Yeah I know, I said I'd quit the game, but now I'm back because I was bored. Got master relatively fast (duh. as expected from a former bw veteran, right ? Right ?)
Anyway, believe it or not but, I've been finishing almost all my games with 2k+ average unspent resources. I'm really trying to find a solution about this issue but no matter how many games I play, I just can't get myself used to the macroing part whenever I'm attacking or defending the drops which always resulted in huge bank savings.
Was wondering if there was something that could help this issue like the very first version of apm bw launcher where you'd see a message on top of the screen whenever you'd exceed X minerals ?
I'm even willing to download some 3rd party software if there's any. PM me if necessary.
Day9 videos helped me to improve my macro a lot. Trust me.
But anyway, even pros exceed minerals in such situations, and it shouldn't be a problem to spend it after the drops/fights. Just throw few more gateways/raxs or whatever, and if you're a zerg extra minerals will make you happy.
Problem with those videos is that I'm deaf. The subtitles (or captions) are automatically translated and they're mostly gibberish. It's sad. Nothing you can do and I can't expect him to make subtitles for ALL his videos. Either way, I didn't really needed that because they're mainly for new players and I've acquired a lot of experiences over the years aswell.
The best tool to improve mechanics is a stake in the matter.
The easiest is tournaments and dailies. Something where a 3rd party judges your performance and rewards you for it (this is the basic concept of compensation negotiations). The more people treat you based on your performance, the more you relate your performance to how you see yourself.
If there are no easy tournaments then make a bet with a local gamer friend, someone you hang out with. Have him/her come over and have a bet with him/her, something substantial (not necessarily monetary but it could be that), it could even be different games. If you fail at X you pay him/her whatever, if he/she fails at Y then he/she pays you whatever. The first few times will be kind of boring. But when you give them $100 bucks for a bad session that night, you get the motivation to actually work on things really quick.
The best way to improve is by playing the game. I don't know whether this works in sc2, but in brood war I can play vs the PC in single player. I play as zerg vs protoss and I use a couple of lings to lure his army at all times while I macro up in my base. It's quite multitask heavy.
For the rest I think you need a change in mentality. Put emphasis on macro in your games, don't spend too long watching and microing your units. Spam more, get used to playing at a higher apm. With time the higher apm will translate into effective apm and you'll be more accurate and have more time to micro besides macroing.
On May 12 2016 06:07 B-royal wrote: The best way to improve is by playing the game. I don't know whether this works in sc2, but in brood war I can play vs the PC in single player. I play as zerg vs protoss and I use a couple of lings to lure his army at all times while I macro up in my base. It's quite multitask heavy.
For the rest I think you need a change in mentality. Put emphasis on macro in your games, don't spend too long watching and microing your units. Spam more, get used to playing at a higher apm. With time the higher apm will translate into effective apm and you'll be more accurate and have more time to micro besides macroing.
Yeah that's what I'm trying to do for months. Focus on the macroing part that is. But no matter how many games I play, in the heat of the moment I tend to forget to make units because there are so many things that needs a full attention (like for example the liberators. You dno't see that against CPU).
And no I don't want to spam. It worked before, but not anymore. It's been kind of a bad habit because no matter how much I spam I always focus on the units and not the macro. Like for example everytime I'm fighting, I tend to do a 1235 (123 for army 5 for hatches) everytime but it doesn't occur to me that I should macro behind.
I just lost to another terran because I had 2k minerals and a lot of larvaes. I really need help because even though I'm not lacking behind with the inject, sometimes I'd focus on the units or the key building and not making units. Like for example, I'd inject all my queens, then go to my base to build 2 evolutions chambers, and then I'd double tap 1 to check if my army isn't dying to some stupid shit (ie : mutas in a line of turrets). Yeah, see the problem ? I COMPLETELY FORGOT TO MACRO RIGHT THERE.
It's really pissing me off.
Btw : the betting thing is out of question. Both because I'm broke af, and because I don't have real life friend (that knows sc2). Only thing that could work would be doing custom games with online friends. But I don't really like it because the players tends to have the same strategy after a while, and then it's easy to have some routine and know where to macro. It's not something I'd like to have when training competitively on ladders.
FYI : I've like 12k games on sc2 (always been in master mind you), and my apm ranges from 220 to 250 which I believe is more than enough.
You need to structure your macro in a more organized fashion. It's important to ingrain mechanical skills mentally as habit and physically as muscle memory. Zerg macro is very cyclic in nature and you can usually think of builds in terms of inject cycles. Day9 talks about a macro cycle or a mental checklist of things that you repeat in your head to keep you on track. Zerg has the benefit of everything lining up with injects.Very specifically, injecting creates larva, which creates idle production and translates to used supply. So injecting dictates what macro is required of us. If you've just injected, that means there's larva to spend. Creep is also on a very similar rotation to injecting.
This needs to be an automatic thing that happens every time you inject. Doing this in the same exact order every time while you're training and it translates to an organized mind and very strong associations. You'll more readily think of your larva whenever you make overlords, and your creep as you're making units. After a lot of time training this you'll be performing things in this order as part of your idle macro, and make the conscious decision to spend attention on your army. From there, you make an association to inject before you engage. The practice should take over as you inject.
A lot of learning comes down to building associations between concepts, but most importantly for starcraft is reinforcing correct fundamentals and reactions in game. Being aware of how the mind works lets us make use of it and program ourselves to react in ways that best suit our needs. If I see units die, I think of my supply going down which prompts me to make more units. If it's 8:00 and I'm being dropped in the main by a terran, I'm thinking about how terran is probably pushing on my 4th. Intellectually you can break these things down and understand it, but in starcraft it's important to be instant with the reaction and not to wander to the conclusion that you need to do it. Dedicated practice with a clear understanding of what is to be done allows you to apply this. The best parallel I can draw to is music or martial arts. Think about the way that they're trained and try to emulate that.
On May 10 2016 17:43 RaiZ wrote: Problem with those videos is that I'm deaf. The subtitles (or captions) are automatically translated and they're mostly gibberish. It's sad. Nothing you can do and I can't expect him to make subtitles for ALL his videos. Either way, I didn't really needed that because they're mainly for new players and I've acquired a lot of experiences over the years aswell.
EPT
