Leveling Down

Smack dab in the middle of my 3v3 Random Team ladder league after my first week.

With the little time I have, I’ve been devoting my free time for gaming directly towards Starcraft II – bouncing back and forth between the campaign and the multiplayer. So, while I may have occasional other games to write about in the coming entries, perhaps you’ll be reading about Starcraft II from me for a while.

Being a huge 3v3 RT fan and having played over a hundred matches during the Starcraft II beta, I’ll spend today’s entry sharing my thoughts and experiences with 3v3 multiplayer in the retail now that I have 18 matches under my belt.

Placement
I was very foolish last week with my placement matches. At the first sign of my Internet working since the tornado in the DC area killed electricity and Internet, I tried to play multiplayer. I ended up disconnecting in 3 of the 5 placement matches I played. Fortunately, in one of the three matches I played, we were already ahead enough that I still got a win for the match after I disconnected. (I think that’s a new thing in for Blizzard’s RTS games – I thought in the past with games like Starcraft and Warcraft III, a disconnect was an automatic loss.) In the end, I went 2 and 3, but I think I had a good shot at going 4 and 1 had I not disconnected.

I ended up getting placed into the Silver League for 3v3, and after doing some further research, Blizzard has stated that your placement is directly tied to your win loss record and that is it. Nothing related to scores, actions per minute, etc. I’m guessing if you go 0-5 or 1-4, you get placed in Bronze, 2-3 or 3-2 you get placed in Silver, 4-1 you get placed in Gold league, and 5-0 you get placed in Platinum league. I understand that you cannot place into Diamond league – gotta earn it. So how were my matches in the Silver League?

Fresh Tactics
I’m losing – a lot. The first ten or so matches I played, I got an interesting gamut of players and skill levels. In one match, one of my teammates was Protoss and all he did was build buildings and expand to his natural. He did not make any units, and did not cannon his main, so when he got dropped, he started cursing at me. Huh? Needless to say, that was a loss.

With Starcraft II only being a bit over a week old and me starting in the lower section of the Silver League, I’m playing with players that are applying tactics that I’ve not been accustomed to. With Protoss and Terran, I expect mass Stalkers and mass Marauders. Instead, these guys are going back to basics and massing Zealots and Marines. Mass Zealots and Marines are actually winning matches too, because the sheer number of them combined with a rush is just too tough to handle. I have lost several matches this way since I have partners that simply don’t build units or don’t expect to rush or be rushed.

One match I spawned Protoss and one of my partners was rushed by mass Zealots and two players’ worth of Marines. They killed the Zerg player pretty easily and while they were attacking Zerg I cannoned up. They tried to get to me but lost too many units so they went to my other partner. As they tore through my other partner’s base, I cannoned up some more and just began massing Colossi. Once they came for my base again, I had 3 Colossi and cannons and ripped through dozens and dozens of Marines and Zealots. So much so that I got the “Meatgrinder” Achievement (Kill 50 supply worth of units within 15 seconds in a Melee game)! It was like the opponents did not know what to do against the Colossi, so they made more Marines and Zealots and so I made more Colossi, and pushed towards their base while expanding and making Carriers at home. Carriers defended my base while Colossi destroyed all three of their bases. “GG 1v3″ one of my opponents said as they left. Dang straight man. If anyone wants the replay let me know!

Even against the odds I fought and actually won! Unfortunately for me, neither Terran nor Zerg really have the kind of hard counter that Protoss has with the Colossus against light infantry units so I was lucky I spawned Protoss that game. I guess the closest Terran has against mass infantry are Siege Tanks, but Zerg…forget about it. I still have somewhat of a tough time with Zerg since you have to play a numbers game with roaches, hydralisks, and/or mutalisks instead of teching.

I don’t know if it’s just my poor luck to be stuck with terrible partners, but every once in a while I’ll get a decent partner or two and we can win the match. Currently, I’m playing against players that seem to be getting towards more along the lines of the better 3v3 players in the beta, as the more traditional strategies for 3v3 I’m seeing such as massing Stalkers, MMM, etc. are appearing more frequently. I’m also seeing the massing of Void Rays again, something I complained about in an earlier entry and I’m not surprised to see it taking off again now in retail.

RT vs AT
cmfl3x and I have managed to play a few games together, and the two of us play 3v3 so we’ve been picking up a random partner for our third. We’ve done ok so far – I think we’ve won half of the games we play, and it usually ends up based on how good of a partner we get matched with.

One thing I’m annoyed about that other people are also complaining about on the official Blizzard forums is that Random Team players are getting matched up against Arranged Team players. This is something completely new for Starcraft II, as Warcraft III kept Random Team and Arranged Team players in different matching categories. When cmfl3x and I are a 2-man party and look for a 3v3 game, I understand that the games we are in are counted as Random Team games, and affect our Random Team rankings/record since we’re not playing on a full Arranged Team.

However, what sucks is that whether I play with cmfl3x or solo in 3v3, I often get matched up against another team that is 3v3 AT. This basically means, the other team is a party of three that all know each other and play together so they have their set strategies already and are at an advantage. Since when does a pickup team ever have much chance against an arranged team? Blizzard confirms that there is only one matching pool that everyone gets dropped into, but the ladders are separate for Random Team and Arranged Team. This means that an Arranged Team can have a 10-0 record because they keep getting matched up against 10 randomly matched players thrown together. Random Team players will most likely lose more than win, just because the odds are not in their favor of playing other random team players. In any case, the road to move up in Random Team seems that much more difficult because of this but I will still climb it.

Is it Still Fun?
While I am not happy with several decisions that Blizzard has made with Starcraft II, at the end of the day, it’s still a phenomenal game. Whether I win or lose, I still want to keep playing, so the actual gameplay is top notch. My immediate goal is to make my way into the Gold League so hopefully I get some better partners, and I will keep playing until I get there. See you guys on battle.net! [espionage | 701]

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