I guess I blog pretty often, but needless to say, when something you care about is lost, it's always hurtful.
I just lost my WCS qualifier match vs Alicia 2-1. He's a great player, has done very well for any team he has been in, and I have only respect to show for him.
So with that out the way, I'd actually like to talk about Starcraft 2.
I actually love Starcraft 2, and have done ever so much since its release, my love and passion for gaming in general is so strong, that I chose this as my profession, so before any hate is thrown my way, I dedicate my life to this, but I also sacrifice it.
Starcraft 2 Began a while ago, epic matches - epic strategies, it was just epic. Screaming fans at events, Characters you can only love to follow leading the scene, and hey, without all that - I just loved playing it. But... There's always a but...
Starcraft has been described by many, Great, bad, exciting, boring you name it. But recently - and this has not been a spike of the moment thought process for me, it is starting to get to me.
I spent months streaming practically 8 hours a day to hopefully many of you, while I hope I helped teach you guys things/pass the time better for you guys or even just was a friendly face to make you feel less lonely - this at least professionally backfires immensely. There was so much information on my game throughout the web that people could get and learn my game and counter me. It's happened countless times, and people tend to wonder why I do so poorly on special occasions. Well - when you literally have 100's of hours of documented footage on yourself, for not only your fans, but your opposition to study, as much as I love the idea of sharing starcraft, and the secrets behind it - it has severely hindered my tournament results, especially those on LAN when my opposition know I'm attending.
That is one of the reasons I've been streaming less recently - starcraft is a very, very unforgiving game, which is why I love it, but the absolute one thing I hate, is that it's often unforgiving through no fault of my own.
To talk a little about what I mean - Vs Apoc in the WCS, our 3rd game in a 1-1 series - He went for a reaper build, in which he lost a reaper and killed a marine, and went back home. Starcraft is often a book in which you try to read while filling in the blanks. I filled in the blanks with what I deemed most logical - (That he didn't go 2 rax reaper and hide them randomly on the map) but he did, and I paid the price. Was this necessarily being outplayed? I guess In some regards, the other way to look at it is a little bit of a fluke.
My bo3 vs suppy which lasted an astonishing 7 minutes in total I think was very much so the result that I streamed, had a lot of info on me playing the way I did, and he has subsequently told me he did study me, and blind countered me.
Vs Alicia just recently, I lost to a blink stalker 1 base build which I knew was coming. It's all pretty heart wrenching thinking about these moments, why they happened and how I know I could have stopped them.
Starcraft has been the game, in which the skillful, the hardworking, the deserving were triumphant. I don't think starcraft is dying, nor do I think it will for a while, that being said though - Starcraft II right now, is not an enjoyable game for me to play.
Given my rather morbid talk about my WCS matches, I guess it would only make sense that the game hasn't been to kind to me recently within regards to WCS. But I want to delve into things a little further.
If you consider playing 30 games a day, in which you're supposed to go 50:50 on average if you pick your training partners right, that's a lot of losing to be done. It's something everybody who wants to succeed must manage, and manage you have to.
I used to practice, heading into late game scenarios, the whole game being one of those scenarios in which nobody knows who is gonna win, until some pivotal moves are made, and you breathe a huge sigh of relief that you pulled it out the bag, and then onto the next practice game.
Recently - from what I've watched and experienced, the outcome of the game is often decided, purely because of which coin people decided to flip. And people - if you don't know what I mean, I mean the 15 hatch vs the 10 pool, I mean the roach bane all in vs the 3 cc, I mean the 10 pool bane all in vs cc first - Is this what starcraft has turned into? This is not something I find fun, nor is it something I should find fun. I loved watching MMA at MLG come out with new builds, that would dictate if everything went as planned, and his opponent reacted as perfectly as he could - the game would still be 50:50 - I don't like freewins, nor do I like freelosses.
When you see a player win with some sort of allin, do you believe he deserved the game? Did he work harder than his opponent for that win? Did he study more? - More often than not when I'm performing an all in, I don't feel satisfied with the win, nor do I feel I deserved it. On the other side of the coin when I lose to something outrightly, purely because of a decision I made 2 minutes prior - I think that is fundamentally, a terrible terrible thing for starcraft 2 to have as part of it. Maybe it's just me, When I watched MMA vs MC - I felt nostalgic, the games were pretty good, But when I see games being dictated minutes before any of them knowing what on earth is happening (such as akilon waste and MMA's 2 rax) - It is this part of this game that I don't enjoy.
TvT was the matchup of position, it was great - it's now known among the professionals as literally picking 1 of the possible 5 bo's to do - and then playing either equally, ahead or simply behind.
This rant obviously came out of a rather defeated fellow - but still I think my worries and dislikes hold true. I want a game where I see perfection work, I want a game where the outcome isn't decided before even the victor knows he's going to win - I think starcraft Needs serious work, I'm willing to put it in, but it's going to be hard.
This could be perceived as a whine blog, and you're probably right - I may read over this in an hours time and feel why less strongly about what I feel about now.
Without picking on Starcraft too much, I've also played a bit of dota and league to the point where I pretty much know how they work, and the same problem exists in those games too, be it with lineups or what ever - at least they have things in place to help prevent it, such as bans, picks all that jazz - pretty drawn out processes, but they do the job to some extent - though outdrafting still happens.
The thing is, I don't care 10% as much about those games as I do Starcraft. And while this won't be a Naniwa Blog where I say a few outlandish things - I will say that Starcraft 2, and the amount of skill it requires should never have as much room for the silly amount of losses that happen in this game. - How could you stop them from happening? Honestly I'm not a game balancer, nor do I think I could be given my level of commitment to the game, but I do believe this aspect of starcraft is what affects the game more than anything. Excitement, joy - all of these things should peak upon watching a games highlights - be that a sick drop, flank or some uber fungal that hit 10+ mutas, instead I find myself staying up to watch innovation vs some zerg, only to see he lost the game 5 minutes before he knew he lost it, and for the games to leave me tutting and being anything but enthusiastic, I'd actually describe what I feel when I watch most games of starcraft as disappointed.
I don't know what happened exactly, and I know this kinda play has been around since the start, but it seems so much more exaggerated now than ever. I can only assume and use what I know now to try and figure it out, and the only thing that really makes sense is the fact that most new features in HOTS rely on dealing damage faster than everything in WoL.
Every new feature that is used in HoTS, well everything I can think of right now just deals more damage and faster than what it's predecessor did, or just more easily.
Oracles for protoss - you now can whip in a mineral line, kill 6 scvs and live to tell the tale before a terran is able to have anything there to stop it. That is not fucking starcraft. (They also want to buff the oracle, because it's apparently too slow.)
I can run randomly on creep, plant down 6 widow mines randomly and win an engagement despite totally not deserving to thanks to 6 huge detonations, neither is that. (widow mines are actually getting nerfed, which is cool - but I don't really think many people in the pro scene are whining about those too much currently.)
Hellbats - well luckily their reign is over, though I have a feeling they'll be rearing their ugly heads sooner than we think again, since a healthy 30 damage shot or what ever it is, aoe with blue flame upgrade alone for 100 minerals is too good to not use frankly.
Baneling busts of any varying degree consist of running suicidal units at a wall, and an army, and everything behind it. (If you're wondering why this became so much more prominent in HoTS than WOL, which I've heard a lot of people in my stream chat talk about when I lose to this strategy, then remember the fact that mutas were slower, didn't regen health like they do now and just weren't used 1/10 as much as they are now, I've had games where I go pure bio and hellbat, and actually ended up losing vs the sheer amount of mutas without having widow mines.)
A huge rant this turned out to be, and I guess if you want the TL
R it would go something like this:
I think units deal way too much damage in Starcraft, I also believe allins should not be half as strong as they are now. I want the game to be filled with good moves, on the fly decision making and well thought out strategies, I don't want cheap wins in which neither the doer or the receiver knew was happening.|
I'm going to continue playing starcraft, and I will continue streaming - I've taken down the VoDs for now, as I really want to do well in tournaments. I still enjoy starcraft far more than any other game - and with that stated, I have no fear, and I don't want you to have either. But these are problems that do hinder the game, and do hinder peoples joy of the game that need to be considered.
Thanks for the read, may give a more thought out blog as to what I think would really help the current situation, rather than pointing out the problems.
Also - WCS really shouldn't be region locked as it is now. Having WCS KOREA - then WCS Europe (finalists Korean) and WCS NA being a miniature version of WCS KOREA is really, really boring - if it was residential it would be so much better.
When I know I went through the whole visa process to get to where I am now, I feel I was totally kicked in the face with this new layout by Blizzard, but I also feel this affected things way more negatively than any tournament overlap has ever done.
Guckt man sich aber die Schachmeister an ist afaik Remi das häufigste Resultat.
