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Active: 2830 users

"The Plan" and Improving at Starcraft

Blogs > Blazinghand
Post a Reply
Blazinghand *
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States25552 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-04-18 20:45:45
April 18 2012 20:45 GMT
#1

"The Plan" and Improving at Starcraft




I spent some time contemplating what it takes to get good at Starcraft. Now, typically, you might say "Macro" or "Practice" or something similar, and strictly speaking, you wouldn't be incorrect. I'm not talking about what it takes to get better at Starcraft, though. I'm talking about what it takes to get good. For me this means reflecting back a couple years to the beta, when I first began-- I was definitely bad. I could barely function as a 1v1 player, had never heard of TL, or the proscene, and in a typical game would randomly produce structures and buildings (gradually climbing the tech tree) and making whatever units seemed reasonable. In addition to my poor mechanics, total lack of game sense, and utter inability to understand the basics of sc2 strategy, I didn't have a build order or plan-- I was just randomly doing things.

In time, though, Bronze* League was not enough for me. I wanted to improve. I spent some effort thinking and theorycrafting, and in time I constructed a Plan. It wasn't a great Plan, but it was mine, and it was a Plan. Roughly speaking, my Plan (and the underlying reasoning) was this:

"Starcraft is a hard game to play. You win by having a big army, but making a big army is difficult. So, what do you do? Well, you make a big army in the easiest way possible. Figuring out how to deal with "Vespene Gas" is difficult, and causes more harm than good. Although it would be optimal to incorporate Vespene Gas into my build, I'm not skilled enough to execute complex build orders like that properly. Therefore, I will not build a refinery. My plan for every game is: 1) make a supply depot, 2) make 4 barracks so I can make marines, 3) make an orbital command (make sure to start this after the 4 barracks, because if I make it earlier it delays a barracks!), 4) move out when I have 30 marines. By using only minerals and delaying my orbital command, I can use a big marine army, and attack-move it to victory!"

Yes, that's correct. My Plan was 4 rax before OC, A-move at 30 marines, and I didn't pull scvs. It was utterly bad, I executed it poorly, I didn't know how to micro and literally lost against any enemy who used banelings, or got a siege tank (or hell, a bunker)-- but I'll be damned if I didn't improve vastly using this Plan. I got into Gold League.

How is this possible? Well, having a Plan focuses you. You have a set of goals, benchmarks-- and it forces you to critically evaluate how well you executed it each game. In the game itself, even if your Plan somehow gets derailed (cannon rush, early pool, someone else marine rushes you), you don't go sputtering into the abyss-- you try to get back on track. You stabilize, and push forwards towards your Plan again. The 4 Rax marine rush (and other builds I eventually learned like Cloak Banshee rush, 3 Rax Stim, 1 Rax FE, etc) improved my play immeasurably just by having a well laid out, clearly hammered down Plan to follow.





*: At the time, Bronze was the second-lowest league of five, analogous to Silver today. The leagues were Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, Copper. Yup, Copper. I'm not joking. Look it up kids.


****
When you stare into the iCCup, the iCCup stares back.
TL+ Member
DKR
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United Kingdom622 Posts
April 18 2012 21:29 GMT
#2
On April 19 2012 05:45 Blazinghand wrote:
I got into Gold League.



And it only took 2 years!

only trolling, having a plan is indeed very helpful, but I'm still definitely of the opinion Mechanics>Macro>Plan> all else
"1 base. Cheese man." - MKP. "[MVP] is not stylistic, his style is winning, which is the style you want to have." - Artosis
Tobberoth
Profile Joined August 2010
Sweden6375 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-04-18 21:32:49
April 18 2012 21:32 GMT
#3
The general idea here is awesome, and I agree that this is the best way for bad players to improve. However, you can combine the concepts you came up yourself with good knowledge, and come up with a way for bad players to learn good fundamentals and macro, and that's what filtersc did. Basically, the idea is to ignore stuff which is hard to do, to let you focus on what's important: macro. In filterscs lessons, he basically tells bronze people to go for 1rax expand into mass rax, focusing only on scv and marine production, and not being supply blocked, with the benchmark of having at least 50 SCVs at the 10 minute mark, and pushing, which obliterates players in lower leagues simply because the macro is almost perfect so it doesn't matter that it's just marines... simply amoving gets you to silver without a doubt.

Like your plan, this gives focus to bad players, let's them measure their progress, and let's them learn what actually matters: building a ton of stuff. He then adds new concepts for each league to teach a player to get to masters, for example by changing it to a proper build for silver where you get 3 rax with addons, a factory and a starport, still off 2 bases, still with 50 SVCs by the 10 minute mark. More stuff to think about, but still no need to scout nor even micro to win against silver players if you macro well.

I think the whole idea is amazing, and I wish I had something like it when I started playing. Why learn weird builds like 1/1/1 etc when you're in bronze, when all you need is to build SCVs and marines, eh?
Cycle
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States300 Posts
April 19 2012 00:48 GMT
#4
The plan got me to masters. All truth all up in this.
| chKCycle.551 | NA | Master League Random | Checkmate Gaming |
dust.89
Profile Joined May 2010
Singapore44 Posts
April 19 2012 03:11 GMT
#5
Some nice thoughts here. Sounded like when I just started, but it still took weeks of practice even with a good plan. And it just hits a wall sometimes though. I'm so tired of my one gate expo in PvT dying to one base timings that I always seem to react to wrongly.

On April 19 2012 09:48 Cycle wrote:
The plan got me to masters. All truth all up in this.


I don't get this. Is that some really good plan/build order you are using?
Divinek
Profile Blog Joined November 2006
Canada4045 Posts
April 19 2012 10:00 GMT
#6
my plan was to emulate pro players and understand their decisions, boy did that help getting into masters
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Oh goodness me, FOX tv where do you get your sight? Can't you keep track, the puck is black. That's why the ice is white.
ImDrizzt
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
Norway427 Posts
April 19 2012 10:22 GMT
#7
Find a friend like me, I get people up ranks, just what I do. If you have a sicko watch you play, he can point out 3 biggest mistakes, even though you are doing 9430 mistakes.

And that's it, after 30 games of trying to fix just those 3 games, you'll be a lot better. Then when "your gosu friend" comes again, watches you. He'll say 3 biggest mistakes you're doing, rinse repeat, and in no time you're a beast!!!

I think.
Link to my serious blog, where I am serious and spreads truth, knowledge and "serious" stuff: http://www.liquidpoker.net/blog/viewblog.php?id=982066
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