|
Greetings and welcome to my blog! I'm feeling a little defeatist right now due massive loss streaks and the stagnation of my skill level. And I feel I have been doomed from the beginning of this foolish quest to get to Masters. I'd like to start this off by giving you some background into my history with the game.
When Starcraft first came out, I fell in love. I devoured the instruction manual, especially the origin stories of the races leading up to the events of the game. To this day I believe it's an awesome piece of sci fi, and it's one of the reasons I've grown to become a big reader. I also loved playing the campaign. I loved the feel of being a super-awesome commander at the centre of a three-sided galactic war, the key player in the series of cataclysmic fate-changing events we all know and love.
The only problem was, I was terrible at it. I used cheats at every level. Without them, I would get my ass handed to me by what I thought was an insanely cruel and cheating computer. (I'm talking about the campaign missions here, not even a melee game haha.) So happily I blacksheepwalled and operationcwal'd my way through the campaign and loved every second of the amazing story arc and dramatic voice acting.
When Starcraft 2 was announced, I instantly knew that I wanted to be good at it. I looked back at my time with Starcraft fondly, and I had always considered it a shame that I had never become any good at it. I heard vague stories of crazy Korean machine-men who spent all their waking hours playing the game, honing their skills and competing against one another. There were even TV stations dedicated to it! I thought that was just the frickin' bee's knees. I knew I would never reach that level, but I wanted to be at least "good" at SC2 when it came out.
Unfortunately I theorize that I'm just naturally terrible at RTS. When my friends and I would play Warcraft 3, I was called "the cripple" because of my laughable skills. RTS just never clicked in my brain. Determined to change this, I got into the TL community and started getting into Starcraft in anticipation of the sequel. I got on iccup and got my ass handed to me. I played some more and got severely owned. I continued, and got beat down again and again. I think I played actively for more than 6 months when the SC2 beta finally game out. I had reached my equilibrium at the D level. Months of playing and I never even ranked up. Once I was 1 game away from reaching D+ but I ran into a Korean smurf who completely trashed me and ruined my confidence. It would be the highest I ever got in BW, but I didn't really care. I had fallen in love with the game.
When I first got into beta, I found that just knowing what to expect, from my experience in BW, landed me consistently into the top league at the time, Platinum. I knew I was never good at the game, the simple fact being that most people were alien to competitive RTS, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't give me an ego boost. For a few months I held my head high knowing I was better than most people at the game. It gave me a quiet satisfaction, even though objectively I knew people would eventually catch up and surpass me.
When Masters League was introduced, I was comfortably in Diamond, so I figured I'd be promoted too after a few games. Unfortunately that never happened. I hit a wall at Diamond which I've yet to break. After playing for ages, getting nowhere with Protoss, I decided to switch race just to get some fun back into the game.I spent many months moving from Terran to Zerg to Terran to Zerg just figuring out which race I liked best. Eventually I settled on Zerg. By that time I had fallen into Plat due to the implications of switching to a race I didn't know how to play. But with a lot of hard work, I acquired my cool Hydralisk picture and advanced my skill to the level of consistently beating Diamond leaguers. Finally, at the beginning of this season, I made it back into Diamond!
By now Master League had become my main goal. It remains so today. For me making Masters would be a massive accomplishment and would make all the hours I've worked at my game worth it. Unfortunately it also became my personal white whale, simultaneously eluding and mocking me. Damn you Master League! But I felt I was close to being almost close to Master League level. Surely with the progress I'd been making and the hard work I'd been putting in, I was well on my way, right?
Which brings me to now. A couple weeks ago I decided to quit playing any other games and focus on improving my SC skills. That has turned out, well, sort of horribly. I'm looking at my match history and there is a section from 2 days ago where I had 3 wins and 13 losses. I'm currently sitting on another four match losing streak. The wins are few and far between, and the thing is that I'm being matched against platinum players. And losing. Not even top plat any more; I'm getting totally crushed by mid plat players in straight up games.
I know in my heart a demotion is coming soon, but I'm dreading it horribly. I don't know if I could take another demotion and still want to keep playing! I still like playing the game, which is why I keep coming back to it... but I know I just suck. I constantly make awful decisions like pushing out with armies I know I have no chance of winning with, and donating them to the opponent. My mechanics are sorely lacking, I completely forget about important things like upgrades and I often feel like I'm on autopilot while playing the game, mindlessly making workers and hoping I've made more than the enemy.
So here I am in disappointment and fatigue. I feel like I've worked my ass off this past year for no returns whatsoever in terms of skill. I'm thinking of switching races again. I'm running dry on motivation. But I still really, really, really want to get into Masters.
Anyway, thanks for reading my little story! Typing all this has been sort of therapeutic for me, so excuse me if it seems overly self-centred. I'm at a place where I'm not sure if I enjoy the game any more - what I really enjoy, if I'm being honest with myself, is improving and winning. And I'm not doing either. I spend hours of my day watching GSL and other tournaments, watching VODs and replays, and thinking about how to improve. But I'm at the same level I was months ago, and that level is Horrible. All that effort I put into Starcraft 2 is starting to feel like a waste. TL, should I just quit? Was I just doomed by my genes to be a terrible player? Should I just become purely a watcher of the pro scene, giving up on actually playing? I need advice, Liquid`Auntie Agony!
 
|
Sweetheart,
give me a replay and I will help you.
If you play the game you shouldn't think about the little masters badge in your profile - you shouldn't think about your record, how horrible losses look in your match history or about the expectations of your friends.
When I decided to go for the GML a couple of weeks ago I realized that there were some flawed things. On my first "serious session" of laddering I got crushed - I played like 3-15151250 or something close to that (Probably I have forgotten some of the losses) and the trend continued on. I got frustrated because every game was supposed to bring me closer to my goal, right?
And because to that pressure I started to tremble and always tried to end games one way or another so I dont have to feel the pressure.
But ... what you have to realize is that you don't play for that masters league badge - sure, that may be your goal, but you don't play for that. You play because you love the game.
So if you play try to be relaxed, its okay - I lose, pros lose, everybody loses - in fact ~50% of your time spend in SC2 will be dedicated to losing and thats nothing to be ashamed of. A lot of players I got to know (I'm a coach/caster in germany) always told me that they hate losing because that proves that the enemy is better than them ... really? Today I lost against a ~1,2k masters league player that Korean 4Gated me because I took the pylon he built for my own. Is he now better than me? No, he has won the game because he made less mistakes in that game than I did, so what? Another misconpcetion thats widely spread is that you always play on the level of your last game - so if you just lost horrible, you lost all of your progress, right?
No - you just made a couple of mistakes in one game that won't carry over to the next ones.
And please - don't think you are horrible because you are not - even getting to diamond requires skill and dedication and you showed that  And I'm sure that you remember a lot of great things in the last year that will stay in your memory for a long time - so no time lost!
So if you hit the ladder for the next time - don't think about that badge, don't think about winning, think about having fun and enjoying your time - that will make it easier to spend more time on SC2 and with that the success will come naturally because a lot of t he flaws below the higher tier of gaming can be resolved by playing a lot - refining your mechanics and seeing a lot of stuff so you don't panic.
|
You know what? I laugh at 3-13. Ive done 13 losses in a row, once you have done 13 in a row we can talk. If you want to quit, quit assuming you are like me and no matter how frustrated you get you cant quit then you will get better. May I ask how many games a day or week you play? For me I only feel like I am improving when I am playing 15+ games a day in a good frame of mind. It simply may be you are not playing enough. Watching GSL wont help you improve, sure it will teach you new builds (most of which are crafted to the map and opponent so not overly helpful anyway) but thats it. Watchign replays is imo much much better (although less fun and harder to find). But yea If you were on a strict "want to improve only" diet of gaming then cut back on your stream viewage by about 100% and mass games. When you get stuck on a race or strat your build is prob fucked or you dont know how to react go to a replay site and download every pro rep of that mu you can find.
Your overall win % will be around 50%, dont try tell me it isnt because it is. Sounds like you are going through a rough patch, it will pass. If you are anything like me you wont be able to (I keep spamming games when i am loseing) but take a break from the game for a day. Secondly after every game do 20 pressups this will help you reflect and let out all the pent up stress (especially if you just lost) preventing you form going in crazy cycles.
In my experience people improve in small 'jumps' when they figure something out about the game it may feel like you are hitting a wall but soon your ell will bottom out and you will go on a winning streak. Here it is easy to slack off and savour your wins. Dont. This is when you realy start to improve, you are playing good players with confidence and not tilting on a loss streak.
Lastly it may be frustrating if you have to constantrly take week long breaks (like me), just as you start to feel you are improving you cant play for a week or so. If this is also you I suggest not setting a goal as it is just to frustrating.
|
Don't give up! you are an inspiration to all starcraft players Take a break from playing and focus on analyzing your play more, find your biggest weaknesses and focus on improving those, don't flail about just randomly trying different shit to see if it works, stay consistent in your gameplans and try to focus on as few viable strategies as possible as that will make it easier for you to learn the strengths and weaknesses in your play.
|
I've been having the same problem, switched from Z to P after stagnating in diamond and got demoted to platinum. Just have to be more focused in your play and keep grinding out games and having a good attitude about losing streaks (trust me I know how hard it is, I punched my desk so hard I couldn't play without pain for a few days).
I don't know what server you are on, but if you wanted to grind out some games together so I could judge your playstyle and maybe find some holes that you didn't realize I'd be down for it. Good luck on getting into masters...if you really want it that bad you can't give up.
|
Just relax and play some custom games with your practice partners. You obviously have been missing out on some of the good habits that you to have (main cause of stagnation: forget something that you already know). Take a brief analysis of your play but not such a deep or agonising one. Play some light-hearted games against your friends and what not and work on consistency. Come back in a week and play ranked refreshed.
|
On September 15 2011 19:32 tyCe wrote:
Just relax and play some custom games with your practice partners. You obviously have been missing out on some of the good habits that you to have (main cause of stagnation: forget something that you already know). Take a brief analysis of your play but not such a deep or agonising one. Play some light-hearted games against your friends and what not and work on consistency. Come back in a week and play ranked refreshed.
Meh... I would if I had any lol. Maybe I should look into joining a clan. (My RL friends just aren't into SC at all)
Thanks for the responses guys. I think I'll take a break for a couple days and go from there =)
|
On September 15 2011 19:43 snotboogie wrote:Show nested quote +On September 15 2011 19:32 tyCe wrote:
Just relax and play some custom games with your practice partners. You obviously have been missing out on some of the good habits that you to have (main cause of stagnation: forget something that you already know). Take a brief analysis of your play but not such a deep or agonising one. Play some light-hearted games against your friends and what not and work on consistency. Come back in a week and play ranked refreshed. Meh... I would if I had any lol. Maybe I should look into joining a clan. Thanks for the responses guys. I think I'll take a break for a couple days and go from there =)
Yeah just search Practice Partner Thread Season 3 and follow the instructions and I'm sure someone would be willing to practice and grind out games with you. What server are you on?
|
call those players in plat, derankers, smurfs, or whatever, as they just might be, still, you should realize that what the game matches you by is MMR, some hidden mythical man-beast-thing that decides who you fight.
Sure, if you're fighting plats you MIGHT be plat level. Then again, since new divisions get created daily, what you might be fighting is a plat who has the MMR of your division of diamond.
its a rieally convoluted hidden way to keep "casuals" interested in buying the games of hoTs and LOTV (Which I will NOt be buying, actiblizz, you burned your last bridge).
Anyway, Im sure that the diamonds that I was beating while as a plat were feeling shitty about themselves too, but thats because I was moving up. don't get discouraged. you are about to derank, but once you do, just play supremely well and shoot back up, as long as you dont have TOO many games played..
its all about the system matching you against slightly or regular favored.
Beat them consistently, and you will go up. Unfortunately, the system being how it is, if you lose MMR, it will show you as even match, even though the plat should be less favored, indicating how much you would lose. Only slightly favored is reliable as a measure of what you stand to gain. I rarely face anyone who I am slightly favored against. Yet I often fight slightly favored. I dunno how the system works, maybe it prevents matchups against people less favored uif you've proven to beat them down..
Anyway, the point is, its just a slump and probably not as bad as you think. Take a break for a few days, and when you come back, go into your replays first. make a list of everything you executed poorly, and any decisions that cost you. this is a Zero Sum game. You need to have some clear goals in mind while maintaining flexibility. A clear goal would be like "build +1 attack lings by X time in early game, supplement with spores if necessary, have bane nest down in case of mass marines or zealot mass". you want to get something main, and have a supplementary capability. Before anyone asks, yes, banes are nice vs zealots.
So remember, thats Replay -> list of errors -> plan -> wins.
he who is destined to defeat first fights, and then afterward seeks victory. the inverse is true.
|
I feel your pain
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/DHS8O.png)
I generally play random, so when i start loosing i switch to zerg and really just focus down on my mechanics. Unfortunately Ive mainly been playing zerg lately. Might have to go play a different game for 1week then come back to SC2 with a better prospective, hopefully.
|
Well, never forget the second part of GL HF, and it doesn't really matter if you can't make it to Masters.
|
I feel you man. Back when diamond was the highest league I stopped playing so much, because I was satisfied in being in the 'top league'. Then masters came along and dick-slapped me in the face. I was slightly distressed about not being in masters so I started massing games and lost a whole bunch. I was hitting a plateau. I lost and lost, but I didn't improve at all. When I heard the leagues were being locked down because the season was about to change, I decided that I would make masters this season no matter what. I watched every single replay from like 2 months to that day and learned from my mistakes. When the season finally changed and I played my placement match...
+ Show Spoiler +
|
|
|
Reaching masters won't feel like a huge achievement once you do it. I remember being in Diamond and setting Masters as my goal, but when I finally promoted I realized I was only low master and thus still pretty bad. Wasn't as fulfilling as I thought it would be lol. I'd just recommend playing the game for fun and not caring where you're placed
|
probably the most outdated and boring advice ever but do this :
go to sc2rep
watch a ton of replays and pick out some build order (build orders last untill you get your 4th base) you like
only do that build order untill your master
After that there is no real point watching gomtv or other progames unless you encounter a specific problem. (except entertainment ofcourse )
also losing streaks are very normal and dont necessarily mean a ton,13 games lost and 3 won i wouldnt even consider losing streak. im pretty sure ive hit 16 losing streaks, its just how the match making system works (50/50 chance every game, your bound to get bad luck one day)
when its something more fundamental, it usually means my build orders are outdated. Its very important to know what went wrong after every loss. if its something you cant explain it usually means you are doing bad strategies, which is an easy fix. gl!
|
yeah post replays then we can help ya (:
and idk if this helps :O
+ Show Spoiler +
|
Playing like a machine is the worst thing you can do. At your level you need to be constantly questioning the game to obtain better game sense. Decide on a build when you see the map and loading screen and keep in the back of your mind that you may want alter your gameplan immediately based on scouting info. Question what your opponent is doing and whether it is smart to expand / attack / drone instead of just doing it because 'well i don't have enough drones' or 'i've been macroing units for a while so I should probably attack'. Game sense is so important, don't play on auto pilot or you'll be frustrated by your moves. Give yourself more than one reason to execute your next move rather than just doing it.
|
i hope you realize that to improve you need to analyze the replays in which you lose - right? i'm just going to assume that's the case. have you tried asking questions on there? posting up a few replays of yourself?
its actually not that hard to get into masters if you just use a good method.
for one if you're still looking to go up to that level i suggest you throw away your fear/desire for promotion/demotion and replace it with the desire to improve. this is much more healthy and beneficial for you as it will naturally propel you into improving rather than stress you out and make your gameplay worse/cheesier than it should be
that and playing enough games a day + analysing the replays in which u lose.
i actually have this really cool training method i used and it worked really well you probably already have your own but if you feel like you're stuck i think it won't hurt to try something new. for me i tell myself okay im going to win X amount of games every day no matter what (for me it's three games) and i mass ladder games until i get my three wins (of course without using cheese and all ins (all ins sometimes, maybe but usually not)). this actually forces you to improve, because the worse you are, the more you lose = the more you play until you get into a "winning trend" when you get into this trend you know that you've fixed something significant in your gameplay as the losses you were suffering against the level of players that you were losing against are no longer a problem. so even if u lose 11 games and win 3 games, the next day ull win 2 lose one, then 1- 2 2 - 1 and then 3-0. once u win a 2-1 or 3-0 you know you are advancing albeit slowly, but still advancing so it really helps motivate me when i play. good luck.
|
Dude, don't feel bad. Diamond is pretty darn good and it means you're better than the vast majority of battle.net. If you're not in the top 2%, it feels bad (I remember how I felt when I got results from a Mensa test...), it shouldn't mean that e.g. being in the top 3% is not impressive. Diamond is still the highest normal league. The transition from diamond to master is bound to much harder or rarer or even quirkier than from plat to diamond, if every division is 20% of the player base but Master is 2% only.
If this is any consolation, I've played RTS since Dune 2 (which I played on a 286). I played Warcraft 1, I played Warcraft 2 when it was new, I played Starcraft 1 when it was new, I played Warcraft 2 Battle.net edition for like a year or two and Warcraft 3 for several. And I placed silver in Season 1, got demoted to bronze, went up to silver after a long time of playing vs even gold player (and my first plat opponent might have been in bronze). Season 2 I spent playing against gold and perhaps plat but without advancing. I placed gold in Season 3. But, unfortunately, instead of keeping getting plat and high gold opponents (whom I was defeating or at least playing somewhat on par with), I started getting silver opponents, not all of them even high silver as of late. So now I might end up in silver again. After playing RTS since like 1995.
By the way, one younger dude I taught to play Warcraft 3 (back in Warcraft 2 I was the stronger player and perhaps for a year in Warcraft 3) overlapped me so hard he was able to defeat me basically with a hero and towers, not to mention taking over as the brain of our arranged team of two. He was diamond in Season 1 and master pretty much since the league started. I had a problem defeating his classmate, who was a total newbie to the game.
So you definitely aren't in the worst place you could be.
|
listen to temp0's When I'm Grandmasters, and switch back to toss, and watch combatex's fp vods
<3
good luck!
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/8nWTF.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/xdyUv.jpg)
