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I never got great at SC2 (silver) what with a fairly busy social/work and now married life, and I understand that its pointless to expect to be good at something if you aren't willing to put in the hard hours. I REALLY liked it though. Then I had an incredibly busy few months and gave the game up entirely. Getting back into it feels...good.
For one, I'm trying, this time around, to do things right and not worry about winning. At all.
1. Play custom melee. Usually better players, I don't have to worry about MMR and dropping the quality of my opponents. Just get my ass kicked over and over and focus on doing things right.
2. Macro, Macro, Macro. Make sure SCV+unit production is constant, the builds I use are easy and solid in each matchup, money never gets too high, expansions are on time etc.
3. Watch every replay
4. If I have time, make no excuses for not playing. In my first stint, I used to psyche myself out a lot.
5. Don't worry about the metagame or fancy tactics till I have my fundamentals down.
Any advice? Anything I should change or re-prioritize? Add?
Cheers!
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2 and 5 are probably the most important. I actually think 1 might be a bad idea -- just ladder. You'll always be pitted against people around your skill level. Wouldn't that be more useful than randomly oscillating between trashing bronze players (and not getting penalized for your mistakes) and getting crushed by diamond players (and getting penalized for mistakes you didn't even know you made)? It probably doesn't matter much, but I bet it would do wonders for not psyching yourself out if you just laddered whenever you could. Don't worry about your MMR. As you say, just focus on doing things right. What's the worst that could happen, you get cannon rushed 30 times? Okay, that'll help you learn how to stop it, etc.
As far as being busy, I think even occasionally practicing the fundamentals can take you much further than you think. Of course only playing occasionally is going to be a huge detriment, since your first few games every time you sit down to play are going to be awful as you get "back in the zone", and if you only play a few games that's your entire ladder experience. But speaking for myself, I have almost no time to play. I'm a graduate student with a pretty active social life and am getting married in a few months, and I play maybe 3-5 games at a time once every week or two. I was placed in gold when I got the game shortly after release, and worked my way up to platinum shortly before the end of season 1. I try to focus on fundamentals, but after every game without even watching the replay I know what I should have done better on, be in not getting supply blocked, or focusing too much on economy and forgetting to make actual units, or not scouting for proxies, or whatever.
This might just be a random collection of unhelpful thoughts from another low-level player, so take it with a grain of salt, but I really think just laddering whenever you can and sticking to your fundamentals is the best plan.
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1 probably isnt the smartest of ideas, unless you have a dedicated practice partner. 2 is really important, 5, really i think come as you play. i dont think stuff like that really comes with trying to practice. for you trying to emulate pros and keeping your macro up is your main way of getting better. for diamond and under, really keep ur money below 500 and keep making workerss will win you any straight up game.
watching replay to see what you could of done better, but watching every replay is not efficient. Unless i don't know why i lost, or lose horribly when playing straight up, i dont watch replays of myself. I dont think my ego can take replays of myself when i loose to a 4 gate or 6 pool.
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Thanks for the responses!
I'm a little surprised 1 is so unpopular: people who play custom tend to be better than myself, and one of the biggest pains of ladder was losing to cheese and having to focus on THAT, rather than improving my fundamentals. Also, when you lose to cheese against a similarly skilled opponent, you end up having straight matches against opponents who aren't so good.
Still, I'll consider that for sure!
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EPT
