Now that starcraft 2 has been out for more than a year...

[lothar]

Protoss win-rates are too low. Game imba.

 

[Pia]

Spamming Marines isn't really cheese or anything. Marines are actually a rather versatile unit with their lack of gas and ability to shoot ground and air. The only problem is that they are rather squishy.

A modest player could have easily held off your spamming and went for some good AoE that would demolish heavy Marine play.

It's not so easy to hold off, if the marine player controls his guys at least a bit and is prepared to contain and macro up when necessary instead of suiciding everything. It's also not easy to know when you should start building that good AoE to get it out in time and in sufficient numbers. I'm positive you can make it into platinum league without ever building another combat unit besides marine.

Did you at least get stim and shields for the Marines?

I have tried playing Free For All without mining any gas for the lulz (so the only available unit is mass marine, no upgrades). Played something like five 4-player FFAs. Won two of them. It was hilarious pushing a protoss player who had a handful of colossi. He microed about as well as possible, so he was murdering the marines and it was impossible to kill any of the colossi, but I constantly microed some marines against the colossi to push them back and buy a few seconds for the latest reinforcement marines to do another bit of damage to the nearest building. Since my marine production capacity was enough to keep me at 200/200, I just very very slowly pushed across his bases and razed them. I also killed terrans which had siege tanks but didn't have enough or failed at positioning.

 

[irishScott]

It's not so easy to hold off, if the marine player controls his guys at least a bit and is prepared to contain and macro up when necessary instead of suiciding everything. It's also not easy to know when you should start building that good AoE to get it out in time and in sufficient numbers. I'm positive you can make it into platinum league without ever building another combat unit besides marine.
I have tried playing Free For All without mining any gas for the lulz (so the only available unit is mass marine, no upgrades). Played something like five 4-player FFAs. Won two of them. It was hilarious pushing a protoss player who had a handful of colossi. He microed about as well as possible, so he was murdering the marines and it was impossible to kill any of the colossi, but I constantly microed some marines against the colossi to push them back and buy a few seconds for the latest reinforcement marines to do another bit of damage to the nearest building. Since my marine production capacity was enough to keep me at 200/200, I just very very slowly pushed across his bases and razed them. I also killed terrans which had siege tanks but didn't have enough or failed at positioning.

Can't really judge based on FFAs, they're unranked for a reason. Also sounds like the protoss player you're talking about was either seriously damaged or completely incompetent. Frankly the fact that you were even able to get to 200/200 and stay there speaks to the incompetence of every player you were going against.

Ever stop to consider how vulnerable your base was while you were wrecking this protoss guy? If it were me I'd warp in a few DT and you'd be done.

 

[finbarqs]

5:30, terrans will have approximately 16 marines, if all in. you can fight that off easily if prepared. 2 stalkers, and a sentry... marine range is 6, stalker is 7

 

[mikeymikec]

Chaoslauncher.

Thanks for that, I shall look into it

 

[Pia]

Can't really judge based on FFAs, they're unranked for a reason. Also sounds like the protoss player you're talking about was either seriously damaged or completely incompetent. Frankly the fact that you were even able to get to 200/200 and stay there speaks to the incompetence of every player you were going against.

That protoss was damaged. The point is that it is not easy for a lower league player (which is what shortylickens and Aikouka were discussing) to put together stuff that automatically and completely stops marines, and enables you to push the marine player instead of just defending and starving to death. In this case, several well-microed colossi, a small gateway army and cliffs to micro the colossus over were not enough against unupgraded marines. At least some of the players I had to kill to win these games were gold 1v1.

While building mass marine for an extended period of time won't work against a good player, you do see pure marine rushes and all-ins occasionally succeed even in pro games, and successful early game pushes with pure marine which are not all-in but meant to secure an advantage. These things should tell you something about how potent marines are.

Ever stop to consider how vulnerable your base was while you were wrecking this protoss guy? If it were me I'd warp in a few DT and you'd be done.

A few DTs would have done nothing in that situation except momentarily diverted my reinforcements to deal with the DT. If you think about it, mineral only terran is pretty much an anti-DT build.

 

[finbarqs]

DT's are good when they are not prepared for... just go right in, and destroy their econ...

 

[shortylickens]

This game makes no sense. We've got a bronze 99 with over 3000 points. Did he gimp himself?
And how does a diamond 2 get up there with less than 100 points?
For that matter, how does he have diamond 4v4 and never ranked in 1 on 1?


WTF?

 

[shortylickens]

Oh, thats fucking funny.

 

[Molondo]

This game makes no sense. We've got a bronze 99 with over 3000 points. Did he gimp himself?
And how does a diamond 2 get up there with less than 100 points?
For that matter, how does he have diamond 4v4 and never ranked in 1 on 1?


WTF?

He is a portrait farmer essentially. If i played a game this season as my first game id be place that high too, its based on your MMR. You don't have to play 1s at all to be ranked in other sets.

 

[Kelvrick]

He is a portrait farmer essentially. If i played a game this season as my first game id be place that high too, its based on your MMR. You don't have to play 1s at all to be ranked in other sets.

I only played 1v1 for one season and for 5 games for shits and giggles. Everything else is 2v2, 3v3 or 4v4 with friends. Depending on the friends and how drunk one or some of us were during the ranking games, we'd be anywhere from diamond, plat, gold, silver on down to bronze.

 

[shortylickens]

OK, then something is wrong with my account, cuz every new season I have to re-rank in 1vs1 before I can play any multi-games.

 

[finbarqs]

every season you always have to re-rank... To earn your place. They usually give you a player that's a little better than you did last season, or a little worse.. But it has heavier emphasis on either being promoted or demoted...

 

[magomago]

proper scouting can stop a marine all in. If you aren't scouting and notice he is building SIXTEEN marines, and you continue to push econ, its your fault if you get owned.

plenty of advice/guides on how to stop mass marines. its not hard, but if you find out at the moment he is knocking at your door and you aren't wearing pants...of course you are pwned

 

[finbarqs]

when you scout... make sure you are AT the base before the 2:00 mark. by 2:00, it will be sealed, and you're gonna get a surprise if they go all in marines...

 

[Visaoni]

And if loads of people just use the same tactic every time they play, it's still fun?

Absolutely. How are you going to perfect a strategy without doing it over and over again? Now, doing the exact same thing and not even paying attention to ways in which it could be improved might be another story, at least for me, and I suspect, you. Maybe some people enjoy doing the exact same thing over and over without actually trying to get any better - I sure as hell don't. But if they do, so be it.

... co-op...

I can't comment on co-op, I've never actually tried it. I don't know if people play it seriously. At any rate, that isn't a competitive multiplayer environment. I'd guess achievements might be the real goal there, but I wouldn't know.

What usually happens though is if one player fails to annihilate the other by rushing, the other annihilates him immediately in response. It's nice when it happens, but again it gets old, IMO.

That hasn't been my experience, except in ZvZ. A failed early all-in in ZvZ usually results in an almost immediate death, but ZvZ generally doesn't last that long anyway. In the other match ups a failed all-in certainly almost always should result in a loss, but rarely does it happen immediately. There isn't a reason for a strategy to hold convincingly against an all-in, it just needs to hold. As such, there generally isn't much of an army left for either side.

If there is, then the all-in was executed extremely poorly, and the match was only ever going to play out one way anyway.

If you read what I wrote completely, my point was that people should be inventive, that's what makes the game fun.

That was not your point, at least not in it's entirety. You were saying that people should value inventiveness over winning. More than that, you were basically going so far as to imply that winning was actually getting in the way of inventiveness.

However, winning is what lets us value inventiveness. Without a winner and loser, what is the point of inventiveness? Strategies themselves don't have any inherent value. What gives them value is their ability to win - the more they win, the more valuable they are. If winning doesn't matter, how do we compare strategies? By which one results in the coolest looking armies?

Winning also is what (should) drive inventiveness. Without caring about winning or losing, strategies themselves become rather boring. Part of what makes a strategy so intricate is the built-in responses to your opponent. They become branched and complex because you must account for your opponent if you want to win.

Inventiveness for the sake of inventiveness doesn't actually accomplish anything, as it doesn't have a goal. If you want to be inventive for the sake of being inventive, you should go play games by yourself (as in no opponent, not even AI), because there you'll have all the time you want and the maximum number of resources possible to play with.

 

[MustangSVT]

Originally Posted by mikeymikec
If you read what I wrote completely, my point was that people should be inventive, that's what makes the game fun.

Lmao... why don't you try to be inventive and stop falling for same attacks over and over again? sigh...

I think part of the problem is the game has a bit of a learning curve and these wood leagues cry about imba on anything. The experience is quite different when you are out of wood leagues.

 

[shortylickens]

People must be leaving this game in droves. I used to get 4v4 instantly. Now I gotta wait half an hour for people to join.

Either that or they do everything except ladder matches.

 

[irishScott]

That protoss was damaged. The point is that it is not easy for a lower league player (which is what shortylickens and Aikouka were discussing) to put together stuff that automatically and completely stops marines, and enables you to push the marine player instead of just defending and starving to death. In this case, several well-microed colossi, a small gateway army and cliffs to micro the colossus over were not enough against unupgraded marines. At least some of the players I had to kill to win these games were gold 1v1.

While building mass marine for an extended period of time won't work against a good player, you do see pure marine rushes and all-ins occasionally succeed even in pro games, and successful early game pushes with pure marine which are not all-in but meant to secure an advantage. These things should tell you something about how potent marines are.
A few DTs would have done nothing in that situation except momentarily diverted my reinforcements to deal with the DT. If you think about it, mineral only terran is pretty much an anti-DT build.

So what you spam missile turrets as well? No detection = my dt have free reign. And if you have the standard setup of even spaced turrets it would be pretty trivial for 6-7 DT to take them out while your main forces are occupied halfway across the map.

 

[Pia]

So what you spam missile turrets as well? No detection = my dt have free reign. And if you have the standard setup of even spaced turrets it would be pretty trivial for 6-7 DT to take them out while your main forces are occupied halfway across the map.

What, you completely forgot about scanner sweep?
In the situation I was talking about, the next spawning wave of marines would have wiped out that amount of DTs, if the DTs had somehow made it inside the base in the first place.

 

[shortylickens]

OK, I just had an excellent match and cant save replay. Whats up?

 

[shortylickens]

WHAT THE FUCK PLATINUM 64?!??

Who the hell is running the 4x4 ladders? I suck harder than Paris Hilton.