1621

Wait, what? Do tell.

I assumed – which makes all of us asses! – that the league was a general indicator of your skill level. I’ve been nestled at the top of silver for a week or so, assuming that when – not if, but when – I bust into gold, it’ll mean I start playing more difficult opponents.

-Tom
1622

I’ve been moved up to silver and I have no idea why as I still consider myself a bronze player. I think I’m going to put the game aside until the first balance patch is out as I’m just not enjoying multiplayer, team games are too chaotic for me and 1v1 frustrates the hell out of me.

1623

League is a good indicator of skill but it’s far from perfect. If you start in a certain league, but up your game significantly, there may be a significant lag before that gets translated into a promotion. In the meanwhile, you’ll likely be playing people from higher leagues. IMO, don’t worry that much about the league you’re in. Looking at the league of people you’re playing is a probably a better indicator of skill and if you win about 50% of your matches then it’s working as intended.

1624

In about a month or so, the SEA server players are allowed to connect to the US servers and play league games with you guys. I’m not exactly sure how that will affect league standing since I suspect that the gold standard around here is somewhat different from the gold standard in the states. (though thankfully, no where near the gold standard in Korea) I’m, at the very least, curious to figure out if my rank 1 gold ranking will hold true when playing with you yanks.

For the most part though, the SEA servers are doing a pretty decent job at matchups. I haven’t met anyone woefully underskilled, (only one bronze fight in 2 weeks) and only started fighting platinums where I got above rank 7 or so in the gold league. Even fighting platinums seems to give me a decent chance of winning if I don’t make stupid mistakes like forgetting to lower my supply and have my army milling around the base doing jackshit.

Either way, I’m itching to play some of the Qt3 folks. Demon and Reldan in particular.

1625

Should be fun! I hope I don’t disappoint you. I’m probably better in my understanding of the game than I am at actual execution. I typically know what I should be doing but still manage to not quite macro enough or not quite hit that transition fast enough and then it all goes pear-shaped.

1626

You supposedly have a hidden matchmaking rating which changes after your wins and losses, based on who your opponent was. That’s used to match you against people, regardless of which league the two of you are in. Matchmaking and league membership are definitely totally independent.

The league is supposed to be a general indicator or skill, but there seems to be some weird behavior with the way people are promoted and demoted. Often two players who the game believes are about the same skill are in drastically different leagues.

After you play a game, check the profile of the person you played against. They might be in a much higher or lower league than you.

1627

Oh man, I just played the best 4v4 in the history of … ever.

I’ve been getting really bummed about 1v1’s, and 2v2’s. I feel like there’s a lot of pressure to perform there. Weird, right? Basically, losses just feel extra frustrating.

So, a bunch of friends are on and we decide to try 4v4 for giggles. Immediately, it’s clear that we’re going to have fun. We lose a few games, and everyone is still having a good time. A loss is just an excuse to try some other completely ridiculous strategy.

So, we play a few rounds. In the early moments of a placement match a team mate folds to a rush. Except, he doesn’t even say “Guys, I need help”. He’s just like “I got this, I got this, don’t worry, attack them … well, I’m done”. We all start laughing.

My remaining team mates and I counter attack. We’re able to take out two enemy bases. Another one of our team succumbs to a rush. At this point it’s basically 2v2. Except, their team managed to sneak probes away, while half of our team just decided to AFK since they have no workers.

Eventually my team mates come back and see we’re still giving it a go. I share unit control. At this point two of my opponents are high up in the tech tree, and the other two are well on their way to recovery. My remaining ally gets steam rolled by void rays (IIRC), and he’s barely limping along.

So, it’s basically just me vs 2 fully functional players, and 2 crippled players. And, somehow we win. I guess it was my team mates micro’ing my units. Maybe I macro’d well. All I know is BC’s with 3 upgraded attack decimate everything that’s still 0/0.

It’s pretty terrible level of play, but here’s a replay:
http://drop.io/mtkqwph/asset/4v4-hahaha-what-happened-zip

TL;DR - Play 4v4’s if you’re frustrated with 1v1 or 2v2. There’s a lot less pressure, and it’s a nice way to improve on aspects that translate well to 1v1. For instance, it’s exceptionally difficult to defend in 4v4. As a result, you’re forced to be aggressive. You’re guaranteed to see a ton of cheesy plays, too. The good part is:

  1. You learn how to defend the cheese. (Bonus: it’s often hilarious).
  2. You learn to scout, be aggressive, and get rewarded for it.
    and 3) Since games are decided early, the matches probably won’t last long. It’s a good opportunity to master the early game.
1628

As a follow up, here’s a post by David Sirlin which discusses the league/matchmaking issue:
http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2010/7/24/analyzing-starcraft-2s-ranking-system.html

Here’s one that is more detailed:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=118212

It says that the matchmaking number is used to determine promotion/demotion in leagues. Although I’m not 100% convinced it operates as simply as they say, or that it’s working correctly.

1629

I just put up a bunch of my zerg replays if you guys want to take a look. Feel free to critique the hell out of them. My memory of my matches is fuzzy at best but I’ve been working on improving my BO.

http://drop.io/JabSC2replays

1630

One other handy trick for the zombie mission: you can kill the special zerg beasties that give you research points during the day by building a missile turret at their last known position. The turret will reveal them, (they’re wandering around burrowed during the day) and your daytime building-destroying forces can run over & kill 'em.

1631

So you’re saying 4 units in front of bunkers is enough to hold off the attacks with zero casualties? On hard? I find that difficult to believe since I had like at least ten units of marauders, firebats & medics in front of my bunkers on HOLD position and they still can take a beating.

Good idea. I think I found out why the mission was a pain for me. I didn’t have any of the upgrades you guys are talking about. No reapers, no turrets, no tanks. Just marauders, firebats, hellions, medics and marines. I finished the mission yesterday. I handled the research bugs by clearing out the area (and the way back) by day then when night falls taking out the bug and high tailing it home before it gets too rough.

1632

Moving back to multiplayer, I feel like I’m still learning some things, but also that my ability has started to stagnate a bit. I’m getting a solid-ish win percentage, but if I don’t roll my opponent over with my initial MM attack, then basically I have no plan B. I’ve watched a lot of videos (including the key Day9 stuff aimed at us noobies) and read a lot of team liquid, but again, I’m at a level where a lot of the things are a little beyond me. I’m slowly learning counters and what to build in the face of certain units, but basically I can’t control my guys and effectively manage my base simultaneously, plus if a game goes on too long I basically kind of think to myself, well, I don’t know what to do next, I can’t manage what I already have, I’ll probably lose, so I kind of lose interest altogether. How bad is that, right? I usually pride myself on my attention span.

I can kind of work on that stuff, but there are also a couple of really basic things that everybody else seems to know that I don’t, that I really want answered but can’t find written anywhere. Anybody fancy helping me out with the answer to the following really stupid questions?

  1. Where should I put my rally points? Outside my front ramp? Inside the base? Outside my enemy’s ramp? I usually keep them inside my base until my initial sortie, then set them to the enemy’s ramp. The latter often sees my units getting munched up piecemeal on their way over if the enemy resists my initial push (which is about half the time).

  2. How should I be laying out my base? I know to wall off my ramp, but then I just plonk shit down wherever.

  3. I always fuck up my hotkeys and then have no idea how to remove the SCV that’s mixed in with my barracks, or whatever. The manual appears to actually be a short novella recapping the excreably clichéd sci-toss that forms the fiction. Rather than, you know, anything about the game.

  4. When do I make my next base? Should that base be defended in any real sense? Should I build turrets? When I have a shitload of SUVs and my minerals start getting depleted, should I just remove them en masse and send them to the other base or do some sort of micro-management nightmare where I only rip the surplus ones from the remaining mineral piles? The thought of building a third base is terrifying, so let’s not even go there. Even my second base is usually just a sop to my conscience with about three SUVs working on it. I already forget to build pretty much anything after the first ten minutes or when explosions are happening.

  5. Is there any response to “our SUVs are under attack”/the enemy is in your base other than surrendering? That’s usually what I do.

  6. So I’ve built three barracks, some supply depots, etc. I am amassing a group of Marauders and Marines. I assume I should now be building starports and factories, but in what quantity? Reactors or tech labs? I usually make a token effort at building siege tanks, but they come out so sloooooowly that often I am overwhelmed before I have enough to make a difference. Likewise everything from starports.

  7. What’s the best way to actually attack? Pressing T seems to make everyone divide their attack inefficiently, right-clicking stuff focuses it but also makes everyone who can’t hit whatever I’m clicking amble around uselessly.

So yeah. I suck really, really badly. Still 20th in my bronze league though!

1633

3: Select the units you want to be in the control group, then press ctrl + number. Alternatively, bring up the control group by pressing the corresponding number key, shift-click the portraits of the units you want to remove, and then press ctrl + number.

4: Whenever feels right. Which can vary; if the enemy has a whole fucking lot of dudes you maybe want to make sure you have a sufficient defense before expanding. Also, you should be pretty much constantly building workers, so, well, when your main field is saturated and you have spare minerals. Should it be defended? Well, I usually scatter some photon cannons…

If you’re forgetting to build things, hotkey your nexus/command center and every goddamn seventeen seconds hit the hotkey and start a new worker. Don’t queue them; queued units are minerals that are not doing anything for you. Minerals that aren’t doing anything for you are minerals poorly used. It’s okay to not be perfect about doing this. Just focus on getting a little better all the time.

5: If your workers are under attack, select them and run away from the attackers while your army moves to smash them. When the coast is clear, go back to work.

1634

Four or five firebats and three medics on hold at each door was enough to survive the first five nights on brutal. By the sixth night I had added 2 or 3 more of each and the zombies were able to take out my bunker just as it turned to day 7. Fortunately I had built up a huge reaper squad by then and they finished off the remaining buildings. I probably should have been able to do it in four or five nights but I had been kind of sloppy with the path I took through the enemy bases.

Don’t forget that if you give any of the units a move order the hold gets canceled. There were a few times I wanted to reposition and I lost some guys because I forgot to tell them to hold again after moving.

1635

Ditto. This is my exact issue also. And better said than I could have.

1636

Pretty much. Have an SCV behind the bunkers to repair a bit of damage, at least three bunkers per side full of infantry. The Firebat/Marauder soaks up 95% of the damage, most of the time. That’s what i did on Brutal.

1637

Back on the multiplayer front, has anyone figured out a reliable counter for Protoss to beat terrans massing fast infantry?

1638

Thanks for the hotkey stuff - I’ve been looking all over for that! Useful to know. I am very good at mechanically pumping out workers every by pressing 55q every time I hear SUV ready… until I have to do something involving my army. Like you say, I can work on it. If I can be bothered. It often starts feeling a bit like work. Which I suppose it is, in a way. I should have got being shit at RTS out of the way when I was a teenager, so I can use my much more valuable time now being decent and having a good time like I do with pretty much every other genre.

1639

I finally got promoted to diamond in 1v1.
I just wanted to brag, because I had to work up from the copper league in beta. I should prolly just retire now. I don’t have the micro skills to compete at this level.

1640

What are they massing, Marines or Marauders? In the long run, Collossi obviously. But one Colossus isn’t enough, esp. vs. lots of Marauders.

In the short term remember you HAVE to use Sentries. Their shields will cut Marine damage down (un-upgraded) by 33%. High Templar are the best medium term solution vs. all Marine armies, but they’re a micro-hell unit. Fire their storm off at the wrong time or get them killed = dead Protoss.