According to b.net, I have played 4359 games of SC2. That's, in a very low estimate, at least a month of game time over 4 years, that is I spend about a tenth of my life playing SC2.
Yet I am unbelievably bad in this game. At the moment, I am Silver in 1v1 and Gold in most of the team games (which can be counted as my accomplishment, because I am the strongest player in our arranged teams, demonstrated by the fact that I can beat any from my friends who I play with any day). How come that after almost 4 and a half thousand games played, I am still in the lower half of the race?
Today I played some 1v1 after a longish time (a couple of months) of only team games and I was almost outraged by how bad I was. In the team games, I feel a sense of improvement. I have almost doubled my APM during last year and that's not useless spamming, I actually feel that I multitask much more than ever, I manage my bases, I distribude workers efficiently, I inject regularly, I produce stuff and don't let it die pointlessly most of the time ...
But in the 1v1s, it was a completely difficult picture, I was literaly unable to beat anyone who was not outright retarded (the only guy I have beaten today was a Protoss who did not research WG 12 minutes into the game). All the games were essentially the same - the oponent came up with something I was completely unprepared for and rolled me over.
I am getting the feeling that this game may not really be for me. The fact that in each and every game you gave to account for each and every thing that your oponent can do to you, otherwise you are taking a huge risk, is an extreme liability for me. After all, that's the same in real life, I am just a very sloppy and unorganised person, often getting in trouble for ignoring safety, obligations, deadlines, procedures ... I do not have a morning routine, I do not check anything before I get into my car, I always pack for travel and then find what I am missing along the way ...
The "clean table" nature of SC2 is something that rewards a sense of order, inclination to do things repeatedly to perfection, and that's just not me. I love the feeliong of controlling things, the flow of the game, particularly late-game management games, but I don't really have what it takes to get there. In team games, this weakness of mine is highly hidden behind the overall chaoticity of the game, but 1v1 does not forgive.
obesechicken13 is right. More focused practise will do the trick.
At your level it does not matter whether you do team games or something else. You are playing for fun. You are not taking it seriously, so why are you suddenly (after 4,5k games) measuring your progress with a scale you never used to measure your gameprogression with before?
Also: Due to constant rise of the bar in the playerbase your silver game now is better than it was 4,5k games ago.
If you really want to get better solve this:
Imagine there are 2 perfect players duking it out on a map with finite amount of bases (lets say 11 for arguments sake). They trade the money they aquire evenly, if one player kills a mineral worth of stuff, the other does likewise. Who wins?
If you want to get better, here's a 10 step training program:
1. Take a break until you really WANT to play again. 2. Take a look at your whole setup. How comfortable are you sitting? Which hotkeys are you using? If you think there's room for improvement, take every chance. 3. Look up ONE build order for each matchup. Choose a solid one, like 1 gate FE / reaper expand / 15 hatch macro. 4. Play against the easy AI until you can execute your build order flawlessly. (right amount of workers, no supply blocks until at least 7 minutes - the later you get the better) 5. If you're returning to the ladder, focus on your build and scout the opponent at FIXED timings. Don't try to be fancy. Focus on the important things. 6. You will still lose lots of games. Accept that. Losing is normal. We all play to win, but you can't win every time. If you're getting frustrated again, take a break. 7. Analyze. Watch your replays. Ask for help if you can't make out your mistakes. 8. Practice deliberately. Only try to improve ONE thing at a time. (never forget: macro > micro) 9. Get practice partners. You say you're playing against some friends of yours. That's a good start, but ideally, you want to practice with someone who's better than you. Use the practice partner thread here on TL. 10. Have fun. If you're getting too stressed out, take a break. And never blame losses on the game or your opponent.
Basically, you can easily get to platinum league by having clean mechanics, good macro and mediocre game sense.
The other thing to keep in mind is that the entire playerbase is getting better and better. It also makes things harder since over time many players have left so that makes it more difficult to rank higher.
I was feeling the same thing not too long ago. I rewatched some replays from a year ago and noticed a lot of improvement since then despite a lower ranking.
This sounds like a rage post, after a string of bad losses. But I'll say this: the ladder matches you vs people of your own skill if you play any decent number of 1v1s. Unless you are at the bottom of bronze or top of GM your win rate will be 50%. It just SEEMS to you that you are bad but look at this this way. At any point in your playing career, you can beat 50% of the people you meet. Is that so bad?
Also... take a step back. Why do you play this game? Do you have a goal in mind that you are trying to reach, like plat? Or maybe there is someone you know you are trying to beat? If you have that goal, there are plenty of resources here on TL to help you get better. If you have no such goal... why do you play if not for fun? If you are getting frustrated, stop using this game to measure your self-worth. You are not your ladder record... it is just a game. Change your perspective on why you play and you might actually have more fun with it.
I've been Plat-Gold-Silver since the game was released, and I have not cared one bit about whether i win or lose. I don't care to get better or improve. I don't know any builds and I don't care to. I just play to kill some digital things, win/lose means nothing. I just have fun with it. Try it sometime.
You're playing games, but you're not learning to be structured, like mashing buttons on a piano but not playing melodies. Start attempting to gain structure. It's apparently a skill that will serve you well in SC2 as well as life in general.
On February 07 2015 18:55 vOdToasT wrote: You're playing games, but you're not learning to be structured, like mashing buttons on a piano but not playing melodies. Start attempting to gain structure. It's apparently a skill that will serve you well in SC2 as well as life in general.
Everyone is getting better and the pool of players playing ladder is much smaller. So you're probably not as bad as you think.
Secondly, I noted that you think you need to prepare for everything single possibility else you might die to it. That in itself is wrong, and is how a lot of lower level players think, which puts them strategically/economically behind because your decision making will be flawed with that presumption.
Example: PvZ - you need to prepare for proxy gate, cannon rush, 4 gate, proxy oracle, 5 gate (off 2 base), 6-7 gate blink, immortal sentry, etc. etc.
You don't need to prepare for all those things. Often times, people simply think scouting is trying to figure out what precise (single) thing the opponent is doing and they forget that scouting is understanding what you DON'T need to prepare for.
Say you scout forge first. You need to prepare for cannon rush and 2 base allins. You don't need to prepare for (1 base) 4 gate, or proxy gates, or 6 minute oracles/dts/etc. So that gives you the window to know when to drone and whether you can tech or not.
The overlord scouting the nat gas then will help you narrow down what type of 2 base play they are doing.
Then you scout again at say 7-9 minutes for third. If there is a third, you can cancel off 2 base blink, immortal sentry allin, etc. You are free to drone a little more (or make speedlings to try to cancel it) and tech up, and get your 4th. Its about narrowing down what the opponent CAN do, not preparing for everything.
Lastly, people say to pick one build per match up and practice that. This is not because players think you are stupid or unable to learn to adapt. This is because when you play the same build over and over, you understand what your build is weak against and what your build is good against. This helps with knowing what you are susceptible to dying to and what you cannot.
I feel almost sorry for having provoked so many so well written and informative responses that will get burried in blogs.
The fact is that I essentially know all of that and have seen it many times. The "probes and pylons" mantra was really helpful (I actually used to play protoss and that was how I got out of Bronze forever, just by realizing that I have to produce stuff consistently before anything else. I always try to work on that, I watch when I got supply blocked and try to avoid it next time at the same spot in the build etc...
But as I said, I know some steps I am supposed to do, the problem is making myself do them every time. If well-done things carried over from previous games, it would be much easier Every time I focus on doing one thing right, the others go to hell. Yeah, being structured and organised, that would be nice even in real life ...
Also, I love how BW has become essentially a trolling instrument
On February 07 2015 18:55 vOdToasT wrote: You're playing games, but you're not learning to be structured, like mashing buttons on a piano but not playing melodies. Start attempting to gain structure. It's apparently a skill that will serve you well in SC2 as well as life in general.
melody on a piano is overated
One should play some thing. My point is not that a melody must be played. Any thing works, like a chord, melody, etc.
On February 07 2015 18:55 vOdToasT wrote: You're playing games, but you're not learning to be structured, like mashing buttons on a piano but not playing melodies. Start attempting to gain structure. It's apparently a skill that will serve you well in SC2 as well as life in general.
i dont play this game, but wouldnt it help to watch training videos or normal procasts on youtube, then decide on some sticking points you find in your game and focus on them for a while. maybe lay a sheet of paper next to your pc where you write down keywords, so you can peek at it while you play and will not forget to do those.
maybe start a game vs AI then safe the game shortly before you and it engage in a big fight. play it over and over, till you get a feeling how to engage and what to do to win
WCS
and that was how I got out of Bronze forever, just by realizing that I have to produce stuff consistently before anything else. I always try to work on that, I watch when I got supply blocked and try to avoid it next time at the same spot in the build etc... 
