I have returned: StarCraft II

[Kuishen]

How am I so bad at this game...

Did my placement match and fucking Terrans man. Bunker rushed me and because he did it stupidly, off to the side instead of at my ramp I didn't see it until my expo was done. So whatever, I did everything right. Immediately threw up lair, spine crawlers and expanded hidden with my scout drone at his 4th (far right) on Xelnaga Caverns. After just getting that second hatch up he somehow manages to find it with fucking blind ass luck and starts sending out waves of rallied marines over there. By this time I had just gotten my spire up and had 7 mutas out and I get to his base and his natural that JUST got up. And there are like 5 missle turrets. I didn't even check his fucking main so I just sent the mutas to protect the expo and they managed to hold it for a while. Btw he didn't even scan close enough to my Spire to even fucking see it so how the fuck he knew I was going muta I don't really know.

By this time I'm pissed and flustered that he managed to counter my shit without even seeing it and/or blind fucking luck. My macro starts slipping. I squeeze out a hive while expanding as much as I can. Now here's the part that just blows my fucking mind.

I watched the replay. He didn't scout me for shit at all. I hid an ultra cavern and started churning out those and by now have 3/3 melee upgrades. He has no upgrades. Has PF's at every single one of his expos as well as like 5 missle turrets each. I get maxed and since he's been fairly passive all game after that cheese and I can tell he's fucking terrible at macro. Have like 10 ultras, bunch of lings and banelings. Big engagement happens. What the fuck do I run into? About 50 fucking banshees.

Seriously I don't even understand. Had he not had this banshees I would have won and even with them I did manage to take out an expo and some production structures. Couldn't really scout because of the PFs and missle turrets fucking everywhere but I watched the replay several times and he did not see my ultras until it would have been too late to throw those out.

Either the fuck was maphacking or he is just the luckiest son of a bitch ever. Blind bunker rush in a stupid spot, blind finding my hidden expo, blind mass turrets, blind mass banshee on an almost entirely ground army. I tried throwing out some corrupters but it was too late.

Fucking hate this game sometimes. Both gold league.

[Anakron]

Either the fuck was maphacking or he is just the luckiest son of a bitch ever.

If you saw the replay, you should be able to tell if he were. Change the camera to his view, and see if he's looking at clouded vision of your stuff.

But assuming he wasn't, there are reasonable explanations...

Blind bunker rush in a stupid spot

He probably scouted your expansion but you didn't see his SCV scout. Even if he didn't scout your expansion, trying to pin you to 1 base isn't necessarily unheard of.

blind finding my hidden expo

He probably saw your creep, or was thinking of taking the expansion himself.

blind mass turrets

You can often tell what one person is going by seeing what he doesn't have. In this case, if your bases are scattered, mobile Mutalisks is a reasonable response on your part. Either way, throwing up blind turrets isn't exactly rare either. Especially when PF + Turret protect you from nearly all kinds of harasses except well-placed drops

blind mass banshee on an almost entirely ground army

That is actually very normal at the lower leagues. Massing a unit that will completely dominate 50% of the time, and completely lose 50% of the time is a very common thing to do. Banshees and Void Rays are popular choices for this.

One thing I learned somewhat early on is never max your army unless you know what they're doing. Suicide some lings if you have to, or fake a push that will force them to show their hand.

[Not Kuno]

There's maphacking in sc2 now? Unnnng. How fucking lame. That would explain some of my matches, also.

[Kaylia]

id my placement match and fucking Terrans man. Bunker rushed me and because he did it stupidly, off to the side instead of at my ramp I didn't see it until my expo was done. So whatever, I did everything right. Immediately threw up lair, spine crawlers and expanded hidden with my scout drone at his 4th (far right) on Xelnaga Caverns. After just getting that second hatch up he somehow manages to find it with fucking blind ass luck and starts sending out waves of rallied marines over there. By this time I had just gotten my spire up and had 7 mutas out and I get to his base and his natural that JUST got up. And there are like 5 missle turrets. I didn't even check his fucking main so I just sent the mutas to protect the expo and they managed to hold it for a while. Btw he didn't even scan close enough to my Spire to even fucking see it so how the fuck he knew I was going muta I don't really know.

If you see a zerg go fast expand or grab two gas, odds is that you will see muta soon after. If the zerg is quiet, its probably muta again. It's usually very easy to know when people are going to go muta and harass the fuck out of you, so you have to get ready.

Muta are by far the most annoying unit to deal with on Terran, and not expecting them after the 7min mark would be a bad move, unless you're absolutely certain he went for something else. It's one of the first thing you learn to deal with on Terran since it's going to happen every other games against zerg.

Have like 10 ultras, bunch of lings and banelings. Big engagement happens. What the fuck do I run into? About 50 fucking banshees.

On the other hand,it doesnt sound like you scouted much either unless I'm wrong? It's not uncommon for both side to go for an all-in strategy in lower level, and seeing something like mass banshee isn't that surprising.

I'm not saying he isnt cheating. There has been a few map hacks in SC2 since the beginning, but I don't think they are that common to be honest, and as frustrating as it is to lose to them, it's not really going to hurt your stats.

The best way to know if it's a map hack is unit positioning. If they constantly make a sharp turn toward something they can't see (like a drop, a lonely unit and stuff like this), they might be cheating.


You could post your replay here, it's usually easy to tell if they are cheating or not.

There's maphacking in sc2 now? Unnnng. How fucking lame. That would explain some of my matches, also.

There has been since the beginning, but you don't see them that often.

[stewie]

There's maphacking in sc2 now? Unnnng. How fucking lame. That would explain some of my matches, also.

Yeah, seems pretty prevalent tbh. Play one every 20 games or so.

[SubzeroDiabolos]

If you wanna know if someone cheated it's easy, watch the replay of that game. Is he constantly looking at your base even though he doesn't have vision? Probably hacking.

[Rehn]

Production tab hacks suck, since you can't really prove they are hacking unless they make a glaringly obvious mistake. Making multiple bunkers right as you put down a baneling nest, or whatever really counters you hardcore. Not really talking about 1-2 turret either, since at 7 min you can expect dt rush as well so that isn't too terrible of an assumption.

[Anakron]

lol I didn't know they have production tab hacks. That's brilliant.

[Kuishen]

If you saw the replay, you should be able to tell if he were. Change the camera to his view, and see if he's looking at clouded vision of your stuff.

But assuming he wasn't, there are reasonable explanations...

He probably scouted your expansion but you didn't see his SCV scout. Even if he didn't scout your expansion, trying to pin you to 1 base isn't necessarily unheard of.

He probably saw your creep, or was thinking of taking the expansion himself.

You can often tell what one person is going by seeing what he doesn't have. In this case, if your bases are scattered, mobile Mutalisks is a reasonable response on your part. Either way, throwing up blind turrets isn't exactly rare either. Especially when PF + Turret protect you from nearly all kinds of harasses except well-placed drops

That is actually very normal at the lower leagues. Massing a unit that will completely dominate 50% of the time, and completely lose 50% of the time is a very common thing to do. Banshees and Void Rays are popular choices for this.

One thing I learned somewhat early on is never max your army unless you know what they're doing. Suicide some lings if you have to, or fake a push that will force them to show their hand.

You bring up some good points but it was the expo up the ramp on the right side of the map on Xelnaga caverns so he didn't see my creep. He also couldn't have been wanting to take the expo because he was just barely getting his fucking natural up.

About the bunker rush, it was in a really stupid spot and I could have run a massive amount of units right past it without them so much as seeing me. Which in hindsight I should have done but I'm never good at dealing with cheese as it's happening.

The thing that gets me is I know for a fact I'm better than people like that but I still lose to them all the time. :\

EDIT: He wasn't maphacking. Some blind luck and a couple bad decisions on my part.

[Anakron]

A big part of RTS games is about making the correct decision at the right times. There have been many times in the past where I panicked and lost games, or tunnel-visioned myself into some horrible decisions. In hindsight, I could almost always say "I should've done X, Y, and Z and then I would've easily won." Which may be true enough, but I didn't do X, Y, and Z, and therefore I deserved to lose.

When you say you're a better player, you probably mean that you have better macro, micro, or mechanics in general. But you also need to know how to put yourself in scenarios to leverage those abilities. Dealing with cheese is hard for everybody, and the key is to encounter it enough to know what to do the next time.

[Rehn]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJaE7QHZLN8

Here's some guy trying to sell hacks on youtube, hahaha. Notice the tab in the upper left hand corner; production tab hack yeeeeeeea. Also camera lock and probably other crazy shit that are more blatant than those 2. Yea, there are even well known hackers that frequently top ladder because they use production tab hack... vitamin/sorcery in 2v2 for example (played against their crew in a 4v4 once), and ogsnada (perhaps banned? not real nada of course) in 1v1.

[geno]

You bring up some good points but it was the expo up the ramp on the right side of the map on Xelnaga caverns so he didn't see my creep. He also couldn't have been wanting to take the expo because he was just barely getting his fucking natural up.

About the bunker rush, it was in a really stupid spot and I could have run a massive amount of units right past it without them so much as seeing me. Which in hindsight I should have done but I'm never good at dealing with cheese as it's happening.

The thing that gets me is I know for a fact I'm better than people like that but I still lose to them all the time. :\

EDIT: He wasn't maphacking. Some blind luck and a couple bad decisions on my part.

I think to get a better grasp of this matchup, you really have to sit in your opponent's shoes a little better. You said that he got very lucky that he built a counter to your ultras without scouting. But that could have gone the other way just as easily. He didn't scout your ultras, but you didn't scout his banshees. Imagine how pissed he would have been if your dice-roll had been mass muta instead of ultra and he lost despite you not scouting even one banshee.

Additionally, it sucks to lose a hidden base, but it should be the standard not the exception. ESPECIALLY when there is early pressure to kill or deny a natural expansion, it should be the #1 thing you do as both terran AND protoss to go and check for hidden expansions. It is a very common response by zerg, and sending a worker to find that out is a trade any player should make 100% of the time.

And was his bunker placement really stupid if it worked? I'd imagine a bunker at your ramp you would have seen and reacted accordingly, but one just out of your vision in a place where he can still apply pressure is non-committal for him and very stressful for you. I'd say putting up bunkers behind mineral lines or off to the side of a hatchery is almost standard practice TvZ at this point, cheese or not. This is because it's not a significant investment and you can usually cancel if things go bad, but if it goes well you could almost win the game outright.

Like Anakron said, I think the big thing for you in that game was crisis management. Seeing something, recognizing it's significance or how much damage it can actually do, and reacting accordingly is one of the most important, and probably the hardest aspect of SC2. I'd say even most pros have a hard time making decisions like that in the moment of the game, they only do so successfully because they've done so a thousand times before and it has become muscle memory to react that way.

[Thulius]

The thing that gets me is I know for a fact I'm better than people like that but I still lose to them all the time.

This is a terrible mindset and you need to get out of it ASAP. Confidence is one thing, but if you believe you're better than everyone you lose to then you're just giving yourself an excuse to stop improving. Stop throwing around words like "stupid," "random" and "luck" and give credit where credit is due; the dude placed his bunker in a place where you didn't expect it, successfully denied your natural and went as far as checking for hidden expos. His early game plan was solid and clearly he executed it well.

Blind turrets into mass banshees isn't exactly a pro strat but there's definitely logic behind it. The turrets are intended to discourage muta play (which they did) and by the time you tech up to anything that can threaten PFs he'll have enough banshees to wreck any ground based army you'd come up with (which he did.) Doing it without scouting is silly but for a gold level player I'd say there's more thought behind it than most players in his league.

For your own sake, stop shitting on your opponents and spend more time figuring out why they do what they do. At the end of the day it's still just a game, and the people you're playing against aren't drooling retards just because you disagree with the way they play.

[Kuishen]

This is a terrible mindset and you need to get out of it ASAP. Confidence is one thing, but if you believe you're better than everyone you lose to then you're just giving yourself an excuse to stop improving. Stop throwing around words like "stupid," "random" and "luck" and give credit where credit is due; the dude placed his bunker in a place where you didn't expect it, successfully denied your natural and went as far as checking for hidden expos. His early game plan was solid and clearly he executed it well.

Blind turrets into mass banshees isn't exactly a pro strat but there's definitely logic behind it. The turrets are intended to discourage muta play (which they did) and by the time you tech up to anything that can threaten PFs he'll have enough banshees to wreck any ground based army you'd come up with (which he did.) Doing it without scouting is silly but for a gold level player I'd say there's more thought behind it than most players in his league.

For your own sake, stop shitting on your opponents and spend more time figuring out why they do what they do. At the end of the day it's still just a game, and the people you're playing against aren't drooling retards just because you disagree with the way they play.

Ouch.

I guess you're right and I knew a post like that was coming. /shrug

[Kaylia]

This is a terrible mindset and you need to get out of it ASAP. Confidence is one thing, but if you believe you're better than everyone you lose to then you're just giving yourself an excuse to stop improving. Stop throwing around words like "stupid," "random" and "luck" and give credit where credit is due; the dude placed his bunker in a place where you didn't expect it, successfully denied your natural and went as far as checking for hidden expos. His early game plan was solid and clearly he executed it well.

Blind turrets into mass banshees isn't exactly a pro strat but there's definitely logic behind it. The turrets are intended to discourage muta play (which they did) and by the time you tech up to anything that can threaten PFs he'll have enough banshees to wreck any ground based army you'd come up with (which he did.) Doing it without scouting is silly but for a gold level player I'd say there's more thought behind it than most players in his league.

Dumb luck do happen tho. That's how I win all my game.

[geno]

It is true though. If you get stuck in that mindset where everyone you lose to was worse and got lucky or everyone you beat was bad and you outplayed them, you'll never see the flaws in your own play and you'll never improve on them. I find it helps to try to think of whoever you're playing against as a BG member or someone else you might somehow know from somewhere. It will give you reason to think of them as an actual person, legitimize the way they play, and be more critical of yourself.

Back when I laddered a lot, I found this helped me when I was getting proxied or cannon rushed a lot on the ladder. I would always shrug it off so fast thinking that it was garbage and I could easily defend it normally and they got lucky and blah blah blah. But I noticed I was always way more critical of my own play if it was a friend I was playing with that tried to pull that shit, and realizing that helped me immensely.

[geno]

Dumb luck do happen tho. That's how I win all my game.

This is true also. Ignore everything and do whatever you want, you'll still win probably 50%ish.

That is how true ballers roll~

[Kaylia]

Back when I laddered a lot, I found this helped me when I was getting proxied or cannon rushed a lot on the ladder. I would always shrug it off so fast thinking that it was garbage and I could easily defend it normally and they got lucky and blah blah blah. But I noticed I was always way more critical of my own play if it was a friend I was playing with that tried to pull that shit, and realizing that helped me immensely.

What helped me the most about canon rush (or any cheese) is to never panic. When the guys has 8 canons in your base, you can tell he has nothing in his base either. Just save 400 mineral, build somewhere else, and you will probably come out ahead. 5 canon is 750 mineral, and it's unlikely that he did that much damage.

It's the same thing with most cheese. It usually fuck up your economy pretty badly, so even if you took a huge hit, the game isnt over.

[Gryffes]

What's everyones SQ at?

Thread here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=266019

Last 20 games I averaged 71 ( above average for masters level ) but I'm stuck in plat atm ( didnt play season2/3, lost all sense of timings due to new builds so it's taking a little while to figure that shit out ).

[stewie]

I averaged 82 when it first came out, too lazy to do it again atm!

Edit: Was 87 over 10 games today.