GitP WarCraft 3: The Frozen Throne group (thread II) - Page 26

Winterwind · 06-24-2010, 01:39 PM

Reminder: Our custom map session is tomorrow. Hope to see you all there.

Just returned from a fairly exhausting journey; forgive me for not sending out any PMs today, but right now, I'm feeling far too lazy for even that.

I really hope you can work out these issues, TFT.

Inhuman Bot · 06-24-2010, 02:14 PM

I'm going to be joining you guys from now on for the Friday sessions, as A) My D&D group's DM is moving to Quebec, and B) Anyone else who I'd spend time with is away this summer.

I'm going to work on getting all my maps back, eventually.

Antisthenes · 06-24-2010, 02:46 PM

woah woah woah. I'm completely out of the loop on this thread. I've been on battlenet since i was 12. Where, when and how? Also, east or west?
Add me to your lists and whatnot, Antisthenes is the name, WC3TFT is the game.

Rigel Cyrosea · 06-24-2010, 05:42 PM

Bnet East, channel 'op gitp' on Fridays (for customs) and Sundays (for melee). The official start time is 4:00PM EST, iirc, but people frequently show up both early and late.

Cynan Machae · 06-24-2010, 08:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anatharon

I'm going to be joining you guys from now on for the Friday sessions, as A) My D&D group's DM is moving to Quebec, and B) Anyone else who I'd spend time with is away this summer.

A very nice place to move to!

Winterwind · 06-25-2010, 09:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Antisthenes

woah woah woah. I'm completely out of the loop on this thread. I've been on battlenet since i was 12. Where, when and how? Also, east or west?
Add me to your lists and whatnot, Antisthenes is the name, WC3TFT is the game.

Alright, welcome!

Rigel already answered your questions (Azeroth(USEast), channel op GitP, 4 PM EST, Friday for customs, Sunday for melee, the sessions typically last about 6-7 hours, sometimes more); otherwise, the answer to them can also be found in the first post of this thread or in my signature.

Inhuman Bot · 06-25-2010, 09:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynan Machae

A very nice place to move to!

Keep telling yourself that.

Winterwind · 06-26-2010, 05:01 AM

And reminder: Tomorrow is our melee session. Hope to see you all there.

Rigel Cyrosea · 06-28-2010, 03:58 PM

So, after having great difficulty expressing any valid reasons for my disagreement with asking people not to cheese yesterday, I thought about it some more, and I've come to a few conclusions.

I was generalizing a personal standard I hold myself to. I would never ask some to stop doing a cheese against me, because for me it's wrong to do so*. But I shouldn't expect others to be held to that standard, especially because the reason I hold it myself is completely reliant on why I enjoy the game in the first place. Different people play for different reasons- I shouldn't act as if everyone is like me.

So, basically, I still disapprove, but I realize my judgment is biased, and I won't bug anyone about it any more.

*Explanation for this below. Spoilered because it's kinda harsh and because some of you probably aren't interested in reading it.

Spoiler

For me, the enjoyment of the game comes from learning, gaining experience, and improving. Each individual game has moments that are enjoyable and moments that aren't, but that isn't the point. The point is that I gain something each time.

Asking someone not to do a cheese against you goes completely against this. The cheese is always going to be part of the game. People are going to do it against you sometimes. If you avoid ever playing against it, you'll never learn to beat it. You're giving up. Avoiding the hard path because you don't feel like putting in the work.

Cheese is very much all-or-nothing. Once you know how to beat it, you can always beat it (assuming you scouted). If someone keeps doing the same annoying cheese to you, you learn how to beat it, and then they'll stop doing it, because they can't win with it anymore. And in the process, you become a stronger player.

Raging because you got cheesed in a stupid way and lost a very unfun game is perfectly natural. I get pissed at Mikro pretty much every SC session for being such a ridiculous cheeser. But you take a minute to calm down and then it's over and you move on to the next game. Yeah, the cheese game wasn't fun, but you gained something from it nonetheless.

It's also easy to forget that people (at least, most people) don't cheese to piss you off. They cheese because it's fun to win with cheese. It shouldn't be taken personally.

One more bit, on the difference between trying to get someone to agree not to cheese you and just stating that you don't like being cheesed:

If you're playing with a friend who cares about whether you enjoy yourself, both methods will have the same effect. If you're not playing with someone like that, only the first will actually stop the cheese. Thus, using the first implies that you think your opponent is not a friend who cares about whether you enjoy yourself. Among our group, I think all of us care about whether the others are having a fun game, even if they don't make that obvious.

Inhuman Bot · 06-28-2010, 05:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rigel Cyrosea

So, after having great difficulty expressing any valid reasons for my disagreement with asking people not to cheese yesterday, I thought about it some more, and I've come to a few conclusions.

People were complaining about cheese at the WC 3 session? O.O

Times are-a changin'.

Rigel Cyrosea · 06-28-2010, 05:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anatharon

People were complaining about cheese at the WC 3 session? O.O

Times are-a changin'.

Had to do with the mass raider 'snipe the town hall' cheese that Eve likes to do.

742 · 06-28-2010, 07:23 PM

to be fair theres a difference between a statement of preference, a request, and a demand. "i dont find that fun to play against*" "thats annoying and unfun, (please) stop it*" "stop it now or your banned." that last one should never happen among friends, and if its necessary you should probably examine the "friendship".

*i do this all the time, and usually to stuff i can beat, just not in ways that are fun. i also do it when im obsing; most players are terribly inconsiderate to observers.

The Orange Zergling · 06-28-2010, 08:21 PM

Well, thank you for that, at least.

On my end, fun is its own quantity and does not come specifically from victory. And furthermore, I rather firmly hold the position that all games, no matter how competitive or serious, are entertainment first and sport second. Improving and winning and so on are great and everything, but if I have to choose between having fun and slightly closing the gap between me and professionals I'd rather have fun absolutely any day. I do still enjoy getting better at the game quite a bit, and that's the reason why I play in the public ladder from time to time. However, since we are a group of friends playing friendly matches with each other, I think that we all have a right to attempt to rectify the situation if we are not having fun because having fun is the objective of the group.

Rigel Cyrosea · 06-28-2010, 10:56 PM

Quote:

On my end, fun is its own quantity and does not come specifically from victory. And furthermore, I rather firmly hold the position that all games, no matter how competitive or serious, are entertainment first and sport second. Improving and winning and so on are great and everything, but if I have to choose between having fun and slightly closing the gap between me and professionals I'd rather have fun absolutely any day. I do still enjoy getting better at the game quite a bit, and that's the reason why I play in the public ladder from time to time. However, since we are a group of friends playing friendly matches with each other, I think that we all have a right to attempt to rectify the situation if we are not having fun because having fun is the objective of the group.

For me, improvement isn't about winning more, or getting closer to the top level players, or treating the game as a sport. It is it's own end. No amount of fun I could have in a single game could match the satisfaction I get when I realize I really am a lot better at something than I was when I started practicing it.

But, to each their own. Improving and having fun aren't mutually exclusive, afterall.

The Fiery Tower · 07-01-2010, 01:27 AM

So, I'm going to post my own game for review. I will say this: This was a pretty sloppy game for me, at least in my opinion. A good one to look for stuff I need to be more careful with, as well as what I did horribly, I guess.

Here's the game.

aNooburak · 07-01-2010, 06:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rigel Cyrosea

So, after having great difficulty expressing any valid reasons for my disagreement with asking people not to cheese yesterday, I thought about it some more, and I've come to a few conclusions.

I was generalizing a personal standard I hold myself to. I would never ask some to stop doing a cheese against me, because for me it's wrong to do so*. But I shouldn't expect others to be held to that standard, especially because the reason I hold it myself is completely reliant on why I enjoy the game in the first place. Different people play for different reasons- I shouldn't act as if everyone is like me.

So, basically, I still disapprove, but I realize my judgment is biased, and I won't bug anyone about it any more.

*Explanation for this below. Spoilered because it's kinda harsh and because some of you probably aren't interested in reading it.

Spoiler

For me, the enjoyment of the game comes from learning, gaining experience, and improving. Each individual game has moments that are enjoyable and moments that aren't, but that isn't the point. The point is that I gain something each time.

Asking someone not to do a cheese against you goes completely against this. The cheese is always going to be part of the game. People are going to do it against you sometimes. If you avoid ever playing against it, you'll never learn to beat it. You're giving up. Avoiding the hard path because you don't feel like putting in the work.

Cheese is very much all-or-nothing. Once you know how to beat it, you can always beat it (assuming you scouted). If someone keeps doing the same annoying cheese to you, you learn how to beat it, and then they'll stop doing it, because they can't win with it anymore. And in the process, you become a stronger player.

Raging because you got cheesed in a stupid way and lost a very unfun game is perfectly natural. I get pissed at Mikro pretty much every SC session for being such a ridiculous cheeser. But you take a minute to calm down and then it's over and you move on to the next game. Yeah, the cheese game wasn't fun, but you gained something from it nonetheless.

It's also easy to forget that people (at least, most people) don't cheese to piss you off. They cheese because it's fun to win with cheese. It shouldn't be taken personally.

One more bit, on the difference between trying to get someone to agree not to cheese you and just stating that you don't like being cheesed:

If you're playing with a friend who cares about whether you enjoy yourself, both methods will have the same effect. If you're not playing with someone like that, only the first will actually stop the cheese. Thus, using the first implies that you think your opponent is not a friend who cares about whether you enjoy yourself. Among our group, I think all of us care about whether the others are having a fun game, even if they don't make that obvious.

Heh, sorry for cheesing you on SC sessions

. Well now that I have a two week holiday from school, I'll be able to come and play at the melee sessions!

(If your wondering, Sunday for this group is Monday for me). Maybe Rigel can return the favor and cheese me during that

Winterwind · 07-01-2010, 10:05 AM

@RC: Glad we could work this out.

I'm rather bemused to find somebody else is out there who plays for pretty much exactly the same reasons as I do.

@TFT: Will look at it, not sure when so far, but definitely before the next melee session.

@Feed: Glad to hear that! Looking forward to it.

@Everyone: Reminder, tomorrow is our next custom map session. I hope to see you all there.

I may be somewhat late (like, an hour or two).

LordShotGun · 07-01-2010, 06:02 PM

Alright, take me off the email list please

Spoiler

Spoilered because its kinda mean and potentially angering

Inhuman Bot · 07-01-2010, 07:09 PM

Was that me? IT sounds like something I'd do.

742 · 07-01-2010, 11:03 PM

me too if i was in a bad/intattentive mood and had a handicap or distraction or just felt like watchtower rushing. its not exactly 4pool.

there are also degrees of easy, at the extremes they involve blinking one extra time during a worker split or just throwing the game.

watchtower rushing a noob is still mean though.

Rigel Cyrosea · 07-01-2010, 11:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aNooburak

Heh, sorry for cheesing you on SC sessions

. Well now that I have a two week holiday from school, I'll be able to come and play at the melee sessions!

(If your wondering, Sunday for this group is Monday for me). Maybe Rigel can return the favor and cheese me during that

No need to apolgize. It's hard to say this properly, but I really don't mind that you cheese me a lot, except during and immediately after being cheesed. Once there's a bit of time between the cheese and me, I no longer am bothered by it.

Also, glad to hear you'll be coming to the melee session.

Bunny of Faith · 07-02-2010, 10:22 AM

So, I have my computer back, and thus should be around tonight at some point. Victory!

nooblade · 07-02-2010, 11:21 AM

My problems are fixing themselves as well. Also feeling a bit more productive than usual, might actually churn out something before the end of summer.

But with the release of SC2 so close, I wonder what I could gain by putting off this productiveness for just another month (or getting the tools somewhere, I wasn't really interested in beta testing). I can't think of anything I really want to make that isn't already possible (even barely) in War3. Learning to use a new set of tools is a little off-putting, but eh.

I really doubt anything I want to make is going to be popular in SC2 just because CfG wasn't popular with War3. Well, that's not entirely true, it appeared that CfG had a nice stint when it first came out. And also it's not the same map... Eh.

Anyway, I think I could do some things in War3 without breaking a sweat just to see how it turns out and to see if it's satisfying or if it demands more effort.

Edit: Got a CfG in with Faith and some pubs, even though I thought it wouldn't be possible. Wow, it was fun to play that again!

Winterwind · 07-02-2010, 07:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LordShotGun

Alright, take me off the email list please

Spoiler

Spoilered because its kinda mean and potentially angering

Got it. Off the PM list. If you should ever want me to start sending you these PMs again, please tell me so.

Though I feel compelled to remark that firstly, one of our two sessions is dedicated specifically to custom maps, and no melee is played there, so if you wished to avoid melee, that's perfectly doable, and secondly, that the vast majority of our members would never even consider doing anything like that to a new member.

Still, if you don't want to participate after such an experience, I fully understand. My sincerest apologies on behalf of the group that your first encounter with our members was of such a kind.

___

(I'll take this opportunity to state, by the way - because I think I never actually did that in the thread - that the above is my general policy when it comes to the reminder PMs. If you tell me to not send them to you, I'll stop until explicitly told otherwise. Even if you say something like "Stop sending them please, because I'll be unable to participate in the next future", and then you finally are able to participate again and return, I won't resume sending the PMs until you explicitly tell me to. Feel free to do so at any time though, if you want to.)

___

Glad to have you with us, Feed, Faith and Nooblade.

Winterwind · 07-03-2010, 12:46 PM

And reminder: Tomorrow is our next melee session. Hope to see you all there.

Inhuman Bot · 07-03-2010, 02:22 PM

I might come to the melee session, but if I do, I'll just observe games.

It's hard to play on a laptop, while stealing someone's wireless connection.

Winterwind · 07-04-2010, 01:05 PM

Alright, TFT, I looked over that game of yours, here's the advice I can give based upon it/the mistakes I noticed:

Spoiler

You stopped building your peons for a fairly long time, around when you ordered your barracks, and resumed building them only a fair bit later. Don't do that, the main building should basically remain active for as long as it takes to amass the proper amount of workers, non-stop.
Your base layout is too spaced out - you should leave as little room between the buildings as possible, at least between the buildings that are at the front, so that there are only few entrances into your base proper; that way, it becomes both more difficult and more dangerous for an attacker to actually follow you into there. Also, your burrows should be further back, right behind your other buildings, because firstly, in the case of an attack those become your defensive structures when you call your peons in, so they become something the enemy will want to take down as quickly as possible to eliminate their fire, hence they should be protected, and secondly, they are far more fragile than your other buildings due to their heavy armour. When an enemy attacks you, your burrows will pretty much always be their first priority target, so they should never be up front where the enemy can easily focus them with the entire army.
You ended up short one lumber peon. You can quite easily notice whether you have the right number of workers, because if you do it right, your food count is 5(gold peons)+7(lumber peons)+5(hero)+3(first grunt)=20, so you precisely fill up the food count from your first two burrows. The feature of proper build orders is that they usually work out precisely, just like that.
When creeping with your hero only, you had your hero shoot one creep and the wolves another, so you ended up almost taking down both before you had to retreat. If you focused, one of the creeps would die far more quickly, and thus its damage output would be removed, allowing you to kill that much more. Also, you generally don't have to be afraid of your hero taking damage - even after your wolves die, you can just keep on fighting (and resummon them soon, anyway), because you can heal that damage easily with your shop anyway. If it allows you to creep a creep camp that much more quickly, it's easily worth that one charge from that item.
You should upgrade your troops. Especially armour is useful for Orcs - firstly, because their troops have high hit point (one point armour is basically the same as gaining 6% more hit points, only not against spells) and because no matter which units you pick later, the armour upgrade helps them anyway.
You had a slight macro failure when fighting that second creep camp (above your opponent's base). Throughout the fight and while you were running back to your main, your gold kept rising, your buildings were inactive, and yet you neither ordered more troops nor an upgrade. Try to avoid that.
When you attacked your opponent, you had a wrong selection of targets sometimes. Firstly, attacking the Crypt (or analogue thereof if the opponent is something else) is pretty pointless: It's durable, you almost certainly won't take it down, and even if you did, it doesn't actually cripple the enemy all that much. Go for shops (all shops have low hit points, so you have a good chance of taking them down before the enemy saves them, and taking the shop down will weaken the enemy greatly if a fight in the base follows, and also make it more difficult for them to get their TP scroll back should they decide to TP back) or workers (especially Undead are vulnerable to workers dying). Towers and burrows make good targets, too. And later on in the fight, you had many units doing their own thing: One grunt beat up a ghoul on the right, one grunt beat up a ghoul on the left, and the rest went after his army or his accolytes. You would kill of more, leaving less things wounded but alive, if you actually focused. Usually, accolytes are the best targets in such a situation.
Another thing about the timing of your attack on your opponent. Before you decide to do that, look at the experience of your heroes. If one of them is close to hitting the next level - especially if it's the next uneven level - do not attack but creep first, so you actually have that level when you attack. In this case, your Far Seer wasn't far from level 3, which would have meant having level 2 wolves instead of level 1 ones in that battle - a major difference.
If you TP back, and you have the gold, get the TP scroll right away. You forgot it initially.
Well, you can start the T3 upgrade at that point... but altogether, I think you would be better of spending the gold elsewhere. T3 isn't nearly as crucial for Orcs as it is for the other races. Don't get me wrong, it's a good idea to get T3, but I can think of a few other things at that point that would likely serve you better (see below).
Don't queue up Net and three Raiders at once! Do not ever use that many queue slots!
You still have no upgrades, and it's slowly getting so late in the game that this becomes critical. That would be definitely one thing where you should spend more resources. Note, upgrading even makes macroing easier, because it's one more outlet for your resources - no wonder you end up with so many resources you feel compelled to queue up far too much stuff, if one major resource drain is completely missing from your play.
Get potions on your heroes. Unless you have a strong instant heal (Healing Wave is instant, but its single target healing is too weak to qualify), you should have a healing or invulnerability potion on all your heroes at all times, and having both wouldn't be a mistake either (if you do have a strong instant heal, i.e. Healing Light or Death Coil, you can go by with having them only on the healing hero. And both Far Seers and Shadow Hunters can very effectively burn through all their mana in a fight and benefit you greatly if they can keep casting, so having mana potions on them would be a good idea, too. That's a massive amount of gold that, I feel, would serve you here better, too.
You attack a really heavily fortified base (and you knew he had a lot of towers from your previous battle) without long range siege. Unless you have really, really many raiders, that's a highly risky move that can lose you a game you would certainly win otherwise. It can work out (as, indeed, it did in this case), but generally, I would advise to not go after such a base without catapults.
I didn't mention it in the previous battle, because that took place in the enemy base with lots of slow around, which kinda mitigates it, but you need to work on your pull-back micro. You have too often almost dead grunts or raiders who could, however, easily make it out, but you still keep them fighting. At least pull them back a bit so his melee units switch targets and stop beating up your almost dead units, but ideally, pull them out of the fight completely. What I do in such situations is selecting the almost dead unit, order it to go to your base via minimap, then deselect it in the control group by shift-clicking on its portrait, and reassigning the group, so it's completely gone from the battle. That way, when the fight is over, rather than having three dead grunts, you have three almost dead grunts standing around in your base and ready to be healed back up. I'd argue that's the single most important aspect of Orc micro bar none and by far, and it's not actually all that difficult once one focuses a bit more on it.
You rather pointlessly stopped in front of the enemy's base once you retreated out of it - I think you were undecided whether to keep fighting or to run back, and ultimately just stood there for a pretty long time while waiting for reinforcements. Better use that time to go back to your base and heal up - your heroes were completely out of mana, that's no shape to get into a fight.
Queued up slightly too much in that Tauren Totem, but that's rather minor.

That would be all I can say about that. I hope it helps!

u-gotNOgame · 07-06-2010, 11:25 PM

So my computer is ~~going to the glue factory~~ getting reformatted. So depending on whether or not it is back and I have warcraft re-installed by friday I might or might not be there. Sunday I will not be at the session because I will be out of town.

dresdor · 07-07-2010, 09:17 AM

Ah warcraft 3...if only I was any good at multiplayer....that said I've not played in a while...

I might start up again. Anyone have advice for multiplayer?

Legoshrimp · 07-07-2010, 10:18 AM

Come to the melee session on sunday!!!

Also if you like customs join us on friday. There is some advice on melee scatered throughout this thread and a bit of the last. I don't have time to go through and compile all of it right now, but maybe someone else already has and I missed it or someone will. Also one thing build a shop and always have a TP on your hero. Also what race do you play?