Sigh...maybe it's a Europe thing and I should get an account there . I've never had that sort of experience and I'm well into 200 games. I've had at least 10 offensive gg's and I'd say only 30% of my won games have my opponent saying gg. The only time I never say gg in a lost game is when I lose to something like proxy 2 gates or proxy reaper + bunker rush.

Same here. The key is to start the conversation. If you're friendly and say more than a couple words, usually they will too. Give a little and get a little.

I agree that the "offensive gg" is truly offensive. So far it's the only thing people have said to me that actually annoys me. I just played a game where my opponent said it as five Zealots left his base. And then he won, grrr. But as it became clear I couldn't do anything, I did say gg myself and left the game. You can't let yourself get sucked into their world of harassment.

By the way, I just discovered Sc2gears. It is a little miracle if you like to learn from your replays. It automatically saves them all and names them according to whatever template you provide. And then you can look at lots of useful analyses, like filterable build orders, etc. My favorite feature is the ability to look at a little map and see what buildings were in place at any point in the game.

ROFL, I just now got to look at the replay. It's even sillier than described. It's not even like you were doing anything tricky, or abusing a game mechanic or something. He just suicided all his stuff, SCVs and mules included, against your force which was defending from high ground. Can mules even attack? It's not even like you pulled off some wicked gosu micro or used force-fields or some arguably OP tech like voids or storm. You did blink once, I guess...

I guess he was pissed 'cause you used those back-door rocks earlier to sneak into his base. But even I know to watch that on Blistering Sands, and I'm a complete scrub. I can't believe you run into that crap in Diamond. I mean, I could have beaten that guy.

I think in this case, the "cry more" was richly deserved.

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KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku

Nah, mules can't attack...I think he was just in serious rage mode after I took out his CC. He had his entire army on 1 hotkey so it was even easier than expected to bait him to go back and forth between his natural and main while I took out buildings. He did see that I broke into the rocks since he had a depot there, but yeah...bad army management was his problem. And yeah, I did make a lot of mistakes in that game, analyzing it. For instance, I didn't gain control of the towers which could have helped immensely. And letting my mineral balloon too high in the early game while I was probe harassing =/. Ayyyy...

LOL

Planetary fortress rush FTW

I want to try and improve my macro. Instead of learning build orders, I want to do things the other way round. I'd like some in-game timings for certain builds. For example, instead of following a two-gate robo colossus BO, I'd like to know a good army composition and the earliest time it's possible to get it (eg. 1 colossus 1 observer 1 sentry 2 stalkers 2 zealots at 7 mins - no idea how reasonable that is). Then I could practice until I can emulate this, adding in some scouting worker micro as I see fit. This way I can discover what works for myself and I think it will be more informative.

Does anyone know where I could find such information? Or am I going to have to search through pro replays writing down timings?

Hmm...I think Day[9] covered this kind of topic in his 2nd most recent daily. I think the best thing you can do is to use YABOT's BO tester which not only helps you learn build orders, but also provides information on your timing windows for those builds and a lot of good statistics. Furthermore, the latest version allows you to use the tester in multiplayer mode so that you can test timings against practice partners and take into consideration scouting worker micro, early harass, and so forth. I'll be getting a European account pretty soon so when I do, we can practice on each other .

As a zerg player who has experimented with terran (and found it wanting), I feel your pain:

I'd like to be able to switch add-ons between my buildings as and when it suits me.
-- Zerg is better because when we build a tech building we always have access to it without having to "switch" buildings.


2. "I want an early game unit that's fast and good at scouting and can jump up and down cliffs or something."
-- Well, you will.. Reapers are going to be nerfed this month. It's going to take longer to build them. That being said I've never had a problem with reaper strikes as zerg. Then again I usually go two queens and don't expand early.

3. I'd like my high dps army to have some kind of ability to increase its dps by 50% or so in case I'm not already winning (maybe it could make them move faster too).
-- Zerg is better than terrans because Zerg gets free marines. Oh, and the units that spawn them are invisible so they can sneak into your base and make the marines behind all your bunkers.

4. I'd like (though it's a bit silly) if I make a bunker, to be able to get all the minerals back for it if I don't need it any more.[/]
-- Zerg is better than Terran because our bunkers (spinecrawlers and sporecrawlers) cost less money, have higher range, cost less food, and oh yeah, did I mention they can walk around? Oh yeah, and, they heal themselves over time.

[i]5. I'd like an area of effect spell that wipes out the shields on those pesky protoss units (Maybe if it could get rid of the energy on those pesky templar too...)
-- The Zerg has a mind control unit.

6. And finally, sometimes I think it would be really cool if I could just nuke my opponent.
-- Most zerg units can hide underground to escape a nuclear blast. They can also move while underground.

I'll be honest with you. The most difficult thing to handle in TvZ is invisible banshees. 2queen usually solves it. But banshees are a net negative with terran; you also need a raven to detect burrowers, and if I have ONE air unit out they all die. I'd say the game is pretty fair. Then again I'm still in bronze.

I've been warming up for my L19 tourney match against Kirby tomorrow (10am PST) by playing some actual games of Go recently to help shave off some of my rust. Oddly enough, I seem to relate everything that happens in Go with SC2. It's kind of interesting actually and has made Go just a bit more enjoyable for me. For instance, I was watching a high handi game a while ago where Black played like this:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . 0 . . . . . . . . 7 . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . . 9 . . 6 . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . . 5 . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . 3 . . . . . . . 1 . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Which instantly reminded me of a strategy I ran into a lot in the gold/platinum league (especially on Desert Oasis) where where my opponent plays like this:



Hopefully I'm not the only one who sees the connection . Yeah I know, Go and SC2 are very different games (you don't need 200 APM to be 9d for instance), but it's fun to see some of the ways the two games can connect.

I suppose the protoss, like black, has been playing a passive game and has taken what he thinks is a a big point (teched to void rays) without any consideration to white's plan (we can see he that he hasn't scouted) or how his move can be easily rendered useless by a good player.

Or something like that :p.

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19/02/2011: this grumpy person takes a voluntary holiday from L19.

Indeed, and I think there are multiple ways of interpreting it too so it'd be interesting to see what other people think of the comparison.

On another note, it looks like people are finally starting to tap into the power of blink; this video really shows how, with knowledge of map terrain and a handy observer, blink stalkers can be amazing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LikNogqHxo#t=6m48s

Whenever I see someone discover some new technique like that, I get goosebumps. I'm so glad I play Starcraft.

I would liken excessive static defense to slow play in go. Both dedicate too many resources (moves or minerals) to defending from potential attacks and not enough to actually winning by getting more territory.

There was some discussion about the 6 pool earlier. I know some people might think it's something that will only work in the lower leagues, but if the opponent plays the wrong opening it can work at the highest level. Here is an example where HuK, arguably one of the best Protoss players in the world, lost a match in a tournament recently to a 6 pool for that very reason: http://glhf.blip.tv/file/4083578/

Seems the run of good manners and no serious cheese has come to an end. I've still not been 6-pooled, but I got 7-pooled in a Random v Random on Lost Temple. It was pretty funny because I was terran and happened to scout it early. I just built an early second supply depot to wall off and the lings gave up when they saw a wall-off with a marine behind. I won the game a minute or two later due to having an army.

I also got cannon rushed in PvP. grrrr. I was so inept at dealing with it. Having not had it happen to me before I did something incredibly stupid. I scouted a pylon in my base due to him moving his scout off in an odd direction really early. I'd seen only a gateway in his base and no forge and I just thought, well it'll be ages before he gets warp-tech, I'll kill the pylon later. It was surrounded by cannons later

I know I ragged on BigT earlier in the thread, but compared to some of these commentators, he's a freaking shining star. He would at least *notice* a 6-pool.

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KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku

OK, the BM is almost driving me away from playing ladder games at this point. On scrap station, I had clearly beaten this Terran, but he turtled on the island with a billion missle turrets just to make the game last forever. In fact, most of the BM players are terrans, and an awful lot just try to fly off their buildings to nowhere when they've lost.

Then today I got cannon rushed again, and the guy was like "HAHA, OWNED!" I mean, I've been cannon rushed before, but I'd never seen somebody so proud of doing something so lame. So I said "Congratulations, you beat a lowly silver player with a cannon rush. What are you, 8?" And he actually said, "hahaha no im 9. why?". And based on how the conversation went from there, I'm pretty sure he really was 9. He kept sending me stupid messages after the game, so I eventually had to block him.

I don't know if Zerg players are BM. I actually haven't seen one in my last 25 games. I'm thinking of switching before they go extinct.

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KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku

Sounds like he just wanted a friend!

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19/02/2011: this grumpy person takes a voluntary holiday from L19.

He's gotta work on his social skills then. I had a line saved up for the next person who was so BM that I had to block them -- "Sorry, I can't talk to you any more. My parole officer doesn't want me chatting with 10-year-olds online anymore." But in this case, since it was an actual 9-year-old, I don't think it was a good idea.

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KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku

Ay, yeah I've got my fair share of bad BM stories too (including the one I posted here lol). It gets better in the higher leagues from what I've seen, but it's still not a rarity...I'd say 1 out of every 10 games involves BM or rage in some way, which I'll never understand...Protoss seems to be the race right now that's in the middle that very little are complaining about...lot of heat's on Terran being too strong and Zerg being too weak:



Though I will admit, Void Rays and Collosis are probably just as rage-inducing to the people I play as Marauders and Reapers are to me .