Would it be possible to only play “casual” difficulty until you’ve beaten the A.I. on a harder difficulty?
I really hate carrying people to lvl90 and even then you can loose a mission because your ally doesn’t do anything useful.
I’m really good at Sc2 (diamond2) and I have played tons of co-op missions but I can’t and won’t carry every noob with 10 apm around hard/brutal difficulty.
It’s ok if I’m 10x faster than the other guy but loosing on hard because the “team mate” got 10 units all game and no upgrades? Seriously?
Lvl3 Karax: I literally asked “you defend, I attack?” at the start of the game and asked him/her to build cannons and after like 10min and us nearly loosing because half the map is still full of zombies, he’s like “oh - I can build cannons?!”
Please make co-op missions more enjoyable.
Edit: As others were already guessing: I’m not talking about my main account with lvl90+ commanders but on a different server / account with lvl1+ commanders (below lvl10 mostly).
Of course I adapt to every mission and difficulty or unit comps but usually I play more macro focussed - especially with Raynor. I also spend excess minerals on defense around bases if the A.I. thinks about attacking me or my ally (and extra production before that).
Edit: TL;DR
- Bonus XP for good macro (harvested and spent ressources) would be nice - not too high, not too low so players will still care mostly about the main objective.
- I was mainly talking about leveling commanders to say lvl8 or 10 - above that it should be fine and definitly with my lvl90 commanders.
4 Likes
I mean, if you’re really good at SC2, you shouldn’t be losing on hard unless your teammate is attacking his own cc with his workers.
30 Likes
That’s true to a point. Some missions – particularly Cradle of Death, Lock and Load, and Chain of Ascension – you need your ally to at least do the bare minimum of doing the objective, or you’re gonna lose no matter how good at the game you are so long as they keep playing. I can see where the OP is coming from, even if I think his particular example – Dead of Night, most likely, as it doesn’t sound quite like Miner Evacuation – is entirely winnable even with quasi-solo play.
I’m also not entirely sure I agree with his proposed solution to this problem. I mean, I don’t think people who can’t handle Brutal difficulty should be playing it myself – to the point that I don’t play it except as commanders I am confident I know how to play at least well enough to do the job. I’m not good enough to carry, but I can play some commanders well enough that I can at least pull my own weight. And I’m not talking about the usual suspects (Tychus, Zeratul) either. However, locking difficulties behind achievements or whatever doesn’t seem like the answer to me…
8 Likes
Unless you’re still in the middle of leveling your commander or you are playing on forced coop maps, you should not be losing because your ally isn’t doing anything.
10 Likes
How are you supposed to beat the A.I. on a harder difficulty, if you aren’t able play on a harder difficulty than casual?
I personally think one of the bigger problems of Co-op is the difference in game speed - whenever I level a new commander, I want to play on “hard” instead of “brutal”, since I’m not sure I’m good enough for “brutal” - but the reduced tempo really drives me nuts.
I don’t know if the game speed is even lower on levels beneath “hard”? But I think there are at least some players who chose a harder difficulty than the one they are comfortable with due to game speed.
8 Likes
You’re really good at starcraft, and yet lost on hard mode while playing dead of night? Why not realize that you screwed up, and figure out what you should have done to win? This is a 2player game… Your ally could have changed the win to a loss, but you could have too.
Personally, I find getting a fantastic ally to be boring as hell… You clear the map and have to wait for monsters to spawn. Even on some brutal mutations, I used to repeatedly queue hoping to get some super-low ally I could carry. And honestly… I’m not the greatest player.
3 Likes
I find the opposite, with a fantastic ally you can push boundaries with various builds. And the irony in that you look for less-skilled player to carry, so that yourself become said better ally is just amusing.
We all carry and got carried from one time to another. The only differences between players are:
- Are you experienced enough
- Are you making the effort to improve still
After reaching 1k and thousands of games later, I still find lots of areas that I can improve on. I still find coop fun. And I still find people up on their high-horse. Everyone was a noob and will become an expert. All anyone has to do is realize that and not be snobbish about it, OP.
4 Likes
Recently I have been finding more & more players that are level 100+ that I have had to carry because they seem to have never even seen a computer before let alone StarCraft, and I have seen players that haven’t even reached level 15 on a commander that have pulled some insane strategies that I had never even thought of that have ended up getting more kills them me.
I’m not the worlds greatest player, but my win/lose ratio shows that I’m certainly a safe pair of hands, I do pretty well for myself even when playing drunk (which is like 70% of the time if I’m honest) but in a game mode designed to be more relaxing and fun then 1v1 I relish the opportunity to push myself a bit more by having to do all the heavy lifting and flexing all over my ally.
2 Likes
The casual difficulty is completely unnecessary. Hard is already trivially easy even at level 1, and if you’ve never played the game before, Normal is fine. The problem is that the gap between Hard and Brutal is pretty high, probably because Brutal is also faster than Hard. So you often get people who are around level 8 on a commander and are going to Brutal because Hard feels boring and then they get blown up because some commanders are still pretty bad at level 8.
The answer is probably to remove casual and stick a new difficulty inbetween Hard and Brutal that has Brutal’s speed but is only a bit harder in terms of waves compared to Hard.
10 Likes
Sorry to inform you that if you lose because your ally is “bad” … you are pretty bad too .
6 Likes
I think it would be good if there was some kind of “placement match” or similar to the vsAI system that could be used to suggest a difficulty for new players?
Dont think anything will happen now though.
And yea… as others have said. Unless your ally is actively hindering you, if your as ‘good’ as you claim you should be winning regardless of how bad they may be.
2 Likes
This. Gold league here. I play hard to avoid any frustrations because i know i can solo so i don’t have to worry about bad teammates. As for the missions where you need 2 people? I can simply tell them and they usually listen. I DO think brutal needs to be harder to access though imo, because i am in the same boat as Akamia: I can pull my weight when i play my favorite commanders like Dehaka, Nova and Abathur but i certainly can’t solo it.
2 Likes
Oh god this… The game needs to be set to the brutal game speed by default. I find normal and casual to be the hardest difficulty since i just get frustrated and wanna quit because it is soooo slow… LOL!
6 Likes
I’d love to see Hard get the Brutal game speed.
I’m honestly not cut out for most Brutations without more practice, but playing them on a lower difficulty just feels wrong with the slower speed.
1 Like
How about we go to a 5 difficulty system - leave casual for those who need it and instead make a “hard +”, which is 100% identical to hard but instead of playing on “normal” speed it plays on the same faster pace as brutal?
I know that I’d need a lot of practice with the faster pace/timing of brutal but combining the pacing with the stronger waves / more effects etc. of full on brutal hasn’t worked for me yet (die too often)
1 Like
I don’t doubt your StarCraft Skills - Diamond2 or whatever, just want to point out that ladder play and co-op are two ENTIRELY different beasts.
For one, the enemy in co-op doesn’t start from scratch like you, and all the enemy waves warp in. There is really nothing more irritating than a “ladder expert” player who refuses to adapt.
For example, if you are Raynor, DO NOT START by building 19 Orbitals and blocking off the ramp with a single bunker. In fact do not build bunkers at all. NEVER. The first wave/objective is going to start at the ~ 4 minute mark so its better all around if you build 5-6 MMM units instead to deal with that.
The same is true of people who “expand at all cost”, especially on missions with early time pressure such as Part and Parcel. Getting your expo doesn’t matter if the time runs out.
Again - not doubting your skills (high APM and whatnot) just pointing out that the strategy for co-op and ladder should be ENTIRELY different.
6 Likes
It’s worth noting that expanding ASAP is still a good idea, you just shouldn’t ignore objective timer being low in order to secure expo. Most maps you can afford to make the expo your first target easily, Part & Parcel is just a weird exception because the timer is so short there and there’s a more easily accessible abundance of parts elsewhere on the map.
1 Like
Wait, there are people who don’t go straight to expo on Part n Parcel? There’s plenty of parts there to pick up and there’s not much more enemy defense there than in other parts of the map.
7 Likes
I don’t. Usually, when I have two dragoons up I will sneak them in the top left area without engaging the positions, stealing all the parts behind it. Would have stolen everything there by the 4minute mark. I do not attack right away because I can wait for the council upgrades which will let my dragoons outrange bunker/cannon/spine, then I can clean them up including the expo without taking hp damage and without using the topbar. This mission is actually unbelievably easy for artanis as static defense are nothing to him (dragoon outrange static, siege up observer to destroy tanks behind, etc etc), even a level 1 can do this mission on brutal if you know those tricks, that is even without guardian shield and many of the critical upgrades.
This trick will not work in this mutation though, it’s better to wait for a calldown timing push to avoid unit losses.