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 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.
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.
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.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Personal Progress and Strategies
I haven't been playing as much as I would like to this past week. I've been pretty sick and my brain just couldn't cut it. I took a pretty big loss dive when I did try to play. (I believe I lost about 10 games almost consecutively.)
I'm just barely hanging past 1100, however I'm ranked pretty high among random users which I think is great.
My new goal is to reach 1400+ by my birthday (December 9th). I'm sure this is very reasonable. We'll see if I can do it though.
Zerg
Although Zerg feels underpowered even with the new Zerg favoured patch. I still very much enjoy playing them. Terran is a very close 2nd though, with Protoss being far behind. Not that I don't like Protoss, I just can't PvZ for the life of me.
I like the Zerg play style mainly and how it's more macro focused. I like their harassment capabilities without risking an "all-in", and their easy tech switching methods. It really throws your opponent off when you suddenly start producing different units. Zerg is easily the best race for doing so since all you need is a single tech building. Unlike Terran or Protoss where you have to make multiple buildings all at once, which is quite slow and risky.
Taking over the map by spreading creep all over just looks cool too.
This is more of a ZvT/P build I enjoy using. It doesn't work so well against another Zerg because of Banelings.
Muta/Ling
10 Overlord
14 Hatch (At Natural Expansion. This depends on the map though.)
14 Pool
14 Extractor
16 Extractor
18 Queen (Once your 2nd hatchery finishes. It gives you two supply for your queen.)
Lair once you have collected around 200 gas, and make sure to throw down your spire as soon as it finishes. It's also important to try to not let your opponent scout your spire tech. mutalisks are easily countered so sometimes suddenly going hydras instead might be the better choice.
Depending on the pressure my opponent tries to play, I will make a few zerglings and Spine Crawlers. 4 is usually the magic number, it can take out quite a large attack force. When you have zerglings as well you can fight off almost any attack unless they do an all-in build then you might need to add more crawlers, and more zerglings. Scouting is very important at this stage in the game, so you can compensate your defenses for his unit count.
Once you get a small amount of mutas like 6-8 I'd recommend you go and harass your opponent as much as you can. Ideally you'll want to focus on disrupting his economy. Adding in a few more mutas while the gas comes in. Don't fear stalkers, mutalisks eat them for breakfast.
It's also very important to expand again in a secret location while your opponent is busy defending himself. You should also be teching and making different units. I usually like to go with zerglings/banelings/infestors. Against a Terran he'll start making more marines or thors to compensate for your mutalisks. This leaves him extremely weak to zerglings/banelings. Same thing can be said about Protoss, he'll most likely make cannons and more stalkers. Leaving himself weak to zerglings.
If the game drags on you should have enough bases and income to support Ultralisks. They're really solid units and a lot of bad players really over look them. A few ultralisks easily turn the tide in a battle.
I absolutely love mutalisks. I really liked them in BW as well. Hydralisks were my favourite though due to the fact they were so bad ass; their sounds, looks, and attack. They lost all of it in Sc2.
Mutalisks are such great harassment units. With just a small number of them I can keep my opponent in disarray for a very long time. They're very mobile and can grant you easy early-mid game map control in most cases. If you plan on playing Zerg I would really recommend working towards having great mutalisk control.
Here is a good video which shows the effectiveness of mutalisks.
Credit to: TheUENtv @ Youtube.
In closing I still enjoy using all the races. I still plan to stay a random user. Maybe I'll finally pick a race in the coming months. We'll see though.
I also plan to write up more strategies for Terran and Protoss.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
+1100
Image is heavily edited due to resizing issues with this blog.
I've reached my goal of 1100+ points earlier than I expected. However I'm on a 11 solo game win streak right now so I'll probably dip below 1100 a couple more times until I'm steadily past it.
Also lol @ Six in 6th place.
Positive and Negative Notes
The good side:
1. Fun factor; Despite my constant whining about Starcraft II it's still a very fun game to play. The game is young so build orders and unit compositions are not necessarily set in stone yet, which leaves a lot of flexible play. It's fun trying to make up your own unique rushes or build orders. With the amount of units available at your disposal the fun never ends. This was something that was essentially taken away with Broodwar, you absolutely had to play a certain way or you would get steamrolled. I'm sure the game will be a lot different in a year from now though. But for now... just enjoy the game in its youth.
2. The community; I actually don't mind if not "like" the Starcraft II community. When compared with games like CS:S, HoN, or Dota the SC community is godly. Most of the time it's people trying to help people. Granted the community still has it's turds like Idra for example, overall though the level of manner is much higher. People who play Sc2 generally want to better themselves at the game instead of sitting around yelling at everyone else for their own downfalls. I find games like Dota the absolute worst for this. I swear those games attract the most immature 13 year old kids out there. I've only come across a handful of bad mannered players.
Another thing I like is sometimes after you win a person will message you and ask you for tips on how to beat your specific strategy. I actually enjoy sharing my knowledge of the game with others and helping people out. I sometimes do the same myself, and as of yet I haven't had anyone tell me to "Beat it newb" or anything of the sort. People are always just glad to help. So if you're really looking for ways to get better just keep your cool and ask the community for help if you need it.
The bad side:
1. You don't learn much from ladder play; I feel this is really a huge problem with the current game. You absolutely need practice partners to actually get better. Ladder play isn't that great for multiple reasons.
You never play the same people. You think this would be a good thing, but it really isn't. You go into a game with no knowledge on your opponent, and he has no knowledge on you. It causes a lot of players to not play normally because of the uncertainties that are potentially in-store. The player pool is also very diverse, one game you go from playing a legitimately good player, to a very poor player. This happens to me ALL the time, it's quite annoying really.
Another issue with ladder play is people generally play to win. I mean sure we all play to win, but some people will do whatever is necessary to get an easy win. They're called cheesers. I've encountered a lot of them during my journey through the ranks. Majority of the time they fail and just leave the game. Both of you end up learning almost nothing other than to defend against cheese, and this creates a problem. You eventually find yourself with the ability to fight cheese, and once you play a good player. You just don't know what to do and end up losing.
There really isn't any way to avoid these problems if you want to play ladder though, so I guess complaining about them is pointless.
2. Ladder ranks need to be more diverse; Despite my previous whining about the ladder system I really feel that it's lacking. There just isn't enough leagues. Being a high diamond doesn't mean much really. I think there should be at least 1 lower league, and two higher ones added. Really separate the elite from the beginners. Make it so when someone says their in X league it actually means something. I think this would motivate people to try harder.
3. Minor note; I think there should be more unlockables and achievements. I personally don't really care about the achievements but there should be more options available to unlock. I won't really take this one into great detail because I'm not sure what else could be added without clustering things up too badly.
Overall:
Sc2 is still a really great game to play, I enjoy playing it even though I've been taking a semi-break lately to focus on other things. I still have a lot of fun playing it and learning new things. It's just a constant learning experience and self-challenging game. I would really recommend everyone to play it.
Buy it if you don't have it yet.
1. Fun factor; Despite my constant whining about Starcraft II it's still a very fun game to play. The game is young so build orders and unit compositions are not necessarily set in stone yet, which leaves a lot of flexible play. It's fun trying to make up your own unique rushes or build orders. With the amount of units available at your disposal the fun never ends. This was something that was essentially taken away with Broodwar, you absolutely had to play a certain way or you would get steamrolled. I'm sure the game will be a lot different in a year from now though. But for now... just enjoy the game in its youth.
2. The community; I actually don't mind if not "like" the Starcraft II community. When compared with games like CS:S, HoN, or Dota the SC community is godly. Most of the time it's people trying to help people. Granted the community still has it's turds like Idra for example, overall though the level of manner is much higher. People who play Sc2 generally want to better themselves at the game instead of sitting around yelling at everyone else for their own downfalls. I find games like Dota the absolute worst for this. I swear those games attract the most immature 13 year old kids out there. I've only come across a handful of bad mannered players.
Another thing I like is sometimes after you win a person will message you and ask you for tips on how to beat your specific strategy. I actually enjoy sharing my knowledge of the game with others and helping people out. I sometimes do the same myself, and as of yet I haven't had anyone tell me to "Beat it newb" or anything of the sort. People are always just glad to help. So if you're really looking for ways to get better just keep your cool and ask the community for help if you need it.
The bad side:
1. You don't learn much from ladder play; I feel this is really a huge problem with the current game. You absolutely need practice partners to actually get better. Ladder play isn't that great for multiple reasons.
You never play the same people. You think this would be a good thing, but it really isn't. You go into a game with no knowledge on your opponent, and he has no knowledge on you. It causes a lot of players to not play normally because of the uncertainties that are potentially in-store. The player pool is also very diverse, one game you go from playing a legitimately good player, to a very poor player. This happens to me ALL the time, it's quite annoying really.
Another issue with ladder play is people generally play to win. I mean sure we all play to win, but some people will do whatever is necessary to get an easy win. They're called cheesers. I've encountered a lot of them during my journey through the ranks. Majority of the time they fail and just leave the game. Both of you end up learning almost nothing other than to defend against cheese, and this creates a problem. You eventually find yourself with the ability to fight cheese, and once you play a good player. You just don't know what to do and end up losing.
There really isn't any way to avoid these problems if you want to play ladder though, so I guess complaining about them is pointless.
2. Ladder ranks need to be more diverse; Despite my previous whining about the ladder system I really feel that it's lacking. There just isn't enough leagues. Being a high diamond doesn't mean much really. I think there should be at least 1 lower league, and two higher ones added. Really separate the elite from the beginners. Make it so when someone says their in X league it actually means something. I think this would motivate people to try harder.
3. Minor note; I think there should be more unlockables and achievements. I personally don't really care about the achievements but there should be more options available to unlock. I won't really take this one into great detail because I'm not sure what else could be added without clustering things up too badly.
Overall:
Sc2 is still a really great game to play, I enjoy playing it even though I've been taking a semi-break lately to focus on other things. I still have a lot of fun playing it and learning new things. It's just a constant learning experience and self-challenging game. I would really recommend everyone to play it.
Buy it if you don't have it yet.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Is Terran too Versatile?
DISCLAIMER; First off I'd like to state that I know a new patch is coming out which has some confirmed Terran nerfs, so it may render this issues raised in this blog obsolete by the end of the month.
1. Marines/Marauders/Medivacs
For a game that likes to promote (If not downright force a player to) using a compositional army, Terran sure doesn't have to follow that. Unless you consider 2 Offensive units, and 1 support caster a composition.
I feel that right now MMM is gamebreaking. Whenever I random T and I am up against a Z or P I know it's going to be an easy game, and it almost always is. Unless the Zerg can get off some lucky baneling hits he's going to die. Unless the Protoss can keep me contained or out of his base long enough with forcefield, to get colossi he's going to die. Even then I could be producing tanks or a few vikings to counter them. Storm is laughable with proper micro it doesn't give you that much trouble. I just feel that MMM is too strong right now. The other races have to work so much harder to beat your much smaller army.
2. Easy and Good Macro System
Now due to the fact that Terran starts off slower than the other races due to only being able to produce 1 worker at a time, I feel this is somewhat okay, but it's still a little too good if you ask me. Because of these little guys...
Mules are really great mineral gatherers. Once you get up an orbital command and start pumping these guys you pretty much don't have to worry about your mineral resources anymore. I would really find this system fine if the other races didn't have such less forgiving methods; mainly Zerg.
With Zerg you have spawn larva, which takes a very long time to complete. If you miss casting it when you can that is just wasted time, and production. It really doesn't matter how much energy your queen has saved up.
With Protoss you can chronoboost your buildings. Now I actually feel this is balanced somewhat due to the fact you can chronoboost everything. I still don't feel it's as good as Terran's ability to gain such a huge economic lead though. Sure you may able to spit out a million probes, but they can only collect so fast. With Mules they can overlap workers on mineral patches, and they don't take any supply.
It's just not the minerals that are an issue either. If a Terran forgets to spend his energy it saves up to 200 which is enormous. This allows him to throw down multiple mules, or even increase his supply. Terran isn't disadvantaged by player error very badly compared to P/Z.
3. Terran Controls the Game
Due to MMM being very strong a Terran can gain control of the game very early. They can easily contain Z or P, and they're free to do whatever they want. The other races have to react to your actions the entire game. It's easily exploited as well. I've won countless games with just MMM use, it didn't even matter what they threw at me. I just feel Terran has it too easy compared to the other two races. With Zerg you're forced to make everything, and the same goes with Protoss. Meanwhile the Terran can just sit in his base and keep making the same 3 units.
With the upcoming nerfs I hope this changes the Terran meta game a bit. This will only matter if they do something about Marauders or Medivacs, which were not mentioned in the incomplete patch notes. So we'll see.
1. Marines/Marauders/Medivacs
For a game that likes to promote (If not downright force a player to) using a compositional army, Terran sure doesn't have to follow that. Unless you consider 2 Offensive units, and 1 support caster a composition.
I feel that right now MMM is gamebreaking. Whenever I random T and I am up against a Z or P I know it's going to be an easy game, and it almost always is. Unless the Zerg can get off some lucky baneling hits he's going to die. Unless the Protoss can keep me contained or out of his base long enough with forcefield, to get colossi he's going to die. Even then I could be producing tanks or a few vikings to counter them. Storm is laughable with proper micro it doesn't give you that much trouble. I just feel that MMM is too strong right now. The other races have to work so much harder to beat your much smaller army.
2. Easy and Good Macro System
Now due to the fact that Terran starts off slower than the other races due to only being able to produce 1 worker at a time, I feel this is somewhat okay, but it's still a little too good if you ask me. Because of these little guys...
Mules are really great mineral gatherers. Once you get up an orbital command and start pumping these guys you pretty much don't have to worry about your mineral resources anymore. I would really find this system fine if the other races didn't have such less forgiving methods; mainly Zerg.
With Zerg you have spawn larva, which takes a very long time to complete. If you miss casting it when you can that is just wasted time, and production. It really doesn't matter how much energy your queen has saved up.
With Protoss you can chronoboost your buildings. Now I actually feel this is balanced somewhat due to the fact you can chronoboost everything. I still don't feel it's as good as Terran's ability to gain such a huge economic lead though. Sure you may able to spit out a million probes, but they can only collect so fast. With Mules they can overlap workers on mineral patches, and they don't take any supply.
It's just not the minerals that are an issue either. If a Terran forgets to spend his energy it saves up to 200 which is enormous. This allows him to throw down multiple mules, or even increase his supply. Terran isn't disadvantaged by player error very badly compared to P/Z.
3. Terran Controls the Game
Due to MMM being very strong a Terran can gain control of the game very early. They can easily contain Z or P, and they're free to do whatever they want. The other races have to react to your actions the entire game. It's easily exploited as well. I've won countless games with just MMM use, it didn't even matter what they threw at me. I just feel Terran has it too easy compared to the other two races. With Zerg you're forced to make everything, and the same goes with Protoss. Meanwhile the Terran can just sit in his base and keep making the same 3 units.
With the upcoming nerfs I hope this changes the Terran meta game a bit. This will only matter if they do something about Marauders or Medivacs, which were not mentioned in the incomplete patch notes. So we'll see.
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