How much wiggle room does warcraft 3 give?

[h0bgawblin]

Something i've noticed in starcraft is the ability to do a lot of different things because of the recource gathering method. However in warcraft it seems like players using non-cookie cutter methods are punished. Cookie cutters are so refined that they take complete advantage of the recources at hand through out the game. Unless you have an expansion, your limited to the most efficient way of killing someone. Also with so little units in general, out macroing your opponent is far less rewarding. Obviously there is wiggle room in these definitions. Just from GA's play style, macro is proven to be effective and valuable in wc3. However, generally speaking

Also, I feel aggrivated in playing human. Humans seem to have to dig VERY deep into thier bag of tricks to pull out a win. As where night elf only have to use 1 hero to gain a HUGE advantage. The demon hunter is so powerful it's absurd. I'm not saying I can't beat night elf, because I found that the reason I was losing was because I am not aggresive enough. However, just from watching moon play several players and then watching tod, I see something frustrating. Night elf have the units and heros to deal with every situation effectively or meet it half way. Humans must use and abuse the simple tricks that they have to deal with certain situations and not even effectively. Perhaps I'm just pissing, but it would be nice to have everyones opinions on this.

[Basan]

The somewhat glaring fact that you seem to forget is that SC-BW is one of those rare games which are racially balanced out even with having different skills and units for each of the 3 present.

On the other hand WC3-TFT although tries to do the same just doesn't quite achieve the same goal in balancing terms. Sure, you can beat every race with each of the 4 but for some match ups it's clear (imo) that you start with an handicap even if almost imperceptible at 1st glance.

[RedRagToAnOrc]

Humans seem to have to dig VERY deep into thier bag of tricks to pull out a win.

I lol'd. Many people wouldn't agree with you, hob. Arguably, Human players have the biggest variety of strategies they can use and still win - at Tier 1 (Tower Rush, Fast Expansion) - at Tier 2 (Tier 2 push, Riflecaster, Militia, AM/BM) - and at Tier 3 (Trinity, Knights, Gryphons, AoE Gyros, et cetera).

Anyway, /offtopicrantfinished.

However in warcraft it seems like players using non-cookie cutter methods are punished.

I wholeheartedly agree - however, not all of them are. The reason people like you and me can't innovate well is because we don't understand the mechanics of the game well enough - I remember a brief exchange between Axslav and ShrieK on the WCR Forums which went something along the lines of;

ShrieK: 99% of the players in this game don't understand how the game works.

Axslav: /Agree

Professionals can innovate because they know what counters what, they've been through almost every strategy and know when it's strong, when it's not, and what to do against it.

If there's any one person on the forums who could (and can) innovate on a regular basis and succeed at a high level, it's GA, because he knows what to do and when to do it, and understands how the game works. We're just sheep. You can download Axslav replays and look at what he does, but why he does it will be a mystery until you're a professional, or simply very, very good.

[GroG]

Biggest load of bullcrap I've ever heard. I wouldn't listen to that if I were you. Here's my points of argument completely against that "we're not good enough" crap.

It's not just about what counters what. Sure, you can counter the units in his army. But you have to be able to counter not only what comprises their army but how their army interacts as a whole, or how they are playing. Let's I'm playing ORCvUD, and my opponent makes fiend/roy with coil/nova. I can make FS/TC grunt/wyv/raider. What counters what units in that combination? Wyverns don't counter fiends, nor do they beat roys costs for cost. So, how am I countering him? Oh yeah, you have to factor in heroes, and creeping, and expansions, and timings, and all that other stuff.

Anyways, you also talk about innovate and succeed at a high rate and mention GA, yet last time I checked his win rate was at about 50%. I'm not saying anyone here is higher than him or anything, but shit, that's not exactly succeeding now is it? Anyways, thinking that you don't understand a game enough to not innovate is about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. You can call yourself sheep, or anyone else you want I guess, but don't lump me in with that stuff. I'm no sheep.

What happens when you play a game without replays? Like, think about what Warcraft 3 would have been like without reps. There's your innovation. You don't realize it, but when you first starting playing the game you were innovating right off the bat. But when you started ladder and losing, you gave in to the "wanting to win" mentality and began to watch reps and copy. You could always go back to just doing your own thing, but there's 2 things that have changed you now:
1) You know what you CAN do
2) You probably won't stick with what you SHOULD do

People think innovating in competitive game is this easy there, where like if I play UD against some Nightelf and he starts making bears and I make banshees, thats innovation. That's not true, although that's the first step. In my opinion, innovating is not only units, but heroes and playstyles. Go look at that Platypus-Ghost guys reps. He uses the same 3 heroes almost every game (not underused heroes, mind you: MK/Pally/BM), but he uses them in such a way that hasn't been done much. He also has a rythm he plays by, you can tell he's been doing that same build for a very long time. It's his, he's developed it over time and if anyone is going to win with it, it'll be him. That's innovation.

Same thing with Satiini. People thought he was a one hit wonder, but nope. He developed his Warden use, knows it in and out, knows what he can get away with. He can do other things too, but no one else can quite do the strat as well as he can, he's done it so much and understands it so well.

It's just that it's 100x easier when someone has already done the homework, has posted 100 replays of an easy-to-do strat, and someone else just takes it and does it. It's very hard to execute a new strategy, especially to stick with it. The strategy you are going against has been developed over time since it's creation, critiqued by 100's of players with 100's of replays watched of it. Your's, on the other hand, is just an idea in your head with 0 experience.

And that's the bottom line. It's not that anyones smarter than you or knows the game better, it's just spending the time and effort into developing it into something that can stand up to other builds.

[cole]

Hob what you said about HU having to "Reach into their bag of tricks to pull out a win", i think i just wet myself laughing man. You think hu vs ne is hard? Try o vs ne. Most rigged crap ever, i have to play alot better than the ne to win. Sure the DH can manaburn you, but you still have morts, slow, WEs, brill, faster creeping with militia, gay towers, etc to cope with ne. Orc well we um have the "anti caster" known as the spirit walker that dispels his own damn spell.

Cookie cutting does tend to be a huge factor in war3 but with alot of skill you can be original and beat a cookie cutter. Ive done it before. Heck in hu mirror i mass towers hawks and aoe and i win msot of the time. Of course its alot easier to play cookie cutter style and win rather than thinking and coming up with your own stuff.

Also i agree wth grogs statement about "your not just countering their units, your countering their micro and the way they play" I agree with that 100%. When i play people ive played several times before, i can use strats that i wouldnt normally use vs someone i just met because i know how my opponent plays and thinks. I.e you hob. I used that to my advantage whenever i played you. And i even do it do grog sometimes. (And i like when he gets mad about it)

[GroG]

I'm curious, but when we play Cole, what do you think going into it? Do you think "He's gonna try and pull some funky ass stuff on me.." Or do you think "I'm going to do this and this is how he's going to react".

Just wondering. When I play you, I pretty much know what you are going to do depending on your first hero, but sometimes you catch me with my pants down. Usually it's: "Better not try to creep vs. Cole, I mean hell we are playing echo isles for the 2983984324th time."

Then there's RedRag. You just knoooooow he's gonna tower you.

Hmm.. I used to be able to read wisp really well too. He did crazy stuff a lot but I could still tell whether he was gonna hard pressure me or harass or creep or expand usually.

I guess that's what happens when you play with the same group a lot.

[cole]

Well redrag uses the same damn strat every game in solo so you either beat it or you dont,lol. farseer isnt the only orc hero btw redrag ;).

Fyi i dont work at burger king and im still in school grog :(.

when i play you, i basically dont expect anything until i see your build order and first hero. But usually you dont creep vs me, so yea i did kinda notice that

[Basan]

It's true that I don't know much of the game, especially when compared with these guys but have always thought that NE might be the toughest match. *Ugh* DH and 'godly' Rejuv' gets them by on most scenarios. :P

For instance, I've thought many times to use the DR (for silencing those bears) when playing Ud vs NE but that match up never placed itself before my eyes before and still am doubtful of the build to use as a whole. Should I go with DK 1st and DR 2nd? Or should I go DR 1st (along with Life Drain as 2nd ability for unit finisher and life saver against Mana Burn) and DK 2nd? Ghouls for meat shields is what I'm considering 'till the 2nd tier initial stages but would those even work against NE (who would most likely pick Archers and even a few Huntresses to even meat it up a lil' more)? *Meh* I'm drifting/ranting as hell, so it's probably best to slowly fade away for now. Although a few pointers if it'll 'easily' work or not would be grand (innovative, yay or nay?). :)

[GroG]

Fyi i dont work at burger king and im still in school grog :(.
Ahahahahahaha... Ohh man, I'm literally wiping the tears off my eyes right now. Awww man, I haven't laughed that hard in ages. I wrote that in there to see if anyone actually would read that thing, oh man fricken hilarious. Good thing I wasn't carrying a load, I might have crapped my pants on that one. Ohh man.. haha.

So, you started at McDonalds then? When is finals at McCollege?

This is totally random, but this reminds me of this time in BW forums a long time ago. This newbie guy was talking smack about Marsala (arguably the best BW player in our forum, he was really high ranked on PGTour and crap, and he was very cynical and hilarious in his posts). He was all like challenging him to a game and all this crap, and when Marsala said he'd log on east to play this guy, he posts a response going "good.... the trap is laid...."

I don't even remember the comeback on that one by Marsala, but I swear to god when I read that stuff I almost shit my pants. I mean who says that? the trap is laid.. lol

Good times.

[cole]

They kicked me out of McCollege because i spit on the patties. Turns out thats actually frowned upon at a place where they love to see you smile.

[h0bgawblin]

When I say that humans have to reach deep into thier pockets I still think that's the case. Humans have had to adapt and use mad innovation to be where they are today. It sucks to have to learn these tricks just to win, but when I do I get the advantage. However, I sorta feel like other races are not capable of such versatility and are forced to rely on very powerful units or heroes. Demon hunter creates a HUGE back bone for the night elf army to fall back on. Same with grunts and the undead tri hero. I feel as though humans don't have 1 zomg fucking powerful thing to rely on. However, they have a lot of fun tricks to play on thier opponent. That's why I play them,so I can use a lot of stuff instead of one variation of abuse.

"I'm not saying I can't beat night elf, because I found that the reason I was losing was because I am not aggresive enough" I didn't say the match up was imba, though it did sound like it. I just don't think night elf is a very good race, moon has made me respect some things you can do with it. However, over all night elf rely on the same damn thing to pull them outa almost every situation. Similiar to orc, who use chainwave and grunts to pull them out of a lot of situations. Instead human rarely find a counter in using the same stuff(other than lawlo towers which I HATE!). Even thier nasty nasty tier 2 pushes which sky takes full advantage of, thier still different.

This could easily be the result of my eyes looking at only the human perspective. I have always refused to "betray" my race by going to other ones. So that's definitely effecting my perception here. Which is part of why I made the thread. To learn without playing other races!