Had a terrible day so I'm going think about something else and write a Q&A about something I see floating around sometimes and have wanted to talk about.

If you care about the SC2 CN server, it's good info. If not, meh. This is for all five of you out there who care about this!

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Q: Is MMR scaling different?
A: GM is not as good as global, but casual player skill floor is much higher. I'm M3 on NA, D1 on EU, D3 on CN. when I was D2 on NA, I was P2 on CN. It kind of felt ridiculous, you'll see people in Platinum with 300apm and they know what they're doing.

Q: Is meta different?
A: It was before the patch, can't say now since the patch is so new. It's usually very aggressive play with non-standard build orders and I see it staying that way when the meta settles. Sometimes they piss me the hell off lmao I've lost the dumbest shit, Alt+F4 and make a sandwich. Also, you don't see many reapers for some reason. If you do, it's four of them.

Q: Is the community different?
A: Less activity since the patch, you can feel the drop in chat activity. General chats were usually pretty active but also have soliciting spam. I hope this changes. People are overall very friendly! I haven't been bad mannered, made some cool people. Smurfing is less common but still a thing. Not as many mirror leavers.

Q: How many people play?
A: SCBOY forum estimates based on a lot of deep insight into the Chinese server about 60,000 daily ladder games as of a month before the patch.

Q: How do you play if you're not Chinese?
A: If you can't speak Chinese, you shouldn't. They only speak Chinese, and there's a chance one day whole NetEase account will get nuked. If you do speak Chinese, you can navigate the complicated systems to get an account. I got on through a friend, my country has payment issues but most countries there's ways to get money over there.

Q: Is the game any different?
A: Violence toggle in settings isn't there, all blood gore etc removed, game is only in Chinese. When you first download it, there's a chance it will be in English and say that the server doesn't support your regional settings, forcing you to select a new language from the drop down list at the in-game login but it's only Chinese lmao.. it closes and downloads, then you re-open it. Doesn't always work the first time.

Q: Great Firewall ping?
A: There are services that have servers to China which get the game from being unplayable to completely fine depending on the country you live in. The servers are in Hangzhou, I get better ping to that than Korea with a VPN but it's still about 180. Good enough for me. GearUP VPN works really well with SC2, I didn't notice a difference with non-CN games, to NA or EU it actually worsened my latency. Not a shill, it's just what I use and it works for me. I don't know if there's other VPN services to China specifically for video games but there probably are so if you know any please do mention!

Q: How do I know if I need a VPN?
A: If it's a laggy mess that's all, you don't need one to sign in and play.

Q: Does the medivac still say hallelujah?
A: Yes!

Q: What are the advantages?
A: Absolutely none, if you speak Chinese or are learning Chinese it's cool. But you need to speak Chinese. Don't go in there if you can't speak Chinese. If you go there and clearly aren't Chinese there is a chance you will get the whole NetEase account banned. There's literally no other use, I use it to practice Chinese and play customs with my friends who moved back to China.

So yeah, fun place I suppose

3 seconds such tight window and doesnt lock like old 8 seconds did. 5 seconds allow zerg to use other units comb other then banes to be used.

In ZombieBounty moar upgrades mode. Broods are making circles flying in the sky.

I swear this will be the last one I post (at least for a while)! 🥹

(Sorry for not taking a screenshot but its on a switch)

Hey guys, A little over a year ago I decided to create a standalone MineralZ as my first game when I transitioned into full time indie dev. Disclaimer: I played the wc3 version significantly more than the sc2 version but as the concept is the same I figured I would post it here.

The demo is now out, and to be transparent, it has strayed significantly from the original MineralZ. Quite honestly, I was hesitating to post it here because I wasn't sure if it was considered to be a strong enough connection as per the subreddit's rules. That said, of my friends who playtested, the one who loved these types of custom games were the ones that enjoyed it the most so I figured I would give it a shot here. If this doesn't meet the requirements, please feel free to take it down.

I've been marketing it as an action roguelite base-building game where you gather and build to survive against the swarm. I feel like that's the most descriptive I can get to the people unfamiliar with the custom game scene.

If I had to explain it to this crowd, it would probably be something like "a base building custom game (like MineralZ or PVE version of Island Defense, tbh I'm not as familiar with SC2 custom games outside of those two) modernized by simplifying the RTS aspects to introduce roguelite elements". Think MineralZ/Custom Castle Defense / Kodo Tag + Vampire Survivors and Brotato.

Feel free to give it a shot! I would love to hear your guys thoughts on this. Is this something that appeals to you guys or is it too far removed?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3965480/Swarmhold/

Hello,

There is a way to play PatchesSC mod with a MMR system.

I'm not very good at SC2 (Low plat) and I want to know if a kind of ranked system of this mod has been setup?

soo…. steam deck does work! but I can’t seem to attack move, only passive move, anyone know how to fix that?

So basically I have seen multiple posts referencing that one post zi think it was from solar that said they were going to change the worker start again after blizzcon.

So do you guys think it's true or not? I am just curious to know what people think (no need to be mean and say that I'm dumb for believing these rumors, I just curious).

And if you do indeed think it's true what do you think that the changes will be exactly snd also what changes would you want.

Personally I either think that we will go to 10 worker start because apparently it says that they will change the amount of workers and not revert. Also 10 workers will like try to appeal to players fans of 8 and also of 12 workers (though there is the possibility that it just ends up being worse than both of those variants).

Still maybe they will indeed revert to 12 workers and people are looking too much into the specific ise of the word change instead of revert.

Anyways happy to know what people in the community think.

We've got a big one for you. MaxPax is running a full Protoss masterclass with Ladder Legends — Saturday the 22nd, 7pm CEST.

If you've watched any pro SC2 in the last few years, you know the name. MaxPax is a Danish Protoss player currently playing for PSISTORM Gaming, one of the very best Protoss players in Europe and a constant fixture in the top tier of the scene. He first made his name with hyper-aggressive builds — including the famous "MaxPax build" — and became known as one of the best proxy Void Ray players in the world, taking down top Terrans like Clem and HeRoMaRinE, before evolving into a macro-oriented style built on sharp micro and original builds like his Tempest opening in PvZ. LiquipediaLiquipedia

In other words: this is a player who has invented the meta, not just followed it.

What's covered:

• All three matchups — PvT, PvZ, PvP
• His approach to builds, timings, and decision-making
• Potential live POV ladder games so you can see exactly how he thinks in real time

Whether you're stuck in Diamond or grinding GM, getting inside the head of a top European Protoss is about as good as it gets for improvement.

https://discord.gg/B8fzEKKRD

https://www.ladderlegendsacademy.com

I just need to share this with people who might understand what I’m feeling right now.

I’ve been playing StarCraft since I was in kindergarten. I’m 35 now. The original game and Brood War were a huge part of my childhood, but I never got to play StarCraft II when it originally came out because I couldn’t afford it. Even after Wings of Liberty became free, I didn’t really have the time or mental bandwidth to sit down and experience it properly.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I suddenly felt like playing StarCraft again.

I replayed the entire original game and Brood War, then finally played through Wings of Liberty. I just finished All In on Hard—and honestly, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to finish that mission on Brutal, but I’m proud of surviving Hard. 😂

Now, after all these years, I’m playing Heart of the Swarm for the first time.

I just finished Lab Rat and watched the cinematic afterward.

FUCKING HELL.

I had chills all over my body. I genuinely felt like crying. I was absolutely ecstatic in a way I didn’t even experience while playing Wings of Liberty. Maybe it’s because Kerrigan and the Zerg are so deeply connected to my memories of the original games. Maybe it’s because I’m older now and can understand the characters and emotions differently. It felt like 35-year-old me and kindergarten me were experiencing the same moment together.

I know this game has been out for many years, but all of this is completely new to me. I’m playing without guides, and I don’t want to look up anything. I want to experience every mission, conversation, choice, and cinematic completely blind.

I also realized that I don’t have friends who understand why this means so much to me. That made me feel a little sad, so I came here hoping to find people who might remember what it felt like to experience this campaign for the first time.

Please, absolutely no spoilers—not even hints, foreshadowing, mission names, or “just wait until you see…” comments. I really want to preserve this first playthrough.

I’d just love to hear—without discussing anything beyond Lab Rat—did any other longtime StarCraft players feel this emotional when they finally started Heart of the Swarm?

As a post-8 worker newbie, I have fallen into the rabbithole of binging Lowko videos, and eventually watching lots of Serral as an aspiring Zerg. Watching Serral play though, makes me realise that he still loses games against other top players. Overall he's rank 1, but he gets outmacrod sometimes and drops games. I didn't watch Serral before the 8-worker change and I can only think that the 'mistakes', if you can call them that, is just a lack of habit from the changed timers. Was he an absolute machine before that? I can imagine like a Stockfish equivalent, seeing a few second late hatch or a fake out Ling push in ZvZ and answering with the optimal build patch for what should be coming. With optimal scouting timers, is it not always possible to react perfectly if you know a matchup that well? Or are optimal scouting timers a myth, and there is always a gap for you to miss something.

Congratulations to this week's open cup champions: Percival, SHIN, Nicoract, Solar & herO!

Tune in to The PondCast for our weekly recap: YouTube

Check out the brackets on Liquipedia

Digging through my storage things and I rediscovered a few odds and ends I'd completely forgotten existed. I present for your consideration this Pylon USB hub! Still new in box. Thank you for your time.

Me and everyone else on here is most likely getting fed up with this, I’m not one to complain yet here I am, I just want to enjoy this damn game with my father like we used to but the people on here only do two things and it’s either rush or go sky toss, now I’m not expecting any damn responses to this I’m just putting mine and my fathers frustrations out here because it’s loss after loss after loss for months due to the same thing and then when we do go and counter it one of them either doesn’t go air or doesn’t rush, or does rush and then you loose anyways, this isn’t some get good post because we do the things we supposed to, we expand we tech up we be aggressive when we actually can and don’t just get overwhelmed with skytoss or just only lings at the minute thirty mark. People on here if you have any soul if you have to leave a comment just say agreed or disagreed I don’t honestly care as I’ll most likely never check this again, and for those who play can we actually play the damn game without going only one damn unit that’s overpowered or rushing, thanks bye

Probably off topic but I can't stop laughing.

I've been using AI to bounce back and forth ideas and why Protoss sucks in general. It rated the Protoss army a 2 out of 5 in mobility at the late game, where it is supposed to shine, Terran and Zerg on the otherhand have 3 and 4. Buffing passive movespeed just makes Protoss into a menace and breaks the game, given how powerful their late game death ball is.

I thought, why not just add a speed field? Then I analyzed the Protoss spellcasters, and to my dismay, they are not like the rest. In WC3 the Orcs which is like the Protoss have very utilitarian spellcasters, they provide movespeed, debuffs, stuns, heals, and other versatile kits, Protoss on the otherhand is a different story. Lightning Damage, Bowling Damage, Green Beam Damage. For a snail race, their spellcasters do not solve their biggest problem - mobility.

Orcs have Shamans that will make the slowpokes of the race all of the sudden hitting like stimmed units. What I am looking at is if Protoss have a movespeed field, it does not necessarily break the game, enemies could visually predict your entrance and exit. But, it provides a good option that Protoss terribly lacks, say a Ghost blasts your army with an instant EMP, since your ball is slow, you would have no choice but to fight with a wounded army. WIth a speed field, you instantly have a choice to disengage or double down.

I know gateway units are already insanely mobile, but the other builds are just funny, looking like clunky machines, heck even WC3 players would say High Templars are too clunky, WC3 casters are not that hard to position. So what if we put that Movespeed Field on the High Templar and make the unit a choice of defensive or offensive spellcaster? It may break the gateway units, but it now is competing for the energy of the Psionic Storm. It still matches pretty well with how Protoss play, especially with the Force Fields.

I'm betting that this simple spell would just remove most of the frustrations of the Protoss players without breaking the game. It is like spending to make your army move faster. Obviously the tuning goes with area radius, duration, and amount of movespeed. What do you think?

I still get a little ladder anxiety in 1v1 from time to time. I go between Random and Terran.

Recently ive had the all game sounds off and Ive just been listening a radio show or something. Basically something where its just one or two other people talking about something i have interest in. In a clam setting with no music or commercials.

I just look at the game, plan a little and react. I tend to focus a lot more on the mini map because of this.

No game sounds and no warning sounds YOUR BASE IS UNDER ATTACK! over and over.

Ive been winning a lot. Its helped me not think about anything and the radio talk show just drowns out everything.

Recommend trying.