview / introduction to the various leagues and ladders around in the sc2 world. Including their relative importance and stuff like that. Liquipedia has a lot, but all their information seems baneling proof (ie: spread out all over the place)

Not that I'm aware of. Essentially it goes like this:

Majors: These get you the most money and opportunities, all the top players want to attend.
GSL - GomTV Star League (Korean monthly league, split into Code S (The best) and Code A (The lower))
MLG - Major League Gaming (Four times a year, three day tournament, winner gets a spot in GSL's Code S; also do Arena PPVs which are invite only)
IPL - IGN Pro League (Whenever they feel like it, three day tournament)
Dreamhack (Three? times a year, three day tournament)

Midcard: Decent money, and a fair amount of respect from the community.
TSL - TeamLiquid Star League (Whenever they want, tends to feature a few Koreans and the best foreigners)
EGL (I think) - EvilGenius' League (Team Invitational)
GSTL - GomTV Star Team League (Three-month long team tournament)
AOL - Arena of Legends (Gom's small invitational two-day tournament)

Lowercard: Small tournaments, limited prize money, not so many big name players.
Korean Weekly (Net broadcast, generally players not in the GSL)
TotalBiscuit's tournament (I forget the name) (Crowdfunded invitational)
EU/NA Daily - Daily tournaments on the respective ladders with small prizes.

by **Koa** » Sat Mar 24, 2012 9:25 pm UTC

Diadem wrote:I can never keep up with all those acronyms for all the different tournaments and leagues.

But they are switching back from SC2 to a mix of SC2 / BW? Why is that? Is BW still that popular?

Proleague is a BW tournament that is incorporating SC2 by switching games every season. Or worse, and this is what the thread was suggesting, they're planning on switching games every bo7, which is so stupid that it has to be a mistake. Either way it's still just a korean rumour that someone read and posted on TL.

by **Adacore** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 11:45 pm UTC

I know if I turn my TV to channel 641 or 642 here I get pretty much non-stop BW, and I've never seen a live broadcast of a SC2 game on TV. From what I've seen, BW remains far more popular than SC2 as a spectator sport in Korea, but I won't claim to be anything like an expert.

by **Game_boy** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 12:58 am UTC

It's about the formely BW-only Proleague (team league) incorporating SC2 next season (Fact; Blizzard's CEO announced it). The rumour is then that it's going to be alternating BW/SC2 which seems to be provoking rage from both sides.

Blizzard want to spend money to get SC2 as popular as BW is in Korea (i.e. a national niche sport on the level of UFC or Nascar). Money has been leaking out of BW for ages (viewership down by half since 2008, MBCgame that ran the MSL (OSL/MSL were the premier BW individual leagues) shut down and became a music channel. So BW's sponsors who tightly control the sport are looking for something new and they seem to think SC2 will help (it may not, SC2 isn't on TV at all and is watched mostly by foreigners).

This would put SC2 on TV but also severely damage BW.

I'm interested to see if BW players switch, play both or they just put B-teamers on their SC2 matches (not take it seriously). The only BW gamers that have switched later haven't been too impressive (ForGG, Hyun) and the current GSL leaders were average in BW (Zergbong, MVP, MMA, MC) or were good years ago (Boxer, Nada, July)

Also rumoured MLG/OSL partnership and GSL/IPL competing partnership. SC2 civil war time. Well except that CJ owns both GSL and OSL.

--

Yeah MLG was great.

--

Milkis explains it better than me:

On March 26 2012 02:28 Milkis wrote:
All of this bitching about BW vs SC2 is retarded right now. Both are struggling. KeSPA knows that BW's time is up -- it is IMPOSSIBLE to get sponsors right now. Absolutely freaking impossible. Even if you had one of the most successful OSLs of all time and a literal cinderella story unfolding in Proleague last season, despite how kickass the leagues was, it's absolutely failing to get sponsors.

Spoiler:

by **Diadem** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 5:05 am UTC

I had no idea Broodwar is still being played in Korea. It is all but extinct everywhere else in the world. That's the big difference between SC2 and Broodwar. SC2 is global, Broodwar never really was. SC2 has top players from all over the world, and interesting tournaments all over the world. That is a much healthier place for a sport to be in. I don't know about the situation in Korea, but SC2 is definitely healthy in the rest of the world.

And what's this talk of LoL? I'm sure it's a fun game, but as a serious esport, it's a joke.

by **Koa** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:17 am UTC

BW was global, but it was about as big as any other game at the time (pretty small). Serious esports started in Korea with BW, and it's been gradually growing internationally. I think GOM had a contract with Blizzard for exclusive rights to SC2 in Korea, but I'm not positive. Combine that with Korean's tradition-based culture (especially with business) and the consensus that SC2 is generally an inferior game, and it's not surprising that BW is still around (though not nearly as strong). A lot of people are understandably upset that BW is dying, and that's the crowd Milkis is talking to, but the main problem with mixing the games like that is that they attract a different crowd. It'd be like MLG showing a Halo match in between SC2 BO3's. It's dumb for both fans.

LoL is a bit of an anomaly. It's free, casual, and gets a lot of support from Riot, but is that all it takes? Is it healthy, or is it going to crash and burn soon? Who knows, but right now it's the biggest esport in the world.

by **Game_boy** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 10:01 am UTC

Diadem wrote:And what's this talk of LoL? I'm sure it's a fun game, but as a serious esport, it's a joke.

I used to think that, and I still don't like LoL the game, but I can say (from talking to them) people are serious about watching it. Riot supports it well, like having a stream link in the game client, it regularly gets 2-3x the views of SC2 tournaments in the west, and China/Korea have FAR more downloads of Dota, LoL and Dota2 than the West. It's the #1 PC cafe game in SK now (used to be BW).

Does it really require less skill than SC2? Less mechanical skill yes, but teamwork and strategy are still very important and good players do clearly win over lesser ones.

Even the fact Riot is paying most of the prize money isn't bad, it's sustainable for them as getting people into the esport sustains content purchases for the long term.

by **WarDaft** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 7:49 pm UTC

It might not be a joke as an e-sport, but games where you control one hero are inarguably simpler. This isn't inherently a bad thing, it just means the skill cap is just higher in SC. As long as both skillcaps are effectively unreachable, they both have credibility as an e-sport.

by **Koa** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 8:46 pm UTC

Both my allies taken out? No free wins for anybody. Beast mode, activate.

by **Yakk** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 9:01 pm UTC

WTB: Command line utility that takes a replay, and generates a video of the file. Ideally non-interactive.

by **You, sir, name?** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 5:17 pm UTC

Hero unit of the day

by **An Enraged Platypus** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 5:22 pm UTC

So if I were to pick up SC2 now, is the community still thriving? Would I get my ass unavoidably handed to me by dint of not having played SC before? Lastly, can I pick it up for cheaper than the battle.net direct download cost?

by **Will** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 5:31 pm UTC

Yes, yes, and probably not. Best price I could find was Amazon, where it's $50 instead of $60 (whoop-de-doo). Blizz occasionally puts it on sale for $30 or so, so if you're willing to wait an indeterminate amount of time, that's your best bet.

by **You, sir, name?** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 6:29 pm UTC

The community is thriving, but SC2 has gotten really hard. What was gold league material in season 1 is like high bronze nowadays.

by **Game_boy** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 7:15 pm UTC

The matchmaking system is very good and there are sufficient players so that, no matter how bad you are, you will be playing people of equal skill.

If you constantly make worker units and spend your money you will be out of the lowest league in no time, they still suck. Being fast or understanding strategy are not necessary to get out of Bronze league.

by **Yakk** » Sun Apr 01, 2012 3:00 am UTC

I can get out of bronze league by peon rushing. But we got good at it. So in bronze you will run into people using really advanced yet silly tactics for fun (people smurfiing) , which is sad. A good player can beat an honest bronze leather using really silly tactics. Trying to duplicate what your enemies are doing in bronze and silver has issues due to this. On the other hand you will win 1/2 to 1/3 of games even if many of the ones you lose will be ridiculous.

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