I will not be buying SC2

[Gifted]

1. You've heard the advice before, you shouldn't pick random, sounds like you picked Terran so you're good there.

2. Goto a replay, pause the game, goto the F12 Help option and look at each unit. It will give you basic "strong against" and "weak against" icons. If you want to find out the truth, look at the attack and the keywords of each unit. This will help you learn the preliminary counters... at least a resource for you

3. Beta right now has a very "open" queue, much more open than it would normally be. Instead of playing against 10000+ copper people, you probably have 5-10 queue every 3-5 minutes, Which means that you could be playing against non-coppers the majority of the time. If you see "expanding search"... it wouldn't be copper.

4. For terran, get used to a basic Marine/Maurader setup for now, and you'll find ways to build on that overall with tanks, vikings or ravens when needed. As you'll play you'll learn the times to use other units as well, but for now that's a basic to start with.

5. Yes, this game requires a lot of multi-tasking, which is a different flavor than many of the RTS these days. But it's part of the core identity of this game. As you play it more and do things more, you'll feel better regarding it.

Important note from this point forward:

He's not trolling, trust me. I know almost every one of you have a lot more respect than what you've shown. This is your warning and I look forward to a better tone from the majority of you and hope I don't have to pull out my infraction hammer.

[Quirel]

If you think Homeworld is rough, try EVE Online

If you think EVE Online is tough, try Theater of War 2.

All I can say is, I've got my butt handed to me on a silver platter seventeen times out of twenty, and two of my 'wins' were due to disconnects. It's a problem I'm working on, but this is a game where you have to analyze what you're doing to do better, or have a huge LAN with your 27 best friends (3 guys + one case of beer)

But hey, if you need a sucky partner from Copper league to play against, that's what I'm here for.

[wilebill]

Youtube has great commented games.

TotalHalibut, who is actually the award winning commentator TotalBiscuit, has a great series of 7 videos so far that all start off with "I'm TotalBiscuit and I suck at StarCraft 2." Informative and amusing.

Others include BlizShouter, HDstarcraft, HuskyStarcraft, and StarCraftLegacy. And I probably left a lot out.

[Albuterol]

Ya i am working on going through the 7 videos now. I was talking to my friend PW and he thinks that i should stick with protoss as it is my best race at least he thinks so. What are the advantges of both terran and toss in this stage of beta?

[Santrega]

1. You've heard the advice before, you shouldn't pick random, sounds like you picked Terran so you're good there.

2. Goto a replay, pause the game, goto the F12 Help option and look at each unit. It will give you basic "strong against" and "weak against" icons. If you want to find out the truth, look at the attack and the keywords of each unit. This will help you learn the preliminary counters... at least a resource for you

3. Beta right now has a very "open" queue, much more open than it would normally be. Instead of playing against 10000+ copper people, you probably have 5-10 queue every 3-5 minutes, Which means that you could be playing against non-coppers the majority of the time. If you see "expanding search"... it wouldn't be copper.

4. For terran, get used to a basic Marine/Maurader setup for now, and you'll find ways to build on that overall with tanks, vikings or ravens when needed. As you'll play you'll learn the times to use other units as well, but for now that's a basic to start with.

5. Yes, this game requires a lot of multi-tasking, which is a different flavor than many of the RTS these days. But it's part of the core identity of this game. As you play it more and do things more, you'll feel better regarding it.

I agree with everything you've said, especially the quote section. There is really no way to know if someone is trolling, and the last thing any community needs is all of its members attacking someone for their opinion.

I think the OP might be right, this type of game isnt for everyone. I absolutely am not the right person for MMORPG games. I have fun for a short while, then realize i never get anywhere... It's simply how those games are...

I spent a lot of time trying to convince myself something was wrong with the game, but it finally sunk in that I just don't like that particular kind of game. Nothing wrong with that, its like the saying "One man's trash is another mans treasure". We all have different likes and dislikes... Starcraft is one of my likes, and WoW is one of my dislikes. Probably has a lot to do with personality traits as well...

[Nicol Bolas]

I'm rather shocked by the amount of poor advice on this thread.

The way I learned how to play StarCraft was by reading about it. There used to be this website called StarCraft University that had a large number of pages about how to play StarCraft. While some of it was about detailing specific strategies that don't apply to SC2 anymore, just as much of it would transfer over wholesale.

It's amazing what a simple redirection of thought does to one's play. Just certain simple rules like, "always build workers" and "if you have more money than you can spend, spend money on ways to spend more money".

When someone who is an RTS virgin picks up an RTS, they're going to think about it like this:

I have my base. I'll send my workers to mine. Ok, I should build a few more workers. After a while, I grab a worker and make a building that can make units. Oh, that building allows me to make other buildings, so I'll make one of each of those. I'll create a couple of units from the last building. Oh wait, I have to build a food-making building first, so I'll do that.

The concept of "having a build" and so forth is completely foreign to them. The very basics, the fundamentals, simply aren't there. For them, if you have one Barracks, you have enough.

It simply doesn't immediately occur to them to build multiple copies of a building. It doesn't occur to them to do all of those other things that the mildly competent StarCraft player does. And added on top of that, there are the macro mechanics which make little sense to them (which goes to show why bolting mechanics onto a system doesn't work).

[Jabber Wookie]

I'm rather shocked by the amount of poor advice on this thread.

The way I learned how to play StarCraft was by reading about it. There used to be this website called StarCraft University that had a large number of pages about how to play StarCraft. While some of it was about detailing specific strategies that don't apply to SC2 anymore, just as much of it would transfer over wholesale.

It's amazing what a simple redirection of thought does to one's play. Just certain simple rules like, "always build workers" and "if you have more money than you can spend, spend money on ways to spend more money".

When someone who is an RTS virgin picks up an RTS, they're going to think about it like this:

I have my base. I'll send my workers to mine. Ok, I should build a few more workers. After a while, I grab a worker and make a building that can make units. Oh, that building allows me to make other buildings, so I'll make one of each of those. I'll create a couple of units from the last building. Oh wait, I have to build a food-making building first, so I'll do that.

The concept of "having a build" and so forth is completely foreign to them. The very basics, the fundamentals, simply aren't there. For them, if you have one Barracks, you have enough.

It simply doesn't immediately occur to them to build multiple copies of a building. It doesn't occur to them to do all of those other things that the mildly competent StarCraft player does. And added on top of that, there are the macro mechanics which make little sense to them (which goes to show why bolting mechanics onto a system doesn't work).

I'm rather shocked by the number of ignorant generalizations in this post.

People have different ways of learning, so I don't see how everyone's advice is "poor" simply because they didn't suggest reading about it, and instead offered their learning processes.

Also, I'm not so sure every person who picks up an RTS for the first time follows the traits you have mentioned; in fact, when I first played an RTS game, I tended to build mass numbers of low tier units and completely ignored building higher tech buildings. It's different for everyone depending on how their mind/personality works.

Not to mention, I'm not sure what a first-time RTS player has to do with anything regarding this thread considering the OP has already stated he has played SC1 and Warcraft3. So I'm pretty sure he's familiar with RTS games.

[protoswarrior]

Nicol, while what you say is true, it is not relevant here for the most part - Cadeus here is a BW veteran of sorts. He has played BW at a level higher than mine; so he is capable of the multi-tasking that I am capable of right now. He just has to overcome 2 years of absence from SC and re-learn a new game's Units, Builds and Timings.

He understands what the game is about, but cannot execute correctly because there is so much new stuff. He just needs to take a step back and take 1 aspect of the game at a time, just like when he was learning to master Protoss in BW.

Cadeus, I am really happy that you chose Terran (as you know), and I have found them fun the few times I tried them... Follow Gifted's and other higher level players' advice on unit choices for now. Don't worry too much about winning and ranking right now.

Today, while laddering for a bit, I wrongly put myself in a psyche that I can easily climb from 89th to 37th (where I was b4 the wipe). I actually played some pretty tough games and only a few easy ones where I just DT rushed or proxied (or both ), but in one game, I got killed by 2 base carrier!! That's because I ddn scout his expo early enough to harass it and prevent him from amassing carriers while he used Phoenix to raid my workers during the time I was making the trip to his base, by which time he had 2 VR and 3 carriers.

The map as you may guess is Desert Oasis. Very embarrassing loss, but a lesson learned for me. Scout cheesy expansions ALWAYS!

The learning process is continuous, & this is Beta, so the skill level is not quite the same in the league. I am finding bnet 2.0 to becoming slightly like bnet 1.0 where the skill level is varied in a whole spectrum of players. I believe that at launch, we won't have that problem with a smaller variety of almost equally skilled players in the same league, unlike now where a top tier Silver player (almost Gold material) can slaughter me - currently at 89th

[TheRabidDeer]

I'm rather shocked by the amount of poor advice on this thread.

The way I learned how to play StarCraft was by reading about it. There used to be this website called StarCraft University that had a large number of pages about how to play StarCraft. While some of it was about detailing specific strategies that don't apply to SC2 anymore, just as much of it would transfer over wholesale.

It's amazing what a simple redirection of thought does to one's play. Just certain simple rules like, "always build workers" and "if you have more money than you can spend, spend money on ways to spend more money".

When someone who is an RTS virgin picks up an RTS, they're going to think about it like this:

I have my base. I'll send my workers to mine. Ok, I should build a few more workers. After a while, I grab a worker and make a building that can make units. Oh, that building allows me to make other buildings, so I'll make one of each of those. I'll create a couple of units from the last building. Oh wait, I have to build a food-making building first, so I'll do that.

The concept of "having a build" and so forth is completely foreign to them. The very basics, the fundamentals, simply aren't there. For them, if you have one Barracks, you have enough.

It simply doesn't immediately occur to them to build multiple copies of a building. It doesn't occur to them to do all of those other things that the mildly competent StarCraft player does. And added on top of that, there are the macro mechanics which make little sense to them (which goes to show why bolting mechanics onto a system doesn't work).

You say that there is poor advice given (then never mention what the poor advice is), when the OP has at least some experience. So the core basic elements he already understands. If you were trying to expand this to an even more broad sense of trying to help people that are actually new to this style of RTS you might have some solid points, but so far in this thread I dont think they quite apply. And if you want to make a post like that, why did you not expand on some of the basic rules that would come into play in SC2?

Anyway, some other tips if you play as toss:
You can generally produce from 3 warp gates and still tech, or produce from 4 gates/3 gates + a robo/stargate from a single base. If you expand you can naturally build more.

Stalkers are actually quite good now

Do not underestimate the uses of sentries. Force field and guardian shield work WONDERS. If you are going against a bunch of melee units, force field a choke or completely block them off so you get free shots with your ranged. If against units with a short range, again make a choke so that they cant all hit you. Guardian shield is great vs muta/rines/lings and other units that deal small amounts of damage quickly.

[Hamshank]

Oh yeah, as I protoss I build 8 gates by the end of the game in my 2v2s