Constant Defeat

[MurderousToaster]

This is a thought that came to my mind recently after venturing tentatively into the violent realms of online Starcraft 2. After being totally crushed by all five of my opponents in placement matches, I was put into the Bronze League. I figured that, since I was in the lowest-possible League (and since Blizzard touted their skill-based matches so much) that I'd come up against opponents of my own skill. That is to say, total shite.

Seemingly, I was wrong. I either end up against some guy (more often than not Protoss) using total arsehole cheese tactics while I'm actually trying to play the game, and get resultantly crushed - it's difficult to improve when you're not actually playing against people trying to legitimately play the game - or I end up against someone genuinely twice as good as me (or, sometimes, more than twice, according to the score tab). In the lowest possible League. Either I am so ridiculously terrible at Starcraft that I have exceeded the limit of badness that the automatching can cope with, or some insalubrious folks have been deliberately throwing their placement matches to get into the lower leagues to apply unhealthy amounts of pure grated cheese onto the faces of unsuspecting noobs such as myself.

This made me think - is it possible to enjoy a game when you're really, really bad at it?

My normal field of play is action games, and I always enjoy a certain degree of success with them. I love RTS and Fighting games, however the issue with them is that I'm totally shit and find them impossible to enjoy online.

So, have any of you guys had a similar (or, knowing Starcraft, identical) experience to myself when trying to play a game?

Spoiler: P.S

Any EU SC2 players who are genuinely as bad as myself who would like to play against someone who's really bad (or any kind souls with perhaps some extra free time who fancy helping out a lowly moron such as me) could hit me up on Starcraft - I'm under the character "Fluxcap", currently. Anyone decent at the game who feels like totally stomping me is welcome, too. But slightly less so than the other two.

 

[kwagamon]

This is my experience with about 90% of the games I play. I have three types of games where I can become legitimately good pretty quickly once I know what's up. The first is TCGs, but the only one I like is Magic: The Gathering. I'm really good at Magic. The second is fighter games (Soul Calibur etc.) where I do a clever mix of button mashing and actual combos and tend to win. The third is WoW-esque MMO's which I don't really like much so that's no good. Everything else, especially my current obsession League of Legends, I tend to suck horribly at. I get mowed down by players that are a billion times more skilled than me, again especially in League, pretty much every time I choose not to play against bots. FPS games? I wind up on the server at the same time as some pro douche who wanted to go pubstomping. RTS? I don't even dare venture into the realm of madness that is THAT multiplayer community for fear of how nooby I am.

 

[Vern5]

You're experience is not unique, unfortunately. The majority of Starcraft players I encountered online (back when I wasn't jaded by RTS multiplayer) always employed cheap tactics or rushes to end the game in the first six minutes. Eventually, you just have to power game; block off your base with buildings and spam cheap tactics until you win.

i have never come away from a Starcraft match thinking, "wow that was an epic battle". More often than not I came away thinking "Wow that was a tense battle". The only enjoyment I took from it was the relief of survival. What I went in looking for was a nearly cinematic match of wits. I guess I'm just a dreamer.

Don't worry. You'll get better once you start thinking like the other players do. It just takes time. Maybe study some battle replays on youtube? Look for effective tactics?

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

The new Spy knife in TF2, the Conniver's Kunai, gives you health with each backstab but lowers your max health down to 60hp, compared to 125hp, giving the Spy with the Conniver's Kunai the lowest max health of any class in the game, but a good Spy can stay above 100HP with enough sneaking and stabbing.

After being the MVP for four rounds in a row on one map, I fell in love with the knife.

Until, in some unlucky streak, I came to a map, filled with Pyros with the fuckmothering Backburner. And only the fuckmothering Backburner.

With 60hp, you get killed very fast by that fucking weapon, even less than a second if the Pyro gets a critical hit on you. And, since one of the perks of using the Backburner is critical hits when the flame is applied on the back, that happened.

And those Pyros only knowledge of the class was "See enemy, run forward, hold W + M1". So if I was in their path and range of their flamethrower, I would die before they would know I was even there.

I raged. HARD.

Oh, it got a lot worse when suddenly my ping jumped from 30 to 230, and was given fucking horrible spikes of lag when I lived, but the game ran fine when I was seeing "You will respawn in 20 seconds".

 

[thepyrethatburns]

Yes. With Starcraft too.

For me, the answer was to stop playing. More specificly, it was to stop playing games that take awhile online unless it is a Friends match.

Thusly, I still play FPS games both 1st and 3rd and racing (and Magic). Yeah, you may still lose but each match doesn't take long. Plus there is more of a feeling of progression in skills in those. Perhaps because you can observe people and how they play but I also suspect because you're playing more often.

Also, it's easier to pick up and play if you're just renting the game. I've gotten in the habit of checking out the multiplayer for each game I rent so I was doing Call of Duty Black Ops for the last 5 days (Wasn't a keeper) and, not only is the skill jump noticeable but, when I lost the match, there was never a long drawn-out "why don't they just finish me" vibe where you're debating the merits of trying to be sporting and sticking it out until the end.

When each Starcraft game (and I'd put up a fight so it would always take awhile) took a half-hour to two hours for an outcome that seemed to be determined before I even started, it eventually struck me that this was not a good use of my limited free time.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Pretty much any fighting game out there, Marvel vs. Capcom being the main one. Can't even get a hit in. The only fighting game where I seemed to fight people of the same skill was Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja: Storm 2. That was a fun game--unless I fought a ranged character. They cheat. Otherwise, fun.

 

[Sarge034]

I don't even bother with Starcraft matchmaking. I play with friends against the comps.

 

[Zechnophobe]

You're experience is not unique, unfortunately. The majority of Starcraft players I encountered online (back when I wasn't jaded by RTS multiplayer) always employed cheap tactics or rushes to end the game in the first six minutes. Eventually, you just have to power game; block off your base with buildings and spam cheap tactics until you win.

i have never come away from a Starcraft match thinking, "wow that was an epic battle". More often than not I came away thinking "Wow that was a tense battle". The only enjoyment I took from it was the relief of survival. What I went in looking for was a nearly cinematic match of wits. I guess I'm just a dreamer.

Don't worry. You'll get better once you start thinking like the other players do. It just takes time. Maybe study some battle replays on youtube? Look for effective tactics?

I've always been an above average starcraft Player, and RTS in general player. But I've never really figured out what 'cheese tactic' means. Well, unless it means 'Tactic that beats me' or something. Maybe "Tactic I didn't expect to be so effective".

 

[Wicky_42]

P.S. Any EU SC2 players who are genuinely as bad as myself who would like to play against someone who's really bad (or any kind souls with perhaps some extra free time who fancy helping out a lowly moron such as me) could hit me up on Starcraft - I'm under the character "Fluxcap", currently. Anyone decent at the game who feels like totally stomping me is welcome, too. But slightly less so than the other two.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/The-Escapist-Starcraft-2-Players
Join ussss! Your friendly local Escapist group might be able to help, and I know I've been finding it daunting to do anything other than custom games after several months of not playing, especially since I placed in gold after winning three opening games.

One fact of life is that the bronze leagues are full of cheesers - simple, cheap strats to win as fast as possible. If you learn how to block the cheese then it's likely they'll not have any plans for how to win beyond that early game rush Have a look at these guys to make yourself feel better :3
The basic piece of advice is to check online for a build order, get it down vs the bots so that you have the early building timing of your base smooth (ie, constantly producing what you need to be producing, getting your tech and production buildings up in a way that doesn't resource or supply block you etc), and then taking it online. Of course, practising with friendly people helps too

 

[ShadowyMOON]

Remember the Matrix? "There is no spoon" There is no cheese either.

The key to SC is just watching your replays, being honest with yourself and looking for your mistakes, not how cheap your opponent is for doing that cannon rush or whatever else you deem cheese.

P.S If any of you newbies want some training I can offer my lowly Diamond level advice, though I'm rusty and not in touch with the current metagame due to playing too many non SC related things
Oh and I apparently forgot to post my id. ShadowyMOON.159
And if you think you have it bad, I had to play a match vs Dimaga at CraftCup.

 

[Vicarious Vangaurd]

Look up husky Starcraft tutorials on youtube. I used to be like you and now I only lose every once in a while.

 

[Wicky_42]

I've always been an above average starcraft Player, and RTS in general player. But I've never really figured out what 'cheese tactic' means. Well, unless it means 'Tactic that beats me' or something. Maybe "Tactic I didn't expect to be so effective".

It's a gimmicky all-in strat that often can work without requiring any sort of skill or game-sense. Effective through simplicity, early game strategies such as 6-pooling or cannon-rushing basically sacrifice long-term or even mid-term economy for an early advantage or victory. The key to them is that if they're not scouted, they tend to have a very high success rate as the point is to be killing your opponent before they've got even a single combat unit out; I guess hence cheese, to go with all the whining

The difference between cheese and standard effective tactics is quite simply the all-in nature of them. Getting an engineering bay and just enough resources then flying your starting command centre to your enemy's base and turning it into a planetary fortress is cheesy, it's silly, you'll either win or lose horribly; there's not any real gameplay, just one stab and lots of praying.

Marine drops in the enemy's rear and countering collossus with corruptors are effective tactics, as a point of comparison.

See the video I linked above for some more great examples

 

[PatSilverFox]

Don't play the OP, he is hustling you.

 

[willsham45]

I think it is just online Real time stratagy games just generally have a high entry level, I usally cannot cope with the online stuff, star craft does have some nice tools like the challenges to help you home your skills ready for online play, I recommend trying them out if you have not already and then use those skills online also learning hot keys is ment to be a key skill to master once you got that down star craft is ment to become a lot easier.
Also there is ment to be some good in watching replays and looking for where your going wrong and finding out how to combat those tactics, I am sure the web can also help you out there.

I find RTS hard when I go online, unless I go for a cheap early game move but they usally fail me as soon as i attack and have nothing to follow it up. I am not all that great at star craft online, if you want someone you may actally win against I will give you a game, just say when you are on.

 

[Hyper-space]

(Preface: i am talking about Pokemon Online, its fun if you are pro-shiz)

Oh god this, everyone says "just learn from your defeats" as some zen fucking way to mastery, but the only thing i learn from defeat is that everyone uses the same tactics and the same pokemon and the same moves. The only way to mastery (at least, from what i see) is to mimick the same team and movesets. The crux of "professional" gaming such as this is that its a matter of problems, not choice, when it comes to gameplay. There is always this one way that is better than the other, there is no diversity when it comes gameplay.

 

[MellowFellow]

That is how I feel whenever I play any RTS. I don't know what it is, but I just suck at RTS games. I still play them with my friends when we have LAN parties, I am always last though, even if my team happens to win. I think RTS games just aren't for me, but I can have fun playing them with friends.

 

[Plurralbles]

I'm a fellow bronzer and found this thread after getting the starcraft II player group message with you referencing it. DOn't worry about it too much. You'll get better. I've found that my average APM is 38 with some hot zones of 80's, I lose to any form of early aggression, it takes me more than 20 minutes to get to 200\200 even when I'm trying to do it against a very easy computer, and i have no idea about any timings whatsoever. I've won 2 games out of about 6 today so far. Once against a protoss that only recruited 8 zealots by 7 minutes and anohter against a protoss that only had 2 colossi and a bunch of stalkers against my corruptor, muta, hydra, ling monstrosity. Also I guess I wona game because Bnet was an asshole and kicked hte other guy.

I'm also terrible at COunterstrike, Rome Total War, and pretty much every game I've ever played.

I like Starcraft and CS:S and it's mostly because when I do run into someone who can actually play at my exact level, it's the most rewarding experience ever win or lose.

 

[Zantos]

I have that problem on most online Call of Duty games. I don't know how they manage to fit in the time to get so much practice in around their work, social life and relationships. Although saying that their responses over the mic seem to indicate they don't have to worry about those things.

 

[FangShadow]

Pretty much any fighting game out there, Marvel vs. Capcom being the main one. Can't even get a hit in. The only fighting game where I seemed to fight people of the same skill was Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja: Storm 2. That was a fun game--unless I fought a ranged character. They cheat. Otherwise, fun.

This is truth. Flipping deidara and his explosions. It's so hard to get in on him. I can handle anyone else because they make the projectile characters slower, but deidara has normal movement speed.

That said, It's been awhile...maybe I'm just out of it....MVC3 will do that to you...

 

[Neverhoodian]

I have this problem with most RTS games. I love the concept, but I absolutely suck when pitted against another human opponent. Because of this I just stick to single player and skirmish matches against AI opponents.