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Hey,
I've been playing SC2 again for a few months now and am looking for more people to practice with. If anyone is interested, I'd like to start up a list of players here. So just give your username and player code (or your battle.net email if you want), and what server you are on.
NA:
Rostum: Rostum - 444
Vivi22: Vivi - 276
JKTrix: JKTrix - 792
Lionx: Lionx - 512
I've actually been playing quite a bit the last few months as well. Mostly cooperative and single player, though some 1v1 at the end of last season. I've been wanting to play some more as well so I wouldn't mind some practice. I'm in the North America region: Vivi - 276
Sweet, added to list. Also I'll add you later on SC2. :D
Hmm, seems we may be the only ones who either play SC2 or want to play some 1v1.
Just curious but have you ever seen Day[9]'s video series on Starcraft 2? Day[9]TV
I found it a few months back after watching some of the MLG finals earlier this year (which actually brought me back into playing SC2), and I've learned quite a bit from them. In fact, I think I can actually credit watching those with greatly upping my game, almost before I even played one again. I have to say I like how the competitive game has developed over the last year. Feels like there's a lot more depth and robustness to the different strategies out there.
Yeah it's a shame no one else will reply! >:( People feel free to talk about SC2 in general as well!
I like Day9's commentating at MLG, but I didn't realise he had a bunch of videos. I'll check them out thanks! I play Terran and my builds are fairly ordinary and predictable, but I still manage to win for the most part - just MMM and banshee harrassement. I have to laugh at a lot of people trying to do reaper harrassement though, it's far too easy to repel and they are generally slow at it (not to mention wasting all that gas).
My builds are pretty ordinary as well to be honest, though when I play against CPU opponents I like to experiment to see what I can get away with building as fast as possible. The computer doesn't really miss much in the early game so their first attack in co-op or single games can be devastating if you don't prepare properly. Especially when playing on Very Hard. I find it can be good practice for fending off early attacks, whereas if I see someone expanding or any other signs early harass isn't coming then I can relax and macro more.
But anyway, the nice thing about fairly ordinary builds is that instead of just trying to focus on some weird out of left field play that may or may not work, you get used to the fundamentals: expanding, macroing well, unit control in battles, positioning, timings, and all of that good stuff that helps to build you up as a better player. Especially in the lower ranks like Bronze-Gold, being good at that stuff and knowing how to fight off the weird funky things that less skilled players do can get the victory more often than not.
I also have to laugh at the idea of Reaper harass. It's one of those things that if you catch the person sleeping it can do some real early damage, but if it fails it leaves you really vulnerable. You spend a lot of time building the barracks, getting the tech lab and the better part of a minute just building the reaper, in addition to using the gas as you mentioned. You can pretty much bet that someone going for early Reaper harass is going to be low on Marines, Marauders or both, and they won't be getting tanks very early. I play Protoss myself so I wouldn't be trying it anyway, but I just couldn't see myself resorting to it. Like you said, it's easy to defend, and if you get it out early enough for it to have a chance of working then it puts you way behind in the early game. It might be worth it if the distance to your opponents base is short, but even then I'd probably skip it and look to expand earlier instead.
I've been playing Starcraft since... 1999? 2000? Sometime around then. I sort of fell out of it, though. I mess around in SC2 sometimes but mostly I just play it as a graphical upgrade of the original; I hardly use any of the new units or anything.
I don't really follow any of the tourneys or streams or whatever the Korean kids are into these days. Starcraft, to me, has always been about just derping around with the AI, so that's probably what I'll continue to do.
(SPOILER)Once Huxley and I played Brood War several years back; it was a three hour long stalemate and we each took over exactly half of the map and then turtled until we ran out of resources. Then we turtled some more. It was glorious :bigsmile:
I used to play a lot of shared base games in Brood War and pretty much all of them went like that, except worse since you had 50,000 minerals per mineral node.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pike
Ahhh, good ol' memories of Shared Base games and the way you'd get those "Max units created" errors and then Valkyries would quit working because of it.
And then of course there were always those $$$$FASTEST MAP EVER$$$$ games... good times.
The map Huxley and I played on for our glorious stalemate game was Lost Temple. Such a good map...
...well now I feel like playing Starcraft. :mymelbert:
I felt like playing Starcraft. Then it crashed a few levels in and refuses to connect to Battlenet to update.
But yeah, I remember the map maxed messages very well. That didn't used to happen and the game was a laggy mess by the end. Then they put that in there and now instead of a laggy mess, we had a laggy mess where Valkyries didn't work and one of your teammates inevitably didn't build a damn thing. Fun times.
Well, I finally got my placement match for this season out of the way. I personally hate the placement matches because I hate losing and want to do well, but always seem to end up paired with an opponent who is clearly better than me and just get the crap kicked out of me and stuck in the silver league anyway. I actually tend to get a bit of a case of nerves with the placement matches, which might just be from not playing a lot of 1v1. I know how to win, just don't have the practice to execute it. Granted, this time around I had a hard fought battle as Protoss vs. Terran for almost 40 minutes, but by the end he was harrassing me from too many different directions and wore me down while preventing me from expanding to a third base. I was trying to keep him from expanding as well but I never managed to get any colossus out to deal with his MMM army (largely my fault. I thought I had built a robotics bay but had really completely forgotten it and was fighting tooth and nail to not die when I really needed to be getting colossus out), so he just kept draining my resources as I suffered bigger losses than him in just about every skirmish.
I'm not sure I'm really enjoying playing Protoss right now though. It hasn't felt quite right since I've been playing a lot of Terran/Random in cooperative mode so I think I'll be playing Terran for a while at least and see how it goes. I did play a second game right after my placement match and went Terran against a Zerg player and won quite handily with an MMM army backed up with tanks and some Vikings. My favourite part was when I had him pushed back to his main and natural expansion and he built 7-8 spine crawlers in front of his expansion. So I scanned his main, saw no spore cannons and said screw that. Loaded up the medivacs and dropped right in his main to completely finish him.
I think I'll have to go back and watch Terran week from the Day[9] dailies though. I have a rough idea of unit matchups and some builds and strategies, but I haven't put the time into learning it that I was for Protoss.
Yeah, Terran MMM is pretty effective in the lower leagues. I still haven't played a proper league match yet, and am scared to, lol.
I have real gripe with the Very Hard AI though, it feels like it's almost not worth using to practice. All they do is bum rush you at the earliest time possible, and I'm finding it rather difficult to hold on.
I probably wouldn't even try the very hard AI to be honest. I've played against it in cooperative mode before and that really is just about all it does. Unless at least one of your teammates cheeses with a very early cannon rush or something it is nearly impossible to hold off the first attack. And even if they do cheese your odds might still just be 50/50. And unlike lower level AI's, after that first attack, they just keep massing up and coming at you faster than I actually thought was possible, which is bad because you're probably half dead and desperately trying to expand after the first attack so you can gain some ground.walling off with some early siege tanks, or rushing to get as many stalkers and sentries as you can right away are about the only thing Terran and Protoss can do short of cheesing, which I don't like since it can leave you unable to recover if it fails.
And I hear ya on the league matches. I actually get so nervous when I do them that my hands are a bit shaky at the start. I'm not really sure why they make me so nervous, but once I'm in them I kind of calm down a bit, and then when I finish and I'm finally placed it's quite a sense of relief, and I realize it wasn't really that bad anyway. The second game is always much easier. Just go in accepting that you will lose and probably lose a lot and it's not so bad. Keep in mind that you're still learning so your goal isn't even really to win yet. It's to improve now so you can win later. Play a bunch of games, see how you do, and when there are some where you don't know where you went wrong or how your opponent did something, save the replay and go over it later to see if you can figure out how to fix what went wrong.
You know i would play...but my cpu is in trouble for quite some time..and still an ongoing process..=/ Still my SN is Lionx as you should know :)
As for Protoss, you really have to either go early Blink Stalker aggression with good Probe scouting, or you sit back and get your Robo Facility and pump that Observer out to see what the Terran player is doing. In general i would get more Immortals and Collosi if i am fighting MMM(very likely matchup since Marauder is so cost efficient). Chargelots are also recommended. Stargate not so much because Marine is so good against most Stargate units used for early harass. If the map is huge, a FFE build might be good to get the funds needed in anticipation of MMM from most average Terran players.
Very Hard is good to learn how to hold off early rushes and expanding correctly. Outside of that, I wouldn't get nuts over them.
The feeling of shakiness is attributed to the same nervousness as Tournament jitters in any said game. This is attributed to the fact that in 1v1, you have no one to fall back on but yourself, and therefore if you lose its all your fault. Only experience and familiarity with the game through alot of research and playing can get rid of this. The mindset has to change in order for this to not be an issue...the pros already know the builds, the execution, flow/game sense so well that stuff like this is not an issue. So therefore they only focus on the opponent's head. Its hard to put into words, but if you are just so in tune with the game and are 'in that zone'...you will kinda know what i mean.
Digressing a little, but consider watching this if you feel outplayed or the opponent is 'too good': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSspT...er_profilepage
This guy was the 2nd best SFII player back in the day (uncontested) but he talks across alot of games. Alot of good insight if you are willing to spend the time to watch.
Hurry up and get your PC fixed, yo! Also give us your name and user code and I'll add it to the list. :)
Sometimes I feel so boss stomping on a newbie in practice league, and then watching the replay I feel like a real douche. :(
Thanks to this thread I am re-downloading SC2 (I can't find my discs so I'm just downloading it from battle.net). It's gonna take a while. In the meantime, I'll play Darkest Hour.
Great post Lionx, which I think actually points out some of my main issues right now. Effective scouting and harassment. You could probably say spending my damn resources quickly too, but I'm continually improving that. In fact, I played a few games yesterday where all of that kind of came into play in either losing the game or winning it. In the first two, a TvT and TvZ, I sat back and didn't harass or scout well enough really while my opponents built up forces that could harass me fairly effectively. In the TvT looking back on it, I did scan often enough to know what he had, but didn't really know in the moment how to deal with it, so instead of simply building a ton of tanks and marine/medivac to steamroll him (he mostly had reapers and some MMM going on with a few tanks for defense) I tried doing some cloaked banshee harass and let my building my main force of Marines and Tanks fall behind. I even had tanks placed all over my base because I was worried about Reaper and Drop harass, but I think I could have easily left a few in some key locations with a few marine/marauder to back them up and been fine if I had just attacked. Same sort of thing happened with the Zerg player, except I didn't use scan much at all (don't even ask me why because I'm really not sure). And while I was building up a bit of my usual Marine/Tank force he rushed to Broodlords and Corrupters. You can probably imagine how prepared I was for that. I wasn't really building units as quickly and efficiently as I should have been either, but had I scouted what he was doing and attacked sooner he would have had a lot of trouble dealing with it.
On the plus side I finished the afternoon with a TvP that went much better. I felt more comfortable to some extent since I know that matchup from the otherside, and I just decided going in that I was going to focus on pumping out units constantly and getting a quick expansion if I could. I saw him take a pretty early expansion so felt safe taking one as well (I could wall off my natural's ramp too which was a plus). Then I just built a bunch of barracks a few factories and some upgrades and massed Marine/Medivac and Tank. I kept scanning him and didn't see too much aside from him taking a third as well so I moved out to destroy it. Parked my Tanks outside, scanned to take out some cannons then ran the Marines in. He fought it off but I took it out. He tried to counter my third with some DT's but I got it up and fought them off after some finaggling. Kept scanning as I moved out a second time and managed to catch his army completely out of position with my tanks ready in the middle of the map. The game was pretty much over at that point. I rolled up to his natural hoping to break into his base and screw up his production as I felt I had a pretty big lead and handily took the win. Now if I can just get the experience needed to do that more often things will be pretty good.
I also wanted to post something I found on the Team Liquid forums though which seems interesting and I think I'm going to try for a bit. It's essentially a guide for improving as Terran aimed at helping to get players from Silver to Platinum. The latter part of it requires a practice partner, but that shouldn't be an issue for all of us :D :[L] Accelerated learning for mid/low level Terrans
It basically starts you off with a 3 racks build and has you drill it into memory and focusing on macroing effectively at the start. Once you have that down it has you build onto that in terms of your game awareness and whatnot with the intent of building up the skills you need to play at a high level. I think it appeals to me because it includes practice for things I know I need to work on, but offers a more focused path for doing it than simply playing a lot and waiting for it to work itself out as you play a lot of games.
I figured I'd post it, particularly since Rostum is playing Terran as well right now.
And Pike, I somehow knew you may not be able to resist some SC2 after all of this talk about it. :D
"Install failed", followed by a bunch of error messages :( I'll figure it out later, I suppose.
Yeah I've been trying to scout and harrass a lot more, and notice that when I don't is the game I lose. I've kind of gone off banshee since starting the silver league, as most players love to waste their resouces on mass missle turrets / spore cannons / protoss cannons. So the intial scout will help me in determining if I should even bother.
Ah I love the Team Liquid website, I just find a lot of the information is overwhelming for me. But I shall give that link a good read.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vivi22
I decided to just go ahead and skip the practice league. The first ranking match (out of five) I won with incredible ease, then I continued to be pummeled throughout the last four matches. I've gone back and watched all the replays and it seems I'm just not expanding quick enough, or I've wasted my resources in trying to combat something that the opponent didn't have.
Still, I made it in to the silver league at rank 50. Not sure what that means, but I easily won the first silver league match I played.
I think they pretty much, in ranking battles, they slowly up the difficulty based on the guy's win/loss ratio with each match you play. So it gets progressively harder based on your performance. I remember last season I played 5 matches...each 1 getting closer and closer until I lost the last one and got Platinum...each enemy was higher in their division rank with the last guy I played being Master League.
Banshee harass is still good. It might make them over commit to static defense. Remember static defense is good but not en mass. They do not move, only protect a static portion of area around them, and cannot be refunded unless its a bunker. Resources spent on them when they are not needed, mean they are not spending enough resources on the main army. So if you see them with too much Static D, just rush them or siege down/frontline camp their defenses while expanding. Chances are, their army composition in the early game is weak. You, have map control.
Note that this might actually prompt a response from them to go air since they feel trapped (especially Zerg Muta), in which you should scout after a decent timing window and see what they are up to so you can make just enough Static D for yourself or get the right army composition.
So again, Banshee harass is still good. You don't actually have to do too much damage with the Banshee too, just having it there makes the other guy feel unnerved.
--
Lately i seen more people go Reaper(or 2) then straight into Expand for a more economic build. The Reaper(s) keep the other guy honest while you do your thing. Transition to Hellion(with or without BF), then Banshee, while still expanding and on the side making your main MMM(vs P) or MMTank(vs Z or T) army.
Whelp, I've been doing the 3 rax build lately and have been winning. But only really just by a tad. I need to work on scouting / expanding more. I think I'll go back to starting out with some harrassment, despite it holding back my initial army.
I just had the most unnessecarily long league match, it went for 50 minutes for some god forsaken reason. We both had half map control, except he decided he'd go mass battlecruiser. I mean, really? You mass them? A small portion of vikings soon took them down, he had nothing else and still tried to hang on. So most of that 50 minutes was me running around the map killing off his bases.
I kept thinking throughout the whole thing "I should be smarter than this" to end it quicker.
He is probably an OG SC1 player lol. When Massing Battlecruisers used to be good..:( God they suck now.
I've been practicing it a lot against the computer and playing some team games. One thing I'm noticing is that if you don't scout some early all-in it can be hard to hold off an initial attack. But if you do hold off an early all-in and follow through well with a strong counter attack and expand, you can do a lot of damage. I had a 4v4 game last night where three of our opponents did proxy all-ins. Sadly we scouted it too late to really stop it. I didn't get attacked in the initial wave though so by the time they got to me I had enough marines and marauders that with the two tanks I also got I broke through a cannon rush and destroyed the armies of two other guys, following it up by destroying their proxy gates and forcing their barracks to lift off. Looking at the replay after, I think I could have salvaged the win had I not attacked the guy who cannon rushed first as he had had time to build up some forces by then and was rushing to void rays, with my marine count too low to deal with them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rostum
Anyway, point being that this 3 rax build is seeming pretty strong to me when I pull it off pretty cleanly. It does lose to all-ins sometimes so careful scouting is important, but I haven't really seen any all-ins in 1v1 yet.
Something else to note is that when you do hit 50 supply and move out for your first big attack (assuming all has gone to plan), you'll generally have enough minerals to slap down a command center at your natural, and it won't interfere with making more units that much, not that it matters much if you're attack is reasonably successful).
One thing I've learned from watching the Day[9] dailies is that SC2 is largely a game about managing expansions. Both making sure that you can expand and that your opponent can't. Preventing them from expanding altogether is preferred, but anything you can do to harass or destroy their expansions (or main) and disrupt their mining can put you a little farther ahead on economy, and like Lionx said before, you disrupt their plans since they now have to spend more resources trying to deal with the harass or counter your attack so they can safely expand. A guy going for BC's is probably not going to have a huge army to deal with that kind of harass early on. So even little things like dropping marines or blue flame hellions on his mineral line, or cloaked banshees can be tough to deal with. Even better if you can do it in two places at once. Blue flame hellions in particular can be so utterly devastating that a medivac loaded with four of them may kill almost all of his mining SCV's before he an react, but obviously you want to scan/scout to try and see what he has and if he can deal with it.Quote:
I just had the most unnessecarily long league match, it went for 50 minutes for some god forsaken reason. We both had half map control, except he decided he'd go mass battlecruiser. I mean, really? You mass them? A small portion of vikings soon took them down, he had nothing else and still tried to hang on. So most of that 50 minutes was me running around the map killing off his bases.
I kept thinking throughout the whole thing "I should be smarter than this" to end it quicker.
Now if only I could learn to execute this stuff half as well as I can talk about it I'd be a dangerous man on Battle.net. :D
Hahaha I have no idea what anyone is talking about when they use all this terminology from the big SC2 sites or whatever. :x
I just play like I have for years: Build/scout/expand intelligently, build a whole bunch of dragoons (or whatever they're called now), dark templars, and observers, and eventually just send 'em all in.
(SPOILER)I have won quite a few 1v1 games this way
I'll try not to confuse you too much then. We want to get you back into it so we have someone else to play with after all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pike
Speaking of, when are you usually on Rostum? I play games here and there throughout the day but never see you online. I wouldn't mind getting some practice in with you if there's a time that you usually play.
Ah, I'm in +10 GMT time zone so it might be difficult. I am on randomly too. What time zone are you in?
In fact, I'll just leave SC2 on in the background while I work.
Also Pike and Lionx, feel free to share your user name and user codes. :)
-4 GMT. But I'm terrible with time zone conversions and going to play a few games of SC2 right now so I'm not sure where that really leaves us. I tend to do most of my playing anywhere between 11:00 am and 11:00 pm depending on what I have on the go on any given day.If there's any mildly convenient time of day where we both are awake and available to play I would assume it would fall on a weekend?Quote:
Originally Posted by Rostum
EDIT: Scratch what I said above partly as Rostum and I just had 2 games. The first a 1v1 and then we jumped into a 2v2 game. Must say I was impressed not just with how you played Rostum, but with how much our builds tended to diverge after the initial 3 rax build. And well done on stomping those two zerg players. I look forward to playing with you again as those were easily two of the best games I've had yet (with the first one being something of a 53 minute epic :D).
No idea what mine is; I haven't played in months and I'm having trouble getting the game to even reinstall at the moment... I'll let you know if I ever get it working.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rostum
Yeah they were fun games! You did really well with both games. The 3 rax build is definitely a solid starting point. Later on I'll go back and watch replays of both our games, always helps.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vivi22
What's errors are you getting? Maybe we can help you out with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pike
On my Linux partition the game runs fine through Wine but I'm getting no sound, which is odd because I used to get sound with a bit of tweaking (typically by changing the sound configuration in winecfg to esound, which has since mysteriously disappeared from the menu.) Normally I wouldn't say this is a big deal but you'd be surprised how much I need those audio reminders of "upgrade complete" and whatnot.Quote:
Originally Posted by RostumWhat's errors are you getting? Maybe we can help you out with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pike
On my Windows XP partition the game just plain isn't installing. First it tells me that I don't meet the system requirements; then it attempts to install anyway and quits at the end with a bunch of error messages. I can't recall what those error messages are exactly, as I am on my Linux partition at the moment.
Have you tried checking the Blizzard support site or forums? I actually have issues with the downloaded version of Starcraft I tried installing a few weeks ago but haven't taken the time to resolve them yet (I know the disc is somewhere but damned if I could find it right now). A quick glance at their support site at least offered me some stuff to try when I find the inclination. I know they'll probably have nothing about running it in Wine, but they may have some fixes for your XP issue.
Minor bumpage since MLG Raleigh is streaming this weekend: MLG Pro Circuit: Live
Watching the blue stream with Day[9] and Husky commentating right now. I probably won't see a lot until the videos show up in the archive, but still pretty cool to watch some live.
Oh sweet, will be watching.
I am not too sure about Linux, but is the game compatible with Windows XP? I can't remember the system requirements. I'm assuming it needs DX9 to run, does XP have that?
It is compatible. Windows XP tops out at DX9, and a company would have to be a little crazy to not still release games that will run on it, though that may change in a few years with Windows 7 being quite popular.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rostum
Ah ok, well I'm not sure. What are the errors you are getting? My only thoughts are that your computer just doesn't meet the requirements. :(
Just finished watching one badass series of games between Ret and Nada at MLG. Good god Nada may be the king of comebacks after the last two games.
Yeah those matches were intense!
I'll give the install another shot next time I have some free time. I will admit-- my computer is getting pretty dated. I've run it in the past, though, all on lowest settings.
The grand final matches between Coca and Bomber were pretty awesome. I honestly thought Bomber was going to lose the second match, but he managed to hang in there quite well and end up winning. The last one seemed way too easy for Bomber though.
I only caught maybe the last two minutes of that so I'll have to watch it when the separate videos all go up eventually.
I did catch Idra playing yesterday, taking the first game and then having two quick losses after in the usual, Idra seemed to gg because he got pissed off sort of way. I won't deny Idra is a great player, but the more I see of him the less I like him as a person. Seems rather full of himself in interviews, and has a tendency to quit when things don't go his way. I can understand if he all in's and fails, but the first game I saw him quit yesterday he had a failed push at the other guys base but he didn't seem to be in a terrible spot. I certainly saw some other players either turn around, or almost turn around worse situations than the one he was in.
So I was perusing the archives of Day[9] dailies and came across an early one about a 2v2v2v2 BGH game in Brood War that I figured was worth sharing. I spent most of it cracking up at how awesome it is. I think you'll appreciate this one as well Pike. It reminded me of just why Brood War was so damn awesome.
Day[9] Daily #65 - 2v2v2v2 BGH Fun | Day[9] on blip.tv
BGH! Best map ever!
I'm gonna add Vivi and Rostum. I don't play as often as I did a year ago but I do pop on now and then, and still watch Day9 religiously.
He cried last night!
JKTrix@792 for anyone else. I roll Protoss. I'm not that good.
Lionx 512
Desperation DTs!
I need to get back on. I was playing it so much for a while that I was starting to burn out, but it's been about a week with no SC2 and I'm getting the itch again.
Yeah same, I went away for a bit too. But now I am back on it.
Apparently I've been sidetracked by Dawn of War 2 lately. That said, Day [9] was back this week with an awesome funday Monday. I feel the desire to play more SC2 building.