It's been about a year since I purchased SC2. It was pretty much my first RTS ever, so of course, I struggled with the insane learning curve.
I'm very used to muscle memory type of games...My gaming background is all console, so learning how to use a keyboard for hotkeys and movement was half the challenge. I played MMOs before, but SC2 hotkeys and MMO hotkeys hardly compare.
Now, I've had a lot of coaching from friends, coworkers, random people from TL/reddit but I'm still not getting it.
My macro/micro are decent to say the least, but I'm lacking the most important thing -- I'm lacking the logic of Starcraft.
I legitimately don't know how to deal with certain situations. I can out macro an opponent, but I just throw my lead away because I'm confused and I lose track of what I'm suppose to be doing.
I lost 5 games in a row today -- 4/5 of the games were all-ins. Boo. :\
I watch my replays, but I really don't know how to analyze them. And I don't know how to handle all the pressure. It still freaks me the fuck out.
My ability to control my emotions has gotten better over the past few months, but it's still very stressful. And admittedly, I've been in much more stressful situations and I've been able to hold my cool. But SC2, I have no idea.
I guess it's because I'm lacking that core logic. I'm just going through the motions and just winning based off picking the right build and going by the book.
But I think that lack of logic is what's preventing me from climbing the ladder and getting into diamond. It's just out of reach because of these stupid mistakes. I really think that's what's slowing down my ability to improve... the fact that I barely still understand the game. But how do you even learn logic?
I read build orders and watch streams and tournaments -- but it's just not sinking in.... What should I do?
don't let the losses get you down, keep doing what you're doing. watching replays, streams, learning builds, you're doing everything right in trying to get better, takes alotta practice/time. analyze ur mistakes/losses,ask friends for tips/advice/etc.
On November 14 2011 18:30 StimiLant wrote: don't let the losses get you down, keep doing what you're doing. watching replays, streams, learning builds, you're doing everything right in trying to get better, takes alotta practice/time. analyze ur mistakes/losses,ask friends for tips/advice/etc.
Losing is discouraging, but I know it's completely part of SC2. The game wouldn't be challenging if it didn't keep matching you with tougher opponents.
Like 95% of my friends who played SC2 when it first came out, quit. And now they won't play with me because I've improved, and can beat them a good majority of the time...
I tried joining a college sc2 club, which my friend was a part of, but that ended up in tons of drama in the club and my friend ended up leaving.
It just gets a little frustrating that I still can't learn the games core mechanics. Everything is just muscle memory now -- but that only gets you so far. Especially against cheese. @_@
Just have fun with the game. Watch some pro games and see how they react in situations where you find that you're having problems. 99% of the time it's not lack of game sense that's preventing you from getting into diamond. straight, mindless macro and mechanic will get you there. My advice is to just take a step back and just play the games for the fun of it; you'll get better eventually.
I've only recently started watching my replays and really tried to study them. The biggest thing I try to learn is when I am ahead and where the game is after a big event. I try to attack around the same time and always watch the replay after and see if I am ahead, behind, or if I should have made the attack at all based on what I saw.
As for cheese I feel comfortable against most everything now. I've tried to learn what my scouting means exactly. For instance if I scout a Zerg and they are still getting gas after a pool is finished I prepare for a baneling bust. If I scout a Protoss and see they only have one gas by the time my scout dies or I leave the base I expect 4 gate. I always try to prepare for the worst.
Hey you're forgetting that this is the best part of SC2! It is designed so everyone can play people of equal skill level, so dont worry if you're not getting it just play for fun against people your own skill and you will improve, trust me
Just have fun, dont let it get you down (I dont like to say this, but its only a game )
Just keep on going for it. In my BW days, I literally threw bitch fits cause my brother would always beat me. And his response was "I play more games than u, what did u expect?"
So, just keep going for it man. You literally just got to keep laddering until your gaming senses get better and better per game.
To start to learn the logic of the game, you need to look at what the goals each player has and how each decision each player makes is related to that goal. Ultimately you want to destroy all your enemies buildings your opponent wants to destroy yours. You both know that, and you both know that it's way easier to accomplish this if you get some kind of advantage rather than to try rushing without a clear advantage.
Each decision takes a lot of risk assessment and planning. You should look at the build orders you are using and learn why they are in that order; like, why do you need to build the engineering bay so early in the build? It's because if you don't know what build your opponent is using it will still be up in time to stop any kind of cloaked unit or air unit tech rush. If you scout and don't see any such tech then you can build something else you need (more units, supply, etc) with the money at the time and build the e-bay after that. If you decide to blindly not build the e-bay then you might just straight up lose to the rush. Sometimes it just takes you not doing something a bunch of times and losing because of it to see that you need to do it. That's where the logic comes from; if I do X then I won't lose; or if I do Y then I will get an advantage; etc. A lot of things you want to learn will just come from playing a lot. You could learn otherwise but it's probably less fun >.> Mass gaming will have you improve in the long run.
First try to really understand what your build order is intended to do, and abuse what it is strong at. Recognize what it is weak against and focus on that specific aspect of defense.
Read what your opponent is likely doing by the buildings he has and at what time he is getting them. Predict how soon he will tech switch, or how quickly he can get a big army with the production he has. Know how much time you have to prepare when he moves out before he reaches your base. Consider what kind of position you need to be in for a favorable engagement.
When looking at your replays, or just plain thinking about a game you just played, try to see exactly how you lost. Not how your opponent won, but how you lost, specifically that game. When you manage to collect several of those "reasons you lost" through multiple losses, try to come up with the least amount of "extra stuff" you have to do to prevail. Work it into your build to work synergistically with what the goal of your build and/or play style is.
Extra stuff like constant scouting is a plus. Use a worker scout, if you need to, even past the first few minutes. Have a single unit in key locations on the map to see when your opponent moves out, or takes an expansion.
Depending on what army you play with, try to move it around the map, instead of just having it just chilling in your base.
Finally, take risks. You can discover stuff by simply attempting some unconventional tactics.
Probably need some repplays, but to be honest it sounds like you just need to scout more and adapt your play based on what you see rather than doing canned build orders in hope of build order countering people and outplaying them through sheer mechanics alone.
This might make me sound like a bit of a tool, and for that i'm sorry, but just watch some day9 on youtube... thats all I did to get my skill up (a long with a lot of practice)... I'm still in bronze and got the game around december last year. Day9s 'newbie tuesday' series helped me a lot! its crazy! lol. anyways, best of luck - i know your pain
I ill try to give you an advice. If you want to know "logic" and dont know where to start just break it down in smaller parts. parts as: unit counters, unit mobility, unit positioning, resource management, aggresion level, expansion timing, adaptation build orders... and there probably loads more. These are all concepts to improve on. Then just pick one and think about it, and how you could improve. And after that pick another one Bottem line is: If you dont know where to start, break your problem up in smaller pieces and systematically work from there. What could possebly also help is watch streams where players commentate on there "logic" behind decision making in game.
Maybe I have a similar situation, but the reason I started paradoxically to drop games right after I got decent macro and mechanics was because when it all become automatic, I stopped thinking about the game. Building pylons, workers, units and expos is just so automatized that I often play completely detached. It's feels like I am not even playing to win, but just to build stuff. 1base allins, cheeses and weird stuff then kill me, but I normally win if it's a boring macro game. I also think that defending is harder than doing allins (at least in my level). I had huge success with 3rax and 4gate.
Interestingly, I just played a PvZ on Shattered Temple where Z tried to 6/7pool me. The initial lings got into my base at 3:10, when I had nothing but one gateway. I was again playing in a very detached way, just to interrupt my work. Normally I would have GG'd. But a strange thing happened. I just continued to chrono the zealot and without any thinking I pylon blocked my ramp (twice actually). I won that game. The point is: maybe defending all sorts of allins and cheese can become automatic too?
Well defending all-ins is a matter of scouting and defending against them over and over, watch how pros defend them, etc. Once you know what to do its not that bad, and if you defend you can relax knowing that you are very far ahead.
In terms of game-sense, that's more theory. You need to hit the books and study starcraft, not just play it all the time. I used to be exactly the same as you in BW, crazy mechanics for my level averaging 200+ apm, peaking 300-350 (I was good at sports too), I would win games as long as I got to lategame, I didn't even need to tech I just made lots of units and micro'd them.
I stopped for a while and played SC2 and mechanics hardly mattered in comparison so it forced me to study the game a lot more. Then I started learning theory and studied the game and I've gotten 10x better since going back to BW ironically because I went about it in a much more productive way while still having good mechanics.
I think at low-mid level gameplay greedy play is best. This means that if you kill 300-ish minerals worth of units for free (or about 5 workers) then you can afford to expand. Also, most people in the mid skill level (plat-diamond-low masters) don't scout for "extra bases" that they won't expect the awkward timing of. Some pros don't even do it.
If you can learn to micro like Bisu you can start to make builds like an S-class BW player and get away with them. This means that if you can defend against over twice the value of your attacking units and barely survive, then you will really start to go far in the game, and you can even do crazy greedy tech/expand builds that come out faster simply because you don't build the extra 1/3 of your army.
To start with learn the more "advanced" hotkey controls, like Shift+# to add units to a hotkey (instead of #, ctrll+dragselect, ctrl+#) and using the Fkeys and use these advanced controls in your games until you master their use. Even if you start out a worse player for using them, it will help in the long run. It's like learning to type with 10 fingers when you're just fine with 2. At first you're slower because you are quite good with 2-4 fingers and looking at the keyboard, but when you are using 10 you can simply think commands and they will manifest much quicker.
After you learn the advanced controls I suggest playing greedily. When you reach mid-masters you will learn the timings when greedy play can be punished, and then you will know when not to be greedy 100% of the time.
For example in this video Bisu's dragoons are about 30 seconds late. This means that he can use the extra 250minerals and 100 gas needed to build the 2 dragoons to instead tech and build a Citadel, a necessary building for templar (like the Twilight Council in SC2). The Citadel would come out 30 seconds early and his dragoons were 30 seconds late. He used the zealot to deny the scout while teching crazily fast.
However, instead of building a Citadel, he used the extra 250 minerals to build a Nexus (worth 400). This put him 150 behind, but he also skipped a probe to expand earlier, which put him 100 minerals behind and an expansion ahead. Definitely worth it. And his opponent didn't even know about the Nexus because BISU MICRO TOO GOOD.
I feel that SC2 players don't skip workers as much as they could/should in the early game. If you skip one worker and use that money to get your expansion out faster, you make up the difference pretty quickly if your opponent hasn't done the same thing. That little 50 mineral advantage can turn into a huge game ending push where you have 1.25x your opponent's army at the late game (because your worker production is x2 your opponent's for a good portion of the early game, a time when economy matters a LOT because the early workers mine all game!)
Edit: More Bisu because I'm a huge fanboy and for inspiration:
I think Artosis is the best at explaining the logic of the game. My recommendation is for you to watch as many GSL games as possible. Not only do Tasteless and Artosis make the games even more fun to watch, but also they do a great job explaining the strategies and the reasons behind the strategies for the highest level players in the world.
I've been playing since release, and my climb from bronze to masters was a combination of: 1) Watching a ton of starcraft (Husky/HD, Day9, tons and tons of GSL, a bit of other tournaments) 2) Playing a ton of starcraft (at least 5 games a day)
I think if you have the muscle memory okay, but don't really understand the logic of the game, watching games with great in depth commentary (GSL or Day9 Dailies) is the way to improve your understanding of the game. It also helps to talk out strategies with other people who love starcraft.
I get the impression that the average TL-er is more of a theory-crafter than a player, and thus I expected most people in the practice partner thread to know the theory to some extent, while lacking in execution. Since you say that you are a bit the other way around, both you and your practice partner would probably benefit.
I would point you to day9, GSL etc, but you say you have already done that. A practice partner could go more in detail in your replays and help you point out at which point you could have scouted the all-in and so on. gl.
EPT
just play for fun against people your own skill and you will improve, trust me
