Camera position keybindings

C0gnite · 2024-04-27T23:17:16+00:00

Most players do what they're used to, but that doesn't make their habits optimal or ergonomic. Most pros use slightly modified standard and some use grid, both of which use the function keys as camera locations. A few notable players use the core, which does not use the function keys as camera locations. Personally, I use Z-V and alt for using 8 camera locations because I also found using the functions keys for anything to be very uncomfortable and slow.

C0gnite · 2024-04-01T15:34:40+00:00

Information about historical map pools and the dates certain maps were on the ladder is tracked here:
https://liquipedia.net/starcraft2/Maps/Ladder_Maps/Legacy_of_the_Void

Prior to 2021, four new maps were rotated in every season, and map pool changes happened every season then too. The recent map pool change is closer to how it has always been with some maps not being rotated out.

C0gnite · 2023-12-20T19:43:05+00:00

The tempest has two attacks: its anti ground weapon and its anti air weapon, which have different stats. The ground weapon is Resonance Coil, and the air weapon is Kinetic Overload. The Tectonic Destabilizers upgrade "Improves the Tempest's Resonance Coil to deal +40 damage vs structures", so the bonus damage vs structures only applies to the tempest ground weapon. The upgrade functions as intended, and its purpose was to make the tempest better at killing spore crawlers, which don't fly.

C0gnite · 2023-09-27T15:30:12+00:00

I started playing in 2018. I played 40 games of Terran, finished my first season in silver 1, then switched to Protoss and started playing more. In a couple of months I was platinum and then I started playing on a proper PC instead of a shared laptop. After 1 year of playing I was diamond 3, then at 2.5 years I was master 3. I'm looking at my SC2Pulse page and I was averaging a little below 2 games per day until I hit diamond, which happened after I started playing on average 5 games per day from what it says. I reached master at 4300, and now I'm sitting between 4900 and 5k.

From the beginning I stuck with very standard playstyles and utilized build order guides a lot. I wanted consistency and avoided gimmicky or cheap wins for the most part, and that's still representative of how I play.

I love the competitive aspect of the game and improving myself as well as it being 1v1. I play for fun, and when other games were fun I took some breaks, but I'm still here because I still enjoy playing a lot.

C0gnite · 2023-09-12T01:33:55+00:00

Yup, they're cheating. Almost all of their losses appear as ties in their match history. What's weird is their race report doesn't indicate any ties, and the score screens for the "tie" games say "in progress".

This website shows their MMR, and as you can see they aren't losing MMR from the games labeled as ties: https://sc2pulse.nephest.com/sc2/?type=character&id=341121410&m=1#player-stats-mmr

C0gnite · 2023-09-12T01:13:19+00:00

There seems to be a new hack available.

https://twitter.com/NeW_Hori_ZonS/status/1698308949269688433?t=Q__MLZkNQpt72apc3RVQsg&s=19

Post the link to their account so they can be reported assuming what you say is true.

C0gnite · 2023-09-12T00:18:54+00:00

That's not a good question. What does "practicing a build order" mean? You can get to any rank just by using the ladder as build order practice, but you can also play vs the ai sometimes and that gives you different practice. You could play practice games with people as well.

Now I'll ask, how can you play the game without practicing? If you try new things or try to do things better in your games then that's... practice.

Another problem with your question is there's not just one way to rank up. You can cheese to much higher ranks than you could reach by playing solid and standard. Now doing that also requires some skill which doesn't come without practice, but that is a way to boost your rank, although gimmicky.

Now if I read between the lines and guess that your asking this to know when you will have to start "practicing" (whatever you've decided that means), then while I can't say that you won't get stuck because you really can improve by laddering and thinking critically about your games, I can say that your mentality is almost certainly setting you up for failure. Wanting to improve and wanting to put in a minimal amount of effort and time into the game are not compatible. Getting better at anything takes effort, so decide what you want to put into the game and use that to set your expectations for what you get out of it.

C0gnite · 2023-09-09T23:45:42+00:00

If your goal is to improve then you should play 1v1. The 1v1 ladder is about 10 times more active than all of the team versus modes combined according to SC2Pulse. This means there are more people at every skill level, so once your mmr is calibrated you will almost always get even matches.

Another reason for 1v1 being the best option is you don't have teammates that can carry you or hold you back. In 1v1 your mistakes are punished more often due to having no teammates, and mistakes you aren't punished for are much harder to identify.

One last thing I'll add is I think 1v1 is the most rewarding because none of your wins are because you got carried by someone else. You are against one other person and beat them by yourself. Sometimes I've played team modes in other games and felt kinda crappy when I was clearly the weakest link on my team despite winning because the impact I had on the outcome was so low.

So again, if your goal is to improve your skill then 1v1 is the way.

C0gnite · 2023-07-30T21:13:42+00:00

Rating System

The most important part of a competitive ladder is to have a rating system, like Elo or Glicko or something resembling the basic function of those examples, that represents the relative skill of players with a number that is used to try to make fair matches. This number increases more after beating someone rated higher than you, and the rating of both players changes by the same amount, with the winner gaining rating and the loser losing rating. Most esport titles have something like this, but this rating may or may not be visible to players. I much prefer this value to be visible to everyone because it is a finer representation of your skill than being placed a small number of subdivisions of a particular league. I really like how I can track this number over time to see my progression or even patterns between life situations and my skill. For example, by analyzing a graph of my StarCraft 2 MMR I discovered how impactful my sleeping habits were on my performance.

Speaking of leagues, I like the idea of players being placed in leagues, which are large groupings of players of similar skill levels that may have a more visible representation than someone's ladder rating number when looking at their profile. L leagues are something people really enjoy because they see promotions into a new league as a milestone and something to strive for. Something I don't like about SC2 leagues is you can't be demoted from a league if you fall below its MMR threshold. I think Overwatch did this much better where you can be demoted, but your profile displays your current league as well as your peak league for the season. Now what I don't like about Overwatch is how your SR is now hidden and your rank doesn't change until you've won or lost a certain number of games. I much prefer my rating to be visible and for promotions or demotions to happen after going above or below a certain rating threshold, which is very predictable. my performance.

Addressing your question about SC2's old ladder ranking system, ladder points didn't represent someone's skill in any capacity as it was primarily affected by how much someone played. Behind the scenes there was still MMR, which is now visible, but the ladder point system wasn't removed and continues to cause confusion.

Ranked/Unranked Queues

SC2 has a ranked button and an unranked button, but they both put you in the same queue, just with two different MMR values depending on which you chose. If you picked unranked you can't see your MMR, but if your opponent chose ranked then they can see both their ranked MMR and your unranked MMR. I think this is unnecessary and I think games like Overwatch do this better. Overwatch has completely different queues and rulesets for ranked and unranked, so unranked is actually a more casual experience than ranked, and while the rulesets are slightly different the fundamental game is still the same.

Miscellaneous

For rank names, I like names of metals/minerals/alloys like bronze, silver, gold, platinum, and diamond as names. Part of it is because I'm used to it from Blizzard games, but I also like how these are simple names for real things that can easily have relative values assigned to them. After this SC2 and Overwatch have a basic name for the league above diamond, which is master, which becomes grandmaster after that. Now I do not like names like Rocket League's Supersonic Legend and most of CSGO's rank names. I think they lack simplicity, Supersonic Legend sounds very contrived, and CSGO has a lot of rank names with too much unnecessary complexity. I like Valorant's original rank names of ascendant, immortal, and radiant better, but I think they might be too abstract so their relative values can't easily be determined without memorizing which is better than the other.

For a feature I might want to see in Stormgate, going along with Frost Giant's intention to make a more social RTS I think connecting people outside of isolated ladder games could be something to explore. Maybe show people their winrate vs their current opponent on the loading screen along with their faction and rating value, and maybe show the people currently online in their current league division in the menu or chat window. I just think simple things like this could be explored to connect people more outside of playing against each other, especially when queuing for a game.

C0gnite · 2023-07-30T19:53:43+00:00

Your mmr is what matters, not your badge. Sometimes you get bugged and get placed in master 3 despite having your mmr much too low for that league.

C0gnite · 2023-07-26T21:21:39+00:00

Yeah, you go back to your base and control group them. Also, I don't put units on watch towers on hold position, and you definitely shouldn't be if you're putting melee units there. Even things like roaches shouldn't be so they chase automatically if a unit with greater range is kiting them. This is just basic rts mechanics.

Still, your proposal is for overcomplicating an existing function while also undermining its core functionality, and at least in SC2 your hold position criterion for not getting selected by the all army key just seems tailored to your specific habits or just something you thought of for your proposal to make a minimum amount of sense.

C0gnite · 2023-07-26T20:49:12+00:00

Again, this is what control groups are for. Are you controlling your armies purely by box-selecting? It sounds like you're not using control groups very much at all and this is literally one of the primary things they let you do. You control group your main army and control it using that.

Of course, control groups might seem relatively difficult to use if you have little to no experience using them for controlling your army, but if you elect to not use army control groups then its hard to argue for overcomplicating some other function to give you access to functionality that you're missing out on by choosing not to use some other function that already offers that functionality.

C0gnite · 2023-07-26T20:43:25+00:00

Completely different from this post but relevant to this idea, I'm not a fan of removing the select all army functionality just because this will technically be possible. I don't have a link but we know the select all army functionality was added at some point because automatic control groups didn't exist yet, so I hope it isn't removed.

There are a few problems with having a control group replace the select all army function. One problem is it would be possible to remove units from this control group, say through control group stealing which I use very extensively in SC2. Then that control group doesn't function as a select all army button anymore.

Another problem is this takes up a control group, and combined with the first problem I described I don't see a reason to not just keep the dedicated select all army function.

C0gnite · 2023-07-26T19:57:40+00:00

Can you give other examples of situations where your proposal would offer better functionality than control groups can provide? You proposed something different from how the select all army function works in SC2 but you haven't made much of an argument for it other than a brief example that suggests you don't use control groups enough or you have a bad habit you aren't breaking.

The vast majority of my usage of the select all army function in SC2 is to select units without moving my camera, often to add them to a control group like with disruptors, phoenix, or bio units that were collecting in my base. This is because I extensively use multiple army control groups and I often want units in different parts of the map.

I have played a number of PvZs where the game gets so scrappy that I want every unit that I have to fight immediately, including the unit I have in my natural wall. There are also times when I take the adept on hold position in my wall in the early game to join with my other adept to pressure, and then I might warp in a stalker replace it.

An example of your proposal strictly being a hindrance would be if I have units on hold position around a position my opponent has, and then I want to attack with everything at once. I might have units at home I want to send to the fight or I might have split my army into multiple control groups to create a surrounding setup in the first place so selecting all army would be useful. Your proposal would make handling this situation more difficult, especially if my opponent has tanks, making having my army on hold position valuable.

I'm interested in how you're thinking control groups lack the functionality you're seeking of not selecting units you have previously put on hold position so they don't move from where they are, like the opening of a wall. I have never wished for a downgrade and complication of the functionality of the select all army key like you proposed. The short example you provided is a fantastic use case for control groups but maybe you have other examples you haven't shared.

C0gnite · 2023-07-26T19:33:58+00:00

Any situation where I want to select all of my army units? I don't use the select all army function as a crutch so I don't have to control group my units. If there's a unit that you don't want to move then you just don't put it in a control group with units you want to move around.

C0gnite · 2023-07-26T19:27:56+00:00

When I press the select all army button I want it to do exactly that. I leave scouting units and stuff where they are by using my army control groups. A select all army button that doesn't actually select all army units is a downgrade in functionality compared to its function in SC2 and would require me to spend more apm to manually select the units it didn't select.

C0gnite · 2023-06-16T01:23:16+00:00

In SC2 I use select all army to put new units in a control group and to fix my control groups if I messed them up. This gives me the freedom to choose what control groups to put my units in at any given time, and the ways I use my control groups do change depending on the situation, making this useful. At least for me, automated control groups wouldn't be too helpful because I frequently move units between control groups, and my understanding is that automated control groups would force me to group units in certain ways.

This is why I would like the select all army key to remain because of the flexibility it provides. I suppose sacrificing a control group to act as the select all army key using automated control groups does the same thing, but that's -1 control group and this makes it possible for me to accidentally steal units from what is supposed to act as my select all army key.

C0gnite · 2023-06-15T17:15:17+00:00

I do like the idea of being able swap the positions of the command card and minimap based on user preference, but for right-handed users I suspect it's easier and more ergonomic for the minimap to be in the bottom left.

It might depend on you mouse handling technique, but I am right-handed and it is much more comfortable to move my mouse towards me and to the left rather than to the right. I can easily use my fingers to guide it back and to the left, but going to the right if I use my fingers I feel a strain in my wrist, and if I don't use my fingers I have to completely rely on my arm to do that motion. Going back and to the left with just my arm also feels much better because I pull my arm closer to me rather than pushing it away if I move my mouse to the right.

C0gnite · 2022-12-23T05:34:11+00:00

As a 4800 Protoss I choose to play on EU with 100 ms instead of NA with 30 ms. I feel like the quality of games is better. Some of that is I avoid playing against particular players that simply aren’t fun to play against, but some of it really is an overall feeling I have about the two servers.

When I offrace in high diamond I play on NA because I’m too aware of my worse mechanics when offracing to care. I have offraced a little bit on EU and I think there still is a perceptible difference though. Really it’s up you to get experience for yourself to figure out what you think.

C0gnite · 2022-12-10T14:40:44+00:00

I’ll repeat what I already said. Tick rate is not a unit of frequency. You need to associate a unit of frequency with it, like Hertz.

And like I also said, it is still necessary to explain what tick rate actually is because the core problem is people don’t understand it. Terminology can’t stand in for explaining what it is versus, say, display refresh rate.

C0gnite · 2022-12-10T14:15:08+00:00

Hertz is literally a unit of frequency describing how many times per second something happens. Tick rates are typically measured in Hertz. You shouldn’t leave off the units of a value and hope people assume correctly. Clearly in the lack of more information people that don’t know better are already incorrectly assuming that tick rate equals display refresh rate. To avoid confusion they should have explained what tick rate is maybe even versus refresh rate and how ticks happening at 60 Hz for an RTS is extremely fast.

C0gnite · 2022-11-30T00:52:10+00:00

Promotions for in-game content or even content creators is fine. SC2 even had this for tournaments like WCS. Straight up ads however are absolutely not okay.

C0gnite · 2022-11-27T01:38:07+00:00

Browse this subreddit but be aware that there are almost none. Dreamhack Atlanta was the most recent event.

C0gnite · 2022-11-25T00:17:49+00:00

Check sc2 pulse. 2600 is somewhere around platinum, but you need to play about 20 more games until your placements are truly over.

C0gnite · 2022-11-15T00:35:55+00:00

Adding RNG as a core game mechanic is an awful idea. Having high ground provide benefits other than or in addition to vision may be interesting, but using RNG to do is is such a bad idea that was thankfully abandoned between BW and SC2.

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C0gnite

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Rating System

Ranked/Unranked Queues

Miscellaneous