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I just want to preface this stupid little blog with that fact that this isn't a whine thread about balance or anything of that nature.
I've been playing since release and I've been insanely excited about watching, reading, learning and playing as much as I can. I've spent countless hundreds of hours on this single game alone because I do love it so much.
Lately however, I'm really starting to get down. I practice as much as time allows. I read all I can and even have gone so far as paying a decent amount of money for professional coaching. However, none of it appears to be paying off at all for me.
I'm a Gold leaguer, and that's fine. I'm not obsessed with becoming super Gosu or anything and ruling the Masters League. However, what I want to see is myself improving. At least getting some aspect of my game down better so I can really tell that all this work I've put into is showing some results.
I've been between rank 4-7 in my Gold league for a couple months now. My win rate is probably 50/50 during this period. I realize that BNet is set up so that you are only suppose to win half of your games; the problem lies that my mechanics, my multitasking, my overall game sense and dexterity aren't improving. I'm not moving up at all, just moving horizontally.
I've also gone the route of doing the horrendous race switch. Thinking some new unit and mechanic scenery would spice up my motivation for playing. It did for a couple weeks and now I'm right back to where I was with The Swarm.
Lately, it's become disheartening. I'm starting to lose the urge to actually play and try to keep improving. What I'm basically asking is, if you've ever been down and out about your ability, how do you pull yourself back up again and find the motivation and the fun of playing the game you love?
Perhaps, some people just aren't wired correctly to be good at a game this complex? Perhaps despite countless time spent studying and practicing, I physically and mentally don't have the ability to sustain any higher play. I don't know.
I know this post is ripe for flamming, but if at all possible, could you keep it to a minimum and maybe provide some stories, or ways you deal when this Hell Beast of a game starts eating your soul?
Thanks for reading my junk.
 
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Laddering can be pretty brutal because it's by nature a lonely process. Try getting together with some people and playing customs while dicking around on vent.
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If your in gold your most significant problem is almost certainly macro. I know its cliche, but its also truth.
If you're trying to improve it but it isnt getting better, then isolate.
At first you have on goal, make workers all the time nonstop. Every single other thing is secondary. If you didn't even manage to make a pool because you were focused on workers that okay. Just do that a couple of times to get used to that (I know with zerg you cant make constant workers at a linear rate, but practicing this a bit still helps
Next step is to take the previous one and combine it with having constant unit production, aka dont accumulate larvae unless you have no money to make anything with them.
Then the third step is hitting all your OL/Injects/Having sufficient hatches.
Whats critical thought is each step must be paramount. If your working on step on, you must get it right. If you cant even fight off the first attack cause your having to use all that focus for drones its all good. Eventually as you do this you'll start to ingrain these innate timings and develop a rhythm which removes your focus from macro and allows you to focus on other things. But the only way to develop that is giving it undivided focus. You have to commit to doing it, and not allow yourself to get caught up in trying to defend/micro/tech whatever. You can ONLY do those things when you have met the previous three steps.
This isn't an actual way to play the game, however. It's a drill that helps internalize macro and will vastly boost your APM/multitask as well.
EDIT: Rainmaker's advice is excellent btw. Just playing some custom's and fun games with friends or people you know online; while being generally social is fantastic for making gaming much more relaxed and fun.
My post is coming from the perspective that your losing interest in the game because you aren't seeing or don't feel like you can in fact get better. I'm trying to address that in I see alot of people that say I want to get better and I'm trying. Then they list 6 things they are trying to work on, which basically sums up that their approach to getting better is "play better". Improvement doesn't work that way. You have to break things up and compartmentalize, focusing on specific things one at a time.
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Some advice I can give is that this game takes a loooong looong time to get the hang of. I used to play BW with a friend a lot and I would seriously win about 1 out of every 40 games. I thought my brain just couldn't handle the game but I kept with it. One thing I realized that I was always doing wrong was having a completely flawed concept of how the economy worked in SC. I think once you truly realize how important it is to make a ton of workers, constantly spend money, and expand then your skill will sky rocket. As far as multitasking goes, that's something that just takes a lot of practice. I would highly recommend doing a lot of useless spamming such as switching between your buildings and army, doing stuff like 343434343434343434, box selecting all your workers in the beginning. Do all this as much as possible in the beginning even when it has no use. You'll probably lose a lot at first but once you get used to constantly hitting keys and switching back and forth between your army and base, you'll see your apm and dexterity quickly improve.
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It's not always about progress of win %.
That's my attitude towards wc3 at least: I don't really care if I win or lose, only if it's a good game. If you find you cannot improve at any effort, then just play for fun perhaps? When you said "all that work I put into it" it made me kind of curious about how much fun/work was at balance. I have some rage stories about civ3 though lol.
But anyhow. Yeah, there are some people who just aren't wired for games. My mom's been playing age of empires 2(conquerors) for maybe 4-5 years now and she's kind of a noob(the kind that doesn't learn on their own) but I can see the improvement and I think the fundamental thing is she understands it takes time to improve.
How long has SC2 been out?
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Well try and clarify this, are you really trying to get better or just want to go back to having fun? Personally I feel that you should go back to enjoying the game before trying to become super gosu, and honestly doing custom 1v1s with friendly people will help you with both things at one.
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Sometimes you feel like crap after the ladder has been a real douche to you. I'm a gold aswell, should be in plat at the least, as I used my bad race for placement. However, I can only play 2 hours a week, so progress is painfully slow. And recently, after going like 15-5, i lost like 5 games in a row to 4 gates, even though i knew they were coming because i didnt know the proper response. I also lost to several air rushes because i didnt know how to respond. Lack of playing means its hard to keep skill levels up and I cant really adapt to these strats playing like 5 times a week. Sometimes i doubt im improving at all, but i keep playing.
Maybe try play random? I know many ppl who did that, then chose a race later on.
Just keep playing and practicing, and ull be out of gold soon.
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Dude When i first played iccup my recored was 6-91. Im dead serious lol. I was So frustrated But i told myself i would get decent at this game. After going through that hell i can get into diamond in 20 games or so now even tho i most certainly got worst since I quiting BW. Here is my recommendation. Dont watch Day9 and shit dont pay for coaching Just find a stable build order and play it nonstop till you understand it. The most important think for you to develop is game sense and understanding the raw basics of the game.
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You know what Treetop. I think I played you in the Platinum Gamer Weekly. Anyways. Besides that I feel like you should really just practice more. Watch more and just have fun with this. If you aren't having fun than just, leave it. Or just take a break and play something else. Gl with getting out of gold.
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Having a close friend practice against you really helps a lot more than mass laddering. Sometimes playing too much on your own makes you forget what you really want to accomplish at the end of every game.
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Can you post some replays?
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Wow, I totally posted a reply to this but I guess I didn't hit post. So, I'll do it again.
L_Master, I think your drilling idea is actually fantastic. That's exactly the kind of stuff I really should focus on. Not stretch myself thin trying to learn and improve several areas at once. That's something I'm going to do right after this post in fact.
And Rainmaker5, the best way I can explain it is, I would enjoy the game a lot more if I actually saw improvement in my play. Losing I don't mind when it is clearly my fault. However, I want to refine my play and maybe not die from a certain strategy or rush or something like that. It's just, my APM (yeah I know it doesn't really matter, but it does indicate how much I can handle at any given time) has been the same for three months now. If I could just see some improvement, I'd be much happier and not feel all the study time was wasted.
I have a few practice partners that are on fairly irregularly. I've tried to use the Practice Partner thread here and we play a few games, and for some reason we never end up talking again. So, it's tough for me to find someone of suitable skill that I'm just not getting totally stomped by every time, or I'm stomping them every time. So..there's that.
Garnet, I asked for help on SCA about my play before and all I got were tons of trolls saying "L2P" or "macro better" and that was about it. I can analyze myself well and know what I did wrong. It's just getting the theory out of my brain and into my fingers that's my issue.
Overall, thanks to everyone for posting such positive feedback and I think your advice will help and hopefully I can get back to enjoying the game fully again. Thanks.
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I really suggest watching MrBitter's stream. He has a lot of new tips for zerg who want to improve, and brings on coaches a lot. With the help of that stream, you're sure to improve soon.
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At least you are getting more points right?
jk...i hate bonus pool system....
anyways, I recommend you try a new build or playing a different race for freshness. for example, i showed my silver friend (played for 1 month) 4 gate because he kept wanted me to teach him and hes on the verge of platinum now...sounds stupid but perhaps experiment with new units and whatnot and yea =)
//i dont recommend 4 gating...
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laddering day in and day out is extremely brutal. try to find a few friends from your ladder games and form a network of practice partners. one of the key things that bind bw gamers is clanleague, and since the release of chat channels, this should be a lot easier to accomplish. playing clanwars against other teams can be extremely fun as well as tighten your interest in the game
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The best way to improve at higher levels is to pick 1 matchup, with 1 map, with 1 spawn position and pick 1 strategy and hammer it home. Then move on to the next one.
The point of it is to drill yourself. If you just keep playing the game you will not get better. You will be to spread out. I played random for a long time in diamond and I didn't get any better, because it is very difficult to learn the intricacies of every matchup on different maps when you have no consistency.
So exactly as other posters have said, you need to focus on 1 thing at a time. Focus on building workers, spawn larvae - focus your entire game on that. Fight normally but if you can go back and spawn drones and spawn larvae every X seconds you want to, it's a win for you regardless of all else.
Keep doing it. Eventually it will become muscle memory and you won't have to think about it. Then move on to something else. And soforth. Soccer players don't practice by just skirmishing with each other all the time. They do drills, they practice a single motion until they get it right. If you really wan tto improve that's what you have to do.
You can also practice a specific strat all the time. It took me 10 games in PvT before I got 1 gate FE down. I just did it every game, regardless of what I scouted. Eventually you understand timings and can read your opponent.
BTW, you will lose while you are doing drills. This is not a reflection on the drills. The point of these drills is that you are focusing your energy on something that takes alot of effort for you to remember or do. You are spending your energy on it so you will play worse in the other areas. However, over time you will only have to put a small amount of effort into it, and your energy can be spent elsewhere. You will lose. It sucks, but in the long term it will make you win. Focus only on the drill. Take the losses. When you reap the rewards you will easily make up your lost ground.
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On February 02 2011 13:19 sikyon wrote:
The best way to improve at higher levels is to pick 1 matchup, with 1 map, with 1 spawn position and pick 1 strategy and hammer it home. Then move on to the next one.
The point of it is to drill yourself. If you just keep playing the game you will not get better. You will be to spread out. I played random for a long time in diamond and I didn't get any better, because it is very difficult to learn the intricacies of every matchup on different maps when you have no consistency.
So exactly as other posters have said, you need to focus on 1 thing at a time. Focus on building workers, spawn larvae - focus your entire game on that. Fight normally but if you can go back and spawn drones and spawn larvae every X seconds you want to, it's a win for you regardless of all else.
Keep doing it. Eventually it will become muscle memory and you won't have to think about it. Then move on to something else. And soforth. Soccer players don't practice by just skirmishing with each other all the time. They do drills, they practice a single motion until they get it right. If you really wan tto improve that's what you have to do.
You can also practice a specific strat all the time. It took me 10 games in PvT before I got 1 gate FE down. I just did it every game, regardless of what I scouted. Eventually you understand timings and can read your opponent.
BTW, you will lose while you are doing drills. This is not a reflection on the drills. The point of these drills is that you are focusing your energy on something that takes alot of effort for you to remember or do. You are spending your energy on it so you will play worse in the other areas. However, over time you will only have to put a small amount of effort into it, and your energy can be spent elsewhere. You will lose. It sucks, but in the long term it will make you win. Focus only on the drill. Take the losses. When you reap the rewards you will easily make up your lost ground.
Definitely this.
When your practicing something seriously you often get a little worse before you get better because things are different and your focus is much more narrow in scope. Just expect to lose or w/e (or just play CPU) and measure progress by how well your executing whatever your trying to practice. In other words, if you win but had a 60 second where you didnt make probes you should be upset at yourself. If you lose midgame and get brutally raped by an attack but made probes the whole time you should be very pleased since you accomplished the goal WHILE under duress to boot. If you don't get into the right mindset for improvement it can become very frustrating; especially if you expect results/wins while your trying these things.
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I don't really agree with the fact that battle net keeps your win rate 50%, mainly because you play a match against someone that is so much worse than you, then you play a match against a person that is so much better than you. It's so annoying. I wish they did a more of an ICCup setup... The battlenet system of match making I found is total shit.
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Honestly if your losing motivation (I did for a time) I took a break. I mean I laddered (forced) 2-3 games a week it seemed and did more customs (but rarely played still just like 1-2 games a day just so I wouldn't be too rusty). I went through this for almost 2 months (and still was able to beat some top players  ).
After I think 2 months of doing this I just randomly got motivation (happened to be January first when tsl3 got announced haha) and have been playing alot more and not "forcing" myself at all back to fun ^^.
I recommend just doing that so you don't get too rusty when you get full motivation and honestly I feel like I came back a better player because I was always getting soo tilted after losing a game sometimes a small break does wonders ^^
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It helps to play against computers if you're trying to just get better at macro.
Play against a med/hard computer and focus on keeping your money down. Don't ever attack, just try to defend properly and macro, while spreading creep and injecting, as well as having nice OL spread.
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EPT
