StarCraft II, Wings of Liberty

[EricJ]

Nice Job! definitely interested in watching the replays.

Here's a bunch:

http://www.acc.umu.se/~ericj/junk/sc2/

For some reason, the most memorable games tend to be the ones you win, so... Yeah, these are all wins. That said, they taught me a thing or two, the main thing probably being how my wins against Terran tend to be by starving them on two bases. Even when I'm a hundred supply ahead and maxed out, I don't move in for the kill. I'm not sure if I'm overly cautious, or just cruel.

Also, pardon the 10 pool. I was one game ahead, and I wanted to gamble a quick win against an opponent from a higher league than me.

[Facade19]

Alrite I installed the game. I am going to add whoever wants to be added. Time to kick ass!

[Allerion]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yWsVfwz ... h_response

what

[EricJ]

Very IdrA'esque.

[NoOoDLe]

Didn't play for 3 months.. Switched from Zerg to random cause I got bored with Zerg for the moment.. Dropped to Silver. =___='

Slowly developing skills with protoss and terran though.

[Allerion]

on Inside the Game, IdrA said he didnt know that MMA killed the CC, so he assumed that MMA had 3 bases and thought marines would be streaming in against his hurt mutas.

Maybe IdrA should practice when to GG

[EricJ]

Sometimes I think he would be the best Zerg in the world if he would just hold his gg until about a minute after he normally would.

[NoOoDLe]

Aaaaand... Blizzard has announced they're going to merge some of the servers. Not sure what this will mean though.

But.. With a bit of luck.. We can have the Ulthuan League in a while. :3

Edit: Nevermind. Husky got me excited for nothing. It's just America + Latin America, Korea + Taiwan and Europe + Russia. =___='

[Allerion]

Yeah, I was pretty dissapointed when it wasnt merging competitive servers together.

Did anyone else watch the NASL grand finals this weekend? MC vs Sen was probably the best series I have ever seen (havent watched the finals yet, but i know who wins.... i guess its worth it since its M freaking C playing...)

[NoOoDLe]

Same.. I haven't catched that one yet. Do wanna see though, big fan of MC. Kinda waiting for a cast to watch on that one.

Also, anyone else watching commentaries? Personally a big fan of Psy, Husky and TotalHalibut. Day9 on the other hand.. Ugh.. Hate him. He's way too smug and arrogant IMO even though all he's saying is "SCOUT, MAKE WORKERS, SCOUT, MAKE WORKERS, MAKE COUNTER TO WHAT YOU SCOUTED, SCOUT MORE" for like 2 hours straight.

[Allerion]

I dont really watch the "Joe Youtube's" much, mainly because even I can tell that the things they are saying that the players should do is pretty bad advice. And I spend most of the game watching the minimap wishing the rest of the screen would go to the battle thats going on while extraneous stuff is being talked about.

Personally I like day9. I dont watch his dailys much anymore, mainly because I generally can tell why I lost, and have to fix mechanics before I can worry about some of the things hes talking about. I Watch funday mondays, mainly for entertainment value though. I really dont see the smuggness and arrogance that a lot of people criticize him for, I kinda see him just criticizing someones game, kinda the same way an article goes through peer reviews before it is published. Pretty good caster IMO

[NoOoDLe]

I usually just watch the youtubers for the entertainment value. It's kinda like watching sports for geeks. xD

But yeah, Day9 keeps repeating the same shit over and over again. I've watched a few of his videos and casts and he makes as much mistakes as any other caster, more than most even. Misses battles as much as any other caster. Only he pretends he's perfect and people seem to worship him. Really don't like that. Especially things like calling every kind of command center an orbital command, whether it's an upgraded one, a planetary fortress or whatever... =__= Gets annoying very quickly. Also, the retarded advice he tends to give. Was watching the co-cast by him and Husky for the series with VileHashe and Optixzero and he was making all kinds of stupid remarks to either player making a lot of mistakes and not even saying the names of the players right.. Very annoying. Do not liek.

Edit: Spanishiwa vs. Goody cast by Day9 and Husky:
"Blueflame hellions are terrible in a straight up fight against zerglings." - Day9

Lolwut?

[Allerion]

Just tried to play like oGsMC when he was in NASL finals vs Sen.... that didnt go well.

Watched GSTL last night.... qxc played a TvT where he went hellion/tank/viking, and holy crap, that was the only interesting TvT ive ever watched. QXC's hellions killed over 100 scv's

[NoOoDLe]

I hate TvT as a match up to play and it's even worse to watch it.. Slow tank push into oblivion.. =_='

[EricJ]

Still in Platinum.

Among the matchups, I find my ZvP to be lacking the most. Typically, it pans out like this:

- I outmacro the Protoss like mad. To be expected, since a) that's what I'm good at, and b) I'm Zerg.
- I smash my ball of Roaches and Lings into his ball of Stalkers, Sentries and Colossi, with no clear winner.
- Repeat a couple of times.
- I lose to a series of awesome forcefields and/or poor positioning, and he overruns me. Alternatively, Void Rays/DTs.

So then I watched MorroW play, and notices he scraps Roaches completely and instead beats the Protoss deathball with Zerglings, Banelings, Infestors.

I've yet to try it, though. Thoughts? What's your take on the ZvP matchup?

[NoOoDLe]

I don't like MorroW's style personally. I mean, I've seen him skip roaches even when he scouts Hellions.. And then he loses to it. No surprise IMHO.

Also, deathballs fall to a number of things. I prefer roach/hydra/corruptor if I can't get to Broodlords in time. Also, mass mutas vs. Stalker/Sentry/Collosus is quite a lot more effective than you'd think. Snipe sentries first obviously.

Oh and if he over-comits to Phoenix after seeing your mutas. Steamroll with roaches.

Also, I've seen Psy use this a number of times: Infestors + Roaches + Baneling drops.

Root them with fungal growth, roaches as meatshield and banelings might not do extra damage vs. stalkers but they sure as hell annihilate them when dropped in the ball.

[EricJ]

I'm really comfortable in ZvZ now, basically ignoring any early Zerglings and just go for the quick Roach Warren on one extractor instead. Super safe, and it sets you up for a beautiful timing push while any excess minerals goes into drones.

But then there's the ZvT. I just obliterated the terrans mineral lines thrice with Mutalisks, and his response was to simply gather up his machines, walk over to my base and destroy it.

They're all going mech these days. Tanks, Hellions and Thors like there's no tomorrow, and anything I throw at them just sucks -- Zerglings melts to Hellions and Tanks, Thors leave the Mutalisks a red mist and Roaches lasts only about twice as long as anything else -- up to the Tank's second blast.

Am I supposed to have Ultralisks or Broodlords about when they have Thors?

[Allerion]

Still in Platinum, kinda getting tired of it, so I decided to actually 1v1 again.

I like PvT a lot. rarely lose to diamond terrans. PvP is about the worst matchup ever, but i think I found kinda what I want to do. Im clueless in PvZ. currently, my plan revolves around forge fe so i can cannon their expo, then 6gate all in. somehow they still have infestors out occasionally. really no idea what im supposed to do against infestors

I've yet to try it, though. Thoughts? What's your take on the ZvP matchup?

infestors are good. like really good.

Am I supposed to have Ultralisks or Broodlords about when they have Thors?

I think youre supposed to have broods, though i dont know what you do against vikings. probably supposed to fungal or neural parasite

[NoOoDLe]

Terran mech is a bitch as a Zerg.. But I've found that going very heavy on mutas works if they're low on Thors. If they're heavy on Thors you can go Roaches cause it's unlikely he has gas and production enough for both tanks and thors (roaches counter thors cost-effectively considering zerglings get blown to smithereens). But the best thing is to contain the terran for as long as possible. If he's going mech he can't expand if you don't let him. And if he's one 1 base you can get broodlords before he has his big slow-push ball of death ready. (I always prefer broodlords unless he has reactor-starports ready)

@Allerion, I have no clue what to do as protoss when I face infestors either.. Blink-stalkers tend to work, collosus if you can keep them out of NP range and sometimes DT's work. I suppose HT with feedback work as well but I'm not a fan of trying to click an infestor in between all the roaches and zerglings.. Also, I hate being cannoned out of my expos.. <.<' (Expect a nydus all-in in your main if you do it right)

[Allerion]

@Allerion, I have no clue what to do as protoss when I face infestors either.. Blink-stalkers tend to work, collosus if you can keep them out of NP range and sometimes DT's work. I suppose HT with feedback work as well but I'm not a fan of trying to click an infestor in between all the roaches and zerglings.. Also, I hate being cannoned out of my expos.. <.<' (Expect a nydus all-in in your main if you do it right)

Every time I get blink stalkers, they have infestor/ling, and a bunch of spread out blink stalkers tends to get raped by lings whenever I try it.

A few times Ive done a quick tech switch to double robo colossus, and its been ok, but it hasnt really solved the problem of infestors.

my HT tend to be in the back of my army, otherwise they have a tendency to get sniped by roaches. so by the time they can feedback, the fungals are already down. I have no idea about it, so im just trying to end the game before infestors at this point.

Someone did a nydus in my base that I didnt quite scout. my gateways were almost done when 15 roaches came into my base too.

[Elros Amandil]

I was wondering how long a typical game takes to play. All of this gaming sounds great, but I lost interest in RTS games years ago because they can take forever to play, even after one player is clearly in the losing position (this was a big problem with the first Red Alert). The last RTS game I played was the original Dawn of War and its first expansion, which I really enjoyed and didn't take too long. How does StarCraft II compare? Also, I HATED mining for resources which is another reason why I liked DoW. How does StarCraft II handle resources?
BTW you might really enjoy this link.

[NoOoDLe]

Giggled at the link :3

Also, I tend to prefer SC2 for it's fastpaseyness ^^ To my experience it's a lot faster than Dawn Of War (I've played Dark Crusade and Soulstorm and found that sometimes battles can last up to an hour because of the elaborate way the fights are displayed and well.. Units tend to take a long time to die to other units..) although it's a lot more dynamic.. So you can have a game (usually TvT) that's dragged out to like 50 minutes because of 2 slow tank-pushes are happening and that pretty much means that one waits for the other to be out of position and then they strike. And that can take a long fucking time..

Anyhozel.. It's usually not that bad. My average game is between 5 and 30 minutes depending on if the opponent succumbs to early pressure or not. And I lose about 33% of my games by default cause I suck at playing Terran... (I play random)

[EricJ]

Also, I HATED mining for resources which is another reason why I liked DoW. How does StarCraft II handle resources?

You won't like SC2 then, resource management is a fundamental piece in the game puzzle.

Economy-wise, the game basically boils down to a a game of risk/reward, wherein you can sacrifice current army strength for a stronger future economy. (or vice versa) Different races usually takes different approaches to this puzzle: for example, Zergs have the capability to power out a huge number of workers fairly early on, which if they did would give them a strong late game. Other races realize this, and thus it becomes their mission to delay creation of workers by forcing the Zerg to make warriors instead, or simply strike first and strike hard enough to make any long-term plan irrelevant.

So in this risk/reward game you can sacrifice future strength for immediate strength, vice versa, or something in between. While there are other aspects to the game as well, such as the rock/paper/scissor game of unit composition, I'd say resource management is the cornerstone upon which all else rests.

[Allerion]

I was wondering how long a typical game takes to play.

15 minutes or so

I HATED mining for resources which is another reason why I liked DoW. How does StarCraft II handle resources?

you build workers, and they mine for you. theres no farming like in WC3, but learning how to make the most stuff you can in as short of time as possible is difficult. Basically, at lower levels of gameplay, it typically turns into a battle of who has more stuff, rather than who can control their stuff better.

[Allerion]

AW YEAH

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKofewfeSoY

[EricJ]

Impressive.

Me, I'm considering finding out how to move your account from EU to NA and see what the players are like over here.

[Allerion]

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmes ... ge=74#1472

might be helpful, if you ever figure it out, we should play together

[EricJ]

Talked to Blizzard CS today, they offered me a one-time account-swap. That is, they'd allow me to change from EU to NA, but not the reverse in December. Obviously, the deal is terrible: I'd have to pay up another €60 to play the game once I get back to Europe.

I'm disappointed with Blizzard.

Edit: http://www.acc.umu.se/~ericj/junk/blizzard-dialogue.txt

[EricJ]

Seriously considering switching to Terran.

[Allerion]

After watching the HOTS thing at blizzcon, Im seriously considering switching from Protoss.