Build orders will always exist. Why? Because given a finite number of options, the best player will pick the most efficient ones.

Nobody clicks buttons in starcraft... they learn the hotkeys

Build orders only exist as your initial boost. How you play after that is entirely up to you. It's like saying smash brothers is all about button mashing when it clearly has elements of precision and some strategy to the game.

I'm guessing that you're blaming your losses and inability to do well at the game on people using a pre-planned, memorized attack on you. It's a pity people can be so naive.

Horay!

Competitive gaming: Systematically draining the fun out of every game since 2003

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/02/25

btw onyxia deep breaths more

This isn't hello kitty space adventure, some of us enjoy competition, have fun comp stomping. You know what, I take that back, you probably can't even beat the new AI.

I play to loose, its the wave of the new millienum man, come on

I don't know about anyone else, but I play for fun. Now I'm not saying the game can't be competitive, but it is after all a game, and games should be fun. If you truly enjoy the game then it shouldn't matter if you win or lose. You should play to win because that is the object of the game, but if you lose you shouldn't throw a temper tantrum like a three year old and bitch about how the game isn't balanced. And as far as I'm concerned, so what if the build orders got screwed up, play some more and find a different one instead of coming to boards and complaining about it.

A great player should be able to play the game well regardless of a few changes that come out in a patch because all great players have one trait in common, flexibility. So play a few games against the computer see the changes firsthand and then adjust your strategy accordingly, don't waste your's and everyone else's time bitching about it on the boards.

Just my two cents...

Last post before I go to bed, you're misinformed.

The flucuations, are not really there.

18000 credits bought me 5k crystals with this new market in my last game. You think that doesn't absolutely imbalance the game? I don't know what to say. As the race most suited to gathering credits, the TEC have a huge advantage in this system. Part of the vasari's advantage was their tech being one single line for both resources. They sold resources to make their credits, not the other way around, this change KILLS any strategy that sold resources. The only way to play in a game that lasts more than 10-20 minutes is to have trade ports or you'll just be broke. Vasari require 4 civic labs, Advent require 3, TEC require 2. TEC can get an extra trade port per planet, vasari and advent cannot, TEC can get persuasive economy (Got Credits?)

There's plenty more here to explain, but unless you're competitive, and actually play more than TEC (Most noobs do not) then you won't understand and it's a waste of keystrokes to go on.

@Haeso

I never once in my post said that I was a competitive player, in fact, as you so aptly noted, my idea of fun is different from the competitive player's idea; so following that through to conclusion I must not be a competitive player then am I? Wait a minute, that's what I said in my first post, holy shit you just told me of what I already said.

I agree with you 100% that without criticism the devs won't get done what needs to get done, I never challenged that fact. What I challenged was the fact that a whole hell of a lot of people play one game and then immediately come onto the boards and say something along the lines of OMG THIS GAME SUX NOW BECAUSE THE PATCH FUCKED UP MY PERFECTLY PLANNED UBER STRATEGY! This type of criticism is a waste of everyone's time because it doesn't give the devs any type of feedback of what the problem is, just that some idiot thinks the game is horrible now. The devs need constructive criticism, which is exactly what you gave them so I don't see the problem.

I don't understand why you feel this animosity towards me when my post wasn't directed at you at all, it was simply my response to JinxOfSin's statement. I know that because it was his post that I quoted, not yours. So why you take my post so personally is beyond me but then again I must be too ignorant to understand who I was directing my post at. Just for the record, my post was not meant as an attack on anyone, just my opinion which you rather rudely dismissed out of anger.

I also, never said the game was balanced in fact, I never made one reference to the balance of the game in my opening post, but now that you bring it up I will make a few comments on the game's balance. Vasari was basically the end all be all of 1.02, it destroyed everything as the RA rush was basically unstoppable if executed properly. So, in response, the devs toned down the Vasari in this patch, and after playing a few games, I can honestly say that they toned them down too much. Now with this feedback, the devs can go back to the drawing board for version 1.04 and fix some of the stuff they did bad, or better yet, they could come out with a new 1.03 patch with a few quick fixes, like making the Vasari able to stand up with the other races again.

With that being said, I just want to address one more topic and then you will never hear from me again, but I will surely check back to see how much flaming this response drew from you. You claim that you want the game to be balanced, but balance is a funny word because balance is a concept, much like a circle that you can see or infinity. There is no such thing as balance because with balance comes the term perfect which is another abstract concept that doesn't exist. There is no such thing as a perfectly balanced game, hell there isn't even such a thing as a close to perfectly balanced game. In short balance is a nice thing to wish for, but you can't expect it to happen so deal with the imbalances and give the devs something to work towards for the next patch to try and give the game more of this thing that you call balance instead of taking the time to flame me for trying to have fun with a game instead of be the guy with the most wins.

I haven't tried out the new patch yet. I will when I get some time. I must say though I've been convinced by the arguments of the competitive gamers here, though am a casual player myself. There was a big strategic element in getting your resource balance right which sounds like has been taken away. Strategy good... better for pwning Noobz!!1!

Cannot sleep.

I pick and choose which posts I reply to on a whim, I do not have a personal interest in you. You do not matter to me more than any other person on the forums, for good or worse. Instead of taking it personally like an attack, understand that I know what I'm talking about, and you simply do not, thus I'm informing you.

"RA rush" if you're getting "RA rushed" you're playing on huge, or you are just fucking terrible, because I can tell you for a fact I have killed every single player who has tried to rush to RA on anything but huge random/large random/areolian sector. Unless he's being pooled by another player it's not possible unless you suck, and if he is being pooled, you should be able to overwhelm them easily unless you're sim citying and going full econ, which if you scout, you should adapt to their playstyle and rush THEM. The game isn't balanced around huge, I enjoy the occasional huge map, but I understand that without fucking the entire rest of the game you cannot balance it.

Now onto the whole "Balance is an infinate circle" true balance is unnattainable outside of simple games like rock paper scissors. But the fact remains, the game was more balanced in it's previous versions race vs race. Even if LRMs were a little too strong early game, the races played on a pretty equal footing, especially compared to now.

I've done serious projects in games like wc3, where we constantly balance tested our maps, I know that true balance isn't attainable. The goal is to get as close to it as you can. This patch was a step in the wrong direction.

Agreed. I've run LAN parties of 100+ people for years and I must say the ones that didn't have competitions were always ten times more fun. I'm not saying this because I'm a bad gamer I usually won most comps, but there's no fun in it. This is why games are always best for the first month of their release, after that all the 'pro competitive' players have harassed everyone else out of the game and turned it into a set of pre-determinded rules/moves/build strat/whatever.

Enjoying things your way, more the power to you, but this patch ruins it for people playing the multiplayer game.

We like competition. We enjoy a hard fought battle win or lose, decidedly more so as a win, but still. I can definately appreciate losing that hard battle, but now, it's not a hard fought battle. It's a landslide if I play against any of the good players as vasari if they're TEC. whereas before I usually won. Most players who have played with me whether or not they like me know I'm really good. Ask them, however it is in my opinion as an experienced player, that this patch has made the vasari compared to the TEC a useless race. You can argue all you want, but unless you have some magical way for me to beat an equally skilled tec player as vasari, I'll be playing tec from now. I play to have fun, but competition is that fun for me, if it's not you than fine, but don't kill my fun for yours. You can easily mod the game for how you please, it's not so easy to mod for multiplayer. If I have no chance in winning the game is no longer fun. Thus i will only be playing TEC from now on.

If stuff like this continues, I'll be picking up my sup com FA and dusting that off instead of Sins. I loved the game before the patch, I had such faith in the developers, I expected to be playing this over starcraft two when it came out, not so much anymore.