The characters I met in Brutal

Co-op Missions Discussion
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So lately I’ve now been playing brutal, Can’t say I’m at a level where I can solo it but I can hold my own as long as my partner isn’t total dead weight. That said people playing in Brutal have way different personalities than in Hard and Lower. Some highlights that stand out to me are:

  • People that don’t interact at all/silence all game (not even a gg)
  • Max level asking you to carry the game
  • Max level leaving the game just as soon as you’re at the last push or objective
  • Max level clearing the whole map and then leaving the game
  • Using Underleveled COs and trying unorthodox builds with them (like an Alarak spamming only wrath walkers)
  • That one player that types gg at the start of the game and types glhf at the end
  • Immediately leaves the game coz they don’t like void launch for some reason and then plays with you the next game in a different map
  • The Lock & Load/RtK speed runner/cheeser.
    Any types not mentioned here you get on your games? Let me know.
    Disclaimer: This isn’t meant to trashtalk/hate on people playing the game just stating my observations in how varied they are compared to the polite players playing hard and below.
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Ah crap I’ve done some of these.

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Silent players is a problem for me, especially when the map requires separating the army due to any reason. I can only tell them what I’d do and hoping that they’d handle the other.

I had players leaving me to fend off the map on my own because he doesn’t like my approach with my commander. Not necessarily an elitist who knows better, just being snubbish because maybe mass Raven on Nova is not something he’s familiar with.

And of course, there were players who’d keep his units in his base and window hop to another app because he realized you could carry him. I usually give him a minute of warning before I leave the mission.

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I see very few problematic players in Brutal+1 random queue. The most common “bad” experience is someone who doesn’t pull their weight for one reason or another. Often this will be something like a Stukov P3 player who will do fine in most missions but just derps around against something like Blizzard+Lava Burst. Or send an endless stream of Infested into a Purifying Beam, I mean come on at least spread your Bunkers out! (Or better yet adapt to the situation and mix up your strategies with Barracks, Tanks, DBacks etc).

The one that of course pops up 1/100 games is the guy who instantly attacks your base. I mean why.

Personally my most annoying players are the instant leavers because they don’t like the map or mutators. I mean, if you don’t want to play a map then better not play random? Some mutation combinations of course are awful but at least ask your ally if he wants to try it or not before leaving.

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Most of the time, I run into silent players, people who have no idea what they are doing, and speedrun/map clearers.
I rarely run into anyone from the forums, and even more rarely run into rage quitters.

I also love it when I give free advice (either on units or rock breaking strats) and then get shrugged off as if I know nothing lmao.

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Brutal is 98% well behaved. There are many fewer glhf than in 2019, though more than in 2021

A few jokers were surely upjumped Hard players; in particular what comes to mind is I’m playing Mengsk and they beg me to clear their expos for them, then got mad that I wouldn’t carry

To be clear if I somehow have free military and time and they still haven’t cleared, I would help them, but this is a situation which I can remember maybe once a year

But they want Mengsk to damage his economic development to boost an obviously weak player. One or two troopers is not going to clear expo appreciably faster, which means a lot of troopers will need to be pulled.

It’s only vanilla Brut, but then the point is for me to have fun with my Royal Guard, and obviously 1) I will need to get resources to build that army, and 2) I need that army in order to carry them

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Now that I think about it, this would actually be usually the case on Malwarfare and I guess any defended expo like Chain of Ascension. After expo cc is built I will arm the workers and clear the ally expo

btw I’ve been goofing on Malwarfare trying to get experimental Mengsk builds to work, thanks for patience teammates :rofl:

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oof glad I didn’t encounter one of those yet. Though probably one of those max players asking me to carry them would probably do that if I said yes. I always say no and that I recently switched up from Hard so they’re forced to play or waste a game. lol.

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Yeah I gave up on giving free advice in coop a long time ago. Mostly it goes unheard of and sometimes they even get mad at you. If they ask then I’ll give it if they don’t then it’s on them as long as they don’t go afk or something.

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Most common problem I run into is people with severely under leveled commanders expecting a carry. (Level 3 Raynor anyone?). They make nothing the entire game (even if you make it through early game and get to mid/late game they still have no units to speak of). I don’t return the gg in these cases.

The most annoying thing I ever experienced was a one time thing, but it still sticks with me. I was playing Kerrigan, and the mission was Cradle of Death (the one with the trucks), and my “ally” put his army rally point on me, so I had his soldiers following me around and getting in the way of my movement the entire time. I told him to stop it and he told me to quit ******** and be grateful cause they’re providing support. I left in the middle of an attack wave. The nerve of some people.

I always leave Malwarfare unless I’m in an extremely good mood. But I leave the second the game loads to avoid wasting more time than necessary. That level sucks and I don’t want to waste my time on it. I have occasionally matched with the same person immediately after doing that and I just say “Sorry, I hate that level.” They usually agree and we proceed to play a nice game together. Never had anyone angry about it.

Overall though, Brutal random partners aren’t so bad. Still much nicer to play with a friend though.

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I remember not long after Mengsk release there was this Raynor who lost his entire army to the second train on Oblivion Express, then quit when he saw my 2 marauders. Right as I nuked the train

He was somewhat competent given his micro and PvP record, he just wasn’t too familiar with coop and decided it wasn’t for him :joy:

After some refinement and Prestige now the train can be nuked to 0% as soon as it’s in range of artillery

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I met an Alarak last night who built up 6 pylons first without a Gateway, instead he got a Forge and no units. He sent Alarak to the objective and… my resources start to double. He left the game. Was it because I asked him if he’s gonna build Gateway and units, or because I didn’t clear his exp for him? (The latter, I confess, was an attempt to break his silence)

He plays P1 btw.

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Maybe he was used to playing P3 and only realised too late he was on the wrong prestige and was too ashamed to play from behind?

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lol. Just reading that made my brain lose about half of its brain cells. Even if he wasn’t on P1, that’s just a bad build.

Even if he was used to P3, you NEVER go 6 Pylon > Forge on P3. Ever. You do your standard opening (probably skimping a bit on the tech to get earlier Mommyship). This guy was just clueless and/or trolling.

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I resemble those remarks…Except I am the max level carrying the game usually.

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I don’t mind silence, save for some Mutators that are easier to tackle with it. I’ll “gg” someone back, but usually won’t say it. For the most part, the pings are sufficient.

I’ve had one ask if I do voice chat, but I said I don’t have that set up. Turned out to be a mistake b/c the video game lounge I played at, their headphones do include that retractable mic, but even if I did know that, I would’ve declined to use that anyways. In a way, it’s kinda nice Coop doesn’t really require this.

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In the recent week I encountered a couple of those classics you mentioned, but there are also very shiny gems of players everyone sometimes has the misfortune of running into in brutal mode. Below is a collection of creatures that manage to push my buttons making me want to hit the quit button…

  • Reynor Blackwater Marshall going mass bc
  • Tychus lone wolf grouping his heroes.
  • Tychus forgetting to build engineering bays… Upgrades are so overrated.
  • Fenix “I can go mass carrier” who joins in with 5 carriers at the 15 minute mark if you didn’t solo the map by then. If you are really lucky you can also meet a Karax with the same strategy on short maps like Rifts to Korhal or Lock and Load because why rush huh…?
  • Zeratul the knowledge seeker: constantly hunting for artifacts, does nothing else.
  • Swanns that drone up their gas but not yours and take an iceage to be somewhat useful.
  • Zagara the scourge queen … who refuses to build scourge vs air comps on void-launch/ scytche of Amon.
  • Mengsk not upgrading his dominion troopers with specific weapons

And last but not least my favorite of all…

  • Any teammate ‘with HUGE experience’ not understanding that your early supply calldowns while you are playing Mengsk are for boosting your own eco to get a headstart and not for breaking his rocks or defending the first wave unless it’s absolutely necessary. He will explain why in 50 shades of cringe why it’s a bad idea.
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To be fair on that last point of not gearing up your Troopers, it isn’t always needed. Sometimes you just want a mineral dump without turning them into 200 mineral dumps per unit. It REALLY depends upon the build.

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Most people i meet as mentioned, mostly just give a gl hf, ty u2, ty for opening rocks on commanders that can do it without economic issue, etc. (Spare banshee cooldowns, tychus railgun turrets, etc. )

There are a couple of pet peeves i do have though haha.

  1. People who steal gas /mine your base, and then DON’T even build units with it.

ex: Nova steals your gas from a gas using commander, but they’re running a p1/p3 comp that doesn’t even use it and just plays hero only or mass infantry the entire game.

A stettman builds a extra lair and starts mining your resources, diluting your miners to run a mass egonergy lagling comp. Somehow using every trick in the book to make their zerglings run at 2 seconds per frame just to contribute move running into siege tank fire.

  1. “I’m going mass capital ship, i’m going to carry us, just def me to 25 mins plz.” Non p3/p2 raynors, mass tempest artanises without a planned strat on how to heal or move them well. (also helps if they’re being attacked like the random pug with their 2 mph cars a mile away and map cheese / defence cannons aren’t involved, etc. )

Mass carrier karax / fenix are kinda legit. Some people meme it, but like… Karax units are karax units.

Unless you’re running some mass mech mind control sentry strategy or manual clicking every single air unit with a overkill from hell 320 dmg / 2 minutes cd shadow cannon. Karax’s infantry often lacks a lot of a ability to kill air and while not fast, they’re at least reliable while karax immortals can be faster.

Even the slightest bit of overextending with them comboed with their high ability recharges can lead to nothing happens if you’re g. Risk significant losses if you overextend the slightest bit or surprise. Reavers / all your abilities are on cd. Of course perfect play can solve all problems.

But if you’re picking karax for speed outside of a karax only speedrun, there are many other commanders who can beat him to the punch much earlier with far more effective armies.

Karax seems more of a slow but steady commander with good topbar presence.

One who shines more in brutal+ where mapwide topbar presence and unorthodox strategies, makes his unconvential toolkit shine better with spammable perm stunlocks anywhere on the map to say, chain stun a void re animator and camp the bodies, avoid damage from black death since they’re cannons. Deal with concussion by just topbaring units. Etc. 0 Mutators increase topbar costs or cds, or decrease cannon range.

But i still wouldn’t pick karax’s janky shadow cannons if i cared for speed on a slower janky commander unless i was a random que player who wanted chances to roll unpurchased lvl 5s.

For the most part, most people are just glhf and decent but just as long as someone is willing to pull their weight. I’m game to try it.

I tend to pick maps that last a little longer since i didn’t really care about post 100 ascension xp. Otherwise i’d be tomato farming karax until i wanted to ask why i was even playing the game.

I still like to hop and grind bosses on Osrs Runescape as well and check raids from time to time on other games like gw2 and slash zombies and assassinate bosses in other games. So that adds variety. Worst case scenario, i start watching odd allies like science experiments but we still win anyways lol.

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I don’t mind these, I just finish up using their army and mine.

That’s what b0 is for though? Like if I want to practice a comp I’m not great at, like Infestor Stettmann or Ascendant Alarak, If I can get it to work on b0 then I know it might be at least viable on b+.