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Yesterday was my first real day on the ladder. I had played around with the different races and a few different concepts and strategies on the ladder before, but this was the first time that I had a build order that I was working on in custom games vs A.I. that I took to the ladder to see how I would be able to do. I played a couple of hours and ended up going 0-5. I realized that the ladder can be pretty frustration. But not so much in the way you might think, mostly I am frustrated with myself.
Almost all of my games were long ones, going 20 plus min. In three of the five that I played, I didn't really lose per say. I more got frustrated that I didn't know what to do next and left the game. Two games I was up a full 60 army supply over my opponent. I decided to play zerg and have been working on developing my skills with a two-base +1+1 speed roach push at around the 11 min mark. So if you play me on the ladder (if you're bronze league on Korean server) that's what I'll be doing, so make mass void rays lol :p
Both games I pushed out with tons more stuff and ran into my opponent's wall off only to get totally crushed. First game vs protoss he had a cannon and about 3 stalkers hold me off (with photon overcharge buying him time to get more stalkers out). The second game I was against terran with MMM (he had tons of medivacs). In the terran game I actually thought I had him because he had to start pulling SCVs but his medivacs kept the 3 marines and SCVs up and my roaches all crumbled.
Looking back at the replays (I would post them here if I knew how -- if anyone wants a bronze league laugh) I noticed that most of my roaches weren't actually fighting, just kinda fumbling around in the back. I think this probably bought me the loss (along with a couple supply blocks and missed larva injects). I also have no idea what to build after roaches vs terran. Maybe ling bane would have been better...? I don't know, lots to figure out still.
I have been trying to check out some games where players attach up a ramp into a wall off, but the pros don't seem to do this much. Am I missing a huge strategic aspect of the game here? Should I just not try to push up a ramp into a defended wall-off? Maybe just pull back and grab an expansion?
The other games I was cannon rushed! Which worked once, but I scouted him the second time (different guy). He cannon rushed my natural and also built 2 gateways and a cybernetics (not sure why he built the cybernetics in my base, but whatever) I broke his cannons and gateways with queens, and ling-roach and probably could have won, but the time I cleaned it up and ran over to his base (King Sejong Station) he had build a couple immortals and a nexus with photon overcharge. I pulled back, expanded like mad and droned up, but it was getting late and I didn't feel like dragging out another long game, so I gg'd.
Anyways, my first night on the ladder was a little frustration, very informative, and surely got my adrenaline pumping. My hands were shaking a little after just about every game. I'll play a few games tonight and see if I can't eek out a win 
 
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eh, don't worry, the game is fairly old now and most ladder players are quite experienced, you will catch up.
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I think that before getting crushed on the ladder you should practice against the AI first. It's much less frustrating and, as long as your don't execute strategies to exploit its stupidity, you should learn the basic mechanics. Once you beat it comfortably at elite you can consider yourself ready for the ladder. I did this when I started and I went straight into silver league ( and bronze was 20% back then)
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On September 16 2014 16:55 KingAlphard wrote:
I think that before getting crushed on the ladder you should practice against the AI first. It's much less frustrating and, as long as your don't execute strategies to exploit its stupidity, you should learn the basic mechanics. Once you beat it comfortably at elite you can consider yourself ready for the ladder. I did this when I started and I went straight into silver league ( and bronze was 20% back then)
I disagree. Maybe if you're the type for it it's beneficial but really there is no reason to not go straight to ladder. If you wanna ladder you will have to learn how to deal with it anyway. Like losing streaks, cheese and all that stuff.
Especially in bronze you can crush everyone with a properly executed timing attack so you can just practice that and watch your replays to see what you could have done better.
On another note, don't hesitate to leave games early. Of course if you wanna play them out by all means do that, but if your timing attack fails and you're behind it can be very frustrating and make you think you play bad when really the other player just had a huge advantage.
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Ladder is a lot more different compared to ai.
Don't rely on it for practise because it will mess you up.
Keep losing and keep learning and keep hammering your basic.
Eventually you will win and you will know why you win.
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On September 16 2014 16:36 platonik wrote:
I have been trying to check out some games where players attach up a ramp into a wall off, but the pros don't seem to do this much. Am I missing a huge strategic aspect of the game here? Should I just not try to push up a ramp into a defended wall-off? Maybe just pull back and grab an expansion?
I don't think you're missing a huge part of the game, it's just that the game is dynamic and rarely are two ladder games alike.
This is just my opinion, but for example, if you push back an opponents attack easily, it's probably a good idea to counter and at least poke up the ramp. Again, this is dependent on a number of things; the length of the game (i.e. how much production he has), number of bases, etc..
Or, let's say you push out at 10 minutes against an opponent that has just sat in his base the entire game. In this scenario it isn't a good idea to attack up the ramp. Your opponent could be gearing up for a two base all in, so it's better to scout first before you just run up a ramp with your entire army. You can do a "soft contain" and basically what that means is that you macro/expand/rally army at home while you take map control with the units you were going to attack with. Keep vision of your opponents third base, if he doesn't expand to a third base, you then know for sure an attack is coming.
When I say macro, what I mean is, scout your opponents army and "macro", or build structures/build units that counter your opponent. If you are Terran and scout two-base colossi...build vikings, etc.
I agree with the others that playing ladder is better than playing A.I. Playing ladder forces you to work on your mechanics in a way the A.I. can't. Once you have the mechanics down, is when the game gets a lot more enjoyable.
GL HF
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Should I just not try to push up a ramp into a defended wall-off? Maybe just pull back and grab an expansion?
Bingo if you play Zerg attacking the natural wall is very often a mistake. The exception being if it was a preplanned attack where attacking up the ramp is an essential part of the strategy, like a roach or baneling bust. In those cases you need to be able to recognize if you can't break it and back off. Win a battle in the middle of the map, it's fine to poke up bad see what's there or peel off some units to check. But committing and throwing your army into the natural is one of the easiest way to throw away a lead. Sometimes that leads to cases where you are waiting 10 minutes with your opponent trapped on two bases waiting for him to realize its hopeless and leave, but sometimes that's what you have to do to win.
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On September 16 2014 18:42 Split. wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2014 16:55 KingAlphard wrote:
I think that before getting crushed on the ladder you should practice against the AI first. It's much less frustrating and, as long as your don't execute strategies to exploit its stupidity, you should learn the basic mechanics. Once you beat it comfortably at elite you can consider yourself ready for the ladder. I did this when I started and I went straight into silver league ( and bronze was 20% back then) I disagree. Maybe if you're the type for it it's beneficial but really there is no reason to not go straight to ladder. If you wanna ladder you will have to learn how to deal with it anyway. Like losing streaks, cheese and all that stuff. Especially in bronze you can crush everyone with a properly executed timing attack so you can just practice that and watch your replays to see what you could have done better. On another note, don't hesitate to leave games early. Of course if you wanna play them out by all means do that, but if your timing attack fails and you're behind it can be very frustrating and make you think you play bad when really the other player just had a huge advantage.
I'm talking about learning basic things such as: the hotkey for each action, control groups, building workers, not getting supply blocked, not banking money, etc. These things don't depend that much on your opponent.
When I started playing I was really stressed cause I felt inadequate. This happens in every competitive game I play. Practicing against the AI at first always works for me, after that there's always someone I can beat at least, and knowing it makes me feel more confident and less frustrated.
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On September 18 2014 05:05 KingAlphard wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2014 18:42 Split. wrote:On September 16 2014 16:55 KingAlphard wrote:
I think that before getting crushed on the ladder you should practice against the AI first. It's much less frustrating and, as long as your don't execute strategies to exploit its stupidity, you should learn the basic mechanics. Once you beat it comfortably at elite you can consider yourself ready for the ladder. I did this when I started and I went straight into silver league ( and bronze was 20% back then) I disagree. Maybe if you're the type for it it's beneficial but really there is no reason to not go straight to ladder. If you wanna ladder you will have to learn how to deal with it anyway. Like losing streaks, cheese and all that stuff. Especially in bronze you can crush everyone with a properly executed timing attack so you can just practice that and watch your replays to see what you could have done better. On another note, don't hesitate to leave games early. Of course if you wanna play them out by all means do that, but if your timing attack fails and you're behind it can be very frustrating and make you think you play bad when really the other player just had a huge advantage. I'm talking about learning basic things such as: the hotkey for each action, control groups, building workers, not getting supply blocked, not banking money, etc. These things don't depend that much on your opponent. When I started playing I was really stressed cause I felt inadequate. This happens in every competitive game I play. Practicing against the AI at first always works for me, after that there's always someone I can beat at least, and knowing it makes me feel more confident and less frustrated.
I still practice against the AI for those types of things. So your point is valid so long as your not practicing against the AI that tries to kill you. When I use it to practice, It's always very easy AI because that ensures it won't ever attack me and distract me on what I'm working on, and it gives me something to kill when I'm done. More difficult AI for practice purpose is counterproductive in my opinion as it does not behave as a human player and it makes you adjust your play in ways that human players will not.
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On September 16 2014 19:40 ETisME wrote:
Ladder is a lot more different compared to ai.
Don't rely on it for practise because it will mess you up.
Keep losing and keep learning and keep hammering your basic.
I see this statement so much... but still don't understand the hate for practicing against the AI. If you're new at this game.. especially if you dont ladder much then wheres the harm in practicing strategies and warming up against a computer?
When I first got into WOL (entirely different game.. I know) I made it to platinum after my placement matches.
How?
I practiced against the very hard AI until I could consistently win. And like another post here mentioned.. I mean actually outplay the computer.. not outsmart it based on some faulty behavior it displays.
Now of course theres no denying that playing against a human is entirely different. But thats the point.. thats why I practiced against the AI. That way when I played a living breathing (read: thinking) opponent.. I was focusing more on what they were doing and how to counter it as opposed to "is THIS a good unit comp to counter a MMM with?"... or "should I be expanding/attacking/scouting now?" or "how do hotkeys work?"
Oh and it also helps to have a build order and get really good at it... alleviates so much anxiety.
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Thank you all for the tips and advice about the ladder. In the past few days I've played about 30 games and things are really interesting. I've gotten to really like the ladder so far. It keeps me on my toes and I'm starting to see patterns that I think will come in handy even when I work my way into higher levels of the game. For example when I see a protoss probe scouting my main before I even have a pool down I send a drone to chase him around until I get a set of lings out because every time this has happened the protoss has tried dropping a pylon to either cannon rush or hide a pylon to warp into later. I was successful at blocking my opponent's pylons in one game and he just left, which was pretty cool for me.
I especially like the idea that it's ok to leave a game early. At first I was mostly frustrated with not knowing what to do after my timing attack failed, then I felt bad for wasting the next fifteen minutes losing slowly. Now if I go for a timing attack and it just fails then I can just leave the game and move on to the next one. Although I sometimes do want to work on the next steps to push from the mid-game to the late-game... just not every time.
Either way, win or loss I'm checking out my replays and trying to learn something from each game. I'm enjoying the process of developing as much as playing the games. I'm really impressed with the complexity of SC2 and it's turning into a nice project for my study of learning.
Thanks again for all your replies!
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just build swarmhosts and expend your creep, you'll probably win pretty much any matchup
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On September 18 2014 06:51 MstrJinbo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 18 2014 05:05 KingAlphard wrote:On September 16 2014 18:42 Split. wrote:On September 16 2014 16:55 KingAlphard wrote:
I think that before getting crushed on the ladder you should practice against the AI first. It's much less frustrating and, as long as your don't execute strategies to exploit its stupidity, you should learn the basic mechanics. Once you beat it comfortably at elite you can consider yourself ready for the ladder. I did this when I started and I went straight into silver league ( and bronze was 20% back then) I disagree. Maybe if you're the type for it it's beneficial but really there is no reason to not go straight to ladder. If you wanna ladder you will have to learn how to deal with it anyway. Like losing streaks, cheese and all that stuff. Especially in bronze you can crush everyone with a properly executed timing attack so you can just practice that and watch your replays to see what you could have done better. On another note, don't hesitate to leave games early. Of course if you wanna play them out by all means do that, but if your timing attack fails and you're behind it can be very frustrating and make you think you play bad when really the other player just had a huge advantage. I'm talking about learning basic things such as: the hotkey for each action, control groups, building workers, not getting supply blocked, not banking money, etc. These things don't depend that much on your opponent. When I started playing I was really stressed cause I felt inadequate. This happens in every competitive game I play. Practicing against the AI at first always works for me, after that there's always someone I can beat at least, and knowing it makes me feel more confident and less frustrated. I still practice against the AI for those types of things. So your point is valid so long as your not practicing against the AI that tries to kill you. When I use it to practice, It's always very easy AI because that ensures it won't ever attack me and distract me on what I'm working on, and it gives me something to kill when I'm done. More difficult AI for practice purpose is counterproductive in my opinion as it does not behave as a human player and it makes you adjust your play in ways that human players will not.
From my point of view, a bronze league player doesn't play like a human either. It's not meant to be offensive, it's just that they do things that absolutely don't make sense. At least the AI plays more 'standard', except it has no micro (but it usually doesn't build micro intensive units such as reapers anyway) and it can be exploited (but you can decide not to do it). Add to this, that an elite AI is a tougher opponent than any bronze league player (afaik), then I don't see why it is a worse practice.
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EPT
