I've Got a Good Feeling About This One: Thoughts on Losing

Although I am not the most competitive gamer you will ever meet (or competitive person in general, I guess) it would be very false to state I am not competitive at all. Especially if I'm playing against strangers, it's pretty much impossible for me to me to play for anything other than to win. This tends to manifest especially in video games, and as much as my battle reports recently might lead you to believe otherwise, I have on a few occasions lost.

Losing in itself is not usually a bad thing, since it encourages us to improve and play better next time. Especially in the games I tend to play, the turnaround time to the next game is quick, and even the ability to improve midgame is possible.

This, however, is not the case for RTSs, as I'm discovering. For instance, in an average game of an FPS you can be having a bad streak, and then make an excellent comeback. Likewise, one bad game might be followed by another great one. Finally, none of these games are likely to last long (especially something like Gears of War). With games such as SC2 though, games are likely to last at least 10 minutes (if not stretching to an hour, like one game Aaron and Rome had) and one mistake can mean the end of things.

These things can be made even worse in team games, which in my experience can last a lot longer on average. In addition, having one player drop can be devastating, as can likewise 1 really good player on an opposing team with two relatively ok or even bad players. For instance, in a game last night, here were the standings.

We actually lost this game, mostly because Rome dropped very early on (He had a barracks and a starport and that was about it due to Reaper raiding before he dropped). As you can see, I technically did best overall, but it still made no difference because we couldn't match their forces. I wiped out a base and a half towards the end of the game, but because I didn't have support it wasn't enough (likewise Aaron was still playing well, but taking the brunt of the attacks after Rome dropped, which is understandable). Unlike a game like an FPS where me playing like that might have won the game, in a team-based thing like SC2 the loss of Rome kind of killed most of our chances. I also think in 3v3 or 4v4 the drop is more problematic, since it becomes questionable who will take over. In 2v2 where I've lost Rome, I obviously knew I needed to take over both bases and did so, but because Rome dropped in this game and it was both Aaron and I (and we were unable to voice chat) we both, I think, figured the other would take care of Rome's stuff, so nothing ever happened there (it wasn't until the last few minutes where I realized Aaron could be making Vikings at Rome's Starport).

Anyway, that was one lost out of 5 for that night. Yes, we lost every game we played. It was rather demoralizing and painful (also reinforced how custom games kind of suck since you could be playing people of any skill level). Again, unlike other multiplayer games where many more game could have been played, those 5 games took a long time and oftentime it was just one single mistake that led to our downfalls, which can be very irritating. This obviously isn't going to stop me from playing SC2, but it's making me readjust my perspective on winning RTSs (especially since SC2 matchmaking is designed to give you a 50/50 win/loss ratio). In addition, I have to keep reminding myself that this is only my first week playing the game, I never even played SC1 online and I could be playing against people who have put many many more hours into both SC1 and SC2 than me (not to mention other online RTSs). But, last night was last night, and Aaron and I have a good feeling about this one.

In terms of other things I've noticed about SC2, here are some complaints that may or may not be echoed on the forums.

1. Surrender button. I was playing a game and the server lagged (?) right as I was hitting enter to type something to Rome, and it apparently it took the enter to mean I wanted to surrender (since the message goes something like "Server is lagging. Surrender?". A simple "are you sure" would have been incredibly appreciated.
2. The frickin' custom game set-up. As it stands, if you hit "Join game," it shows a bunch of maps listed by popularity. Note I didn't say "games," but rather maps. That's right, it'll show maps even though nobody's in a lobby for that. So you'll join an option and find yourself sitting in an empty lobby you just created, even though you clearly didn't want to create a game since yo hit join game. Incredibly frustrating, and it also means that nobody plans one or two maps (for instance, only Arkhan Asylum and the Bio Lab for 3v3). Very very very stupid.
3. The Zerg. They're pretty much universally acknowledged to have problems but haven't been fixed yet. This only bugs me because the player I almost always plays with (Aaron) plays Zerg. Sigh...
4. Terran detectors. Zerg have only 1 (maybe 2) and Protoss only have one, yet Terran have turrets, ravens, and the ability to scan an area whenever they want. That makes one of my favorite units, DTs, almost useless unless I get them early out AND the terran player has built neither a single missile turret or his advanced command center yet. Meanwhile Zerg are happy if they finally get detectors half way through the midgame... And while the Protoss Observer is awesome, it's also relatively late, and it's be nice if something else had the ability.
5. Similarly, either fix the Phoenixes or give us a unit that is actually made for anti-air. And give the Zerg one too. (now that I've been on the receiving end of Void Ray/Carrier spams...)
6. Finally, to end with, the whole cliff thing is weird. Protoss can't walk cliffs till T3 (or if you blink Stalkers which is still far from early game) and Zerg get it... never? Whereas Terrans have Reapers as T1 units. Which leads me to my next point...
7. "Practice" league games are interesting in theory, but the balancing of rocks means a) you can't scout, so you only choose a strategy and hope for the best until you get a flying unit up to scout, by which point it can be too late unless b) you're Terran, and you just make one reaper and you can suddenly do in the first few minutes what Zerg and Protoss can't, as well as harass very well while the other two races have to wait to have enough forces to break through two rock piles (one usually defended) or do mass air drops, which is impractical. Plus the lack of scouting makes things very unlike what normal games are like. If they had done anything, they should have just slowed down the game speed (not getting used to avoiding early-game rushes is also not a good habit to get into).

Again, I'm still having a lot of fun, but thought those things should be aired. Do you guys agree, disagree, or got something else that's bugging you?

-HTMC