EPTTo get you into the mood of learning!
As I have stated in my first blog, I would like to construct a daily to help new players and low level players get the most enjoyment out of the game. While there are many valuable videos out there to help people learn, I feel like you can never have too many. I wish to join these incredible casters out there who spend their personal time giving so much to the community in the most reasonable manner possible. By helping them spread the word of esport and splitting some of the load!
As Starcraft 2 was the first RTS game I have ever seriously found myself getting into, I have had the luxuary of being tossed and smacked around on the ladder with one of the most polite gaming community ever. My very first season ended with me in Bronze, however with a little encouragement and inspiration from watch all the Day[9] dailies, TotalBiscuit cast and Husky's hilarious commentary, I manage to slowly crawl my way into the master Leagues. So yes I have experienced the hardship and believe me I know exactly how many players feel when they are trying to improve their game. So in as many ways as I can phrase it, I wish to lend my hand and help guide these players into the leagues they want.
In the near future I plan to turn this into a daily stream as soon as I acquire the hardware to do so. Until then please bare with my daily text!
Today's Topic: Starting from Zero
For many, the starting point of their problem is their thought process and I would like to start by engaging this territory. As we all know, Starcraft 2 is a game that often plays with our emotions. It challenges the mind of intellectuals and pits them against each other. Often times, player feel that certain strategies in this game work on a rock, paper, scissor basis. When a player gets tossed into a game they feel like the rank is a representation of skill and seeing something like Bronze can just feel depressing. This in turn encourages many people to attempt to cheese whenever possible so they can pull themselves away from this Stigma. However when they do this, they don't fully enjoy the game anymore.
As a new player or even just a regular gamer who isn't doing so great on the ladder, we often time feel like we either have stupid fingers that refuses to agree with our minds or we feel like casual players who just aren't "pro" gamer so anyone that beats us must be the fact they have gaming talent we don't have. And when we go to ask about a specific problem the replies don't usually feel very personal. We get really constructive answers and reply in a general sense but they never feel like they understand the human side.
I believe this is a dangerous mind set, and this should be avoided. My cure for this, starts like this. Let's assume Starcraft 2 was like any other game we played in our childhood. A common game would be tag. How does this have any relevance to Starcraft you might ask. A ton actually. Whenever you play tag, what do you commonly do? If we are "it", we always target someone with less physical ability than us right? It never sounds logical for us to chase someone who was clearly faster than us. However as we started to play this game more and more, we learn that hey if we can't out run them, we simply outmaneuver them. Now that our little nostalgic time is over lets bring this back to Starcraft 2.
When we begin playing Starcraft 2, everything feels so overwhelming. If we play Protoss we forget to chrono boost all the time, as a Terran we seem to forget about those SCV we use to build structures and never return them to mine. Zergs, we get so focus on things we miss injects all the time.
Today I want to look at something extremely common which is building workers. You might say, well that’s great and all but everyone points this out all time. People keep telling you to Macro yet it never feels like it sticks in your brain ever. And here's why!
We think of worker as something related to macro. So then we basically we lump it with other general problems we have and just say yeah I'm bad at "Macroing" because I can't remember to press every button I need in a game. Forgetting to do something is extremely common and we should never beat ourselves down for it. Building worker is like locking your doors or bringing your lunch. It's something everyone does, and there will always be that moment you forget to bring your lunch or lock that door (whoops).
Overcoming Today's Worker Problem
Our main goal today is find some way to separate worker from the term Macro so that way we can tell ourselves hey we don't fail at it at all! We want to focus on one thing at a time, so we can actually see our improvements. My tip for all my fellow players today is this.
I want you to play a game like this. Treat your workers as if they are the ticket to winning. Love them, cherish them, stare at them, brag about them to people. Now hotkey your main base from 2-0. Whenever you build another base add that to your control groups with {shift+ctrl+#).
Whenever you do something you must build 1 new worker. i.e building your first rax / gateway build a worker. Need to build a marine? Add a worker! Need to add 5 supply depot? Queue up 5 workers. If that base is not building something you are not allow to perform another action. Including attacking. [Wall of your ramp if you feel the need to]
Look at the center bottom of the screen you must have your base highlighted regardless of what you are doing in the center of the screen. Stare at it all time. Make sure that base is always building workers. It is completely fine if you find your base extremely overly saturated, you can box half the workers and move them to your expansion. But remember these are not workers. They are points, they are tickets. If they aren't being built, you can't do anything ever!
When you finish that game win or lose just look at the worker count you have. Laugh at the absurd amount you have over your opponent! After the game you will realize how twitchy your worker finger is. Continue to play like this and you find that you will never forget to build a worker again!
