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So since the ladder lock, the holidays for myself has started, meaning more ladder time. During this time, I also got a computer that could run at more than 10fps, meaning easier playtime. Therefore, I have climbed to the top of my Silver League :D.
Now don't think of me as some kind of noob who only cheeses all game trying to piss off people. I am a zerg player who mostly macros and I can say that the percent of people who actually prefer to play heavy macro games to the standard of mine to be around 5% of BSG (Bronze Silver Gold).
The rest stay 1base until the fifteen minute mark turtling with their tanks/cannons and making stuff off their one base before I roll into their base with banelings/zerglings and completely pwn their face off.
This really frustrates me as at the start of every game I can't tell if the person is a noob who always turtles or someone who watches day9/big tournys and knows how to play the damn game. I get very little practice against decent people and when they do I usually have 5 base before they roll me over with their toss deathball or marine/tank/medivac combo.
I'm not whining about imbalance, I'm just stating that it sucks to be in Silver. Sometimes I even lose to stupid cheeses such as 4gate/2rax (I usually fend it off though) and this makes me lose points as zerg.
Another thing that sucks about playing as a zerg who macros in Silver is that the games usually ALWAYS run for more than 15mins unless someone cheeses or I go 5 Roach Rush (actually a viable strat still).
However when I off-race as protoss/terran I can just use easy win strategys such as 4gate (easy win against silvers) or 3rax/2rax (more easy wins).
I know that zerg is my main race (my macro with toss/terran is terrible) however its becoming increasingly harder to play macro games without myself becoming increasingly annoyed and pissed off at the game. If I had my way I would instantly place myself in Platinum.
Anyway, rant over. Does anyone else have/has had the same situation as me?
 
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ive coached 4/5 friends from bronze up to plat / diamond and 100% of the time low level mistakes are mechanics.
as long as you dont get yourself into a situation where you cant shoot up or something ridiculous like that try your best to scout and counter attack and whatever, but never at the cost of your mechanics.
play safe with plenty of spines and spores if you feel 'something is up' (avoiding super stupid losses to random banshees and dts will improve your win rate massively) and then make plenty of lings and roaches or whatever. when your up to diamond then start refining your play and scouting, below that mechanics mechanics mechanics,
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I'm currently playing Zerg in gold, mostly playing platinum players since the lock, and I can tell you that if you're currently in silver as Zerg you really do not want to be magically placed in platinum.
When I play my high-silver-league Zerg friends, they often take games off me for this or that reason, but the area where they just can't keep up is macro. The difference between silver and platinum players in terms of their macro is pretty dramatic.
There's no more or less cheese in platinum than there is in silver. Also, while it sounds like you have expanding down, as important is having a sense for when to drone vs. make units, what to make, quickly and efficiently reacting to what you see, but also knowing what to look for and when to expect various types of tech to pop out from your opponent. Zerg macro isn't just making a ton of drones and hitting your larva injects, it's knowing when and how to switch from econ to unit production, and that only comes with practice.
I'm probably slower at picking up Starcraft than most people, because it's taken me almost 2500 games from the start of Beta to claw my way from the bottom of the bottom of copper league to a solid gold-league MMR. (My first 40, yes, 40 games the first week of beta were all losses.) Almost all of my recent improvement has come from starting to develop an intuitive sense for when I need to be ready for what contingencies, and how to scout for them before they happen. That sense only comes from a ton of losses.
Edit: I should also say that it's probably taken me half those games to even start to develop a sense for what I need to be thinking about to improve.
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If you don't want to play macro games, then don't play macro games. Zerg has the ability to be aggressive early, so don't complain just because you enjoy 3rax wins with Terran but aren't willing to do the same kind of all-ins as Zerg.
Don't go thinking "these cheesy players are unfairly holding me back" either. If a player can't handle whichever cheese strats are being used at their current level, they don't deserve to be promoted. It's as simple as that.
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I'd suggest trying to learn and refine a solid timing attack or other repeatable / pre-planned build. It sounds like you have the basics of economy down, you at least realize that you need to expand, but I'm guessing you have no idea why you're expanding at that time or what your opponent can do in reaction to your expansions.
Practicing a build that has pre-timed triggers will help you better understand how the various stages of the game progress and, more importantly, when it's the proper time to go kill your opponent.
I found this helped me alot while initially learning how to play the game. For reference, I didn't play until Season 2 started, and I ended up in silver after my placements. It took me about 50 games to get the basic mechanics down (basically to keep on building workers) and from there I just focused on economic / unit timings. I'm still terrible, but I did manage to get into masters after about 300 games, so I think my approach worked out pretty well. Good luck!
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Okay, before I go any further I should say I've been playing starcraft 2 actively for around 3 months. I understand why I expand and I can understand the difference between making drones and making units. I guess I could say my scouting suffers a bit but that should be a minor problem.
Seeing as you guys say there is the same amount of cheese in Platinum I guess I should be in plat... not to sound arrogant in any way, just saying I think my macro is very good as I can max out easily and roll the non-agressors who turtle.
The basic mechanics of inject/spend larvae/drone/keep money low I can keep up to until I get to 3-4 base where I see myself having 1k/500 or 2k/1k which is when I max out and make extra hatches, before moving out and rolling face.
Thanks for the insight though, very helpful 
EDIT: I'm not losing to silver... I said I'm stuck in Silver because of the ladder lock. I lose very rarely against silver, and am more than 60% win rate against gold.
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On July 13 2011 11:47 zeOllie wrote:
Seeing as you guys say there is the same amount of cheese in Platinum I guess I should be in plat... not to sound arrogant in any way, just saying I think my macro is very good as I can max out easily and roll the non-agressors who turtle.
If you're losing vs. silver players, you should not be in platinum. From personal experience playing practice games, I win maybe 90% of my games vs. silver players, and I have not yet been promoted to platinum.
Edit: Everyone at our level thinks their macro is good. If you're anywhere under high Plat, it's not. Really.
Here's an interesting analysis that shows this graphically:
http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/f7qw9/followup_to_macrostomping_with_mass_stalkers_more/
Edit 2: If you are good about avoiding supply block, making workers, and expanding, and you're still losing vs. silver players, it's because you do not know what to make and when. If you know what to make and when, you're probably screwing up your macro. You can't be good at both and lose.
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Mechanics. like gretorp said. All you have to know how to do is make units the fastest possible way and you'll ride that to mid-high masters.
And here is one piece of advice, if you are doing a standard cookie cutter build and know when to expand, then all you have to do to win up until diamond is a) fend off cheese and b) NEVER GET SUPPLY BLOCKED.
If you get to 200/200 without getting supply blocked once and never making more than 2 depots or pylons at once, you will find you max when he's at like 130 food (not including battles)
Supply block and hand speed to macro are the only things holding anybody below diamond down. Other than staying on 2 bases all game.
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Regardless of whether the ladders are locked or not, shouldn't you still find yourself playing players of similar ability? The only difference is you are temporarily stuck in your league.
It sounds like your scouting needs a bit of work. That way, 5 minutes into all games you will have an idea if its a turtle guy or a dude with a clue, you will also know whether to prep for early aggro or not. Holding off early aggro, along with decent mechanics is the key to moving up from where you are. Lots of players in sliver-ish rely on strong openings but generally have little followup either tech wise or econ wise.
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On July 13 2011 12:01 Trufflez wrote:
Supply block and hand speed to macro are the only things holding anybody below diamond down. Other than staying on 2 bases all game.
I don't agree that that's necessarily true for Zerg players, because there's not a simple unit comp that works vs. everything unless you can count on being way ahead. Protoss and Terran have pretty survivable low-tier units that can hit both ground and air, Zerg doesn't. Also, Protoss and Terran macro ensure a good balance of workers and units, while an inexperienced Zerg can do something that seems reasonable and end up completely defenseless vs. an unanticipated attack.
What this means in practice is that Zerg players have to have enough game sense to know when and for what to scout so that they make good production choices.
(The one example I can think of of someone trying to demonstrate what you're talking about as Zerg was Destiny doing his all-queen thing a while back. While he did quite well at least to platinum with that approach, his success with that depended on strong creep spread and excellent transfuse micro in addition to macro performance, and arguably no other unit comp could do the job.)
I'd guess that perfect mechanics will only get a Zerg player to platinum because of the additional skills it takes to stay alive with the race. However, I'd love to be proven wrong by someone who's doing something other than a creep-spread and transfuse-intensive mass queen build.
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EPT
