How balance patches affect StarCraft - ruclips.net/video/xMWI-340DLc/видео.htmlsi=YRZkIEuObaE3iVwW Check out Our new Project FGC Storyteller - www.youtube.com/@fgcstoryteller & My personal SC2 Channel - www.youtube.com/@Gaming_Essays Timecodes: 00:00 Why certain discussion around the game could be harmful 00:57 Myth №1 02:48 Myth №2 04:18 Myth №3 05:31 Myth №4 06:35 Myth №5
I usually like to say SC2 is in "maintenance mode" instead of dead since it's still played enough to get quick matches, still updated, but isn't getting new paid or official content.
Myth #2 - I think it's unfortunate that this myth in particular has turned so many people away. If your goal is Grandmaster or bust... then yeah, the game is ridiculously difficult. But, StarCraft 2 is fairly easy to play at a Bronze or Silver league level, which can and should be just as fulfilling of an experience if you are just gaming for fun. Myth #4 - I've always found this myth rather strange. Having played thousands of ladder matches over the years myself and being a former master league player, I can't name any overt instances of rampant smurfing and cheating. I've seen a lot of people complain about RUclipsrs like uThermal doing their challenges, but if you ask me, I'd love the opportunity to face one of his challenges. Would it be annoying if every match I did had to be against that? Yeah, probably, but that's far from the case. Myth #5 - Infestor/Broodlord was truly a cursed era of SC2 and caused me to stop playing for about five years 😂😂 Great video! 👏🏻👏🏻
since the start of sc2, there was a spoiled overgrown child who called himself "winter" who pretty much solely perpetuated the issue of smurfing to play against people he could easily beat so he could look more competent to his stream of several thousand viewbots thanks to his embed exploiting etc.
smurfing only count in tournaments where the mmr cap is mentioned. On ladder, losing badly to a much better player is not the worst, but losing to a much weaker player do.
About smurfing: when losing badly, it’s easy to misinterpret smurfing. I remember playing the game again after 5 years pause and I was (correctly) put in silver. Some guy did an all in which I scouted and I massed defenses, he was crushed, and he couldn’t stop flaming me about smurfing. It’s just that there are so many strategies that sometimes you happen to no very good against one, and it feels like smurfing
No1: In general consumer brain people consider game dead if It isn't mainstream and everyone is not talking about It. Starcraft 2 in that sense, same as 95 percent of other games, is then in their view a dead game. Which is of course a lie, because how you pointed out the playerbase is more than healthy for so many years now. No2: I think this main focus on competetive play is also a big problem for new games like stormgate, zerospace etc. Majority of people who bought rts in past bought them for the epic campaign and then portion of them got sucked into multiplayer. Thats at least my experience. No3: I think the rts community thinks that there is very few people interested in rts and therefore they see competition as a threat to their game, wish this mentality would change too No4: The smurf problem is not a problem at all, Its usually people who are not able to handle losing who then start looking for other reasons than themselves, why they lost. No5: Balance will always be discussed in a game with not symetrical units. Also people are also usualy not able to understand that what is balanced on pro level might not be balanced on low amateur level. But right now tha balance overall, in my opinion, is pretty good.
The other issue with the "smurf theory" (they cover it in this video briefly) is that there isn't a lot of logical incentive to smurf. One you hit a certain level of skill you will only have so much fun stomping the same noobs over and over. Starcraft II as a game encourages you to examine your own skill level and improve constantly.
I remember how one time someone said I am smurfing because I knew how to use blinding clouds, so I'm sure smurfing is not a big deal in Starcraft, I bet that's just people mad because they lose
@@jaydenly8153 Abathur's Viper tutorial map was hilarious. No one in pvp uses abduct on their own units to get over cliffs and water. Never cn it at least and i watch a lot. Indeed it also shows you how blinding cloud works tho I think in campaign it literally made all ranged units unable to fire. In PvP it reduces range to 1, so everything effectively gets melee range.
As a person who was D3 before and now has stop the grind and stayed between the ranks of D3 and plat 1, I say surfing really isn't there, I've played alot in these ranks and I've noticed that plat 1 to d3 has a very distinct set of styles that people should be able to do so that they can proceed to diamond. People are just not good enough sometimes to even be in plat 1, and I check on thier profiles on why I got paired with them and it turns out they had quick and fast games, hence they used alot of cheese strat. Sometimes in lower leagues cheeze is so effective it boost you up to a rank you aren't supposed to be in, then you meet people who actually knows proper counters.
I had a similar experience. But I don't think it is even worth thinking about counters beyond basics like detection vs invisible before you have a build order. If you take any 1 or 2 base all in from the professional players and execute without huge mistakes (count the amount of units at the intended timing, gut feeling will betray you), you can never drop below diamond.
Smurfing really isn't there? You're telling me you don't come across players whose history clearly shows that they leave every second game instantly? I play ten games, I face such a player. For sure. I don't say it's a big problem, but it's not a myth.
@@TripWithTheMoon smurfing isn't as bad as you think yes they exist, but they aren't going to show up in your games often enough to hurt your mmr. Some of the ones you think are smurfs probably just insta leave certain matchups most likely vs Zerg. What you describe isn't smurfing anyway it's called sandbagging when you artificially lower mmr by leaving.
@@charleysimmons427 Same thing, different name. I don't judge them, I don't care for their reasons. All I'm saying is that meeting players playing below their actual MMR is an everyday thing, not an obscurity. I would agree, that it's not affecting my MMR, cause everyone else is confronted with same thing.
Assuming that it is referring to 1v1 SC2 (which it most likely is) I feel that Myth #2 is very valid. I think the biggest issue with SC2 is how much impact there is from APM and mechanics at the skill level of your average player There’s thousands of mechanic checks even in just the first few minutes, and even for just basic macro. This isn’t just talking about APM, but also mental checks. You have to manage things like supply, expansion, teching, scouting, production, and micro, mentally keeping track of them and doing them at the right moments. As soon as you slip up once and miss a timing, it really puts you behind and disrupts the flow, and you can feel it. This feels really really bad for the average player because most of your time playing SC2 will be that exact process over and over again. You don’t get to see how your opponent is doing till later on in the game, so you just focus on what you do, and most of it is going to be making mistakes for the average player. It doesn’t actually have to have a major impact in the game, as long as it feels like it does in the moment At the basic level, this constant cycle shreds through your confidence. Everyone wants to feel that they’re doing well at a game, but feeling like you’re doing well at SC2 is a very high bar, especially if you watch any professional games Even if you don’t expect to be remotely around the skill level of the pros you watch, there’s things you think are basic knowledge checks that you can’t execute because of the need for mechanics behind them And that just feels bad man. It doesn’t make a wannabe tryhard player feel awesome, it instead makes them feel trash for not being able to keep up with their ideas through their mechanics. I’m going to bet that the new RTS by Uncapped Games will be an absolute godsend for this one exact reason, but only time will tell.
I really dont think smurfing is a big issues for sc2. First of all, i dont feel like its as much rampent that some players think (it might be hard to admit, but you actually can loose against someone of your level). Second, i feel like loosing to a smurf, if u want to improve (wich i can concieve isnt everyone's goal) isnt that big of a deal, its just 10 min with 5 min without much interraction anyway and in the end a chance to analyse and improve if u want to take 10 min to watch the game's replay In that regard, getting cannon rushed or any hard all in like that is way less enjoyable (regardless if u win or not) and, for the partisan of "that ruin the game", far more dangerous for SC2
GiantGrantGames is great, i love how creative the modding community of SC2 is and he showcases it so well. As for the multiplayer, in my experience playing SC2 was very draining and i was constantly felt tested for maximal attention, else i would die to some random zerglings/widow mines etc. Speaking of GGG, while he isnt an eSports figure he deserves a video IMO
Regarding cheating in SC2, compared to other big competitive games, it's extremely rare. Counter-strike is infested with so many cheaters that many content creators have stopped playing matchmaking for example. Part of this, I think, is because of the different levels of advantage cheating can give you in an RTS game as opposed to shooter games. Shooters dominate the top of competitive gaming at the moment, and in those games, you can literally cheat yourself into instantly killing your opponents. In starcraft, cheating is more subtle. You can only cheat for information and quality of life features (like an auto-creep spreading macro). Short of programming a bot that plays for you, you cannot actually cheat your way into perfect play. Often playing against a cheater seems much less hopeless because it's still possible to use your mechanical skill to defeat them. Likewise, the cheating tools are less appealing to individuals who have already invested significant time getting better at the game (at least that's my opinion as someone who has worked hard to get GM in the past). These things taken together make cheating less prevalent and also less profitable, resulting in a healthy ladder. Regarding smurfing, I have always taken it to be an opportunity to play against someone much better than me. As someone who plays to improve rather than to win, Smurfing doesn't bother or interest me. Rank boosting is something I find silly and pointless, but smurfing is just an inevitable part of the ladder experience. It becomes a problem only when individuals are forced to smurf because of cheaters infesting their rating bracket or an inability to find matches. These are issues Starcraft does not have right now and I'm happy to say the ladder is in a perfectly serviceable place on all the servers.
People just go to calling something a dead game’ when the game isn’t growing anymore. SC2 has been ‘dead’ for the last decade, and I have been playing this ‘dead’ game with friends for a decade now.
I Still remember back in the WOL days even back then the idiots on SC2Reddit would meme about it being a dead game all the time... For me I'm glad the scene is smaller and attracts less clowns.
This is a great video. On balance…a lot of older games, especially ones with big modding communities, struggle with balance, from a lack of resources, player skill, and dev lack of skill. I was a balance tester for a Dawn of war mod with over 30 factions, and it was essentially just me and another guy grinding out as many changes as the devs allowed us to make. Neither of us were the best players in the community, but we were the only ones willing to put up with the devs’ demands, and they acted like balance didn’t really matter/didn’t know the issues that existed. They’re basically stuck in this endless cycle of balancing issues bcs they don’t know how to solve them and their solutions either don’t work or make the problem worse. Starcraft 2 feels like a breath of fresh air, to have so much support from decent players compared to what I had to deal with. Cheers!
Dem= them Myf=myth Dat= that Bof=both Lowrning=learning Agef-ries= Age of Empires Lather=ladder Free hundered= three hundred Artes jenre= RTS Genre Bean=being Shitter= cheater Avered=aware Fun upload=fun upload
Not interested in playing competitive multiplayer myself, never have, but I've been playing campaigns, coop, arcade on and off since 2010 and I occasionally watch pro casting (to fall asleep to). I like that SC2 has something for me too, rather than just catering to the l33t hardcore g4m3rs! Wait, do ppl even do leetspeak anymore? I'm old...
Not to endorse smurfing, but i don't see a large difference between losing to someone who is 80-100 mmr above me or 700-800 mmr above me. Starcraft is about learning to lose and learn from mistakes and you are supposed to have roughly a 50% win rate. Sometimes it can serve as skill check since everyone seems to believe the only reason they are losing is because other race OP. Occasionally running into a smurf shouldn't ruin your experience but if you somehow constantly run into them, then i guess it kinda sucks.
@@aaabatteries9948 " Starcraft is about learning to lose and learn from mistakes" Many ppl mindset is that bad things are be blamed on everyone else but oneself. I find it funny that many people employ more time complaining about x or y than actually improving their mechanics. If i find a smurf i can only learn from the best guy, i can also cry a river but that wont get me far nor ingame or in real life.
@@GENEVAVIOLATION That's the problem though. The ladder was created for similarly skilled players but when the player count drops, it becomes harder. I play exclusively in team games and for some reason, often get put against a team of silvers and golds...even high plat/low diamonds. Then get called a smurf when all I want to do is play with my friends. Not calling it a ded game...just that there is much smaller 4v4 community compared to the other matchups. I hardly see opponents around my level now. Either they are mega good or not nearly good enough. Or sometimes when we are not in full teams we get similarly skilled opponents but then have a random silver on our team to carry.
"dead game" Dude, I thought this was a meme LMAO. I was watching some of the old Bronze Science videos by SC2 Tutorial Central from like, 9 years ago, and this was something he would say all the time. "Ded gaem! Ded gaem!" 😂😂😂
SC2 still the best esports games to watch, because is more similar to a military combat while each race has very different design. A casual viewer will understand tanks blowing up bugs, while moba is too much focused on hero spells. Maybe Street Fighter is also good for casual viewers, but is only two characters in a side view.
I don't even belong to competitive / ladder StarCraft and I don't care tbh. All I play is campaign (recently modded) and coop occasionally. People who are extremely bored with the game say it's dead.
Also, not gonna name the clan/s, but in team games there are LOTS of cheaters (or were). Been playing long enough to know how to spot them in the replays. Like getting drop ships intercepted by pheonixes that move out AS SOON AS the drop ship starts moving, having opponents constantly looking at empty spaces (ie our army), clicking in the fog of war right next to where a proxy pylon is about to be dropped...that kind of stuff.
A point I think is missed regarding difficulty is that while yes at the highest level sc2 is an exhausting, difficult game. 99% of ladder players....aren't that. The focus on esports i think leads a lot to forget that the most populated areas of starcraft are the lower leagues where casters like lowko and harstem cringe at us. Or, as GGG said it once, "a drunken pool noodle fight" or something. 110% you'll still have fun because the ladder will place you with people of similar experience Its why I never got the backlash other game communities(fps gamers mostly, it seems) have to the idea of "skill based matchmaking"
Been an active player since day 1...but pretty much an exclusive team player. Sure i'm not as good as a 1v1 player but i'm okay. Problem is, because of the smaller player base in team games, whenever I want to casually play with friends, we have to go through the ranking process over and over and sometimes, we face silvers and below...or even low diamond and get called smurfs when in reality, all I wanted to was to just play with my friends after a long week at work. It's not like we chose to be placed against those players, Bliz chose it for us.
About myth 3: cheaters. I am master 1 protoss( 4900-5000) mmr? and I found recently two cheaters who used maphacks. They looked at the fog of war and intercepted adepts in pvp so unnaturally, that you can easily say that they( two toss) are definitely cheating. Approximately for every 50-60 you can find one cheater, but it is hard to notice maphackers because they play usually terribly especially if you are grandmaster.
I've been playing off and on since WOL beta. This is my personal favorite RTS game. I dont 1v1 as much if at all anymore due to ladder anxiety (as if my platinum ladder game actually matters lol). I still play team ladder matches with 2-3 friends weekly. Its some of the most fun I've ever had playing together with friends. Still getting matches to play within minutes at all times. Smurfing is an easy excuse to give for a loss but has rarely ever happened in my ladder games (1v1 and teams). We love to point to the high apm they had after the match and say thats why we lost in reality we just sucked it up lol. Also down here in the lower levels some strats feel op like mass carriers, BCs, Ultras but its only due to us letting them get to that point and then not being effective at countering it. For good players its not a balance problem. I havent missed a GSL match since I can remember and always try catch the championships of weekend tournaments. Hoping the pro scene stays alive in korean since it is the scene I personally watch the most and hopeful dreamhack comes back to Atlanta,GA been loving having a tournament to watch in person these last 2 years. Last one that came was redbull arena back in the day.
5:30 it's exaggerated but IMHO having big personalities and names openly smurfing does unfortunately indirectly advocates for it in the lower level, and it can affect players experience, or at least their and the community's perception of how much smurfs are in their game, but probably only when it's gotten too widespread and at this level it's not gotten that bad yet? Speaking from experience from Dota 2 anyways where it did get bad enough that Valve had to take action. Personally though, I've probably only thought I fought a smurf a couple of times in my playtime in the past year or so at diamond 1, but those I can just dismiss as someone playing a REALLY good game, or someone that has improved well enough that they deserve to be in masters soon (or maybe just struggle in other matchups I guess)
2:03 is this a fair comparison? "115k average daily players" reads to me like the number of different people that touched the game in a single day, while aoe4's "10500 avg. players" would be the average number of people online? as in, not all people that played the game in a day like the sc2 stat but the average count of people online simultaneously. I'm asking because I can be simply reading this very wrong.
Yeah your estimate on smurfing is way way way way off because you're in GM. I do think that some people claiming that a smurf happens every other game might be an exaggeration, but it is not uncommon. From at least diamond league it is next to impossible to have a single 1-2 hour long gaming session without at least a single smurf readily being identifiable. (Diamond is when you can very clearly spot smurfs because that's roughly the start of the smurf attempt. That would be when you catch players repeatedly leaving under the 5 second mark. Any lower and you cant tell the difference between being a smurf victim and the other guy just happening to play better). Smurfing is a major problem and attacks the MMR system as a whole. The point of MMR is you are always matched against similarly skilled people, and so you can gradually learn the kinds of mistakes that people of your level make over and over until you climb to the top. If you are matched against someone leagues above you, you cannot, by definition, naturally learn from that match because the reason they are better than you is that they developed skills you don't even know you are lacking and won't even know to pay attention to. It sounds self-serving for content creators and pro coaches to say this situation is fine.
Myth 5 is probably not wrong, but boy oh boy have I played (and still love) games that have much worse Faction balance than SC2. I am a huge fan of C&C games, but the balance in most of them is atrocious compared to SC2.
The player numbers you show for sc2 are monthly/daily active. For the other games they are concurrent users. You can’t compare those directly, but if you use common conversion estimates. SC2 has fewer players than AoE
I have been getting into Star craft 2 a lot recently and the smurfing thing does exist but the main problem I have found is just the match making is not fun. Playing around silvers and golds just for a Dimond-plat player to solo the lobby kind of bothersome ngl.
7:08 "bias" i swear, 90% of Sc2 players around diamond are like this. alteast on EU. i play zerg and protoss on this level. when i am playing zerg, my race is stupid imba a move. and when i am playing protoss, i am stupid imba a move race, and the race plays 100% for me. there are so many sad souls on the ladder, its insane. oh yeah, and sometimes i am the cheater or smurf too. even tho, i play on my main. my smurf is around diamond too. and i only try to play as much macro as possible on this account.
as someone playing csgo dota2 and sc2 on high but not elite level master anciant 5 and lem repsectilly at my peak in each game sc2 has the least problamatic smurf situation. the main thing it jsut doest not matter as much in sc2 if you get matched up against a smurf they just beat you in 10 mins or if you realize they are clearly smurfing and trolling around you can jsut leave instantly once you notic theire controle is way to sharp for example. in dota2 and csgo you still have to sit through a 30-60 min game. and in sc2 it only affects 1 person in dota2 its also annoying you realize you are currently getting carried by someone who should not be in this game. about balance it only affects me as a spectator aprart from the worst days of broodlord infester 1-1-1 an maby swamrhost below the absoltue highgest level you could always win. where i get annoyed about blanace though is to realize that a toss needs to play insanly well to have any shot of winning anything. this does not affect me as a palyer but it does affect me as a viewer and a fan
Disagree on the smurfing problem, especially wrong coming from a high elo player. The problem with SC2 is how easy it is to tank your own MMR. You can get from 5k to 2k conceding every single game and there's no consequences. In games like League you have to play at least 15 minutes per game and intentionally losing can get you banned.
The balance problem in my opinion is at low levels, especially because the terrans can resort to any shenanigans at low cost and risk thanks to the drugged marines who help save you from any situation or wrong interpretations of what the opponent wants to do. If they get it wrong they bunker themselves with siege tanks, planetariums, mines and turrets until they recover which thanks to the scans they keep you under constant control On the contrary, protoss and zerg who start a wrong build are unlikely to be able to recover, because they do not have versatile basic units but are almost specialized in only one field. Obviously from diamond onwards there is enough knowledge of the game that these problems do not arise, but at the beginning the terrans are a nightmare for an inexperienced player.
Funny that you showed Grant, I used to like his stuff a lot. Then I started to notice who he is as a person through little comments. Now I absolutely despise him. Fake streamer persona sometimes slips, and you can see he's a real dirtbag.
My last 4+ years playing StarCraft 2 was entirely co-op. Best times ive had in sc2. I had taken a break between hots and lotv, and i suuuucked at ladder*. Replayed all the campaign, and picked up coop. I peaked in low diamond ladder in hots, couldnt bust out of plat in lotv.
There is great stuff on the SC2 arcade but ye, the navigation experience is pretty poor. Took me forever to understand how to engage with it and even now I mostly check top ten lists for good arcade modes rather than trust the in game algorithms 😅
myth 2 - starcraft in general is not a game that can be understood at any given moment in a match by anyone who doesnt have extensive knowledge of all the games mechanisms and units. that means it has no mass appeal and has no chance of being more than a novelty. its not like baseball, where you can easily see and understand whats happening. in starcraft, at any given moment, there are huge flow charts of possible actions and their results that can and do happen. if people didnt take to chess as easily understandable, they wont be able to understand something thats 1000x more complicated where all the pieces move in real time but also in different time speeds because not all computers work the same and thus, the game literally works faster for some people than others so they are able to do more than others can, simply because they spent more money on their expensive toy machine.
nahh people just say its a dead game because they dont have the mechanical skill nor general skills to play RTS , they can only control 1 unit or play FPS games and most of them are bunch of casual losers
Regarding balance, since 2017, 5 unique zergs have won blizzcon/iem. It's never been serral being so good he skews the mean. Funny enough, there was a statistical study a little bit ago comparing premier tournaments and once again they found that serral wasn't the biggest outlier. This idea that serral is skewing the results is flawed
Serral fans and bias caster like to push him into Flash-level by making it like him winning most tournament while other Zergs arent. Thats just factually incorrect when we have 3 other former world champs are also Zergs and has also won multiple mega-prize tournament as well. Serral is the best Zerg but hes not the ONLY reason that Zerg has won for the last 4-5 years.
I feel like some of those negative myths come from the early days of SC2. #1 Dead game since 2012. It the time when broodlords and infestors meta was plagueing the game for months and everyone hoped that HotS will fix that. Instead it brought a new terror in the shape of swarm hosts and 1 hour+ games. And it seems like it repulsed a lot of casual fans and led to that conclusion amongst them. #2 and #3 The most difficult game and elitism. i think go hand in hand. And it feels like it was coping mechanism for fans when the MOBA genre started taking over. Community just had to find a reason to feel better about themselfes, and they created that myth about elite 300 apm gamers. While dota players are just sitting there and playing the game with 1 hand on the mouse and with the can of beer in the other. Also there was no co-op mode in the first years of sc2 which also pushed "the elite game" narrative, since the competetive pvp was seen as a sole way to enjoy game in the long run. #4 and #5 are the regulars in any competitive games tbh.
Cheaters and Smurfs... Hmm, yea, I am in Diamond league and I barely encounter any cheaters. I cannot even remember when I've seen the last one. I believe there was one a years or two ago in a 2v2 game. But I see smurfs quite a bit more often. It varies though. On a day with 10 or 20 games I had situations were I played vs like 6 to 8 confirmed smurfs (typical signs are high numbers of 0:00 time games for example to get the MMR down. Usually those people use the mirror matchups for that.) I play the game since the open beta and it is fair to say the smurfing issue increased quite a bit over the last few years
20% of matches a in some lower leagues are smurfs. There is also the problem with match making. There is a big difference between 200 MMR in silver/gold, but its not uncommon to see matchups like that. In this situation, it feels like the higher MMR player is smurfing until you see the score screen and see that you were just outright matched against someone who's is not on your level.
As far as cheating goes, I haven’t run into a cheating player at all, yet. In over 300 games, no cheating. I have a few smurf stories, but most of the time, I’ve run into players who are just having a good day. Only one confirmed smurf as toss: I was playing in a silver league in-client tournament, and I’d made it to the finals, where I’d encountered some dude who was running at a pretty high rate, harrassing witth adepts while macroing (which doesn’t happen at silver), then I looked at his match history after I left the game, and lo and behold, a bunch of left games at the 0:00 time mark. The only other confirmed smurf was some dude I played in a gold league ZvT who had been sporadically leaving games at the 0:00 mark for 7-8 games in a row, I ended up beating him with an all-in (his defense wasn’t the strongest), and I looked at his match hostory afterwards. Masters league once upon a time. So, while smurfs DO exist, people complaining about them *most of the time*, and I emphasize most of the time, because there are cases where there is a confirmed smurf, most of the time, the player crying foul is just tilted. Thank you for this video, bro! As a sidenote, I busted diamond with less than 100 APM, so this is not an APM intensive game unless you want to get seriously into the competitive scene. Basically, I was clicking less than 2 times every second, which is almost the same amount of APM used to navigate a website.
MULES are not op. terran has to build orbital for 150 minerals in 25 seconds, that means 2 less scvs at the start of a game (scv is built in 12 secs each). One mule efficiency is comparable to 3 scvs, but you have to use mules manually every minute. Also, terran scvs are building structures instead of mining, so its another loss of income. And you cant just build more scvs because builders are still using supply. In a normal SC2 game mules may become profitable somewhere in midgame, where you have saturated bases and mules give extra income from same mineral patch.
Its impossible to chill and play in SC2. Competitive ladder is too hard and AI is boring with just a few strategies and dumb bugs. Like avoiding sieged liberators even when he has a huge limit. I'd like to play vs AI, that wins like 20-30% of games with creative strategies, instead of forced 50% winrate I get on the ladder. SC2 is focused on competitive play, its a nightmare for someone who wants to have good time.
Play custom maps dude. That sounds like a *you* problem. I mean you want to play competitive and still win more than 50%? who are you pretending to be? Serral? Most proffesional players dont even have more than 50%
@@ahuzel I dont want to play competitive, but its the only option where my opponent tries different builds. I like to play relaxed. I'd prefer better AI, instead of being forced into 50% winrate ladder experience. But AI in starcraft seems to repeat the same build on all levels except expert, which is insanely hard for me.
I can personally name smurfers. Sometimes they overloaded the servers, other time they are absent. But to say there is none or few is actually incorrect
Went from silver to diamond in two years, found no smurfing at all. I belive people will tell themself everithing other than they lost to a better player.
Smurphs are 1 in 3 games in Diamond! Sometimes it's just some Masters 3 playing unranked but most of the times are accounts with 5 games / and who's loses last 1 second.
I thought that I was a casual SC two player, but I checked outmy replays I realized that I often reach 500 APM and hold it for a solid minute which I didn’t even know I can do. I’m only ranked in diamond.
@@gyppygirl2021 Could be playing Bio Terran too. I clench my butt anytime I see Clem's marines surrounded by lings and he's target firing all the banes. Insanity.
@Broockle Oh yeah, stutter step micro... I was never able to do that LOL I was asking because zerg APM is artificially inflated by larvae. Still, it's probably doable otherwise. :p
Myth 4 - I highly disagree. On silver/bronze you got matched against smurfs half of the time. It's totally unfun and I stopped playing ladder online (I not care about progressing in leagues, I just want play against equal opponent)
The worst "myth" is already confirmed just by the channel name making this video, that it's primarily played by toxic tryhards that think esports aren't cancerous
esports arent cancerous. the eurocentric cultures that created them are measurably toxic/net harms to the human species tho. everything is pretty cool until europeans get their slimy hands on it, then it gets corrupted and turned to sh!t in record time, every single time.
@@EsportsStoryteller Look at the environment in pretty much any moba, it's nothing but toxicity all the way down, that's what trying to be an esports game does
The cope is real dude. Sc2 is dead and it has been on life support for a while now. You can thank monkeys who think can balance. Bottom line the game is not fun to play and the game has become about mass expanding. Zerg the race that was supposed to do mass units . Just deffend's and makes 9 queens until 80 drones and gg. Prottos just does the same with death ballsand all ins and cannon rushes. And terran is fucked until you reach master elo. Funny how terran the turtle race is acutally froces to be agressive or die lmao. Its sad to me to see you cope so much.Just say it as it is. Broodwar completely took over. Everyone switches to the superior game. I love you and all. But dude comon face reality. Game no fun = no players.
you have the mind of a toddler if you think anything besides the cost of living tripling since the release of sc2 has anything to do with why less people play it. 99% of the human species is currently priced out of being alive. its just basic math to understand that there arent enough people with disposable income to maintain any industry that isnt providing lifes absolute necessities.
How balance patches affect StarCraft - ruclips.net/video/xMWI-340DLc/видео.htmlsi=YRZkIEuObaE3iVwW
Check out Our new Project FGC Storyteller - www.youtube.com/@fgcstoryteller
& My personal SC2 Channel - www.youtube.com/@Gaming_Essays
Timecodes:
00:00 Why certain discussion around the game could be harmful
00:57 Myth №1
02:48 Myth №2
04:18 Myth №3
05:31 Myth №4
06:35 Myth №5
I usually like to say SC2 is in "maintenance mode" instead of dead since it's still played enough to get quick matches, still updated, but isn't getting new paid or official content.
I think the term is usually "life support". Alive, but will never get back up again and be vibrant.
Such wasted potential, for single player campaign content.
Myth #2 - I think it's unfortunate that this myth in particular has turned so many people away. If your goal is Grandmaster or bust... then yeah, the game is ridiculously difficult. But, StarCraft 2 is fairly easy to play at a Bronze or Silver league level, which can and should be just as fulfilling of an experience if you are just gaming for fun.
Myth #4 - I've always found this myth rather strange. Having played thousands of ladder matches over the years myself and being a former master league player, I can't name any overt instances of rampant smurfing and cheating. I've seen a lot of people complain about RUclipsrs like uThermal doing their challenges, but if you ask me, I'd love the opportunity to face one of his challenges. Would it be annoying if every match I did had to be against that? Yeah, probably, but that's far from the case.
Myth #5 - Infestor/Broodlord was truly a cursed era of SC2 and caused me to stop playing for about five years 😂😂
Great video! 👏🏻👏🏻
since the start of sc2, there was a spoiled overgrown child who called himself "winter" who pretty much solely perpetuated the issue of smurfing to play against people he could easily beat so he could look more competent to his stream of several thousand viewbots thanks to his embed exploiting etc.
smurfing only count in tournaments where the mmr cap is mentioned. On ladder, losing badly to a much better player is not the worst, but losing to a much weaker player do.
@@saturationstation1446 Dafuq is smurfing?!
Your videos brought me into the game, keep up the good work
About smurfing: when losing badly, it’s easy to misinterpret smurfing. I remember playing the game again after 5 years pause and I was (correctly) put in silver. Some guy did an all in which I scouted and I massed defenses, he was crushed, and he couldn’t stop flaming me about smurfing. It’s just that there are so many strategies that sometimes you happen to no very good against one, and it feels like smurfing
Dafuq is smurfing?!
Thanks to GGG, SC2 is actually in golden age time for custom campaigns right now.
No1: In general consumer brain people consider game dead if It isn't mainstream and everyone is not talking about It. Starcraft 2 in that sense, same as 95 percent of other games, is then in their view a dead game. Which is of course a lie, because how you pointed out the playerbase is more than healthy for so many years now.
No2: I think this main focus on competetive play is also a big problem for new games like stormgate, zerospace etc. Majority of people who bought rts in past bought them for the epic campaign and then portion of them got sucked into multiplayer. Thats at least my experience.
No3: I think the rts community thinks that there is very few people interested in rts and therefore they see competition as a threat to their game, wish this mentality would change too
No4: The smurf problem is not a problem at all, Its usually people who are not able to handle losing who then start looking for other reasons than themselves, why they lost.
No5: Balance will always be discussed in a game with not symetrical units. Also people are also usualy not able to understand that what is balanced on pro level might not be balanced on low amateur level. But right now tha balance overall, in my opinion, is pretty good.
The other issue with the "smurf theory" (they cover it in this video briefly) is that there isn't a lot of logical incentive to smurf. One you hit a certain level of skill you will only have so much fun stomping the same noobs over and over. Starcraft II as a game encourages you to examine your own skill level and improve constantly.
I remember how one time someone said I am smurfing because I knew how to use blinding clouds, so I'm sure smurfing is not a big deal in Starcraft, I bet that's just people mad because they lose
rly need the league for context 😆
If this were bronze I'd say u'r absolutely smurfing 🤣
@@Broockle Diamond 3 idk I think it's high enough to know how to use spell casters
@@soywhitelie2976
ah yes, that's hilarious that you found a guy actually talking to you in diamond league. It gets kinda try hard-hard around there.
While not the same experience. Playing the campaigns and co-op helps you learn how to use a lot of the multiplayer tools
@@jaydenly8153 Abathur's Viper tutorial map was hilarious. No one in pvp uses abduct on their own units to get over cliffs and water. Never cn it at least and i watch a lot.
Indeed it also shows you how blinding cloud works tho I think in campaign it literally made all ranged units unable to fire.
In PvP it reduces range to 1, so everything effectively gets melee range.
Had zero cheaters in thousands of games and maybe 2 or three smurfs
These people on reddit are dellusional
As a person who was D3 before and now has stop the grind and stayed between the ranks of D3 and plat 1, I say surfing really isn't there, I've played alot in these ranks and I've noticed that plat 1 to d3 has a very distinct set of styles that people should be able to do so that they can proceed to diamond. People are just not good enough sometimes to even be in plat 1, and I check on thier profiles on why I got paired with them and it turns out they had quick and fast games, hence they used alot of cheese strat. Sometimes in lower leagues cheeze is so effective it boost you up to a rank you aren't supposed to be in, then you meet people who actually knows proper counters.
I had a similar experience. But I don't think it is even worth thinking about counters beyond basics like detection vs invisible before you have a build order.
If you take any 1 or 2 base all in from the professional players and execute without huge mistakes (count the amount of units at the intended timing, gut feeling will betray you), you can never drop below diamond.
True I was able to reach high masters with a couple cheese struts now I sit in diamond trying to get better
Smurfing really isn't there? You're telling me you don't come across players whose history clearly shows that they leave every second game instantly? I play ten games, I face such a player. For sure. I don't say it's a big problem, but it's not a myth.
@@TripWithTheMoon smurfing isn't as bad as you think yes they exist, but they aren't going to show up in your games often enough to hurt your mmr. Some of the ones you think are smurfs probably just insta leave certain matchups most likely vs Zerg. What you describe isn't smurfing anyway it's called sandbagging when you artificially lower mmr by leaving.
@@charleysimmons427 Same thing, different name. I don't judge them, I don't care for their reasons. All I'm saying is that meeting players playing below their actual MMR is an everyday thing, not an obscurity.
I would agree, that it's not affecting my MMR, cause everyone else is confronted with same thing.
Assuming that it is referring to 1v1 SC2 (which it most likely is) I feel that Myth #2 is very valid.
I think the biggest issue with SC2 is how much impact there is from APM and mechanics at the skill level of your average player
There’s thousands of mechanic checks even in just the first few minutes, and even for just basic macro.
This isn’t just talking about APM, but also mental checks. You have to manage things like supply, expansion, teching, scouting, production, and micro, mentally keeping track of them and doing them at the right moments.
As soon as you slip up once and miss a timing, it really puts you behind and disrupts the flow, and you can feel it.
This feels really really bad for the average player because most of your time playing SC2 will be that exact process over and over again.
You don’t get to see how your opponent is doing till later on in the game, so you just focus on what you do, and most of it is going to be making mistakes for the average player.
It doesn’t actually have to have a major impact in the game, as long as it feels like it does in the moment
At the basic level, this constant cycle shreds through your confidence.
Everyone wants to feel that they’re doing well at a game, but feeling like you’re doing well at SC2 is a very high bar, especially if you watch any professional games
Even if you don’t expect to be remotely around the skill level of the pros you watch, there’s things you think are basic knowledge checks that you can’t execute because of the need for mechanics behind them
And that just feels bad man. It doesn’t make a wannabe tryhard player feel awesome, it instead makes them feel trash for not being able to keep up with their ideas through their mechanics.
I’m going to bet that the new RTS by Uncapped Games will be an absolute godsend for this one exact reason, but only time will tell.
Truly agree with everything!
The amount of stuff the GGG did to the SC2 community is immeasurable!
Thanks for the video!
I really dont think smurfing is a big issues for sc2. First of all, i dont feel like its as much rampent that some players think (it might be hard to admit, but you actually can loose against someone of your level).
Second, i feel like loosing to a smurf, if u want to improve (wich i can concieve isnt everyone's goal) isnt that big of a deal, its just 10 min with 5 min without much interraction anyway and in the end a chance to analyse and improve if u want to take 10 min to watch the game's replay In that regard, getting cannon rushed or any hard all in like that is way less enjoyable (regardless if u win or not) and, for the partisan of "that ruin the game", far more dangerous for SC2
GiantGrantGames is great, i love how creative the modding community of SC2 is and he showcases it so well. As for the multiplayer, in my experience playing SC2 was very draining and i was constantly felt tested for maximal attention, else i would die to some random zerglings/widow mines etc.
Speaking of GGG, while he isnt an eSports figure he deserves a video IMO
Regarding cheating in SC2, compared to other big competitive games, it's extremely rare. Counter-strike is infested with so many cheaters that many content creators have stopped playing matchmaking for example. Part of this, I think, is because of the different levels of advantage cheating can give you in an RTS game as opposed to shooter games. Shooters dominate the top of competitive gaming at the moment, and in those games, you can literally cheat yourself into instantly killing your opponents. In starcraft, cheating is more subtle. You can only cheat for information and quality of life features (like an auto-creep spreading macro). Short of programming a bot that plays for you, you cannot actually cheat your way into perfect play. Often playing against a cheater seems much less hopeless because it's still possible to use your mechanical skill to defeat them. Likewise, the cheating tools are less appealing to individuals who have already invested significant time getting better at the game (at least that's my opinion as someone who has worked hard to get GM in the past). These things taken together make cheating less prevalent and also less profitable, resulting in a healthy ladder.
Regarding smurfing, I have always taken it to be an opportunity to play against someone much better than me. As someone who plays to improve rather than to win, Smurfing doesn't bother or interest me. Rank boosting is something I find silly and pointless, but smurfing is just an inevitable part of the ladder experience. It becomes a problem only when individuals are forced to smurf because of cheaters infesting their rating bracket or an inability to find matches. These are issues Starcraft does not have right now and I'm happy to say the ladder is in a perfectly serviceable place on all the servers.
People just go to calling something a dead game’ when the game isn’t growing anymore. SC2 has been ‘dead’ for the last decade, and I have been playing this ‘dead’ game with friends for a decade now.
I Still remember back in the WOL days even back then the idiots on SC2Reddit would meme about it being a dead game all the time... For me I'm glad the scene is smaller and attracts less clowns.
This is a great video. On balance…a lot of older games, especially ones with big modding communities, struggle with balance, from a lack of resources, player skill, and dev lack of skill. I was a balance tester for a Dawn of war mod with over 30 factions, and it was essentially just me and another guy grinding out as many changes as the devs allowed us to make. Neither of us were the best players in the community, but we were the only ones willing to put up with the devs’ demands, and they acted like balance didn’t really matter/didn’t know the issues that existed. They’re basically stuck in this endless cycle of balancing issues bcs they don’t know how to solve them and their solutions either don’t work or make the problem worse. Starcraft 2 feels like a breath of fresh air, to have so much support from decent players compared to what I had to deal with. Cheers!
4:44 omg, that Pigbaby vs Bomber match was amazing, I've forgotten about it but now I remember watching it back quite a few times back in the day
Dem= them
Myf=myth
Dat= that
Bof=both
Lowrning=learning
Agef-ries= Age of Empires
Lather=ladder
Free hundered= three hundred
Artes jenre= RTS Genre
Bean=being
Shitter= cheater
Avered=aware
Fun upload=fun upload
I'll work on that xD
Smurfs are super pathetic
Not interested in playing competitive multiplayer myself, never have, but I've been playing campaigns, coop, arcade on and off since 2010 and I occasionally watch pro casting (to fall asleep to). I like that SC2 has something for me too, rather than just catering to the l33t hardcore g4m3rs!
Wait, do ppl even do leetspeak anymore? I'm old...
smurfing is still a problem.
Ded game
Not to endorse smurfing, but i don't see a large difference between losing to someone who is 80-100 mmr above me or 700-800 mmr above me. Starcraft is about learning to lose and learn from mistakes and you are supposed to have roughly a 50% win rate. Sometimes it can serve as skill check since everyone seems to believe the only reason they are losing is because other race OP. Occasionally running into a smurf shouldn't ruin your experience but if you somehow constantly run into them, then i guess it kinda sucks.
@@aaabatteries9948 " Starcraft is about learning to lose and learn from mistakes"
Many ppl mindset is that bad things are be blamed on everyone else but oneself.
I find it funny that many people employ more time complaining about x or y than actually improving their mechanics. If i find a smurf i can only learn from the best guy, i can also cry a river but that wont get me far nor ingame or in real life.
@@GENEVAVIOLATION That's the problem though. The ladder was created for similarly skilled players but when the player count drops, it becomes harder. I play exclusively in team games and for some reason, often get put against a team of silvers and golds...even high plat/low diamonds. Then get called a smurf when all I want to do is play with my friends.
Not calling it a ded game...just that there is much smaller 4v4 community compared to the other matchups. I hardly see opponents around my level now. Either they are mega good or not nearly good enough. Or sometimes when we are not in full teams we get similarly skilled opponents but then have a random silver on our team to carry.
The elitism of SC2 and Brood War players is definitely something I've noticed lol but it's good to know they're not all like that
"dead game"
Dude, I thought this was a meme LMAO. I was watching some of the old Bronze Science videos by SC2 Tutorial Central from like, 9 years ago, and this was something he would say all the time. "Ded gaem! Ded gaem!" 😂😂😂
SC2 still the best esports games to watch, because is more similar to a military combat while each race has very different design. A casual viewer will understand tanks blowing up bugs, while moba is too much focused on hero spells. Maybe Street Fighter is also good for casual viewers, but is only two characters in a side view.
I don't even belong to competitive / ladder StarCraft and I don't care tbh.
All I play is campaign (recently modded) and coop occasionally.
People who are extremely bored with the game say it's dead.
Also, not gonna name the clan/s, but in team games there are LOTS of cheaters (or were). Been playing long enough to know how to spot them in the replays. Like getting drop ships intercepted by pheonixes that move out AS SOON AS the drop ship starts moving, having opponents constantly looking at empty spaces (ie our army), clicking in the fog of war right next to where a proxy pylon is about to be dropped...that kind of stuff.
A point I think is missed regarding difficulty is that while yes at the highest level sc2 is an exhausting, difficult game. 99% of ladder players....aren't that.
The focus on esports i think leads a lot to forget that the most populated areas of starcraft are the lower leagues where casters like lowko and harstem cringe at us.
Or, as GGG said it once, "a drunken pool noodle fight" or something.
110% you'll still have fun because the ladder will place you with people of similar experience
Its why I never got the backlash other game communities(fps gamers mostly, it seems) have to the idea of "skill based matchmaking"
Been an active player since day 1...but pretty much an exclusive team player. Sure i'm not as good as a 1v1 player but i'm okay. Problem is, because of the smaller player base in team games, whenever I want to casually play with friends, we have to go through the ranking process over and over and sometimes, we face silvers and below...or even low diamond and get called smurfs when in reality, all I wanted to was to just play with my friends after a long week at work. It's not like we chose to be placed against those players, Bliz chose it for us.
About myth 3: cheaters. I am master 1 protoss( 4900-5000) mmr? and I found recently two cheaters who used maphacks. They looked at the fog of war and intercepted adepts in pvp so unnaturally, that you can easily say that they( two toss) are definitely cheating. Approximately for every 50-60 you can find one cheater, but it is hard to notice maphackers because they play usually terribly especially if you are grandmaster.
I've been playing off and on since WOL beta. This is my personal favorite RTS game. I dont 1v1 as much if at all anymore due to ladder anxiety (as if my platinum ladder game actually matters lol). I still play team ladder matches with 2-3 friends weekly. Its some of the most fun I've ever had playing together with friends. Still getting matches to play within minutes at all times. Smurfing is an easy excuse to give for a loss but has rarely ever happened in my ladder games (1v1 and teams). We love to point to the high apm they had after the match and say thats why we lost in reality we just sucked it up lol. Also down here in the lower levels some strats feel op like mass carriers, BCs, Ultras but its only due to us letting them get to that point and then not being effective at countering it. For good players its not a balance problem. I havent missed a GSL match since I can remember and always try catch the championships of weekend tournaments. Hoping the pro scene stays alive in korean since it is the scene I personally watch the most and hopeful dreamhack comes back to Atlanta,GA been loving having a tournament to watch in person these last 2 years. Last one that came was redbull arena back in the day.
5:30 it's exaggerated but IMHO having big personalities and names openly smurfing does unfortunately indirectly advocates for it in the lower level, and it can affect players experience, or at least their and the community's perception of how much smurfs are in their game, but probably only when it's gotten too widespread and at this level it's not gotten that bad yet? Speaking from experience from Dota 2 anyways where it did get bad enough that Valve had to take action.
Personally though, I've probably only thought I fought a smurf a couple of times in my playtime in the past year or so at diamond 1, but those I can just dismiss as someone playing a REALLY good game, or someone that has improved well enough that they deserve to be in masters soon (or maybe just struggle in other matchups I guess)
2:03 is this a fair comparison? "115k average daily players" reads to me like the number of different people that touched the game in a single day, while aoe4's "10500 avg. players" would be the average number of people online? as in, not all people that played the game in a day like the sc2 stat but the average count of people online simultaneously. I'm asking because I can be simply reading this very wrong.
Yeah your estimate on smurfing is way way way way off because you're in GM.
I do think that some people claiming that a smurf happens every other game might be an exaggeration, but it is not uncommon. From at least diamond league it is next to impossible to have a single 1-2 hour long gaming session without at least a single smurf readily being identifiable. (Diamond is when you can very clearly spot smurfs because that's roughly the start of the smurf attempt. That would be when you catch players repeatedly leaving under the 5 second mark. Any lower and you cant tell the difference between being a smurf victim and the other guy just happening to play better).
Smurfing is a major problem and attacks the MMR system as a whole. The point of MMR is you are always matched against similarly skilled people, and so you can gradually learn the kinds of mistakes that people of your level make over and over until you climb to the top. If you are matched against someone leagues above you, you cannot, by definition, naturally learn from that match because the reason they are better than you is that they developed skills you don't even know you are lacking and won't even know to pay attention to. It sounds self-serving for content creators and pro coaches to say this situation is fine.
Myth 5 is probably not wrong, but boy oh boy have I played (and still love) games that have much worse Faction balance than SC2. I am a huge fan of C&C games, but the balance in most of them is atrocious compared to SC2.
The player numbers you show for sc2 are monthly/daily active. For the other games they are concurrent users. You can’t compare those directly, but if you use common conversion estimates. SC2 has fewer players than AoE
I have been getting into Star craft 2 a lot recently and the smurfing thing does exist but the main problem I have found is just the match making is not fun. Playing around silvers and golds just for a Dimond-plat player to solo the lobby kind of bothersome ngl.
7:08 "bias" i swear, 90% of Sc2 players around diamond are like this. alteast on EU. i play zerg and protoss on this level. when i am playing zerg, my race is stupid imba a move. and when i am playing protoss, i am stupid imba a move race, and the race plays 100% for me. there are so many sad souls on the ladder, its insane.
oh yeah, and sometimes i am the cheater or smurf too. even tho, i play on my main. my smurf is around diamond too. and i only try to play as much macro as possible on this account.
as someone playing csgo dota2 and sc2 on high but not elite level master anciant 5 and lem repsectilly at my peak in each game sc2 has the least problamatic smurf situation. the main thing it jsut doest not matter as much in sc2 if you get matched up against a smurf they just beat you in 10 mins or if you realize they are clearly smurfing and trolling around you can jsut leave instantly once you notic theire controle is way to sharp for example. in dota2 and csgo you still have to sit through a 30-60 min game. and in sc2 it only affects 1 person in dota2 its also annoying you realize you are currently getting carried by someone who should not be in this game.
about balance it only affects me as a spectator aprart from the worst days of broodlord infester 1-1-1 an maby swamrhost below the absoltue highgest level you could always win. where i get annoyed about blanace though is to realize that a toss needs to play insanly well to have any shot of winning anything. this does not affect me as a palyer but it does affect me as a viewer and a fan
Disagree on the smurfing problem, especially wrong coming from a high elo player.
The problem with SC2 is how easy it is to tank your own MMR. You can get from 5k to 2k conceding every single game and there's no consequences. In games like League you have to play at least 15 minutes per game and intentionally losing can get you banned.
The balance problem in my opinion is at low levels, especially because the terrans can resort to any shenanigans at low cost and risk thanks to the drugged marines who help save you from any situation or wrong interpretations of what the opponent wants to do. If they get it wrong they bunker themselves with siege tanks, planetariums, mines and turrets until they recover which thanks to the scans they keep you under constant control
On the contrary, protoss and zerg who start a wrong build are unlikely to be able to recover, because they do not have versatile basic units but are almost specialized in only one field.
Obviously from diamond onwards there is enough knowledge of the game that these problems do not arise, but at the beginning the terrans are a nightmare for an inexperienced player.
Funny that you showed Grant, I used to like his stuff a lot. Then I started to notice who he is as a person through little comments. Now I absolutely despise him. Fake streamer persona sometimes slips, and you can see he's a real dirtbag.
My last 4+ years playing StarCraft 2 was entirely co-op. Best times ive had in sc2. I had taken a break between hots and lotv, and i suuuucked at ladder*. Replayed all the campaign, and picked up coop.
I peaked in low diamond ladder in hots, couldnt bust out of plat in lotv.
There is great stuff on the SC2 arcade but ye, the navigation experience is pretty poor.
Took me forever to understand how to engage with it and even now I mostly check top ten lists for good arcade modes rather than trust the in game algorithms 😅
myth 2 - starcraft in general is not a game that can be understood at any given moment in a match by anyone who doesnt have extensive knowledge of all the games mechanisms and units. that means it has no mass appeal and has no chance of being more than a novelty. its not like baseball, where you can easily see and understand whats happening. in starcraft, at any given moment, there are huge flow charts of possible actions and their results that can and do happen. if people didnt take to chess as easily understandable, they wont be able to understand something thats 1000x more complicated where all the pieces move in real time but also in different time speeds because not all computers work the same and thus, the game literally works faster for some people than others so they are able to do more than others can, simply because they spent more money on their expensive toy machine.
I did mass psi storm against a Terran (who beat me that game) and still got accused of smurfing ._. I'm in Gold league...
Thanks for mentioning GGG community! It is awesome and really get me back to playing RTS!
I'm in diamond eu server and smurfing is an issue. Maybe each 5th game? So it's ok but certainly annoying
Haha I really only play StarCraft because it’s one of the first game I’ve ever seen! My dad used to play :)
nahh people just say its a dead game because they dont have the mechanical skill nor general skills to play RTS , they can only control 1 unit or play FPS games and most of them are bunch of casual losers
For the balance, protoss is imba, it's always been. Their players are just bad.
I mean....none of these are "myths." You could argue some of them are a bit blown out of proportion, but none of them are false.
I literally only play Coop and occasionally arcade and campaign, never even touched ladder
SC 2 coop is really nice, i wish they would put out some more stuff in it
we have smurfing on a game i play it only costs 5 bucks
Regarding balance, since 2017, 5 unique zergs have won blizzcon/iem. It's never been serral being so good he skews the mean. Funny enough, there was a statistical study a little bit ago comparing premier tournaments and once again they found that serral wasn't the biggest outlier. This idea that serral is skewing the results is flawed
Serral fans and bias caster like to push him into Flash-level by making it like him winning most tournament while other Zergs arent. Thats just factually incorrect when we have 3 other former world champs are also Zergs and has also won multiple mega-prize tournament as well. Serral is the best Zerg but hes not the ONLY reason that Zerg has won for the last 4-5 years.
Losing Day9 was huge in learning StarCraft
Coop Games are easy to find, so definately Not dead :)
Debunking the most common of Myths: players like Scarlett and Nina are not girls but actually dudes.
Denunciado.
@@ahuzel For telling the truth?
Get your hate out of here. Dumbass US culture war nonsense.
Zerg is OP since years, and it's not a myth ! 😂
playing sc2 is like having an estj girlfriend
I feel like some of those negative myths come from the early days of SC2.
#1 Dead game since 2012. It the time when broodlords and infestors meta was plagueing the game for months and everyone hoped that HotS will fix that. Instead it brought a new terror in the shape of swarm hosts and 1 hour+ games. And it seems like it repulsed a lot of casual fans and led to that conclusion amongst them.
#2 and #3 The most difficult game and elitism. i think go hand in hand. And it feels like it was coping mechanism for fans when the MOBA genre started taking over. Community just had to find a reason to feel better about themselfes, and they created that myth about elite 300 apm gamers. While dota players are just sitting there and playing the game with 1 hand on the mouse and with the can of beer in the other.
Also there was no co-op mode in the first years of sc2 which also pushed "the elite game" narrative, since the competetive pvp was seen as a sole way to enjoy game in the long run.
#4 and #5 are the regulars in any competitive games tbh.
giant grant games my beloved ❤
Cheaters and Smurfs... Hmm, yea, I am in Diamond league and I barely encounter any cheaters. I cannot even remember when I've seen the last one. I believe there was one a years or two ago in a 2v2 game. But I see smurfs quite a bit more often. It varies though. On a day with 10 or 20 games I had situations were I played vs like 6 to 8 confirmed smurfs (typical signs are high numbers of 0:00 time games for example to get the MMR down. Usually those people use the mirror matchups for that.) I play the game since the open beta and it is fair to say the smurfing issue increased quite a bit over the last few years
20% of matches a in some lower leagues are smurfs. There is also the problem with match making. There is a big difference between 200 MMR in silver/gold, but its not uncommon to see matchups like that. In this situation, it feels like the higher MMR player is smurfing until you see the score screen and see that you were just outright matched against someone who's is not on your level.
Make starcraft2 great again!
As far as cheating goes, I haven’t run into a cheating player at all, yet. In over 300 games, no cheating. I have a few smurf stories, but most of the time, I’ve run into players who are just having a good day. Only one confirmed smurf as toss: I was playing in a silver league in-client tournament, and I’d made it to the finals, where I’d encountered some dude who was running at a pretty high rate, harrassing witth adepts while macroing (which doesn’t happen at silver), then I looked at his match history after I left the game, and lo and behold, a bunch of left games at the 0:00 time mark. The only other confirmed smurf was some dude I played in a gold league ZvT who had been sporadically leaving games at the 0:00 mark for 7-8 games in a row, I ended up beating him with an all-in (his defense wasn’t the strongest), and I looked at his match hostory afterwards. Masters league once upon a time. So, while smurfs DO exist, people complaining about them *most of the time*, and I emphasize most of the time, because there are cases where there is a confirmed smurf, most of the time, the player crying foul is just tilted. Thank you for this video, bro! As a sidenote, I busted diamond with less than 100 APM, so this is not an APM intensive game unless you want to get seriously into the competitive scene. Basically, I was clicking less than 2 times every second, which is almost the same amount of APM used to navigate a website.
Terran op, nerf m.u.l.e.s
MULES are not op. terran has to build orbital for 150 minerals in 25 seconds, that means 2 less scvs at the start of a game (scv is built in 12 secs each). One mule efficiency is comparable to 3 scvs, but you have to use mules manually every minute. Also, terran scvs are building structures instead of mining, so its another loss of income. And you cant just build more scvs because builders are still using supply. In a normal SC2 game mules may become profitable somewhere in midgame, where you have saturated bases and mules give extra income from same mineral patch.
Its impossible to chill and play in SC2. Competitive ladder is too hard and AI is boring with just a few strategies and dumb bugs. Like avoiding sieged liberators even when he has a huge limit.
I'd like to play vs AI, that wins like 20-30% of games with creative strategies, instead of forced 50% winrate I get on the ladder.
SC2 is focused on competitive play, its a nightmare for someone who wants to have good time.
Play custom maps dude. That sounds like a *you* problem. I mean you want to play competitive and still win more than 50%? who are you pretending to be? Serral? Most proffesional players dont even have more than 50%
@@ahuzel I dont want to play competitive, but its the only option where my opponent tries different builds. I like to play relaxed. I'd prefer better AI, instead of being forced into 50% winrate ladder experience. But AI in starcraft seems to repeat the same build on all levels except expert, which is insanely hard for me.
You can have a lot of fun in team modes like 2v2/3v3/4v4
I can personally name smurfers. Sometimes they overloaded the servers, other time they are absent. But to say there is none or few is actually incorrect
Smurfing definitely happens, but not as much as folks say. And happens less as you level up.
sc2 best game ever!
As a Platinum player I'm not sure I've ever encountered someone smurfing, and I've only had one game where I think my opponent was cheating.
It took me awhile to figure you are saying "dead". I kept hearing "that game" and wandered if that's some slang I'm unfamiliar with...
Went from silver to diamond in two years, found no smurfing at all. I belive people will tell themself everithing other than they lost to a better player.
i still play so many hours of sc2 every week but it's literally the 2 maps on arcade i like lol
"There is no smurfing in GM"
uThermal: "Hold my beer!"
Yeah but there's a high chance to match against him even if he's playing from his main acc :)
@@EsportsStoryteller Dafuq is smurfing?!
Very true.
6:30 according to my enemys, i am a "obvious maphacker"
Smurphs are 1 in 3 games in Diamond! Sometimes it's just some Masters 3 playing unranked but most of the times are accounts with 5 games / and who's loses last 1 second.
not so much smurfs but i often too meet people playing unrankeds which are way higher on their ranked MMR
Playing coop is so fun. With all the commanders, you can play different strategies on each games.
I love coop and Nexus coop. I wish there was much more of it.
Epic video - StarCraft 2 forever!
As someone who almost only play on Smurf accounts, I think myth #4 is pretty accurate
I thought that I was a casual SC two player, but I checked outmy replays I realized that I often reach 500 APM and hold it for a solid minute which I didn’t even know I can do. I’m only ranked in diamond.
By any chance, do you play zerg?
@@gyppygirl2021 Could be playing Bio Terran too. I clench my butt anytime I see Clem's marines surrounded by lings and he's target firing all the banes. Insanity.
@Broockle Oh yeah, stutter step micro... I was never able to do that LOL
I was asking because zerg APM is artificially inflated by larvae. Still, it's probably doable otherwise. :p
@@gyppygirl2021 true, but I am still happy with 500 inflated or not my highest APM for protoss is 350 when I go on pushes.
@@charleysimmons427 Oh yeah, that's not bad at all!
Myth 4 - I highly disagree. On silver/bronze you got matched against smurfs half of the time. It's totally unfun and I stopped playing ladder online (I not care about progressing in leagues, I just want play against equal opponent)
The worst "myth" is already confirmed just by the channel name making this video, that it's primarily played by toxic tryhards that think esports aren't cancerous
What is cancerous about esports?
esports arent cancerous. the eurocentric cultures that created them are measurably toxic/net harms to the human species tho. everything is pretty cool until europeans get their slimy hands on it, then it gets corrupted and turned to sh!t in record time, every single time.
@@EsportsStoryteller Look at the environment in pretty much any moba, it's nothing but toxicity all the way down, that's what trying to be an esports game does
The cope is real dude. Sc2 is dead and it has been on life support for a while now. You can thank monkeys who think can balance. Bottom line the game is not fun to play and the game has become about mass expanding. Zerg the race that was supposed to do mass units . Just deffend's and makes 9 queens until 80 drones and gg. Prottos just does the same with death ballsand all ins and cannon rushes. And terran is fucked until you reach master elo. Funny how terran the turtle race is acutally froces to be agressive or die lmao. Its sad to me to see you cope so much.Just say it as it is. Broodwar completely took over. Everyone switches to the superior game. I love you and all. But dude comon face reality. Game no fun = no players.
You are the one coping. You just so sad that you are a failure that need to project that onto sc2. Get a life.
Just build tanks lol
you have the mind of a toddler if you think anything besides the cost of living tripling since the release of sc2 has anything to do with why less people play it. 99% of the human species is currently priced out of being alive. its just basic math to understand that there arent enough people with disposable income to maintain any industry that isnt providing lifes absolute necessities.