Starcraft

this week Artosis has been sharing games where some NA players have been battling AI opponents from SCHNAIL, a project aimed at creating AI bots for broodwar. the human players completely stomped the bots, as expected, since these are all bots created by hobbyists. i always wondered how cool it would be to have AI with amazing micro play against human players and as it turns out 4000 APM doesn't mean shit if you're using it to micro marines trying to attack an overlord that's out of range

there's nothing really amazing here but it's cool to see what bots can do in a game with 25 years of evolving meta gameplay

Jimin (Z) vs T/P/Z bots

Jaeyun (P) vs T/P/Z bots

Nyoken (T) vs T/P/Z bots
 
this week Artosis has been sharing games where some NA players have been battling AI opponents from SCHNAIL, a project aimed at creating AI bots for broodwar. the human players completely stomped the bots, as expected, since these are all bots created by hobbyists. i always wondered how cool it would be to have AI with amazing micro play against human players and as it turns out 4000 APM doesn't mean shit if you're using it to micro marines trying to attack an overlord that's out of range

there's nothing really amazing here but it's cool to see what bots can do in a game with 25 years of evolving meta gameplay

Jimin (Z) vs T/P/Z bots

Jaeyun (P) vs T/P/Z bots

Nyoken (T) vs T/P/Z bots
There are way too many variables for an AI to keep track of in a RTS that human brains do seamlessly, so AIs are almost universally made to cheat in order to present any kind of challenge.

It's cool to watch people pitting their projects against humans, though. You usually only hear about the AI vs. AI tournaments.
 
Christ, is SC1 80's as hell. The B&W art in the manual could practically be dropped into Rifts its such a perfect fit for that time's creative zeitgeist.

Oh, yeah. Both Samwise and Metzen had very 80s styles.
I know this convo is years old but the lack of those men's styles is why Stormgate looks like cheap F2P mobile dog shit. It needs to be gritty and dirty and imperfect, which it just isn't.
 
There are way too many variables for an AI to keep track of in a RTS that human brains do seamlessly, so AIs are almost universally made to cheat in order to present any kind of challenge.

It's cool to watch people pitting their projects against humans, though. You usually only hear about the AI vs. AI tournaments.
I feel it's more an issue of not enough computing power for hobbyists. Part of the reason AlphaStar did so well in SC2 was that DeepMind has a fuckton of resources and computing power, which allowed them to utilize neural networks to the extreme. I would assume that most if not all hobbyists don't have direct access to that sort of processing.
 
SC Remaster and the SC2 Campaign Collection are coming to Game Pass next month. Any chance this will actually bring more NA players to the games? Would love to see the co-op queue not be the same handful of level 1000 Koreans.
 
  • Optimistic
Reactions: Mike Matei's Penis
SC Remaster and the SC2 Campaign Collection are coming to Game Pass next month. Any chance this will actually bring more NA players to the games? Would love to see the co-op queue not be the same handful of level 1000 Koreans.

Sadly, I don't think it would bring that many more NA players to the games, because most people don't want to learn how to play FPS games anymore.
 
  • Thunk-Provoking
Reactions: culk
Yeah, why try to learn a very micro-heavy RTS and waste 40 minutes in a match you lost on the first 30 seconds due to your own ineptitude, when you can just play LOL and blame the other 4 people on your team instead?
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Malfeasant
Man, seeing how much hype AoE is getting, both 2 and 4, and now Mythology, is sad. Those games are way too small in scale for me when I'm used to WC3 and SC2, but recently I've really been sighing after that RTS vibe. Co-op in SC2 was fucking nuts and such a great concept; cosmetic unlocks, unique factions, hero units, PvE with the boys. The reason nobody plays RTS on a mainstream level is cause it's PvP by definition.

I've fallen over a few videos on youtube akin "yo dawg I just got my gaming resurrection by discovering RTS". Really want to bumrush AoE1-4 campaigns but the first game is rough. Guess I could do SC2's instead.. miss that early Blizzard storytelling. :(
 
New Starcraft 2 patch is bonkers
Shield overcharge removed and salvage now on missile and sensor towers. 275 mineral hatcheries and 175 mineral queens!
The first goal is to nerf defensive and camping playstyles for all races, both related to early and late game on the higher levels of play. We will target specific units, buildings and abilities suited for camping, to promote more active gameplay across all stages of the game.

Oh, this never goes well.
 
Oh, this never goes well.
One thing that Blizzard never had any idea for how to balance for BW, SC2, or WC3 were the maps. Most of the top competitive leagues would have to create their own map pools and unique maps. And even edit the standard maps to move the terrain or resources around to properly balance them. Blizzard's ways of 'balancing' have always been reactionary, almost alarmist levels, by changing units and buildings and generally ignoring the environment.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Mike Matei's Penis
Not even Blizzard, it's the "balance council"
Blizzard with extra steps.

Although I should probably be thankful, a Blizzard move these days would be like "For the entire month of June, all sentry and Void Ray beams will be rainbows for pride month and sentries will have the option to hallucinate trans flags."
 
a month ago during SSL 2024 RO24 (formerly ASL), there was an historic game featuring Motive v Rush. it's 100% worth watching before reading the spoiler below


in the game above Motive tries doing a proxy gate/cannon rush against Rush on a 3 player map. Motive doesn't check the minerals properly and starts building his proxy buildings at THE WRONG BASE

here's a video with reactions by Mind, Calm, Bisu, Terror, Shuttle, Best, Rain for extra laughs
 
Artosis's stream is the most retarded trashfire I look forward to every week.
Artosis is such a faggot. Terran only plays and he keeps being surprised when his siege tank rush keeps being countered either by carriers or another terran player who's smarter than him and combines infantry with scvs and rushes down his factory. Or when he's raged the hardest because zerg players realize the defiler exists and it basically renders 95% of his strategies worthless.

God forbid people outplay his retarded ass. He's faster than other players, that I can admit, but it's so entertaining watch him lose on basic logic and then call it the dumbest thing he's experienced

Blizzard making Blue Flame Helions 2-shot workers again, and buffing Brood Lords in addition to fixing a bug with them, makes me wonder what in the absolute fuck are they smoking.
Buffing helions is nice but jesus fucking christ the brood lord buff, not like we don't see enough air raids from the zerg right?

New Starcraft 2 patch is bonkers
Shield overcharge removed and salvage now on missile and sensor towers. 275 mineral hatcheries and 175 mineral queens!
Zerg players eating plenty.
 
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