Hello - I have now played co-op since prestige came out and many times prior, and want Blizzard to really make a point of this somehow and hope the community understands:
Casual: You are COMPLETELY new to sc2, you may not know the buildings and what they build, and need some assistance in understanding how to finish a mission properly.
Normal: You are below Gold league - you may not know the proper composition to use in a game, and have the need to build static defenses with no need for such. You do not understand that after 2/3 of the total mineral saturation is all you need (i.e. 16/24) without diminishing returns.
Hard: You are capable of proper build control, make a few mistakes, but are receptive to partner chat, and communicate properly. You may not be a pro at 1v1 but you have a solid grasp of co-op, and want yourself and your partner to have fun.
Brutal: You are extremely familiar with multiple builds for your commander - you understand 1v1 mechanics and can execute at platinum/diamond proficiency. You understand that faster natural = better economy = better army at earlier time. You know spawn points for enemies, bonuses, and are efficient with your build. You know that brutal is not the best for you without key abilities (i.e. kerrigan’s level 3 psionic shift + leaping strike buff)
I know this is a tl;dr for many, but it is often difficult to explain to people why they choose hard mode, and cannot fathom why they are completely behind in a game. Hard mode is NOT a good starting point for players who are not comfortable with the game mechanics
Blizzard, you need to figure out a way to limit people from choosing hard mode and making the co-op experience for other players who can handle hard/brutal so that matches of higher tiers are more likely than those who may have never played 1v1 or tend to lose a lot in co-op.
This isn’t a rant so much as a hope that people understand that co-op is not just their own experience that makes it worthwhile, but learning teamwork and bettering themselves
I’d prefer they re-make the “commander for experienced players”, the difficulty is fine imo.
But the likes of Zeratul and Tychus being for experienced is not true at all, the only excuse for them not being begginer-welcome is that they are not played like the campaign, but bypassed that they requires so little macro.
My APM is only in the freaking high 40s to low 60s depending on the commander and I’ve won brutal games with partners with APM in the high 30s.
Game knowledge > skill when it comes to coop. Undertaker your commander, understand builds for that commander, understand how to counter the different enemy comps with that commander, etc .
Equally important, understand the maps / mission. Understand spawn timings, objective timings, etc. You don’t have to a high level 1 v 1 player to be proficient at co op.
Honestly I’ve got one, maybe two builds for each CO, depending on if I need to change it up for contested expos or RtK. It’s really just about getting to full saturation, after that I free style depending on what’s needed based on map/comp.
I’m also going to kick this horse until it’s buried, then I’m gonna kick the dirt nearby. Ladder leagues mean nothing in coop. I haven’t played a single ladder game, yet feel comfortable going into Brutal with all but a few lvl 1 COs. I know I’m not alone there as well.
At any rate, I do understand what you’re trying to say, though somewhat annoyingly it does end up with the thought that you just have to improve personally. Coop mode it may be, but in pub games it’s best to be able to lean on no one but yourself.
The only thing PvP players can be good at is destroying your base and losing the match for the both of you.
Sarcasm aside, I think someone using PvP ranks to talk about Co-op got 0 credibility.
Talking about the difficulty people have completed campaign missions is more likely to be relevant, especially since many co-op maps are reworked campaign missions, and use similar mechanics regarding objectives, attack waves and all.
But once again, PvP ranking has no place here.
If you ask me, mid plat is around you can do solo Brutal with any commander. This is due that you at least you know some build order and saturate bases, but even then, it’s super innacurate regardless.
As the others said, ranking isn’t really a good example especially for Blizzard to implement, it’s very subjective as you can just cheese to get to diamond.
I agree; most of those designations are grossly inaccurate. Often, the easy commanders are marked as difficult while the most difficult are marked as easy.
This is a more accurate assessment of commander difficulty, which I adapted from the “Ease of Play” rankings at Starcraft 2 Co-op .com. I hope Blizzard will eventually consider re-designating them according to their actual ease of play:
All skill levels – Kerrigan, Artanis, Zagara, Stukov, Dehaka, Tychus, Zeratul
Experienced – Vorazun, Abathur, Nova, Fenix, Stetmann, Mengsk
Expert – Raynor, Swann, Karax, Alarak, Han and Horner
XDDD I’ve seen people with gold/silver borders and they do okay in brutal. You have to be completely clueless in the game to struggle on normal/casual difficulty.
As long as you have a basic idea of what your commander is and what the mission’s goals are, you can do hard.
Not even remotely true. There are some very questionable people that play on brutal difficulty that have absolutely terrible mechanics. There are people who spend at least half the mission just microing their heroes and barely focusing on macro. I can tell you right now brutal is a walk in the park for anyone diamond and up. You just need good understanding of co-op to be an existing partner in brutal.
This player is completely clueless how economy works in general and in co-op particularly.
Go back to normal difficulty or ladder if you can’t handle hard.
Like 70% of the things you’ve said in your post are simply not true, and this is me being generous. Your biggest mistake is probably you trying to draw some kind of parallel between 1v1 leagues and co-op skill.
There can be no comparison between a game with 4-5 units -coop and 12-15 units -Standard Ladder Starcraft. And the complexity with the higher number of unit-types grows exponentially.
Either you greatly over estimate VS mode or greatly underestimate coop.
Maybe there is more knowledge involved in coop and mechanics in VS but for me reaching diamond is easy (and 100% winrate against plat and below) while I struggle with some commanders to carry hard (aka not 100% winrate) which is slowing down a bit the getting of prestiges. A lot even if you consider those I stayed on hard until like lvl 7 because I just was not good enough to go brutal before (Zagara P1 for example).
Recently there has been people who are placed into hard or brutal mode from queuing normal. This happened because there isn’t people queuing for those difficulties. The community noticed that too.
EDIT:
To OP: PvE =/= PvP
PvP is knowing your opponents, their habits and anticipating what they will do.