Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Heroes of Newerth: Part Deux

Well I’ve sucessesfully raised my MMR after dropping over 100 points. Mainly due to playing with a friend who is legitimately good at the game. I’m now currently at 1673 my highest so far was 1697 I believe before I took my huge dive in stats.



I had a 60% win ratio which you can see has dropped significantly as well. My K:D Ratio was 1.5 and my K+A:D Ratio was 4.1. It’s slightly disheartening when you lose so many games because of bad teammates. Oh well what can you do other than keep grinding and hoping for the best. Also yes my name is Girlfriend!

I had a few good games today. I decided to use Sandwraith and my team actually let me farm in piece, with me “ulting“ in whenever I was needed. I tried Scout as well but failed hard. Due to the fact my laning partner was really bad and stole a majority of my creep kills from me. Just overall bad playing from everyone though, including myself.

I’d like to figure out ways to jungle with unorthodox heroes. I’ve been watching old Merlini videos of him jungling in DotA, he’s by far one of the most amazing players I’ve ever watched. He jungles so perfectly with Beastmaster. I’ve also been interested in trying to jungle with Armadon. It seems possible but really difficult to pull off. Creeps were a lot bulkier in DotA and in HoN they’re a lot smaller.



Here’s a really good video showcasing some of his jungling skills. I’ve still been trying to perfect the basics of pulling and the timings needed for killing certain camps so they can respawn at the next minute.

Anyway if I do manage to perfect jungling with Armadon I plan to make a video of it.

I’m not sure what else to say at the moment it’s almost 7 am and I still have not slept yet!

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Heroes of Newerth

I still haven’t been playing very much Starcraft II, the game just seems to have lost it’s charm with me. It doesn’t seem as complex as Brood War was and that reason solely turns me off from the game.

However that previous paragraph is quite contradicting considering I’m now playing Heroes of Newerth (HoN) again. Which is a pretty simple game by Starcraft metagame standards.

So anyway this entry will be about HoN…

I’ve played this game a lot during it’s beta stages, before it I played a lot of DotA. Which I think was the better game for a lot of reasons. I was quite good in beta but this was also because I had a full team of competent players to constantly game with, and even sometimes game against. But now I’m lacking good playing partners and the amount of variance I encounter is quite hair pulling. I was a few points shy of 1700 MMR, now I’ve slipped to around 1600 in the past 5 days. It’s annoying how 1 poor player on a team can throw the entire game for your team.

The Bad:

I wouldn’t call myself an amazing player but I am better than the average gamer. I have played poorly as well some games. I can easily admit that. It’s incredible though the amount of blame that virtually every HoN player is unwilling to accept on themselves. The community is completely atrocious, it’s full of unwarranted self-important uneducated “children”. The reason I say children is because most users act like they're prepubescent still even though they’re clearly over the age of 18. It’s pretty sad and makes me lose a little bit more faith in humanity with every game I play. Everyone is incapable of spelling; I swear 99% of the people who play that game don’t know the difference between “Your” and “You’re”. I could go on and on about this so I’ll just leave it at that.

It’s also annoying how most public players don’t play the “role” their hero should be. You’re extremely lucky if you get a player who will ward the shit out of the map whenever he can. Or one who gives you the farm if you’re the hard-carry. I enjoy using Sandwraith so this is a huge problem in a lot of games. No one ever lets you get the creep kills which makes you almost useless. Lack of wards is always a big issue too. Without them you can’t tell when a gank is coming your way until it’s far too late in most cases. People always pick heroes that don’t benefit the team very well. Not to mention most people play for themselves only. Kill stealing is rampant because everyone only cares about their stats. It’s painful at times and I always ask myself “Why do I even play this game?”. The answer? Because DotA 2.0 isn’t out yet.

The Good:

Well onto some good points, I’d say the metagame has improved a lot since beta. More players know what items to get also due to the help of in-game guides. Before it was really a huge free for all like DotA was. If you were new or unfamiliar with your hero you would just buy what you thought was best and usually get hounded for going something dumb. So it’s good in that sense that is gives newer players a better edge against the veterans.

The game is actually really fun and enjoyable when you have a full team to play with. Even though it still may be rage inducing at times, I find it’s significantly less stressful when you have a team that can carry it’s weight and people who understand their jobs within the game. I typically like playing carry-type heroes or else supports. I don’t like tanks very much.

My favourite hero in the game right now would probably be Sandwraith as I sort of mentioned before.



He requires a lot of farming and a lot of players dislike him because of it. I like him though because if you have a good team that knows what they’re doing he can be a really efficient carry. He can maintain a constant presence in the game as well because of his ultimate. His deflection and damage reduction give him a lot of survivability in a battle. His sand spell gives him good utility as well since it slows, does AoE damage, has great range, and it can also be used to help escape from dire situations.

Once you get him farmed up weaker heroes on the opposition team have a very hard time doing anything because of his mobility and damage; Especially if you catch them alone. However, he’s quite useless with a useless team on your side. He’s just very item dependant and if you don’t get that farm in then you don’t get those items.

I’ll write more about HoN in the coming weeks as for right now… I need to play some more games!

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri (SMAC)

I’d like to take the time to post about another game I’ve been playing a lot lately… This one is a classic and this entry will most likely make you nostalgia hard and install it.



This is easily one of the best games I’ve ever played. I’d rank it at #2 out of my top 5 favourite games. With Starcraft: Broodwars being #1. Easily the best “Turn-Based Strategy” game I’ve ever played. The Civilization games have NOTHING on this.



I don’t even know where to begin with this game. It’s old but it still holds up better than virtually every game I’ve played today. Not only for replay-ability but for how deep this game is philosophically and intellectually. If you honestly haven’t played this game; I highly recommend you do.

Depending on if you have the expansion or not but for the sake of this entry we’ll just talk about the original for now. You can play as 1 of 7 factions. Each with their own very unique agenda and personalities…

Copied from Wikipedia:

SMAC takes place in the Civilization universe, beginning in the 22nd century, and follows the space-race victory in Civilization II.[1] The premise is that the United Nations has sent the "Unity" colonization mission to the Alpha Centauri planet Chiron ("Planet").[2] Advanced aliens had conducted an experiment in planetary-level sentience on Chiron, leaving behind monoliths and artifacts.[3] Unfortunately, the experiment was a disaster, creating a hundred-million-year evolutionary cycle ending in the death of all animal life.[4] After the disaster, the aliens split into the Manifold Caretakers, who opposed further experimentation, and the Manifold Usurpers, who favored further experimentation. Immediately prior to the start of the game, a reactor malfunction wakes the crew and colonists on the Unity early and irreparably severs communications with Earth.[5] After the captain is assassinated, the most powerful leaders on board build ideological factions with dedicated followers, conflicting agendas for the future of mankind, and "desperately serious" commitments.[5][6] As the ship breaks up, seven escape pods, each containing a faction, are scattered across Planet.[7]



Out of the 7 factions I personally like University of Planet the most.



Granted each faction has their benefits and downsides, I think if you can rush the secret project “Hunter-Seeker Algorithm” and finish it first, you’ll be extremely far ahead.


My 2nd most favourite faction to play is Morgan Industries.



The amount of wealth you can amass early in the game is pretty high compared to everyone else. You can set up a pretty good infrastructure but the limited base sizes and lack of support for military units is pretty crippling.


I also have a few early game strategies built up for every faction. The Spartan Federation being the strongest I think since you get rovers immediately. Just rush your tech and get particle impactors. It lays waste to the other factions early game. This also works with any faction as well though, but I find it less effective.

The story in this game is also really deep. No matter how many times I’ve played this game I still find it interesting and very immersive. (With the expansion pack you can play as Alien factions which I feel add a whole new level to this immersion since they bring their own story into the game.) Over the course of the game you find out that the planet is actually a semi-sentient being, which is learning and observing you. Unsure if you’re there to help it or destroy it. Here’s a memorable quote that planet gives.

“You are the children of a dead planet, earthdeirdre, and this death we do not comprehend. We shall take you in, but may we ask this question--will we too catch the planetdeath disease?”

Just by posting that quote I don’t feel it does much justice without playing the whole game. I find that alone really deep, since the planet understand that humanity has come from a dead planet (Earth). There are a lot more memorable quotes. Most of them I find are done by Chairman Sheng-ji Yan. His quotes are more focused on the fundamentals of what makes us human and what our objectives in life are. Also he talks a lot about what is really the purpose of life.

“If our society seems more nihilistic than that of previous eras, perhaps this is simply a sign of our maturity as a sentient species. As our collective consciousness expands beyond a crucial point, we are at last ready to accept life's fundamental truth: that life's only purpose is life itself.”

“What do I care for your suffering? Pain, even agony, is no more than information before the senses, data fed to the computer of the mind. The lesson is simple: you have received the information, now act on it. Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output.”


Both of these are Yan’s quotes that I absolutely love.


I’ll continue with another entry later on talking more about my strategies and play-style. As well as my adventures on playing the 2nd hardest difficulty the game has to offer.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Mortal Kombat 9



So I haven't been playing much Starcraft II lately. I've been playing Mortal Kombat 9 on xbox for the past few days. I actually like this game quite a bit minus the fact that online play is still kind of laggy compared to offline.





I'm really good with Raiden I've figured out, and I'm okay with Scorpion and Sindel. I'm currently on a 29 ranked game win streak with my overall stats being something like 60-11. People online are really bad. I can do this massive 15 hit combo with Raiden in the corner and every single time I've pulled it off the other player left once I was finished. I lol everytime.

To add insult to injury I also do Babalities to 90% of the people I play. (You can't block the final round in order to perform one.)

If anyone feels like hitting me up for a game add my XBL account. enruler

Sunday, May 1, 2011

LOL POOR, Thoughts on specific units, & PTR Balance changes

So yeah lost my internet for a while there due to not paying the bill. Money's been fairly tight especially since I'm taking CompTIA A+/N+ courses. I feel like I'm trying to squeeze blood from a stone at this point. I'm even behind on rent money.


Anyway I seen an interesting thread on Teamliquid. A user had made a discussion thread talking about these following abilities:

Concussive Shell
Forcefield
Fungal Growth

Now the reason why they were mentioned was because they can potentially remove the "micro" aspect of battles, which was unanimously agreed upon; Is bad.

Concussive Shells devastate units like stalkers. Once a marauders out it shuts down early stalker pressure. Because if you get clipped by one that unit is pretty much dead. It's quite annoying. Zealots and roaches are also completely destroyed by this ability. Zerglings are only spared because of the high volume you can produce it overwhelms the marauder(s).

Forcefield allows a player to completely encircle, cut off, or cut in half a whole army. This is clearly overpowered since there's no real counter to it other than massive units. Once again this cuts down the micro aspects of early game and even middle game at times. A separate issue I have with this ability is the fact that Protoss NEEDS it to survive early game pressure from Z and T. I don't think a race should be completely dependable on an ability like this just to survive.

Fungal Growth isn't as bad as the other two I'd say since it's fairly high up the tech tree and harder to acquire and use. However it still has that problem of completely mobilizing an army removing micro. I just wish plague would have been in the game instead.

I'm not sure what Blizzard is so content with those abilities. Starcraft 2 is very heavily macro orientated. I miss the micro days of Broodwar.

PTR Balance Changelog...

Balance

* PROTOSS

o Archons are now a massive unit.

o Pylon power radius has been decreased from 7.5 to 6.5.

o Cybernetics Core
+ Research Warp Gate time increased from 140 to 180.

o Gateway
+ Sentry train time decreased from 42 to 37.
+ Stalker train time decreased from 42 to 37.
+ Zealot train time decreased from 38 to 33.
+ Warp Gate unit train times remain unchanged.


* TERRAN

o Ghost
+ Cost changed from 150/150 to 200/100.

o Bunker
+ Salvage resource return reduced from 100% to 75%.


* ZERG

o Spore Crawler
+ Root time decreased from 12 to 6.




I actually like most of these changes. However everyone will have to be more weary of proxy gateways now. They really plagued the game during launch due to the fast production time of zealots. So we'll see how this goes. I think it's a step in the right direction though given how powerful 4 gating is.

Anyway I'm out of things to say at the moment.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

I Hate Computers

Haven't been playing much SC as of late. My power supply decided it was a good time to die out. So I had to wait to replace it, get it replaced now my graphics card refuses to work. I'm not sure if my bad PSU fried it somehow in the process or not. Unfortunately it didn't fit properly in my case so I had to Jerry-rig it in there. I think that's what the actual problem is and just putting in the new pins just jarred it loose, and I can't get it back in properly again.


I was using this...



Now I've had to downgrade to this.



It's still a decent card but not as good as my previous. Oh well I'm glad I kept my old card handy just in case something like this happened.

I'm not too sure how to test if the card if it's done, without having another mobo/Whole PC set up. So I'll have to just keep it in storage until now. Oh well what can you do?

ANYWAY OFF TO PLAY SC!

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Puppies & Cake

You know whats better than Starcraft II?

GERMAN SHEPHERD PUPPIES!!



No other puppies can compare either. I pretty much dislike all dogs other than German shepherds or white shepherd dogs.




Although not better than Starcraft II, cake is also good.

Especially chocolate cake.





In regards to Starcraft II I'm currently on an 11 game win streak for 1v1 ladder.

(I totally made this blog for you Chelsea.)

Sunday, April 10, 2011

New Thoughts On Ladder... (Frustations)

So after playing about 60 games in the past 2 weeks I must say ladder play is a lot different now. People seem to play a lot better than they used to. (Granted I am playing poorly, out of practice, and just generally being bad haha.) Specific build orders are now being used. Back when the game first launched people were just figuring their own things out, it was pretty fun.

Virtually every game against Protoss you're defending a 4 gate push. No matter what race you are. Or else they just sit in their base after taking their natural expansion, and just play defense until they get out a huge deathball of colossi. Protoss seems to be the most 1 dimensional of the 3 races now. It's all about defending until you reach the top of your tech tree. Then you move out and win. You think this would be easy to beat in that case but it just isn't. I have it happen to me all the time and I do it to other players all the time.

Terran is still pretty versatile, which I like playing against to be honest. You never know what to expect and they generally don't sit in their base and do virtually nothing all game until the very end. They have a lot of harassment options which is also nice. So overall I'd say they really feel the most balanced of the 3 races now. I still have a few gripes with them though.

Now with the "weak" race Zerg! I personally find Zerg extremely under powered. I even think I have proof to help back this claim up. Just look at how much Zerg is used compared to Terran and Protoss...

http://www.sc2ranks.com/stats/region/all/all/all

Zerg is just really lacking something. Forcefield is far too powerful against them for starters. Zerg lacks a good answer for the Protoss deathball. Colossi just completely decimate ground, so does storm. Mutas are only effective for a short time, and sometimes rendered completely useless if your opponent places static defense in good positions. I'm just having a really hard time finding a way to win with them. It would appear almost everyone does though.


I feel this game needs an overhaul still. There always seems to be some big balancing issues. Right now Zerg is just in desperate need of a helping hand. Then again I think they always did other than during beta. Protoss is just far too strong. Terran seems pretty balanced, other than the fact reapers now seem completely useless.

I'm also getting extremely tired of every Protoss player 4 gating every single game.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Starcraft II Ladder Reset Today!

I'm somewhat excited for this. My division was pretty inflated with high point users. There was just no way I was going to catch up. Now I got a fair shot again.

So far so good too, I've won my first 3 games. But required a break afterwards.




Grandmaster is also introduced now. I'm only in Diamond right now though. I highly doubt I could ever make it in the top 200. But I may damn well try.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Bronze League Fun



Due to my raging boredom of Starcraft II again I've been messing around a lot. I decided to throw all my 2v2 solo placement matches as well as lose 10 consecutive games on purpose. Once I was done I decided to play semi-normally, or just do stupid shit.

Memorable games...

1. One game I decided to do nothing but fast expand and make all ghosts. These guys as well as my teammate were all just so horrible. I ended up getting 24 ghosts, and had 3-0 upgrades quite quickly. I cloaked and was able to stroll freely into the opponents bases because they lacked detection. I found one of them massing voidrays. It was funny as hell because I 1 shotted all of them with my ghost army. He didn't even run them away. They just all died. After wiping out all his pylons I moved onto the next noob and found he went zealots and stalkers. Once again lacked total detection. After about 1 minute of raping all their pylons and their armies they just left.

2. Another game I decided to do nothing except mass thors. I wasn't sure how this would work out since the other team was TP and my partner was Z. By time they attacked I already had 15+ thors out with 2-2 upgrades. To make matters worse once again the toss decided it was a good idea to mass voidrays. I literally took out his whole voidray fleet in about 1 second. The terran had tanks/marines/hellions which were all systematically wiped out by me and my partners mutalisk army...

3. A SERIOUS GAME! My partner dropped almost immediately at the start. I started controlling both of our bases. This time I was Z and he was P. Against a PP team. I figured this would be challenging since it was essentially 1v2 except I'd have more income. It actually wasn't that bad. I was able to form an army quite quickly. I went roaches/stalkers/sentries. I was pretty surprised at quickly I could raise an army. They attempted to cheese me with massive amounts of zealots and a couple stalkers. I easily beat it and countered with a winning push. Before they left the guys like "WOW YOUR MACRO MUST BE INSANE!!!". I laughed...


Well after only about 15 wins or so I got promoted to silver, and gold was even quicker. I've decided to just play normally and get my solo 2v2 up to diamond or master. Even gold players are still quite bad though and I can play extremely half-assed.

Anyway overall it was pretty funny I'd recommend people do this if they want to have some laughs and just generally play like crap. The games feel very relaxed. It must be what all casual gamers feel. Generally games I play are tense and rage inducing over a multitude of reasons.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Star Battle

It's been a long time since I've written in this blog. Mainly because I lost interest in Starcraft II. I started playing again but I'm having a hard time finding motivation to play ladder. I reached my 1400 points quite easily and way ahead of schedule. However since the ladder has being going on for quite some time now my points are quite low compared to the rest. I'm currently around 1500'ish points and I'm in 27th in my division. I plan to play ladder again eventually so I'll post more updates when that happens. As for now though...


I've been playing a custom map called Star Battle, some of you may be familiar with it. It's quite simple it feels like a watered down version of DotA for Wc3. It's still fun to play though. You only get 1 life as well so it's unforgiving for people who are half-retarded.

It's based heavily on teamwork and map/spatial awareness. It's probably why I like it the most, but also hate it just as much. Public games are plagued with bad players and my friends are not on that much so I can get a team going. I still play it though and just hope for the best.


My favourite ship to use right now is the Raven. I think if used properly it's the most powerful ship in the game. It's not very noob friendly though and dies quite easily if you don't know what you're doing; Due to it having low health and average speed.

I typically like to open with 2 speed upgrades and 4 laser upgrades to start. 4 lasers allows you to 1 shot NPC ships so you can farm up a lot easier and make money. I then get more speed 2 more levels if possible, hunter seeker missile, and start buying energy upgrades. The no shield recharge time upgrade is helpful too so get that when you can. Hunter seeker missile is a very good ability. It's sort of sucks against void rays though since they can accelerate and turn so easily. I'd avoid getting the railgun on the raven. It takes too long to upgrade to do decent damage and the other abilities are much better to have.

Noobs are really annoying on this game. Not only because it's based on teamwork but because they have no map awareness and they never buy speed upgrades. With default speed levels your ship travels very slowly. It means you can't keep up with your team and if you get chased you can't run away. Meaning you die. I don't think noobs are aware you don't respawn either.

Anyway if anyone plays this feel free to leave me a message. I'm always looking for partners who are not completely horrible.