Anyone currently into Starcraft?

[p4ddys]

Any kiwis playing this game? I remember having tons of fun with the game years ago so decided to try it out again recently and am a bit confused.

I suppose I was just as casual as casual players get when I played it, but what the fuck has it turned into?
Unless you perform 25 different actions per second and can spawn 100 units army 3 times by 7 minutes mark while non-stop expanding and never having more than 1000 crystals at a time you cant play with other human players???

I played versus bots for a few days, started beating the hard AI bots 2/3 times and in my first game against human I got bashed the fuck off in 8 minutes. Then I played again and again and again and I just can't compete with almost any player the system matches me with, what the fuck? Is every person playing this shit now a 600APM bot machine?

Is it another "don't bother unless you play 10 hours a day 7 days a week" type of game? I tried improving for a week, watching and reading tips and strategies but I feel like unless I play A LOT of games every day I can't improve.

Anyone playing it or having played it recently?
Mind you I'm no stranger to strategies or competitive games, I peaked high diamond in league of legends but i somehow feel like im getting old to learn the way i used to when i was in my teens.

 

[Lemmingwise]

The first time I played starcraft online, maybe 20 years ago or so, my base was full of zerglings before I made any military units and I had no idea what to do except roll over and die. So the high skill requirement for online play was always there.

BTW this is the main reason why RTS' died. They were too intensive and too hard to play. This is why they gave way to moba's, where people don't have to multitask to the same degree and even if you play badly, you can still have some moments in the sun where you felt you did something good.
And it's a good thing. Because although I did get very good, it really isnt that fun.

There aren't many new players with starcraft, so you're unlikely to get fresh players to play against unless you convince your friends. The place to beat bad/inexperienced players is always in new/popular games.

 

[Pissmaster]

BTW this is the main reason why RTS' died. They were too intensive and too hard to play. This is why they gave way to moba's, where people don't have to multitask to the same degree and even if you play badly, you can still have some moments in the sun where you felt you did something good.
And it's a good thing. Because although I did get very good, it really isnt that fun.

Exactly this. My StarCraft 2 experience boiled down to:

• spending like 30 minutes building up my base, thinking I'm doing well and making a nice army
• getting attacked out of nowhere by a massive enemy army
• having all my shit completely and utterly destroyed with no recourse
• quitting once the writing's on the wall
• getting shit on for quitting early, for whatever reason
• this was all within some special beginner's tier thing where you were supposed to be paired up with other beginners, but lol of course i wasn't

Building up your base only to have it utterly stomped just felt like a colossal waste of time. At least my time with StarCraft 1 was mainly spent comp stomping on Big Game Hunters maps, which were more of a sandbox experience than anything. Starcraft 1 was more or less just Big Game Hunters to me, so I had fun. People taking it seriously at all just nuked anything and everything I liked about the game.

Even getting stomped in competitive fighting games doesn't feel like such a colossal waste of time, because matches are over quickly, and others I've played with were happy to show me what I did wrong and how to improve. StarCraft 2 players just directed me to some guy named Cloud9's YouTube channel, expecting me to watch and study hundreds of hours of that guy's videos before I could even start playing.

Bitch, if I need to study a game for hundreds of hours before I play it, I'd better be getting paid a fat ass salary for it. Because that's not a game, that's a fucking job!

 

[draggs]

Starcraft 2

I still play a little Brood War multiplayer

It's too bad the BW/War3/SC2 UMS scene is ded ded ded, some real fun RPGs / tower defense / DotA / WW2 or risk maps back in the day

 

[Pissmaster]

Starcraft 2

I still play a little Brood War multiplayer

It's too bad the BW/War3/SC2 UMS scene is ded ded ded, some real fun RPGs / tower defense / DotA / WW2 or risk maps back in the day

I am always down to read about how shitty StarCraft 2 is. It's such a fucking atrocious trainwreck of a game.

 

[Lemmingwise]

Exactly this. My StarCraft 2 experience boiled down to:

• spending like 30 minutes building up my base, thinking I'm doing well and making a nice army
• getting attacked out of nowhere by a massive enemy army
• having all my shit completely and utterly destroyed with no recourse
• quitting once the writing's on the wall
• getting shit on for quitting early, for whatever reason
• this was all within some special beginner's tier thing where you were supposed to be paired up with other beginners, but lol of course i wasn't

Building up your base only to have it utterly stomped just felt like a colossal waste of time. At least my time with StarCraft 1 was mainly spent comp stomping on Big Game Hunters maps, which were more of a sandbox experience than anything. Starcraft 1 was more or less just Big Game Hunters to me, so I had fun. People taking it seriously at all just nuked anything and everything I liked about the game.

Even getting stomped in competitive fighting games doesn't feel like such a colossal waste of time, because matches are over quickly, and others I've played with were happy to show me what I did wrong and how to improve. StarCraft 2 players just directed me to some guy named Cloud9's YouTube channel, expecting me to watch and study hundreds of hours of that guy's videos before I could even start playing.

Bitch, if I need to study a game for hundreds of hours before I play it, I'd better be getting paid a fat ass salary for it. Because that's not a game, that's a fucking job!

Starcraft 2 is such a failure of a game. Technology is amazing. Engine is crazy good (even in the early games I found a custom game where someone had used it to play a decent fps game inside the sc² engine). But they fundamentally made four disastrous choices.

1. They wanted to eliminate early rush strategies and they wanted to incentivise hit and run strats. To do that, they let you start with more workers, always have your first base in a somewhat defendable spot and create a series of units intended for hit and run that can't straight up end the game. Yet all these units are almost impossible to balance and as a result have only a brief period during a game where they're useful.
It also means that games just end later, being more time for a loss that could have ended early.

2. They wanted to make money off of the korean starcraft scene. So they forced always online, and required their authority to allow tournaments. This both gave latency problems, because online can never compete with a local network.... and a tournament requiring all participants to be online is especially needlessly slow. It also removed korea from the starcraft 2 scene, as the people making money off of it didnt want to share with blizzard and just never moved to starcraft 2 and kept hosting brood war.

3. They tried to make it a esport game from the get go. They thought winning was the key rather than having an experience that was fun at every level.

4. They completely misunderstood some of the things that made online community work. They wanted to reduce toxicity and their first way to get their was to force real name usage. They also wanted more control over custom maps (after losing dota) and had a more curated and controlled environment, and as a result, if you just edited a map, you couldnt get people to play it without some kind of external clout.

Starcraft 2 was absolutely huge with how many people played it, due to insane advertising budgets. But it was like the layter game of thrones seasons, it may have had more people, but its qualities were much smaller and would be remembered less fondly.

 

[ZMOT]

The first time I played starcraft online, maybe 20 years ago or so, my base was full of zerglings before I made any military units and I had no idea what to do except roll over and die. So the high skill requirement for online play was always there.

BTW this is the main reason why RTS' died. They were too intensive and too hard to play. This is why they gave way to moba's, where people don't have to multitask to the same degree and even if you play badly, you can still have some moments in the sun where you felt you did something good.
And it's a good thing. Because although I did get very good, it really isnt that fun.

There aren't many new players with starcraft, so you're unlikely to get fresh players to play against unless you convince your friends. The place to beat bad/inexperienced players is always in new/popular games.

starcraft is also (as much as I hate that term) a game that has mostly been figured out, played by a certain niche of people exacerbating the problem. on top the inherent design issues you mentioned (which doesn't mean bad, just everything has pros/cons) it's simply not that attractive anymore.

 

[Haramburger]

You could get away with not-hotkeying in SC1, BW, and Warcraft 3 to some extent, but Starcraft 2 requires mastering hotkeys and ridiculous macro shit. 8 years ago I remember some guy doing tutoring lessons by stomping people with useless shit like mass 150+ Zerg Queens, the things that can hardly move except on creep. I appreciate the larger groupings and other QoL improvements of 2 over 1, but the game is no longer mass appeal and caters to a very specific kind of bully mentality where you improve your skills to dunk on people not willing or able to cut it. It's not quite as bad as MOBAs but it's close. Co-Op commanders are kind of fun though.

 

[Gimmick Account]

Starcraft 2 is such a failure of a game. Technology is amazing. Engine is crazy good (even in the early games I found a custom game where someone had used it to play a decent fps game inside the sc² engine). But they fundamentally made four disastrous choices.

1. They wanted to eliminate early rush strategies and they wanted to incentivise hit and run strats. To do that, they let you start with more workers, always have your first base in a somewhat defendable spot and create a series of units intended for hit and run that can't straight up end the game. Yet all these units are almost impossible to balance and as a result have only a brief period during a game where they're useful.
It also means that games just end later, being more time for a loss that could have ended early.

2. They wanted to make money off of the korean starcraft scene. So they forced always online, and required their authority to allow tournaments. This both gave latency problems, because online can never compete with a local network.... and a tournament requiring all participants to be online is especially needlessly slow. It also removed korea from the starcraft 2 scene, as the people making money off of it didnt want to share with blizzard and just never moved to starcraft 2 and kept hosting brood war.

3. They tried to make it a esport game from the get go. They thought winning was the key rather than having an experience that was fun at every level.

4. They completely misunderstood some of the things that made online community work. They wanted to reduce toxicity and their first way to get their was to force real name usage. They also wanted more control over custom maps (after losing dota) and had a more curated and controlled environment, and as a result, if you just edited a map, you couldnt get people to play it without some kind of external clout.

Starcraft 2 was absolutely huge with how many people played it, due to insane advertising budgets. But it was like the layter game of thrones seasons, it may have had more people, but its qualities were much smaller and would be remembered less fondly.

I think I prefer SC2 as a spectator sport so they must have done something right in that regard, but actually playing it filled me with disgust end to end.
I still get mad about it from time to time when something reminds me of what they did to the aesthetic and lore.

 

[Lemmingwise]

I think I prefer SC2 as a spectator sport so they must have done something right in that regard, but actually playing it filled me with disgust end to end.
I still get mad about it from time to time when something reminds me of what they did to the aesthetic and lore.

Yeah, from my ins with the design team, they took the lessons from wc 3, where it wasn't always obvious for viewers what was going on and really focused on making things visually appealing and clear for people that don't know the game. Making it a spectator sport was one of their main priorities.

 

[Stanley the Gay Wizard]

Yes, it's good af.

 

[KIllz]

One of the best! Miss old battle.net and UMS maps in particular.

 

[Jomi]

I played SC2 for about a month when it first came out and I was terrible, however I've enjoyed watching it a lot ever since, over 10 years now. It's the only 'sport' I've ever enjoyed, in any capacity. It's a really great spectator experience imo, as far as games go (I'm not a gamer, last game I really enjoyed was Fallout 3). Sadly though I think its days are finally numbered. All the great SK pros are gone. There was a big exodus of the true greats of the game this and last year what with them mostly getting to national service age around the same time. Zest, Inno, S0S, all gone last year. Rogue, Trap, gone this year. TY, Stats. The EU scene has become progressively stronger but it's not the same, nothing can replace GSL for me, and GSL now seems somewhat hollow due to the loss of these aforementioned players. Ofc it has always lost players to national service but it was generally one guy here and there over the years, but the last 2-3 years has been carnage and I doubt there can be a recovery.

 

[Overcast]

I’ve only played through SC1 and Brood War’s campaigns and enjoyed them immensely. The shifting of story perspectives and gameplay styles were incredibly fun and novel.

Tried getting into multiplayer but got curbstomped, so I just decided to watch professional Brood War via YouTube instead.

 

[Polarity]

BTW this is the main reason why RTS' died. They were too intensive and too hard to play. This is why they gave way to moba's, where people don't have to multitask to the same degree and even if you play badly, you can still have some moments in the sun where you felt you did something good.
And it's a good thing. Because although I did get very good, it really isnt that fun.

I agree completely, and this also reminds me of the current battle-royale craze. You'll spend 25 minutes sneaking around looting, then potentially die in seconds. The few seconds are fun, but 45 minutes of every match is just wasted. People are going to re-discover deathmatch sometime in the next few years and we'll start the cycle anew, hopefully with a new Unreal Tournament.

SC has an insane skill ceiling. I only ever played the awesome tower defense custom maps and a few 7v1 comp stomps. Getting wrecked 1 on 1 was not fun.

 

[llllIllIllIIIIllI]

Online is dead after 2017 when it went free to play because it got infected by smelly latinos and south americans who only cheese. Every game is a 1v3 or 2v3 because players will randomly join and they always happen to be on your team. It doesn't matter how good you are, assuming the other team is even trying at all, you aren't gonna win a 1v3 or 2v3. Only way out is to host games and ban spics. If you can't tell from obvious things like their spanish sounding name, ask them "eres?" which means "from?" and if they answer, ban them. They always go Protoss which is a big tell. Anyone who has played online for more than a few days will know how to counter their cheeses. They are shit teammates and just in it for the little 30 second high they get when their cheese works every once in a while. This isn't just some random ass free to play game, it's fucking Starcraft the most competitive game ever made. Spics think it's fucking league of legends and they are earning XP or some shit and unlocking "the good races quicker".

 

[Polarity]

I was hoping Brazilians and other Latin Americans would stick to ruining Dota2 and Heroes of Newerth. Games always needed hidden matchmaking to stick all the BRs together in some sort of hell-queue.

Forgot how infuriating it was to play with them. If you aren't racist after playing Dota2, you sucked at the game.

 

[milk]

Mechanically Starcraft 2 had way too many hard counters to my liking. Like even if you controlled the whole map, if they had a handful of counter units the situation could be reversed.

In Broodwars, even if the enemy built the "counter unit" you could still win by economic advantage and/or good unit control. For example in Terran vs Zerg, the "counter" to bio (lots of marines/medics/firebats) could be teching to lurkers, however a smart terran player could just control his units better (a lot of effort but still workable) to win, or failing that he could just send waves, after waves of men until you died.

In Starcraft II if someone builds a well timed counter unit, you'd have little recourse since the the counters are THAT impactful, and you'd die before you're able to tech switch. For example there was a meta at one point in PvZ where if Protoss built 2 immortals (these were supposed to specifically counter siege tanks btw, they literally had an ability that only worked against large single hits, which at this point in time was only siege tanks) by a certain time, they could just have free rain and mow down the zerg player.

I'm sure other players that stuck around with SC2 longer than me could attest to similar or possible worse developments.

 

[llllIllIllIIIIllI]

I was hoping Brazilians and other Latin Americans would stick to ruining Dota2 and Heroes of Newerth. Games always needed hidden matchmaking to stick all the BRs together in some sort of hell-queue.

Forgot how infuriating it was to play with them. If you aren't racist after playing Dota2, you sucked at the game.

Spics infect every game that goes free to play, companies need to start learning this and just IP block range ban south america. I say exactly this too, if you aren't racist after playing this game, you suck at it. There's the occasional leftist I see somehow found themselves in this game, they are worse than computers and defend spics because "we have to respect other cultures". I once played a 3v3 where I was the only one who wasn't latino and it was a 15 minute game and I was the only player of the 6 who mined gas at all. They all went protoss and hurled zealots at each other for 15 minutes. I sat there because I was legitimately curious on how long they'd do it. I made lurkers and burrowed them and they called me hacker and talked shit. I even unallied my teammates for fun and nobody of the 5 players knew how to make detectors.

Companies might think they are smart for releasing a free to play game but it's pay to win, thinking that more players = more money. Spics don't fucking have any money they are living in 200 sqft brick shacks with 30 people inside, no HVAC, dirt floors, gangs to either side of them. So all they are gonna do is stay at the low levels forever and cheese to get their little highs. Starcraft was $10 at walmart for 15 years which was the perfect filter. That was 1 hour of work for anyone in the USA but approaching rich person money in south america. When latinos get on the internet they FUCKING LOSE THEIR MINDS!!!

 

[TheDarknessGrows]

I really like Star Craft but mostly for the campaign. I was going to buy Star Craft 2 but they split the single player into separate games and I wasn't going to buy the full campaign three times.

Did they ever release all of Star Craft 2?