Intel_Hydralisk
Supreme [H]ardness
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The rating in SC2 is no where near zero sum. Even without bonus pool it's very very far from zero sum. That's the whole reason there's a hidden ELL I assume.
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Starcraft 2 Beta
- Thread starter $ilvano
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how do you view your apm?
Wizardhawk
Limp Gawd
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Not a clue, but my brother told me he read that the actions per minute was the reason in every replay you watched the people were nonstop cycling around between random crap and chain clicking rally points for workers. I've never seen a tab for it, but I haven't looked very hard.
PornoSatan
2[H]4U
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Yeah it's to inflate your APM. Everyone does it, korean pro gamers do it, so bad players do it. All top gamers have high APM, so bad players think they should have it too. Instead of letting the APM come to you naturally as you progress people think it's the "first step", which is entirely backwards. It's a pretty stupid phenomena and bad players copy it exactly like koreans, mass select workers over and over, spam back and forth between building hotkeys, etc. It looks stupid because it is stupid, but monkey see monkey do.
TheOrangeJuicer
Gawd
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I totally agree with this. My buddy plays zerg and he randomly selects his drones and buildings just to keep his APM high. I sit there and ask him wtf he is doing that for and he says it's because you have to have a high APM with zerg... Makes no sense to me how that is supposed to help you become a better player so I just nod my head.
Wizardhawk
Limp Gawd
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Yeah that's pretty much it. I don't bother to do it, because you can have a low APM and still have amazing micro (my micro isn't the best, one of the reasons I sucked at warcraft 3, even though I played probably 95% UMS type games instead of the regular game). If you spend the first 5 minutes of a game relaxing instead of spam clicking, you can still perform all the necessary actions. This 5 or so minutes of not doing much, however, will drastically lower your APM even if it is extremely good when the parts of the game that actually require being able to do a lot show up.
Wizardhawk
Limp Gawd
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Lol that's rough. That's the kind of stuff that happened to me in 3v3, but I did a bunch of 4v4 with my brother today and now i'm, I believe, 7-0, maybe 6-0. Got slapped into platinum, so I really do think they changed it to where you have to earn diamond league, which rocks.
APM is a meaningless benchmark, and that is all. People can spam like crazy and have their APM go up quite a bit. Executing a strategy properly will make your APM rise, also noting your deficits, things you forgot to do, etcetera. Don't think about an benchmark when your playing, APM comes with proper execution. I started at around 30 APM in the Silver League, and I was in Diamond with about 100 APM when the beta ended. Never did I think about a bench mark, I just got better as a player and it went up.
Exactly, APM is worthless if you don't have the right strategy executed.
Yoshiyuki Blade
2[H]4U
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I heard that people try to maintain a high APM to keep their fingers jittery and "warmed up" or something. Kind of like a boxer that punches the air before a match. I think it's BS, but at least it's a little more legitimate than just inflating the numbers. 
it's working for me
JustinSane
2[H]4U
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I'm one of the view that is getting the "You are out of prepaid game time..." message. Hopefully they fix it so I can play later today.
PornoSatan
2[H]4U
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That's really annoying, especially when 3 of them 6 pool. It's basically unstoppable.
Anyone else think zerg is underpowered? I've been playing zerg pretty much all the time because that's the first race I played and the one I'm most familiar with. But after getting pwned all the time I decided to switch to terran and wow, it's so much easier than zerg. Just wall off, build 3 rax and build marauders and marines. Then switch to whatever tech you want to switch to. No stress.
Intel_Hydralisk
Supreme [H]ardness
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I'm mainly a zerg player but I play all 3 races (started with zerg then realized I should branch out for various 2v2 partners). Of course, I will never abandon my lovely zerg race.
For an average player terran is probably the easiest choice since you have a very easy and strong option with MM mass. But once you get higher up MM is pretty much a non issue. As zerg the standard opening to terran is to just rush mutalisks and force the terran to deal with them (aka stop making them marauders!). Banelings are strong against a MM ball.
I feel that the zerg's biggest strength is mobility. With a bunch of mutalisks flying around and speedlings exploiting weak points, the terran is well contained unless he decides to force the issue and attack your base (in which case you can try to backdoor once he leaves - again, mobility).
Once you have map control your options open up. Although I do feel that as a zerg player you have to 'outplay' your opponent to win. You can't just sit in your base and make a big army since standard zerg armies have very easy counters.
I play Random and I find Zergo to be micro heavy due to having to manage multiple hatcheries, queens, overlords, etc.
Terran is just... easy.
Although I've been mainly playing 4v4's lately in a bronze leagu nontheless... so my judgement is weird... I was in Gold/Plat 2v2 before beta died
Terran is just... easy.
Although I've been mainly playing 4v4's lately in a bronze leagu nontheless... so my judgement is weird... I was in Gold/Plat 2v2 before beta died
thehybridfrog
Limp Gawd
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Uh what. I find that lots of zerg tend to baneling bust terrans, very effective strategy.
The key to zerg is to keep your opponent on his toes. If the opponent lets you macro up, zerg is basically unstoppable in the mid game. It's all about map control. Sounds like you sat there waiting for your opponent to force the issue, which ends poorly for zerg.
(Diamond 1v1, Diamond 2v2 last beta)
Intel_Hydralisk
Supreme [H]ardness
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Is it just me or are the custom game 'type' choices retarded?
For example, the 8 player map only has 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, or FFA. What if I wanted to do a 2v2v2v2?
SC2 / Bnet 2.0 seems to be an exercise in ... if it ain't broke, we can break it?
EDIT: figured it out, you have to set it to 'custom' and not 'melee', then you can do 'create new team'
For example, the 8 player map only has 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, or FFA. What if I wanted to do a 2v2v2v2?
SC2 / Bnet 2.0 seems to be an exercise in ... if it ain't broke, we can break it?
EDIT: figured it out, you have to set it to 'custom' and not 'melee', then you can do 'create new team'
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Depends on the unit composition. As a Protoss player, BCs by themselves can easily be taken down by mass High Templars spamming feedback and psi storm. BCs backed up by seige tanks are another story, as tanks wipe out HTs before they can get within range. In any case, Terran Tier 3 units are very very tough, and I try to finish games before they get to that point.
Problem is in all of my games (I got stuck into Bronze) no one groups up.
I had 10 games in a row against "favored" team and all 10 games my "allies" would just go at it alone and get facerolled.
Problem with 4v4 is unless 3-4 players do a 6 pool / 2 gate , etc then chances are it will go into late game.
4v4 are exercise in frustration when team members do their own thing...
For some reason Bnet is always teaming me up with bronze against silver players. I'm at like 3 - 15 in 4v4 random.
I think i'll go play 1v1 to relax...
Zerg are a macro race. The best Zerg players expand constantly and spread creep throughout the map. It takes constant attention but it is extremely effective. The end result is having a bunch of hatcheries with queens injecting larva and units racing along creep highways. Even if a Zerg army gets wiped out, no big deal, they can get replenished so incredibly fast. Zerg expansion is arguably more important in Starcraft 2 than it is in Brood War.
Sounds like you are playing Zerg like Terran or Protoss. With those races, expansion is important mainly in terms of getting more gas, whereas with Zerg it is more important in terms of getting loads of units (your town hall is also your army production, after all).
I never play with randoms and my friends and I are generally on the same page, especially since we're on Teamspeak a lot of the time, so I rarely bump into the same problems you have.
Maybe talk about it in team chat, decide if everyone is going to rush or macro or whatever. If you have two zerg allies in 3v3 or 4v4 it generally helps if they go early zergling rush on their weakest link, immediately puts them on the back foot.
I never play with randoms and my friends and I are generally on the same page, especially since we're on Teamspeak a lot of the time, so I rarely bump into the same problems you have.
Maybe talk about it in team chat, decide if everyone is going to rush or macro or whatever. If you have two zerg allies in 3v3 or 4v4 it generally helps if they go early zergling rush on their weakest link, immediately puts them on the back foot.
Yeah.. in 3 games we communicated and won, others... facerolled.
I loved the game where the guy yells: "I'm going snipers!!" (BC2 flashbacks begin). Then he proceeds to create couple ghosts, 2 nukes.
He runs the ghosts into cannon line and gets em killed. Builds 2 more and nukes the cannon line. that's it, he has nothing else and gets steam rolled by the person behind the cannon line.
I find that in gold/plat level people tend to do the right thing and eventually you get a sort of "team work", but in bronze... ugh.
I decided to not try for a beta key since, at the time, I was balancing full time grade classes and full time work.. now that both are over, I wish I would have preordered at gamestop before they keys ended
Anyway, heres my question for all you beta folks.. I'm planning on upgrade my computer for a few more months.. I have a 2.7GHZ dual core AMD, 6gb of RAM but a shitty onboard Radeon HD 3200.. is anyone else running a similar rig? I just want to make sure the game will be playable day one atleast on low settings.. thoughts?
Thanks
Anyway, heres my question for all you beta folks.. I'm planning on upgrade my computer for a few more months.. I have a 2.7GHZ dual core AMD, 6gb of RAM but a shitty onboard Radeon HD 3200.. is anyone else running a similar rig? I just want to make sure the game will be playable day one atleast on low settings.. thoughts?
Thanks
I decided to not try for a beta key since, at the time, I was balancing full time grade classes and full time work.. now that both are over, I wish I would have preordered at gamestop before they keys ended
Anyway, heres my question for all you beta folks.. I'm planning on upgrade my computer for a few more months.. I have a 2.7GHZ dual core AMD, 6gb of RAM but a shitty onboard Radeon HD 3200.. is anyone else running a similar rig? I just want to make sure the game will be playable day one atleast on low settings.. thoughts?
Thanks
I was playing on E6600 (3.0ghz) with 4gb ram and .... ..... GT210 geforce.... I would guess its about as slow as it gets nowadays.
It was running 16x10 all low at steady 40-60 FPS.
Yeah.. in 3 games we communicated and won, others... facerolled.
I loved the game where the guy yells: "I'm going snipers!!" (BC2 flashbacks begin). Then he proceeds to create couple ghosts, 2 nukes.
He runs the ghosts into cannon line and gets em killed. Builds 2 more and nukes the cannon line. that's it, he has nothing else and gets steam rolled by the person behind the cannon line.
I find that in gold/plat level people tend to do the right thing and eventually you get a sort of "team work", but in bronze... ugh.
Yeah, its a problem where people don't expand enough and throw all of their cash into higher tier units, and that's it. If your economy cannot support expensive units without support from cheaper ones, there is little point doing it unless you're some Starcraft master who totally knows what the trade-offs are.
Its like if I threw all my cash into Colossus. I'd be leaving myself wide open for early attacks, and once I'm in battle I have no defense against masses of low tier units without support from zealots/stalkers/sentries which can absorb damage, fight units that get easy surrounds (mass zerglings can easily take colossus, for example), or do anti-air.
Starcraft is a rock/paper/scissors game and the main thing that helps is a strong unit composition, and you're not getting that without a good economy. Sounds like the Terran that went all Ghosts didn't have that.
Playing 3v3 now and getting pretty good with it.
I love running a probe in fast and building a proxy pilon then massing gateways and going mass chargelot + stalkers (6-6 of each). Usually fast enough and unexpected enough to take out one guy completely and hurt the second guys economy
Chargelots own hydras so bad.
I love running a probe in fast and building a proxy pilon then massing gateways and going mass chargelot + stalkers (6-6 of each). Usually fast enough and unexpected enough to take out one guy completely and hurt the second guys economy
Chargelots own hydras so bad.
PornoSatan
2[H]4U
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Just played a 4v4 RT, we were winning, trading off bases with the enemy and eventually 3 of their players left since we were on the verge of winning, but it boosted the last Protoss's income by a shitload, he jumped from 1.5k minerals to 10k minerals and 5k gas, with the rest of their income funneling to him, then he massed the shit out of voids and basically won at the end, it was saddening. To counter his voids we went viking, then he massed stalkers/zealots through countless warp gates, it was ridiculous. It felt like playing a guy who had endless minerals/gas.
:edit:
Turns out we won, at the end it turned into a 1v1 with the last 2 guys who still had their bases, took like an extra 30 minutes but the last guy remaining on our side did it. I had him send me the replay, it was pretty good.
:edit:
Turns out we won, at the end it turned into a 1v1 with the last 2 guys who still had their bases, took like an extra 30 minutes but the last guy remaining on our side did it. I had him send me the replay, it was pretty good.
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Intel_Hydralisk
Supreme [H]ardness
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Anyone else getting weird lag? Usually I'll sit at 50-100 fps depending on what's going on (I turn xfire off since xfire creates weird glitches, so single 5870 @ 1920x1080 ultra settings). However, every once in a while when the game starts I'm literally locked at 30-45 fps and the game just feels incredibly laggy. Scrolling with the mouse feels very sluggish etc. The menu is normally locked at 60 fps, but when this happens the menu jumps down to 30 fps and feels very sluggish as well. I don't think it's a vsync issue since I have it off... no idea why this happens. The only way to fix it is to restart the client.
They all have their pluses and minuses as far as difficulty. The main difference is mindset, and the thing with the Zerg (the race the original poster had issues with) is that you cannot expect to get a viable army out with a single hatchery when approaching midgame like you can with Terran or Protoss. Units are individually weak and you can only produce out of your town hall. The deficiencies of weak Zerg units but their advantage of cheap expansion and spreading creep means that they need to spread out across the map, which is rad because that mindset of infestation is what the Zerg is all about in the story. Nothing makes me happier in 2v2 than when I see my teammate laying creep down everywhere (except when its on my natural expansion, Decko *cough*
). Pretty cool IMHO.On that note, I really like the changes made to all the races so far. In Brood War the Protoss were mainly about strong individual units that were very expensive, especially in tier 1 compared to other races. There is now a slight trade in tier 1 unit strength in exchange for much increased mobility thanks to pylons and warp prisms once you have warp gates. In a way they are the most harass friendly race, even though the zerg are still technically the fastest race in the game. Again, the adjustments are pretty cool.
Haha, thanks Serpico at least someone appreciates my creep madness . I had some intellectual musings regarding the beta I needed to extrapolate: Ahem... BETTTTTTAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Sorry about that I am ELATED, I'm so glad Starcraft 2 is back online.
. I had some intellectual musings regarding the beta I needed to extrapolate: Ahem... BETTTTTTAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!Sorry about that
I am ELATED, I'm so glad Starcraft 2 is back online.