Ok, I'm going to be more clear because I feel that maybe some people are misunderstanding what I was trying to get at. My fault for not being clear enough. I don't think there is some super secret to get out of bronze.
My macro sucks, it's what keeps me down. After I posted this I won a TvZ with 3k mins banked. I could get out of bronze building nothing but reapers and medivacs if I could keep my money low.
But this is to get a general picture of low level play for everyone struggling at this level. Find specific problems with how specific races and matchups. If you look at my Terran stats and compare them with other stats of my Terran opponents you see everyone has similar issues. Thus we can create objectives more precise than "keep you money down." There are patterns at play. And figuring them out can be a big help for a large group of people.
The ultimate goal would be to create some sort of list of what low level and new players can expect when they play online. When you say, "build shit" you guys understand the connotations of what that means. A low level player may then think, "build what?"
On March 25 2011 02:47 -Frog- wrote: I think one thing to look for is the efficiency of the build. I have some RL friends who are Bronze/Silver players and their initial pylon never goes down when they have 100 minerals - it's always at like 130 or 150. And their hatchery first builds plant the hatchery when they're floating 500 minerals instead of the second they hit 300.
I'm not going to go as far as to say that if you don't get your hatchery down at exactly 300 minerals you are going to lose the game but these sort of things will eventually build up and will severely screw you up.
Additionally I think that's a statistic you can collect - though it will require watching and recording events from the replay. If the hatchery goes down at 450 minerals instead of 300 you can say that build was 150 minerals less efficient than it could have been - or whichever metric you decide is appropriate.
I like the sentiment. Trying to gather data and make an informed topic is great.
That said, I think there is a problem with your statement that "of course someone with masters level injection micro can beat silver/gold" but this doesn't help those in bronze. The idea is that you should have injections like his. His "injection micro" is not what makes him a good player; rather its his ability to hit injections on time while still doing a bunch of other stuff. If you want to advance, you should first focus on hitting those injections, aka macro, and then worry about being able to do the other stuff after.
On March 25 2011 03:18 Tercotta wrote: Ok, I'm going to be more clear because I feel that maybe some people are misunderstanding what I was trying to get at. My fault for not being clear enough. I don't think there is some super secret to get out of bronze.
My macro sucks, it's what keeps me down. After I posted this I won a TvZ with 3k mins banked. I could get out of bronze building nothing but reapers and medivacs if I could keep my money low.
But this is to get a general picture of low level play for everyone struggling at this level. Find specific problems with how specific races and matchups. If you look at my Terran stats and compare them with other stats of my Terran opponents you see everyone has similar issues. Thus we can create objectives more precise than "keep you money down." There are patterns at play. And figuring them out can be a big help for a large group of people.
The ultimate goal would be to create some sort of list of what low level and new players can expect when they play online. When you say, "build shit" you guys understand the connotations of what that means. A low level player may then think, "build what?"
Except there's no secret list. The biggest, best, most important thing you could do if you're aiming to improve as a player is to just improve your mechanics.
Even pros try constantly to improve their mechanics.
Mechanics, for the most part, refer to what people consider "macro."
A SPORTS ANALOGY, because, why not. When someone plays soccer, they don't bother with crap like formations, strategy, or anything at all first, other than learning to kick and pass the ball. A new soccer player is incapable of even doing that competently, and so that's what they practice. It's kinda important for everything else they want to do.
A bronze player is kinda like that--you can't even properly "kick the ball" yet. If you want a list, well, here it is:
-Never get supply blocked, more specifically, only build supply when you need it, so you're not wasting resources on supply you don't yet need. -Never float minerals (I mean, everyone does to an extent, but I mean, keep it under 500 resources for one base, 1000 for two, for starters. Good place to begin. Aim higher than that though) -Make sure you have enough buildings to constantly be producing one unit from every building, and always be producing units out of every building. -Constantly produce workers (except zerg). -Expand whenever it is safe to expand. -Upgrade when you can afford it.
Notice I didn't say anything about scouting--you might lose some games due to unusual build orders or cheese, but it's not important yet. Understanding scouting is actually a very difficult part of the game.
I didn't say anything about micro, that's also a very difficult part of the game.
Didn't say anything about even build orders, those aren't important yet.
When people say "build shit" they mean "build anything" because excepting possibly casters, every unit will be decently fine. I'm sure that it's not hard to put two and two together and say, build stalkers if they have air or roaches or whatever.
On March 25 2011 03:18 Tercotta wrote: Ok, I'm going to be more clear because I feel that maybe some people are misunderstanding what I was trying to get at. My fault for not being clear enough. I don't think there is some super secret to get out of bronze.
My macro sucks, it's what keeps me down. After I posted this I won a TvZ with 3k mins banked. I could get out of bronze building nothing but reapers and medivacs if I could keep my money low.
But this is to get a general picture of low level play for everyone struggling at this level. Find specific problems with how specific races and matchups. If you look at my Terran stats and compare them with other stats of my Terran opponents you see everyone has similar issues. Thus we can create objectives more precise than "keep you money down." There are patterns at play. And figuring them out can be a big help for a large group of people.
The ultimate goal would be to create some sort of list of what low level and new players can expect when they play online. When you say, "build shit" you guys understand the connotations of what that means. A low level player may then think, "build what?"
Except there's no secret list. The biggest, best, most important thing you could do if you're aiming to improve as a player is to just improve your mechanics.
Even pros try constantly to improve their mechanics.
Mechanics, for the most part, refer to what people consider "macro."
A SPORTS ANALOGY, because, why not. When someone plays soccer, they don't bother with crap like formations, strategy, or anything at all first, other than learning to kick and pass the ball. A new soccer player is incapable of even doing that competently, and so that's what they practice. It's kinda important for everything else they want to do.
A bronze player is kinda like that--you can't even properly "kick the ball" yet. If you want a list, well, here it is:
-Never get supply blocked, more specifically, only build supply when you need it, so you're not wasting resources on supply you don't yet need. -Never float minerals (I mean, everyone does to an extent, but I mean, keep it under 500 resources for one base, 1000 for two, for starters. Good place to begin. Aim higher than that though) -Make sure you have enough buildings to constantly be producing one unit from every building, and always be producing units out of every building. -Constantly produce workers (except zerg). -Expand whenever it is safe to expand. -Upgrade when you can afford it.
Notice I didn't say anything about scouting--you might lose some games due to unusual build orders or cheese, but it's not important yet. Understanding scouting is actually a very difficult part of the game.
I didn't say anything about micro, that's also a very difficult part of the game.
Didn't say anything about even build orders, those aren't important yet.
When people say "build shit" they mean "build anything" because excepting possibly casters, every unit will be decently fine. I'm sure that it's not hard to put two and two together and say, build stalkers if they have air or roaches or whatever.
This is spot on. In fact I think trying to make a list of non-macro things will actually be detrimental to bronze players as all it will teach is bad habits.
Just learn how to stop those stupid rushes and cheese strats like hiding 20 blue flame hellions or massing voidrays and you will get better opponents and therefore some worthwhile practice...
You really can get out of bronze with just macro; but you can also get out of bronze by being very good with your micro, or catching your opponent by surprise. Macro is the most important aspect, though; because while I can drone rush anyone in bronze-silver, it begins to get worse at the gold-plat level, and you'll have to learn how to macro anyway.
That's why that advice is always given.
Oh, and a dude on reddit built stalkers until high plat/low diamond, and he only a-moved them, so it had nothing to do with masters level transfuse micro. Just take the advice of everyone who's posted in here about macro!
Multitasking, economic and unit management, and understanding the match up on a map-by-map basis are the fundamental core aspects of RTS. It's not only encouraging these skills to grow that is difficult. Fusing these parts together into a reactive, conservative style is the bane of low level players, and they often become discouraged because of it.
If you hold the highest standard for your ability to display each of the pieces one by one with reckless abandon, your puzzle will solve itself. Understanding and growth takes time. Practice is hard work. There are no shortcuts.
I think the most basic and important thing is to execute build orders properly. Then comes scouting and a general idea how to react to various situations.
Oh also if you lose a game either really close or totally obvious check your replay if you feel like it. Watch your every step and think about what you are doing or what could have been done different. It might hint you a few things
The point that destiny was trying to make was that you can get to diamond off of mechanics alone, and you don't need some fancy strategy. My advice, find a safe/solid build for each match up (preferably done by a pro player); sadly I can only give you generic advice at the moment because I don't even know your race.
"Just Macro" I think is not a sufficient advice. I'm a silver league noob shit who can beat anyone at silver-gold-lowplat in macro games and I'm silver since god knows when. Last time I played, something like this happened:
1- I scouted protoss 2- Stole his gas so that he won't make a sentry heavy 4-gate on me 3- Took an expansion 4- Ran by lings, scouted 4 gateways 5- Immediately threw a macro hatchery 6- Massed lings against a no-sentry zealot stalker army (I watched Terious getting chobostomped by either GuineaPig, Ace or Squirtle on LT with going roaches against a 4 warpgate all-in off 1 gas and Artosis said that it was not good to go roach and speedling would be better, so I didn't go roach). 7- Lost to someone who has 1/10 as much understanding-skill-strategical knowledge as me.
This gets us to the point: What is wrong? And I came up with a few possible answers: 1- Toss is ridiculously imba. 2- Just macro is not enough.
I don't know which one is true. But I think it's the latter as former gets people banned on TL.
I'm going to quote Chill from his Brood War strategy forum days. There are a couple of mentions of units / builds that apply more to BW than to SC2, but the basic lessons are still very much applicable. Note that its main focus isn't macro / micro.
On October 04 2006 09:35 Chill wrote: I see a lot of threads lately that are "Why did I suck in this game?", and then the game is so bad that you can't give a specific reason because there are too many. I'm going to give tl.net the advice I give everyone who asks me to watch replays, and hopefully it will do some help to someone.
In order of decending important, you should be thinking about the following things:
1. Always be Doing Something.
As I see it, there's only ever three things to be done: Attacking, expanding, and teching. If you're not doing one of the three, you're doing nothing. I see this a lot in low level replays; people tech quick to Lurkers and then sit at home with them. They don't go Hive, they don't expand and they don't try to break their opponents expansion - they do nothing.
By the same logic, a containment is doing you no good if nothing is going on beyond that containment. If you're not holding up for more expansions or more tech, that containment is pointless.
You should note that Teching means teching NOW, not in 5 minutes. If you're "going to be" teching, you're still not doing anything.
There are two times that I can think of when this wouldn't apply. Those are the time when you are building up for an attack, and once the late game kicks in and resources are getting low.
Try to think about this during the game. Make sure you're always doing something.
2. What's your underlying game plan?
It's ZvT. Instead of powering Drones off of 3 Hatcheries, you got Lurkers quickly off 2 Hatcheries. Now what? Why would you use this build? Either to break his natural, or secure more expansions for yourself. It doesn't make sense now to add many Hatcheries and get many Zerglings. If that was your plan you should have added the Hatcheries before Lair.
This happens all the time to one of my friends. He's good, but whenever I watch a replay he needs help with, I ask him "Why'd you do that?" and "What's your gameplan?". He can never answer. You should be able to watch your own replays and be able to explain your plan to yourself.
3. Adapt
Now that you stole build orders from replays to satisfy #2, it's time to adapt. In ZvT, it's 3 base (2 gas) Zerg versus 2 base (2 gas) Terran. You were planning on going Hydralurk until you scouted Terran with 6 Barracks and 2 Factories. You're going to make life easier if you switch to Lurkerling.
Sometimes you have to use Ultras. Sometimes it makes more sense to use Defilers. Sometimes it makes more sense to use both. Sometimes you don't need Hive tech (rare). If you feel Terran is going fast Tanks and you just stick with your 3 Sunkens and Spire, you deserve to lose because you didn't adapt.
So, have your general cookie cutter builds, but you have to stray from them when you see Terran went 1 Vulture into 2 Port Wraith, or basically an unorthodox build.
Sorry all my examples are ZvT just because I have that on my mind for some reason.
4. Macro & Micro
Now that you've done 1-3, you should start worrying about macro and micro. I see a lot of people starting with macro when people ask for help. I think it's much more important to be "always doing something" than having good macro, that's why I put these so far down the list.
So, if you watch your replay and you think you did all 1-4, then ask for help. I can pretty much guarentee that if you are always doing something, following a game plan, and adapting your build to counter his, you won't have a replay that you still need help with.
On March 25 2011 04:34 Djagulingu wrote: "Just Macro" I think is not a sufficient advice. I'm a silver league noob shit who can beat anyone at silver-gold-lowplat in macro games and I'm silver since god knows when. Last time I played, something like this happened:
1- I scouted protoss 2- Stole his gas so that he won't make a sentry heavy 4-gate on me 3- Took an expansion 4- Ran by lings, scouted 4 gateways 5- Immediately threw a macro hatchery 6- Massed lings against a no-sentry zealot stalker army (I watched Terious getting chobostomped by either GuineaPig, Ace or Squirtle on LT with going roaches against a 4 warpgate all-in off 1 gas and Artosis said that it was not good to go roach and speedling would be better, so I didn't go roach). 7- Lost to someone who has 1/10 as much understanding-skill-strategical knowledge as me.
This gets us to the point: What is wrong? And I came up with a few possible answers: 1- Toss is ridiculously imba. 2- Just macro is not enough.
I don't know which one is true. But I think it's the latter as former gets people banned on TL.
you had 3 hatches when a 4gate hit? you shouldn't have the money or time to do that and having the money to do this would suggest it was your macro at fault. a replay would be good though.
however to say something else about lower league zerg, i some of the advice people give to lower level players is not applicable to zerg, make sure you're always making workers is just for toss and terran really, i'm no zerg but there are many times when a zerg should be entirely producing units and responding to a 4gate is (i believe but a zerg may wish to correct me) one of those times.
On March 25 2011 04:34 Djagulingu wrote: "Just Macro" I think is not a sufficient advice. I'm a silver league noob shit who can beat anyone at silver-gold-lowplat in macro games and I'm silver since god knows when. Last time I played, something like this happened:
1- I scouted protoss 2- Stole his gas so that he won't make a sentry heavy 4-gate on me 3- Took an expansion 4- Ran by lings, scouted 4 gateways 5- Immediately threw a macro hatchery 6- Massed lings against a no-sentry zealot stalker army (I watched Terious getting chobostomped by either GuineaPig, Ace or Squirtle on LT with going roaches against a 4 warpgate all-in off 1 gas and Artosis said that it was not good to go roach and speedling would be better, so I didn't go roach). 7- Lost to someone who has 1/10 as much understanding-skill-strategical knowledge as me.
This gets us to the point: What is wrong? And I came up with a few possible answers: 1- Toss is ridiculously imba. 2- Just macro is not enough.
I don't know which one is true. But I think it's the latter as former gets people banned on TL.
you had 3 hatches when a 4gate hit? you shouldn't have the money or time to do that and having the money to do this would suggest it was your macro at fault. a replay would be good though.
however to say something else about lower league zerg, i some of the advice people give to lower level players is not applicable to zerg, make sure you're always making workers is just for toss and terran really, i'm no zerg but there are many times when a zerg should be entirely producing units and responding to a 4gate is (i believe but a zerg may wish to correct me) one of those times.
On March 25 2011 04:34 Djagulingu wrote: "Just Macro" I think is not a sufficient advice. I'm a silver league noob shit who can beat anyone at silver-gold-lowplat in macro games and I'm silver since god knows when. Last time I played, something like this happened:
1- I scouted protoss 2- Stole his gas so that he won't make a sentry heavy 4-gate on me 3- Took an expansion 4- Ran by lings, scouted 4 gateways 5- Immediately threw a macro hatchery 6- Massed lings against a no-sentry zealot stalker army (I watched Terious getting chobostomped by either GuineaPig, Ace or Squirtle on LT with going roaches against a 4 warpgate all-in off 1 gas and Artosis said that it was not good to go roach and speedling would be better, so I didn't go roach). 7- Lost to someone who has 1/10 as much understanding-skill-strategical knowledge as me.
This gets us to the point: What is wrong? And I came up with a few possible answers: 1- Toss is ridiculously imba. 2- Just macro is not enough.
I don't know which one is true. But I think it's the latter as former gets people banned on TL.
If you steal a protoss' gas, that is basically telling him you want him to 4gate you. There are very few good responses to a gas steal, as you won't have enough sentries to defend an allin if you 3gate expo, and all tech oriented rushes are delayed significantly. The problem with the gas steal is that you have to keep your zealot blocking the ramp, and a stalker takes forever to kill the extractor. Since protoss is reliant on few units until warpgate completes, this presents a problem.
In order to solve this problem, you 4gate zerg, as it is now your strongest strategy.
As zerg, you should expect this 95% of the time in my opinion, unless you sac an overlord, or scout an expansion. So your response should be a ton of roaches as fast as you can. You don't need a macro hatch on 2 base if you have 2 queens with low energy.
I am masters, so take this advice for what it's worth.
EDIT: Watching replay.
- at the 5 min mark, you can clearly see he threw down the 4th gate as a response to your gas steal.
- you let the pylon go up WAY too close to your base
- almost every time you attack, your lings were attacking the zlots. NO. Make them attack the stalkers.
- if you choose to use lings for defence, you need SPINECRAWLERS, to deal with zlots.
- you lost after your nat went down, rest of the game is a bust.
TIPS:
- leave 2 lings outside his base, one RIGHT at entrance, and one a little further back to see his unit comp. (as you inevitably miss seeing his unit comp. the first time)
- control the xel-naga. all the time every time. lings are cheap.
- don't get a macro hatch unless you really need it.
- you simply cannot let that pylon go up. have complete vision of all ground entrances into your base, and preferable all ground areas of your base.
- need spinecrawlers too, maybe 2 going up as soon as your lings at his base see the push.
- see how all this works together? vision from towers, vision from lings. having VISION means there is no pylon that close, means there is time to put spines down, means there is information. can't win without that.
- also don't get supply-blocked ever etc. (you did a good job of this) =]
On March 25 2011 04:34 Djagulingu wrote: "Just Macro" I think is not a sufficient advice. I'm a silver league noob shit who can beat anyone at silver-gold-lowplat in macro games and I'm silver since god knows when. Last time I played, something like this happened:
1- I scouted protoss 2- Stole his gas so that he won't make a sentry heavy 4-gate on me 3- Took an expansion 4- Ran by lings, scouted 4 gateways 5- Immediately threw a macro hatchery 6- Massed lings against a no-sentry zealot stalker army (I watched Terious getting chobostomped by either GuineaPig, Ace or Squirtle on LT with going roaches against a 4 warpgate all-in off 1 gas and Artosis said that it was not good to go roach and speedling would be better, so I didn't go roach). 7- Lost to someone who has 1/10 as much understanding-skill-strategical knowledge as me.
This gets us to the point: What is wrong? And I came up with a few possible answers: 1- Toss is ridiculously imba. 2- Just macro is not enough.
I don't know which one is true. But I think it's the latter as former gets people banned on TL.
If you steal a protoss' gas, that is basically telling him you want him to 4gate you. There are very few good responses to a gas steal, as you won't have enough sentries to defend an allin if you 3gate expo, and all tech oriented rushes are delayed significantly. The problem with the gas steal is that you have to keep your zealot blocking the ramp, and a stalker takes forever to kill the extractor. Since protoss is reliant on few units until warpgate completes, this presents a problem.
In order to solve this problem, you 4gate zerg, as it is now your strongest strategy.
As zerg, you should expect this 95% of the time in my opinion, unless you sac an overlord, or scout an expansion. So your response should be a ton of roaches as fast as you can. You don't need a macro hatch on 2 base if you have 2 queens with low energy.
I am masters, so take this advice for what it's worth.
Basically, the reason why I stole gas was exactly this. I thought I could defend a 1 gas 4-gate with 3 hatch lings, but I could not.
Thanks for the advice man, I watched the replay as well, and I really had no friggin vision, just like you said. I didn't really do a good job in the very basic part, but at least I was slightly better than him (he had like 800 minerals and so much gas floating around). But that didn't win me a game. That's why I disagree with "just make units and win" kind of advice. Even at lower leagues, we noob shits need more than just that imho.
EPT
