As a Starcraft II player... my thoughts on League

HEY FELLOW PLAYER OF CRAFT IN STARS

:V

But seriously all of this is super valid and is exactly why I stopped playing SC2

It's not that it wasn't fun, it's that it was more sweat and less thinking.

Unlike Age of Empires, for me, which was all about thinking and watching shinies fly-- unit 'micro' isn't anywhere near as much of a thing unless you're running cavalry archers.

SC2 is just a different game, in which you don't make decisions until after you meet what your opponent's doing, at which point they change strategies.

Or you could decide to not change up anything at all, and continue doing what you were doing before your opponent rushed at you with units, and nobody bats an eye at that.

#And people are downvoting this thread. Why?!

It's always warms my heart to see someone join the ranks from another game without so much an inch of vitriol. http://treasure.diylol.com/uploads/post/image/328409/resized_yoda-approves-meme-generator-approve-yoda-does-0d3f39.jpg

Hey! Another Starcraft II turned League of Legends player here, I kind of agree and disagree with your post, but that doesn't really matter, I'd just like to comment on a few things.

First off, what really irks me is that you said Diamond in Starcraft II is Plat in League. NONONONONONONONONONONONONONNO, Diamond in SC2 is Diamond in LOL, Because Challenger = Grandmaster (Both top % of the region), Masters = Masters, therefore Diamond should = Diamond.

Secondly, on League or Starcraft II being more strategic. I would say Starcraft II requires a BIT more strategy, because you have to always be scouting to check for what structures they have, how many bases they are sitting at, how much gas they've used if they're gonna allin, etc. League is also very strategic, you have to have vision of the enemy, but it's not so that you know what you need to do to counter them or prepare yourself, it's so you don't get caught or you know if you can do/contest an objective. I feel as if vision in this game is LESS powerful then in Starcraft, but also in Starcraft you need have vision of the right thing, nobody gives a crap if you use a scan and see they have five supply depots, unless you see something really weird like two hundred, it's generally a waste. In League, you can ward any area and it's next to never a waste, because simply having a ward there means either one of two things, either a. They are there and you should be careful/get ready to make a pick, b. They are not there and it is safe to be there. Overall, I feel as if they are both almost equal in terms of strategic skill, but Starcraft II is slightly more advanced as you need to do all of these things yourself, though it could be argued it requires a lot of skill to work together as a team to make sure everyone does their part and everything necessary to win is accomplished.

Thirdly, and lastly, toxicity. I really strongly, and passionately, believe that toxicity in Starcraft II is next to non-existent, however, this could be biased due to the fact I only played one versus ones or played with friends, rarely did I venture into the Arcade. In League, since I always have to play with other players unless I'm in a custom game, there is always an opportunity for me to be flamed. Even if I am carrying and playing perfectly, if a teammate makes a mistake, they will sometimes blame it on me and flame me. In Starcraft, my enemies never flamed me (though I guess I have been flamed in team games with friends by lifting off and flying into the corner of the maps, oops), enemies in ranked ones just left after saying GG or just left straight away if I wrecked them. Even in random fours and twos, my teammates have never flamed me. This is why I feel as if League of Legends is more toxic, though I've heard Arcade can be very toxic.

Thanks for reading, overall I wholly agree that misconceptions between League of Legends and Starcraft II (as well as other video games) should be settled. Almost every current popular game, whether it be played in esports or not, has a very similar skill level to the other games, however, in this case I firmly believe that Starcraft II is a tad bit harder than League of Legends, most significantly noticed with the much higher skill floor in Starcraft II, marine splits in Bronze is hell to watch.

LoL can be a very casual game at the base lvl. Their is no denying that. So you were not wrong in that way Starcraft or DotA is harder.

But when it comes down to it that is in fact one of LoL major strengths not weaknesses. When it comes to the pro scene their is nothing casual about it. LoL follows a formal of easy to learn difficult to master such a formal is which creates a successful PvP games(Starcraft has I bit of that too). Such a formal is very similar sport or FPS that your may play, even playing chess is not overly hard to learn. But understanding how to play a game doesn't make you understand how to play a game good.

As a Starcraft player you understand how to simple benchmarks that much of your casual scene would not understand. There also efficient way of playing Starcraft. I always saw Starcraft as very planned out where players basically knew what they wanted to do from the start and make changes accordingly.

LoL has always seemed like a more reaction game to me. Where you try to get the most information to make the best decision.

One thing that I do disagree is multitasking I think that both games have a high lvl of multitasking. Ok both have a mini map simple enough. Starcarft you control many units, LoL has one, most Starcraft units have no ability's a few do of course, LoL their is upwards 40 unique active ability's and 20 or more not so unique ability's also 10 or more passive ability's(it is not important to track all that it is that hard, Is important to note). Next tracking ability's or buffs an advance skill in LoL timing ults, flashes, other summoners, item actives, Basic skills, buff timers, So far as I know this not important skill for Starcraft players. Then resource management clearly Starcraft has more, in LoL you track xp or gold for item buys or lvl up timings. Another advanced LoL skill is damage calculation so you win trades and stuff.

Anyway just remember it is important to have fun and not get frustrated. I lot of LoL is hidden skills unlike Starcraft also.

I use to play StarCraft. I was so hyped for StarCraft 2. When I played StarCraft 2, however, I fell out of love with the gameplay.

The reason I fell out of love with the gameplay is because they took out all of my favorite things to do. They took out my Protoss mind-control guys. They took out my Lurkers. (I saw that they are bringing them back). I cannot mass giant fleets of Battlecruisers like I could previously.

Starcraft 2 went into the competitive gaming scene and catered only to that. They removed a lot of the gimmicky things you could do.

League still gives us gimmicky things. Like Bard.

not sure if this is your second account or you mean normal solo Q when you are talking about solo Q, but most people mean ranked game play when they say it. I do like the points you are making though.

Yupp, that´s pretty much the reason why i hate playing RTS as PvP...it all comes down to APM in the end. And unfortunately Turn-based strategy is still pretty niche.

Hey there!

I enjoyed reading this, not because it celebrates League but I thought you presented the differences in an interesting way that I wouldn't have necessarily thought of. Granted, that's probably because I'm not a SC player.

Out of curiosity, considering your background in SC, are there any Champions that 1) greatly interest you to become good at, regardless of your current skill and 2) any Champions that you took to quickly in terms of gameplay even if you didn't like the Champion that much.

The only real similarities for league and SC2 is the point of view, and that you're both trying to take out an enemy base.

This is the first i'm hearing of this rivalry, and it sounds like SC2 players are just butthurt that League is popular.

Welcome to the community. I wanted to address your notion of league behavior in terms of strategy. I think you are missing an aspect of depth league has that you missed in your statement. Knowing your rotations is important and typically falls to memory. Enemy jungle in your top lane? gank bot, take support, take dragon. enemy jungle is fiddle/amumu? they live and die by their blue buff. But thats not all. You also have to be able to see how the individual matchups make a difference in the overall scheme of things. For example, the enemy team picks Yas into a poor lane matchup. However, earlier, they got the wukong/Sejuani jungle. At that point, the lane matchup has been invalidated as post level-6, the synergy makes mid lane 1v2s an auto win. (This doesn't mean that things will go to plan, because the yas can die twice before 6 and lead to the failure of the strategy, but the setup is a solid opportunity). Little interactions like that can cause certain players in the game to be vastly more important to the outcome. Recognizing who you need to succeed on your team and who you actually can make succeed on your team plays a large part into winning. TL;DR: Some champions on your team are more important to the game(not just mid and adc all the time, ex: sometimes, you need your tank to succeed more so he can engage without dying.)

Microing in SC is kind of frustrating, if you swarm zerg... I think that WC3 was better strategy - with slow pace, more thinking. Mobas have more in common to RPGs than to the strategies.

LoL your SC2 community comparing a MOBA to a RTS. They are 2 completely different gaming genre.

{quoted} In all my time playing solo queue, I have never been raged at once, no matter how badly I played. I've seen heated arguments develop, but all of them are entirely preventable. If you don't take every criticism as a personal attack, you can avoid flame wars entirely. Nobody ever goes out and cries "omg noob annie why'd you buy infinity edge"; they instead give you tips and teach you what to do right. Whether you take that as an insult is your own choice. In direct contrast, StarCraft players preemptively blame others for some perceived fault.

Umm... Maybe in normals, people try to teach you what to do right (I personally had a lot more fun playing pre-level 30 normal blind pick games because most people seemed pretty friendly), but try Bronze/Silver/Gold ranked and you'll see that's not always the case.

Highest I got in sc2 was diamond. Highest I got in league so far is gold 1. If only I could ling rush in league :l

StarCraft players also believed SC2 was a "harder" game than LoL. Everyone thought the reason League was more popular is due to the high skill floor in SC2.

It's not fair to compare LoL and SCII because they're different genres of games.

http://i.imgur.com/qsHTg.jpg

This made me laugh though, because it's true, even if only for your worst LoL matches. I only played solo matches so I didn't get raged at by my teammates, but my opponents in SC ALWAYS said GLHF.

Greetings fellow Starcraft 2 Player, I was mid-Diamond myself at my peak...but let me tell you SC2 rank has nothing to do with LoL rank. I worked to get Gold 1 at my peak here and it was harder than hitting Diamond

Anyways, reason I stopped competitively playing SC2 was because it came down to mechanics more than strategy. Sure in WCS or GSL someone would pull some crazy build on a very rare occasion, but it came down to who could execute their planned build order better or if someone could defend vs said plan, and yeah casters would go "WOW" over some crazy marine/blink/whatever micro and there'd rarely be some crazy build to woo over.

Reason I made mid-Diamond wasn't because of my strategies or thinking, it boiled down to "Ok, I see he's got 'x', so he's gonna do 'y', better prepare for 'y' now and crush him"

Not much strategy besides positioning and reaction. I thought the same about LoL and DOTA at first, and boy was I surprised.

Also, I disagree about communities...in SC2 I rarely got any real a-holes/keyboard warriors unless you count constant cheesers as toxic people. In LoL, man I see a lotta hate

Nobody ever goes out and cries "omg noob annie why'd you buy infinity edge"; they instead give you tips and teach you what to do right. Whether you take that as an insult is your own choice. In direct contrast, StarCraft players preemptively blame others for some perceived fault.

Most people don't know how to take constructive criticism. For instance, there was a jungle that was going full damage on our team, even though he was feeding and there was a fed on the enemy team. I told him that he needs some armor , otherwise well you know... He responded with a "well maybe if you guys didn't feed" blah blah blah, even though he was the one that had given about 13 kills to the enemy team.

Also, people will call you a noob if you build ridiculous things like on , not saying I would but most people yes.

League is a no skill game, however it is more enjoyable than starcraft to me. I think the "E-sports" community should completely drop league because its not a balanced game. The nature of moba's makes them impossible to be perfectly made. Luck is ALWAYS going to be a factor in moba's. Idc what anyone say. Starcraft is 100% the user. The game is perfectly balanced and if you lose, its because you made a mistake. League is not like that.

Bronze IV* No such thing as bronze 6

Hi friend. I was high Masters in SC2 and used to think about League in the same way. I can confirm everything you are saying (about the SC2 community) is true, and I find it slightly funny because their elitist attitude is a huge aspect of what keeps new gamers away from the scene. I started playing League in January of last year and I haven't looked back a single time. My memories of SC2 are filled with stress and hatred, I've had nothing but good experiences in League (despite the occasional ragers/flamers/afkers/feeders which exist in every game I've ever played and are certainly not exclusive to League).

I'm glad to hear you're having a good experience with League yourself and I wish you the best! Me and my friends are all ex-Masters, ex-Grandmasters, and ex-Diamond SC2 players who play mostly League now. None of us actually play SC2 anymore, but if you're looking for like-minded individuals to play LoL with send me an invite and maybe I can get you in our skype group.

If SC required you to coordinate with a team, I guarantee you there would be as much team-based complaining as in LOL.

It's like comparing SC to The Binding of Isaac: NOBODY yells and screams that you suck and should go die in Isaac, but that's only because it's Single Player; there isn't anybody TO disparage you (unless you go on Reddit, and even there Elitists don't really bother because what's the point?)

{quoted}

Introduction I am a high diamond level SC2 player. That translates roughly to platinum in league. Recently, I've began playing LoL on the advice of some friends, and I love the game. The gameplay is completely different, and often frustrating for me. I'm about Bronze VI level, and the only thing I do right is last hitting. Even when I'm over 100 cs and 2 levels ahead of another player, I still manage to get killed in 1v1 duels, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. Feel free to correct me if what I've said is wrong.

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Before playing league: my misconceptions In StarCraft, players have a superiority complex over league players. Make any thread comparing league to sc2 in official forums, and you will get instantly downvoted to oblivion. Players would constantly call league a no-skill game and I bought into that mentality. After all, how hard can it be to press QWER and click?

StarCraft players also believed SC2 was a "harder" game than LoL. Everyone thought the reason League was more popular is due to the high skill floor in SC2. And, to some extent, that's true. Basic skills like not being supply blocked and not floating excessive resources are difficult to master. Even master league players would fail to hit simple benchmarks (120 supply at 11:30, 200 supply at 14:30). As a result, SC2 is very discouraging game for casual gamers simply because there's so much to do and not enough time to do it.

Here are some excerpts to give you a basic gist of SC2 players' opinion of LoL:

There are thousands more examples, my point is that this "LoL is easy lololol" attitude is so prevalent in the SC2 community that it's rare for someone to not buy into that idea. I'll admit, I did too until I began playing League.

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Dispelling the Misconceptions

1. League is a more strategic game than StarCraft Yes, I said that right. League of Legends, a MOBA, is a more strategic game than StarCraft, a real-time "strategy". Solid mechanics are what reign supreme. In SC2, you would often hear casters say "Look at the instant reaction and marine splits! TaeJa's mechanics are so solid that he never misses a baneling snipe." or "You have to be impressed JaeDong's multitasking, his APM spiking over 1000." Rarely, you see "ForGG's build is powerful because it metagames gas first banshee. The transition is made versatile by the delayed reaper and hellions give the map control necessary to continue his greed". These are the exception rather than the norm. It's even possible to make it to high masters level with no strategic sense whatsoever by simply having good mechanics. At one time the top Korean in the world, INnoVation almost invariably uses a single build for each matchup. He relies on his perfect micromanagement to win games.

League, however, is completely different. Watching several professional level streams, I've noticed that none of these players are very fast. Most of the clicks come from orb walking or pressing tab. However, what separates the bad from the good is decision making. League players know how to use champions, where to position them, when to push, when to disengage, all from intuition rather than memorization. I asked my friend, "Why do I suck at League?". He replied that "You just have to play more to understand each champions strengths and weaknesses". If he had asked me the same question about StarCraft (he sucks a lot at it), I would have told him that he needed to practice multitasking and maintaining production. Simply put, mechanics in League are secondary to decision making.

1. The StarCraft community is much more toxic than league A favorite complaint about League is that the community is so toxic. Images like this would crop up every now and then, and subsequently become part of the SC2 > League canon. These claims are completely untrue. There is no fundamental difference between the League community and the SC2 community other than a higher average age.

A higher age apparently doesn't come with higher maturity. Virtually everyone says "gg" when they win, and less than half do when they lose. Every five team games, my teammate would call me an idiot. Professional players have gotten away with telling others to "get cancer and die". Some players [NaNiwa, avilo, idra] even thrive on the infamy that bad manners bring and become more popular because of it.

In all my time playing solo queue, I have never been raged at once, no matter how badly I played. I've seen heated arguments develop, but all of them are entirely preventable. If you don't take every criticism as a personal attack, you can avoid flame wars entirely. Nobody ever goes out and cries "omg noob annie why'd you buy infinity edge"; they instead give you tips and teach you what to do right. Whether you take that as an insult is your own choice. In direct contrast, StarCraft players preemptively blame others for some perceived fault.

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i feel like mechanics are extremely important in league, and it has been proven by pros that you can win based on mechanics alone at a lower elo, but i think a core staple of SC2 is to know what units your opponent is building/gonna build and counter it, whereas with league it's much more about how can we get a gold lead and kill the nexus, there is no rock paper scissors here. So i think these 2 games are apples and oranges, they are each difficult on their own and saying something is "Easier" is just too subjective.

Just tossing my 2 cents in here. I used to be a High-level Diamond Protoss player before switching to League. I can agree to pretty much everything you have said.

With the strategy, I never thought about the differences between SCII and League, but I really see it now. I had the mentality that since Starcraft was a real-time strategy game, there would be less strategy than in League. Now, I compare the strategic depth in the two games, and I would almost argue that competitive Halo has more strategy than Starcraft. Where in Starcraft, a player can have the best strategy in mind, he will easily fall short due to lack of mechanics. Most of the strategy is based on the player's mechanics. If a player cannot spend resources effectively while managing an army, it will not matter how good of a strategy he does; it will not have the mechanics to back it up. I feel like that is what made Starcraft II frustrating for me. My creativity with strategy was limited because the whole game was based on mechanics. There were few objectives of the game other than macro and micro better than your opponent, whereas in League and even Halo, there are strategic objectives to secure, like Dragon and Baron in League and power weapons and power positions in Halo.

On the other hand with League, I am rewarded with decision-making on taking objectives. My mechanics may not be comparable to those of a Challenger player, but I can be rewarded for making good decisions. I don't have to be LCS-level with smiting, but if I make a good call for Baron, that will help my team win the game. Same thing applies in Halo, which I view as having similarities as League on a competitive level. I don't have to have the Ogre twitch with the Sniper Rifle, but if I secure the Sniper on the map, I give my team an advantage by letting them push positions more effectively.

With regards to the toxicity in both games, I might differ as I have not have had much experiences with toxicity in Starcraft games. However, I did have some bad experiences in the forums as there were always threads of people saying "Terran OP" or "Protoss broke." However, in game, I rarely had to deal with people verbally bm-ing me. I would have the occasional player trash-talk after surrendering or delaying my victory, but I seldom faced toxic players. At the same time, this is only my personal experience, and I know this will differ for everyone else.

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I'd also like to point out one more difference between League and Starcraft.

Balance changes occur much more frequently in League than in Starcraft. There is about one patch every few weeks in League whereas a patch in Starcraft takes place about once a year. This actually made me enjoy League much more than I enjoyed Starcraft. If something is clearly unhealthy for the game, such as Pre-Season 5 Warwick, lack of Jungle diversity in January, Riot will take action to change it so players can finally enjoy the game once more. In Starcraft, no matter how unhealthy a strategy was in the game, such as Brood Lord/Infestor (cringe) vs Protoss in late 2012, Blizzard will refuse to make any changes, stating that the ~50% win rate across all three races is fine. This really pushed me towards League because I knew that Riot would at least put a bandaid on most problems that affect the health of the game.

Anyway, this is my 2 cents on the differences between League and Starcraft.

League is toxic as f too though

Just as bad, if not worse than SC2.

Trust...just because you haven't seen it doesnt mean people don't suggest you to "commit suicide you useless f." etc..it gets really bad.

Starcraft player here, accidentally stumbled upon this ancient thread while searching for something else.

I'm rather surprised by your views. Interesting, I don't agree with any of them.

Let me preface this by saying that when I go "lololololool League 5 APM noob game lololololol" I'm 100% joking. I never thought either game is easier/harder than the other. Sure, Starcraft is definitely more physically taxing, But the teamplay and objective control in League is extremely difficult. At least for a noob like myself, it is.

That being said, I cannot agree with you on your point that there is less strategy in Starcraft than in League. Although League is a strategic game, its thinking mostly revolves around objective control. Which decision is more beneficial? Which objective is more worth? In Starcraft, however, the strategy is about literally everything. Starting from the build counters to terrain usage, there is such a plethora of strategic versatility in Starcraft. Sure, you can hit Diamond by only doing Roach/Hydra 1/1 timing. Sure, you can even get to GM by doing just Cannon Rush. But look at those individual games. Executing a GM-level Cannon Rush requires a great knowledge of the map and how the other race works in order to make sure your pylon and your cannons warp in safely. Executing a Diamond level 1/1 timing not only requires a solid mechanic but also a good game sense to know when and where to attack from what angle.

You mentioned how casters only talk about the pros' mechanics. Actually, no, they talk quite a lot about the strategic decisions behind their plays. They always talk about what is in production, what they scouted, what they are anticipating and what they are planning to do, and explain how their decisions will interact over the course of the game. Like that quote about ForGG is not rare at all. I always hear them talking about why the Zerg opened with speed on this map, what the Protoss is planning to do with the 2 gate opener, etc. etc. Heck, even just a unit choice has so much thought process behind it, whereas in League it's mostly follow the core build and get some situational items. I mean, there really are many things that go into deciding how many mutas to make in ZvT because making 8 mutas gives you different strategic possibilities than making 15 mutas. Just go watch a recent cast anywhere on Youtube and think twice about it. There really is a lot of talk about strategy. Plus those casters just get excited about gosu micro because it's cool to see and they want to hype the audience.

And League community is ridiculously toxic. I feel like shit in every game I play.. Which is exactly why I left this game in the middle of Season 3. I gave my account away, and now I'm returning with a new account because being in Diamond in SC2 and Silver in League felt so shitty so I wanted to get a decent border before I quit this game again.

Don't get me wrong, League is a great game (although it's not exactly my type and I don't enjoy it that much), but I just couldn't agree with the points you rose.

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