Like, literally... after doing some 2v2 against AI and then some ranked matches, losing all but one battle (apparently the match making system is broken, or maybe it just got confused from the massive vacuum I seem to generate), I got up from my chair, and while bending over in an attempt to stomp on my own head, the game box flew out of the shelf and smacked me in the rear.
After that I spent a good three hours watching some replays with commentaries on YouTube, and I seem to have located the problem:
I lack a third arm, a second pair of eyes and a dual monitor setup.
What I found out is that this game is massive micro-macro management dependent. If you aren't able to watch the minimap, the battle map and various resource counters, all while pressing hotkeys like a freak, you're just going to lose.
Part of the problem probably derives from my utter lack of experience with online RTS gaming. I'm a heavy RTS fan, but up until now I've been single player focused, and it's a completely different ball game. Against an AI in any other RTS (except the other Blizzard RTS games), you can win by building up a strong defense and then turtling until your army is larger than the enemy's.
If you try to do this in Starcraft (2), you'll find that your opponent has a small force inside your base in no time, killing off your units. And while you're trying to fend the aggressor off, somehow he's still able to produce more units while researching upgrades and expanding his base.
It's crazy.
Now, in my defense, I'd like to say that I've never come across a match like the ones I saw on YouTube. In the YouTube replays, a lot more care seems to be taken to avoid damage and to interrupt supply lines, often causing the opponent to retreat where someone like me would have just pressed on for glory and victory. Whenever I'm fighting someone myself, they seem to just roll into my base and pewpew until I cry salty tears of NO MORE, PLEASE!
I definitely learned a lot from watching those replays, but it's getting late so I won't have time to test my newfound knowledge until tomorrow. And while those videos did give me an idea about how to proceed with building up a base, I am still utterly oblivious to how the various units counter each other.
And I still need to resolve the small issue of having to grow a third arm...
Edit: Being completely worn out by low morale and sleep-deprivation, I forgot all about the actual point of this thread, other than allowing me to vent some frustration.
After some searching on Google, I found out that a lot of other "nubs" like me are in a similar position, getting their asses handed to them by 5-man strike teams in a strategy game. It seems a lot of people have the same mentality that I do, which is something akin to "Why would I build barracks way out in the front of my base where it's vulnerable? And why would I build six of them?"
Any tips and pointers you pro and mad-skilled Starcraft players could give to us? I know that each fight is different and the course of the fight somewhat unpredictable since each approach has its counter, but say a 101 on how to not die within 5 minutes?
Any help is greatly appreciated.
And for the lolfactor, I'm Bronze rank 100, which, I believe, is the bottom of the suckage.
Addendum: Sorry for the crappy English. It deteriorates the sleepier I get. Crazy, I know.
Edited, Sep 4th 2010 3:46am by Mazra