EPTGames continue to be uneventful, as expected and hoped. I make lots of Marines and SCVs and more or less A-move to victory. Session 3 was the last for this iteration, which used benchmarks spitballed mostly from GGTracker.com data.
As noted in my last update advancement from one iteration of a phase to the next would be based off of performance in a best-of-5 on the ladder. This went smoothly as well, earning my three "victories" in a row. Advancement at this level basically means tightening the benchmarks with the intended goal that I might actually fail to hit them. Accumulation of wins is slower and more familiarity with the hand movements is developed. I expect this next iteration will go more slowly.
Iteration: 10/10
Advancement: 3/5
Starting rank: Bronze 21
Ending rank: Bronze 17
On Ladder Anxiety
I have deliberately left off my win/loss record for these sessions for a specific reason: It doesn't really matter in this phase, or even the next.
One of the biggest problems with getting into StarCraft, both personally and observed in places like Reddit, is that of ladder anxiety. I can't speak for others but for me it comes from the combined knowledge that 1) I'm not very good, 2) my opponent is probably god-like, and 3) I can't blame anyone else but me if I lose. One way that I hope to combat this anxiety is to make the game less about competition with another human and more about competition with oneself.
Phases 1 and 2 are all about building a foundation of good gameplay following very simple and easy to understand rules. The benchmarks are presented as the one and only challenge the player should pay attention to. Under no circumstances should a win or a loss on the ladder be considered - the only metric for success is hitting all of the benchmarks. This allows the player to focus not on what their opponent does and how they're supposed to react given their dearth of knowledge, skill, and awesomeness, but focus instead on good gameplay; letting it become natural and familiar so that they don't have to concentrate on it so hard when they do have to pay attention to their opponents.
I have found the tactic quite useful for mellowing the anxious feelings I get when I sit down and hit that Play button. It also begs the question: Why put yourself in that position at all if that's the goal? Why not practice first against AI? A valid question with a simple answer. The goal of this program is to go from any league to Master or GrandMaster. No matter how efficiently you achieve that goal it's still going to take awhile. No sense in wasting cycles against AI when you already have a giant ladder to climb. Incidentally, this too has worked out well, as I'm being regularly matched against Silver players now and coming out with favorable results.
