EPTWant to know what Bronze is actually like? - Page 3
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Epsilon8
Canada173 Posts
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Turo
Canada333 Posts
In every other matchup, and in ZvP (excepting 4gate of course), the game can be won with very simple macro, and minimal scouting. (lower levels) It's unfortunate it is that way, but it is. Best of luck! Try and work on that vision and you'll be gold in no time. | ||
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Seide
United States831 Posts
On March 25 2011 05:39 Turo wrote: the thing is ZvP vs. a 4gate(at any level, even bronze unfortunately) requires a very specific response, and for the zerg to play significantly faster and smarter. In the case of "just macro", I believe that is bad advice in this one case. In every other matchup, and in ZvP (excepting 4gate of course), the game can be won with very simple macro, and minimal scouting. (lower levels) It's unfortunate it is that way, but it is. Best of luck! Try and work on that vision and you'll be gold in no time. Also siege tanks. I find when I mess around playing random on my friends bronze acc, many players simply dont know how to deal with them when you get 5+. Many people I meet simply run into the tanks with their army thinking they can win because their army is bigger, not knowing that what they are doing is actually suicide. In many cases macro and mechanics is basically what you want to improve, but no amount of macro is going to save you from failing to scout a Dark Shrine until the DTs are in your base and you've been muling away and havent saved a single scan. Personally I think improving scouting habits at lower levels will benefit you as much as macro, especially because of the somewhat unpredictable nature of lower level play. | ||
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Impervious
Canada4198 Posts
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Orome
Switzerland11984 Posts
I do agree with one thing though. Just telling them 'macro better, make more stuff' doesn't help, because a lot of them don't have the knowledge to apply that properly. It takes a bit of knowledge to understand what good macro is comprised of and what you should focus on specifically if you want to have good macro. Because of that, I've been trying to break down what macro is and help them understand all the things they should be focusing on (harvesters, not getting supply capped, getting the right amount of production facilities, rough expansion timings. etc.). Really though, I think the only thing that's going to get you out of bronze is to just play games, get your handspeed up and get used to multitasking. Way too many low level people that still read sites like TL think they need to understand things like timings when any timings in bronze league are horribly off because both players mess up their mechanics so much. | ||
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Dr.Dragoon
United States1241 Posts
On March 25 2011 07:14 Orome wrote: I've been hanging around in a channel with a lot of bronze players ever since chat channels were introduced and I've watched a lot of their games. At first I was hoping I could give them tips and really help them improve, but unfortunately 99% of what them holds them back really is macro and hand speed. I do agree with one thing though. Just telling them 'macro better, make more stuff' doesn't help, because a lot of them don't have the knowledge to apply that properly. It takes a bit of knowledge to understand what good macro is comprised of and what you should focus on specifically if you want to have good macro. Because of that, I've been trying to break down what macro is and help them understand all the things they should be focusing on (harvesters, not getting supply capped, getting the right amount of production facilities, rough expansion timings. etc.). Really though, I think the only thing that's going to get you out of bronze is to just play games, get your handspeed up and get used to multitasking. Way too many low level people that still read sites like TL think they need to understand things like timings when any timings in bronze league are horribly off because both players mess up their mechanics so much. Definately agree with this. I don't think a lot of lower level players understand just how much macro applies to. It's more than just having low money by building units and workers constantly, It includes the crispness and efficiency of your build order, having units building constantly without queues, and more. At the same time though, this makes the advice "macro better" to be way too vague, and generally not helpful at all. I think bronze players need a breakdown on all the little things that make up macro to really improve on it, and see the significance of it. If you have all of these down decently, you will easily get out of bronze, but that's a lot harder than it seems, since macro applies to so much. | ||
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SirazTV
United States209 Posts
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. I watched your replay. and surprise surprise you lost because of macro. I mean honestly his 4 gate hit at 7:30 with 3 zlot 3 stalker. Thats the slowest freaking 4gate ever. You lost because you had no eco management at all you built an inbase hatch at like 25 drones? There is noooooo reason to have a third hatch this fast. Also, gas stealing is a waste of minerals. You could have had another 14 lings and then you would have held that easy. Also, your opponents response was way better then yours in this case i mean honestly what do you expect if you steal a gas? It is going to be a 4gate, that is the only response that makes sense. Now, I think zerg also has to learn when to pump drones and when to build units on top of macroing but for terran and toss just mass marines or stalkers and win. | ||
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Orome
Switzerland11984 Posts
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spacemunkee
United States51 Posts
If you want specific advice how to macro, I'd go to thesc2school.com and sign-up for a macro-oriented coach. Coaches there donate their time to helping us lower level players improve. | ||
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Salv
Canada3083 Posts
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Turgid
United States1623 Posts
On March 25 2011 08:55 Orome wrote: gas stealing isn't a waste of minerals It is if you don't want to get 4gated. I guess it avoids a sentry heavy 4gate in particular, not that bronze/silver players can ff well anyway, but it frequently triggers the 1 gas 4gate anyway since it locks out tech builds and makes 3gate expand more difficult. And yeah that game was hands down lost because of macro. 3 zealots 3 stalkers 7:30 doesn't kill someone playing efficiently, ever, no matter how bad their unit composition or micro is. The point about getting people to understand what exactly macro is is good advice. People should just read Ver's How to Improve guide though. The advice it gives(macro is by far the most important skill to learn, copy a pro replay, practice the build until your execution is exactly like the pro's) is hugely important. However, judging by some of the posts bronze and silver players make on this forum(not just in this thread, but in TONS of threads about helping low level players improve), I think step one is actually just removing poisonous beliefs. The most prevalent and poisonous belief for bronze and silver leaguers to have is to assume that they have the ability to accurately analyze a game. I'd say 9 times out of 10 if a silver leaguer looks at a game of his and says "Yes, apparently this master league player was wrong about his advice" he's just straight up wrong, the master league player was correct and the silver league player is just screwing up in some other way. | ||
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Jacobine
United States174 Posts
I actually just tested this advice in a game, I did my best not to miss anything, I got maxed crazy fast and steamrolled the guy even though my first group of units evaporated. I had so many gates, I just built three rounds, chronoboosting them as much as possible, and was ready to pressure again.. So the advice is useful, but you as the consumer need to spend every last ounce of focus on it to improve. | ||
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Orome
Switzerland11984 Posts
it limits P's options which is huge 1 gas 4 gate is a terrible build if it doesn't catch you off-guard, if you can steer him towards that, you should be happy | ||
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Turgid
United States1623 Posts
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BossPlaya
United States141 Posts
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carebear91
Singapore236 Posts
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Dhalphir
Australia1305 Posts
That said, however, the bottom line has improved a whole lot in the last 6-8 months. Shortly after release Bronze was full of the stereotypical "duyhhhhh whats a build order duhhh carriers are pretty!!" crowd, but all of those people have pretty much either knuckled down and improved, or long since quit completely, and so Bronze is full of people who cna actually do early builds pretty well, they just aren't so great at micro, positioning, and tend to fall apart on later macro things like making just the right number of production buildings, queen injects, and managing multiple bases. | ||
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Turgid
United States1623 Posts
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Dhalphir
Australia1305 Posts
On March 25 2011 13:40 Turgid wrote: I'm a little skeptical of the claim that Bronze players know build orders and can execute the first few minutes of the game well since I still run into low level players in team games and they rarely build things on time. I can't count the number of times when I've waltzed my probe across a base, come to another Protoss player, and see a single pylon well before my second pylon goes down... I start wondering if I missed a proxy somewhere and then his gate finally goes down, often apparently on 14 or 15. It's silly. It's also common to see larva sitting unused at hatcheries when the pool and hatch are already down and so forth. having your gate go down 10-15 seconds late, or even having every single building go down that late isn't necessarily "not knowing a b/o" but simply not focusing on consistent practise enough to internalise remembering when to build certain things. My fiancee plays Protoss a lot, and when we first started I gave her a 3gate robo build and thought nothing more of it. Then 20 games later she's complaining about losing all the time, and I took a look at her replays. She does indeed put the gate down on 13. But at 200 minerals on 13, not 150. She then makes a zealot before the cybernetic core because "i need to close my wall" despite having seen the pool timing being normal, not early, and not realising she doesn't need the zealot yet. After I went through all this with her, she practised a bunch in YABOT, and now, doing the same build order, doing all the things she knows how to do but just doing them more consistently, accurately, on time, and overall tight, she is now consistently beating Very Hard AI where before she struggled with Hard. (She doesn't like competitive play so stays away from 1v1 online). This is the difference that is in Bronze. They know HOW to do good build orders. They just don't do it, and don't realise that they're not doing it, and not only that but they don't realise that the fundamental error they are making is not doing the wrong thing, or not even failing to do the right thing. They are doing the right thing, but late. There is a reason that Bronze 4gates hit at about 7-7:30 as opposed to 6-6:30 for a Masters (excluding a fancy 10gate variant or something that hits at 5minsomething), but still fundamentally do things in the correct order. Its just all dnoe late. | ||
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mahnini
United States6862 Posts
bronze players are like zygotes who haven't developed even a stub of a leg yet, so in terms of advice all you can say is you need to move faster and build more stuff. i've never seen a bronze player who could execute a build order properly though, much less understand one. perhaps one of the only reason bronze players can seemingly do things is because sc2 is highly accessible mechanics-wise so you don't really see giant holes in their play against other bronze players. i mean it's easy to macro when all you're doing is looking at your units pop out and mashing hotkeys. throw the slightest bit of multitask at them, though, and they would probably fall apart. | ||
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