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Ladies and gentlemen! Here's another part in my noobish Starcraft2-life. First of all let me start by saying I'm now Gold, not Silver anymore. Where the difference is does play with my mind, though.
Let's look at the basics. Now, I've already learned how to achieve quite high APM. I rally units to build and double stack probes. I split almost perfectly all the time, I also time all my stuff really well. I scout consistently, I have can hold all ins, micro pretty well with almost any protoss unit, also quite good with prismmicro. Now, why am I terrible?
First of all, macro. The TL-strategy section should be able to help me with this. Macro better. Yeah, sure. Now I said earlier I have quite high average APM for a top 30 gold player. I play at around 100-140 consistently. I use my minimap to move my camera and I always pay attention to my units when they're out on the map. Here's where I slip up. I don't macro. First of all, if I see pressure coming, I'm too busy focusing on making the most of my units (if they are going to die) or stall than 1) Making probes, 2) Adding gates or tech 3) Warping in new units.
My thought process is simple.
1) Oh shit, expansion first/all in/standard. (Yes, Oh SHIT, standard).
2) Ok better expand/ do timing push whitera-style/try to stall.
3) Here is where I either macro TOO HARD, chronoing probes, getting up to two functional bases really quickly, then suddenly getting hit by a way bigger army. I scout, it's not that, but I slip up at making an army and making my economy better at the same time. Sometimes it's the other way, I macro too little and can't sustain all my production facilities.
I know this is a practice thing, but sometimes I make it happen just perfectly. When I hit timing-attacks without forgetting the cybercore and stuff like that I haven't seen anyone hold - so far ( in Gold, mind you). My 4-gate warp prism against zerg never fails. Also, 5-gate zealot sentry all-in also works. I can do pretty good two-baseplay, but when it comes to early macro I fall behind. And the it snowballs. I get too focused on myself. Suddenly my opponent takes 5 bases while I sit getting ready for some all in push.
So far I've established the fact that I slip up at macro, get frustrated and suddenly this snowball until I make fatal errors and lose. How do I help that?
Any good advice for alternative training or things to think of is welcomed. (Yeah, I've tried laddering).
THANKS GUYS <3
 
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100-140 apm for a gold player? It has to be your game sense and/or decision making then. You obviously got one of the big two hard parts done though, the macro. (Macro, and game sense / decision making are like two opposite ends).
It's hard to say, if you want some help I can work with you. It's hard to give general advice or to say flat out how to fix what's wrong but if you get 1-2 good replays showing what you think you don't know how to improve on and I can take a look and point out what to work on, it might give you a good starting point.
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well the first reason is because you think you do something perfectly.
While you generally can't approach it with the idea that youre bad at everything and remain sane i think progress should come in gold fast enough for that assumption to not be screwing with ur head.
What helps me usually is just copying a strategy in its entirety from some pro and then when i'm comfortable with it begging to deviate from it as necessary. Should be even easier as laddering protoss - you can basically learn 3 strategies really well and GM:D(EmpireHappy comes to mind:D although hes not protoss:D)
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Just go in the teamliquid channel and ask for some masters protoss / diamond protoss to give you some advice with what you're having trouble with. Or ask to practice against Plat / Diamond players and then check the replays.
Tbh you'll never find a magic cure for the focusing too hard on the army thing and having other mechanics fall behind. All you can do is untrain yourself out of the habit.
If you see pressure coming and you have units in the field the most you should be telling them to do is either split them 2 different ways, turn around and attack or run home. outside that you do shit in your base.
hopefully somewhat helpful
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Also a lot of people claim the right way to practice is to try to get everything down perfectly starting at early leagues and even if it takes you longer you're better in the long run.
I think that's extremely wrong assumption and you should recognize the pattern in gold player's style and abuse it as hard as you can. The game changes completely several times on the way to the top so whatever you learn in gold will generally be less relevant in masters. Not to mention that the game is new enough for new strategies to pop up every couple of weeks possibly making what you learned as "the proper way to play" improper
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On November 28 2011 06:21 Sfydjklm wrote:
Also a lot of people claim the right way to practice is to try to get everything down perfectly starting at early leagues and even if it takes you longer you're better in the long run.
I think that's extremely wrong assumption and you should recognize the pattern in gold player's style and abuse it as hard as you can. The game changes completely several times on the way to the top so whatever you learn in gold will generally be less relevant in masters. Not to mention that the game is new enough for new strategies to pop up every couple of weeks possibly making what you learned as "the proper way to play" improper
I do agree with abusing the way people play in lower leagues (the "wrong" ways, aka inefficient) but (correct me if you aren't) I would not support adapting just to win vs X skill/league just because the metagame will always be different as you get better. If you truly have a great game sense, you should play the way pros do and also learn how to punish the lower leagues' mistakes.
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I'm a high diamond Z and play with an average (blizzard  ) apm of well under 100. I would love to watch one of your replays and see what exactly you're doing with all those actions lol.
Edit: Yes this is a lighthearted jab. I'm also genuinely curious and in turn I will post a useful thing to keep in mind I've gleaned from your replay (if posted).
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On November 28 2011 06:31 Probe1 wrote:I'm a high diamond Z and play with an average (blizzard ) apm of well under 100. I would love to watch one of your replays and see what exactly you're doing with all those actions lol. Edit: Yes this is a lighthearted jab. I'm also genuinely curious and in turn I will post a useful thing to keep in mind I've gleaned from your replay (if posted).
This is very true, I'm not sure if you can check action distribution with sc2gears (or whatever it's called), but in bw at the pro-level about 30% of all actions are hotkeys.
ie, use more hotkeys and less clicking
But anyways, practice more. Practicing against computer is never a bad thing.
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On November 28 2011 06:29 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2011 06:21 Sfydjklm wrote:
Also a lot of people claim the right way to practice is to try to get everything down perfectly starting at early leagues and even if it takes you longer you're better in the long run.
I think that's extremely wrong assumption and you should recognize the pattern in gold player's style and abuse it as hard as you can. The game changes completely several times on the way to the top so whatever you learn in gold will generally be less relevant in masters. Not to mention that the game is new enough for new strategies to pop up every couple of weeks possibly making what you learned as "the proper way to play" improper I do agree with abusing the way people play in lower leagues (the "wrong" ways, aka inefficient) but (correct me if you aren't) I would not support adapting just to win vs X skill/league just because the metagame will always be different as you get better. If you truly have a great game sense, you should play the way pros do and also learn how to punish the lower leagues' mistakes.
You're right but the gaps between Masters, top 8 masters, top 50 GM, top 20 gm, top 10 gm, pro, etc are HUUUUGE.
Scaling the gap between me and Idra takes a lot more effort then scaling the gap between me and #100 bronzie.
Basically the way i feel everything below top 8 masters is "throw-away" and you should try to get there asap to get at least in the ballpark of proper play.
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Thanks guys! I'll play some matches tommorow and post them in a new blog and try to explain what I was thinking. I'll also try to calm down and make smarter decisions, look at what I'm doing and macro better.
What I'll try to do is instead of doing everything as quick as I can without deviation I'll try to slow down, just do my thing, think more instead of spamming. Also general other stuff. Would love to practice with some of you guys, please note I'm from Europe, so NA accounts won't work!
Also, for that 100-140 APM people have been complaining about, I went ahead and watched my own replays and well, it's not that high. Not far from it though, you'll see when I get to play my matches tommorow. I guess they did nerf APM-spamming so I'm not really shocked.
Please note, the reason I'm posting here in the first place to tell everyone how terrible I am is because I want to get better. As far as I knew, please note knew, the facts posted in topic was true. They're not. I'm not perfect, I'm gold. So yeah, replays coming up tommorow. I'll post a new blog and also post them here. Please try to look for any major faults - it's the big things I want to flatten out, the small things I'll eventually work out when I become masters league in year never ever.
THANKS AGAIN FOR THE HELP <3 You're all awesome.
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On November 28 2011 06:37 emperorchampion wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2011 06:31 Probe1 wrote:I'm a high diamond Z and play with an average (blizzard ) apm of well under 100. I would love to watch one of your replays and see what exactly you're doing with all those actions lol. Edit: Yes this is a lighthearted jab. I'm also genuinely curious and in turn I will post a useful thing to keep in mind I've gleaned from your replay (if posted). This is very true, I'm not sure if you can check action distribution with sc2gears (or whatever it's called), but in bw at the pro-level about 30% of all actions are hotkeys. ie, use more hotkeys and less clicking But anyways, practice more. Practicing against computer is never a bad thing.
No I meant .. wait I .. I have no idea where your post came from haha. Yes I know. I also watch bw and last night was good 
I simply meant at my level, which is higher than the OPs, that much apm is not required. However now I can see he casually exaggerated it and the whole thing is moot.
I was offering advice only as an enticement to get you to post a replay, I really wanted to see that 140 apm in gold league.
Anyway I hope you do well and find a practice partner (check the thread blah blah). We all feel terrible about our mistakes and it's good to vent it. Sorry for getting caught up in one comment out of your entire blog but.. well, it was a very interesting thing to say  .
If you feel down in game, try something wacky. Whenever I'm on tilt/demotivated/whatever you want to call it- thinking I'm terrible, I do silly things for a bit like quadruple expand or proxy hatch roach rush. Remember to have fun and work on becoming better but never lose sight that we're all here because we want to enjoy ourselves
Good luck and I hope you get better
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Reminds me of my early BW days of having 300 APM as a D- Zerg.
Mutalisk right-click spam: 300 APM
Macro: Zero APM
Game plan: Do damage with Mutalisks then lose to a small push.
I switched to Terran and had less than 60 APM.
What helped me improve more than anything was just forcing myself to think "whatever I'm doing, do it in a bare-minimum way as quickly as possible then move on to anything else". If you stay conscious of that for enough games, then you'll develop the natural habit of going from one thing to the next quickly. Even if you lose, you'll have made the habit a little stronger and that's progress.
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You need to be harder on yourself. I like the spirit and attitude, so don't lose that lol.
To put it in perspective, when the probe I make gass with glides on top of the assimilator, that's my first mistake of the game. And I already try to take mental note "fuck, I suck lol". The first few probes need to be microed to closest patch without downtime, if I misstime this, second mistake and I again "fuuuck stop sucking lol".
First probe to make pylon, if he moves out after 100 minerals, that's awful, if he moves out too fast, and have to stand and wait for 1 second or more, that's awful.
And this is before anything's happened. So the mindset I'm trying to show you to really improve, pretend everything mathers, every detail. You forget to have a worker qued.... O mmm ggg, mother of all sins, you just fucked up royally, need to be punished and have atleast 4 workers qued at every base till game ends as punishment.
This makes it so that you "really want to win". Every game, you really going after it.
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On November 28 2011 07:03 Probe1 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2011 06:37 emperorchampion wrote:On November 28 2011 06:31 Probe1 wrote:I'm a high diamond Z and play with an average (blizzard ) apm of well under 100. I would love to watch one of your replays and see what exactly you're doing with all those actions lol. Edit: Yes this is a lighthearted jab. I'm also genuinely curious and in turn I will post a useful thing to keep in mind I've gleaned from your replay (if posted). This is very true, I'm not sure if you can check action distribution with sc2gears (or whatever it's called), but in bw at the pro-level about 30% of all actions are hotkeys. ie, use more hotkeys and less clicking But anyways, practice more. Practicing against computer is never a bad thing. No I meant .. wait I .. I have no idea where your post came from haha. Yes I know. I also watch bw and last night was good I simply meant at my level, which is higher than the OPs, that much apm is not required. However now I can see he casually exaggerated it and the whole thing is moot. I was offering advice only as an enticement to get you to post a replay, I really wanted to see that 140 apm in gold league.
Anyway I hope you do well and find a practice partner (check the thread blah blah). We all feel terrible about our mistakes and it's good to vent it. Sorry for getting caught up in one comment out of your entire blog but.. well, it was a very interesting thing to say . If you feel down in game, try something wacky. Whenever I'm on tilt/demotivated/whatever you want to call it- thinking I'm terrible, I do silly things for a bit like quadruple expand or proxy hatch roach rush. Remember to have fun and work on becoming better but never lose sight that we're all here because we want to enjoy ourselves Good luck and I hope you get better
That's actually a really awesome advice. It's a game. And it should be fun. Thanks man, I'll try some silly stuff also. It's been said that good players can do no matter what they want against lesser players and still win... well, I'm pretty much a lesser player in all aspects of the game, but yeah, I wanna get there eventually. Again, thanks everyone! :D
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On November 28 2011 06:47 Sfydjklm wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2011 06:29 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On November 28 2011 06:21 Sfydjklm wrote:
Also a lot of people claim the right way to practice is to try to get everything down perfectly starting at early leagues and even if it takes you longer you're better in the long run.
I think that's extremely wrong assumption and you should recognize the pattern in gold player's style and abuse it as hard as you can. The game changes completely several times on the way to the top so whatever you learn in gold will generally be less relevant in masters. Not to mention that the game is new enough for new strategies to pop up every couple of weeks possibly making what you learned as "the proper way to play" improper I do agree with abusing the way people play in lower leagues (the "wrong" ways, aka inefficient) but (correct me if you aren't) I would not support adapting just to win vs X skill/league just because the metagame will always be different as you get better. If you truly have a great game sense, you should play the way pros do and also learn how to punish the lower leagues' mistakes. You're right but the gaps between Masters, top 8 masters, top 50 GM, top 20 gm, top 10 gm, pro, etc are HUUUUGE. Scaling the gap between me and Idra takes a lot more effort then scaling the gap between me and #100 bronzie. Basically the way i feel everything below top 8 masters is "throw-away" and you should try to get there asap to get at least in the ballpark of proper play.
Oh, I see the point you're making. Because you won't actually be able to practice against good opponents to actually learn the "proper" ways, you shouldn't focus on things ahead of your time, you mean? I can see that. I guess if you don't have friends or practice partners or clannies etc. that can help you then it is an option. But if you watch pro games I think you could still focus on things like macro, cus even if your opponents play badly you are improving on macro which will help later when you can focus on decision making / game sense.
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100-140 apm is so unnecessary, until i started randoming I was a 400 point masters protoss, about 2 weeks ago or so on the ladder, with about 45 average apm, you really shoud work on multitasking, learn that sometimes you have to just stop microing and let your units die, macro is always more important at the lower levels, work on macro, learn some builds, practice those builds
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On November 28 2011 08:03 Inori wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2011 07:57 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On November 28 2011 06:47 Sfydjklm wrote:On November 28 2011 06:29 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On November 28 2011 06:21 Sfydjklm wrote:
Also a lot of people claim the right way to practice is to try to get everything down perfectly starting at early leagues and even if it takes you longer you're better in the long run.
I think that's extremely wrong assumption and you should recognize the pattern in gold player's style and abuse it as hard as you can. The game changes completely several times on the way to the top so whatever you learn in gold will generally be less relevant in masters. Not to mention that the game is new enough for new strategies to pop up every couple of weeks possibly making what you learned as "the proper way to play" improper I do agree with abusing the way people play in lower leagues (the "wrong" ways, aka inefficient) but (correct me if you aren't) I would not support adapting just to win vs X skill/league just because the metagame will always be different as you get better. If you truly have a great game sense, you should play the way pros do and also learn how to punish the lower leagues' mistakes. You're right but the gaps between Masters, top 8 masters, top 50 GM, top 20 gm, top 10 gm, pro, etc are HUUUUGE. Scaling the gap between me and Idra takes a lot more effort then scaling the gap between me and #100 bronzie. Basically the way i feel everything below top 8 masters is "throw-away" and you should try to get there asap to get at least in the ballpark of proper play. Oh, I see the point you're making. Because you won't actually be able to practice against good opponents to actually learn the "proper" ways, you shouldn't focus on things ahead of your time, you mean? I can see that. I guess if you don't have friends or practice partners or clannies etc. that can help you then it is an option. But if you watch pro games I think you could still focus on things like macro, cus even if your opponents play badly you are improving on macro which will help later when you can focus on decision making / game sense. No, that's actually a terrible suggestion and will only hurt your game-play in the long run. It's like you learn that 4wg hits at 8-9 minutes (gold-plat level). You work a build around it, think of a build order, get timings memorized (this is the worst part) and then when you get to up you get owned by 5:45 one. You will have to re-do everything
u missed the beginning of this discussion in which i stated that you should use a solid pro strategy as a base for your play.
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On November 28 2011 07:57 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2011 06:47 Sfydjklm wrote:On November 28 2011 06:29 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On November 28 2011 06:21 Sfydjklm wrote:
Also a lot of people claim the right way to practice is to try to get everything down perfectly starting at early leagues and even if it takes you longer you're better in the long run.
I think that's extremely wrong assumption and you should recognize the pattern in gold player's style and abuse it as hard as you can. The game changes completely several times on the way to the top so whatever you learn in gold will generally be less relevant in masters. Not to mention that the game is new enough for new strategies to pop up every couple of weeks possibly making what you learned as "the proper way to play" improper I do agree with abusing the way people play in lower leagues (the "wrong" ways, aka inefficient) but (correct me if you aren't) I would not support adapting just to win vs X skill/league just because the metagame will always be different as you get better. If you truly have a great game sense, you should play the way pros do and also learn how to punish the lower leagues' mistakes. You're right but the gaps between Masters, top 8 masters, top 50 GM, top 20 gm, top 10 gm, pro, etc are HUUUUGE. Scaling the gap between me and Idra takes a lot more effort then scaling the gap between me and #100 bronzie. Basically the way i feel everything below top 8 masters is "throw-away" and you should try to get there asap to get at least in the ballpark of proper play. Oh, I see the point you're making. Because you won't actually be able to practice against good opponents to actually learn the "proper" ways, you shouldn't focus on things ahead of your time, you mean? I can see that. I guess if you don't have friends or practice partners or clannies etc. that can help you then it is an option. But if you watch pro games I think you could still focus on things like macro, cus even if your opponents play badly you are improving on macro which will help later when you can focus on decision making / game sense.
But macro doesnt really exist in a vacuum. You macroing depends on how well you defend against attacks.
But i'm not saying don't macro, i'm saying dont worry your pretty little head with playing perfect off the bat. Pick a pro strategy to copy and do it every game until you get bored to the best of your ability.
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EPT
