|
Brood War is not an easy game. I dedicate lots of time and effort into it with little outcome. For seven years off and on my skill level has always been around D. The real struggle is not having fun unless I win. Now in SC2 they have a match making system where your match making results will begin to match you so that you will win about fifty percent of the time. Now if I am only happy while winning in SC2, I would be only happy around fifty percent of the time. But in broodwar there is not a match making system. Implying that anyone playing bw can stoop to win rates far from fifty percent. And that is my case, a win rate that is sub fifty. Loss after loss begins to be aggravating. The worst part is the rare win does not even feel that great, because I think to myself that they are new to the game and I stomped them. Why am I playing against D- players in the first place? Just to get a little taste of blood? Am I seeking some sort of power trip because of my own persistent losing? I want to know how it feels to win, but my wins come from players that have drastic differences in skill. And anyone that I think should be around my level beats me continuously.
This situation I am about to describe hurts me the most. I ask the opponent who has pretty single handedly defeated me what their iccup rank is and they turn out to be totally oblivious of what iccup is, and it just so happens they have only been playing broodwar for a week or two. The weight of that crashes down on me. This player I think to myself should be fighting the interface struggling with the pathing, limited unit and building select. Their success may because they have experience with SC2, but I had success there too reaching masters. Why am I not improving as quickly as this opponent I think to myself. And negative thoughts flood my mind, such as do I have some form of retardation hindering me from improving. Or is it that my opponent's race is easy.
Overall I want to be able to trade games vs people, but I feel everyone I play is beyond me or a simple walk in the park. I want to know how to enjoy the game even in the face of a devastating loss. Lastly to see or feel improvement instead of feeling like my effort is futile.
Thank you for your time, I hope it wasn't cringe worthy, just felt like I needed to explain myself, and hopefully connect with fellow players that have been in this situation.
Also if there are any actual D rank players that would like to be a practice partner of mine please PM me. I am not looking for someone to play a game or two with, but a legitimate practice partner that is willing to play many games, watch our replays together and is serious about improvement.
|
you just gotta wait patiently for the influx of new fans for remastered. however good you are you're gonna win consistently until you get to C- rank. then you can queue vs D or D+ players if you want to get a winrate above 50%.
|
On May 10 2017 10:13 reps)squishy wrote:
I want to know how to enjoy the game even in the face of a devastating loss.
I just picked this sentence out because it seemed easiest to respond too. So much can be said on the blog as a whole because I feel the vast majority of BW players have these feelings (at every level).
But, my simple response would be; being able to switch your mindset very quickly in BW is valuable, especially when you are specifically focusing on improving. You have the competitive mindset of playing ladder games juxtaposed with the studious mindset of watching replays or observing games. Clearly one fuels the other. But having a studious mindset in competitive environment will slow you down, and the reverse will limit the speed of your learning.
I think looking for a committed practice partner is a great solution, because you'll hopefully have someone with whom you can enjoy learning from each game as soon as its over.
|
im not one to give to much advice on how to improve because ive hit alot of barriers in broodwar myself. but some stuff that has helped me is trying to build a competitive mindset and work on focus, also watch your replays when you lose and try to understand at which point in your games that things went wrong, another thing that helped me is watching re-streams of myself and realizing how many mistakes i actually make, even when i think im playing decently. anyways i hope this helped a bit
|
I used to be in the spot like you some time ago. I was SC2 player who switched to BW. I hit C- on iccup pretty quickly but had fun only when I was winning. I realized that the reason for me was just treating the game like work. I learned basic BOs, practiced the hell out of them and massed games without really enjoying it. I felt that I was gaining rank but wasn't really improving. Just repeating my practiced builds without any real thinking about the game.
I decied to change it with help of 1.18 patch. I jumped onto battle net and started playing games like BGH, Fastests maps, which gives me a lot of fun. Of course sometimes the level is very low for me in those games but I have opportunity to easily learn new races, their mechanics, their weaknesses and strenghts, use rare units, train micro battles, play some fun strategies without any stress. I explore the game, practice and gain a lot of knowledge about the game instead of massing 1v1 mindlessly. Of course I also still play 1v1 but my mindset is much more different now. I have fun and improve at the same time. What is more, I found some BW ums maps very fun - thats something I have never tried before 
Brood War is not only hard, but it is also very complex. Therefore I think that new players shouldn't focus only on practicing one BO and massing 1v1s. Explore the game. Learn it from perspective of different races. Have some fun and learn at the same time.
|
Bear hug for you...
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Psk7vN3.jpg)
|
On May 11 2017 00:55 ninazerg wrote:Bear hug for you...
# this. i feel for you man. I wanna say "i was super bad for such a logn time myself", but given the amount of time i spent i relation to my skill, im still very bad xD
i still really enjoy BW tho.
|
TLADT24920 Posts
My advice? Stop taking the game seriously. Come to terms with the fact that you'll never be some uber pro and be satisfied with any small improvements to your game. Also, realize that everyone improves differently. Maybe someone is new to the game but do you know their gaming history? Habits? Mindset? What about their current lifestyle? I play much better on days I want to play or feel I can then days that I'm feeling tired etc... Lots of factors determine that stuff.
For seven years off and on my skill level has always been around D -> on and off, skill changes greatly during downtime. For me, it takes me several games to at least get some semblance of my past skill and even then, it's never the same. Being casual hurts your game, the same goes for stressing the importance of getting better. Just focus on having fun and who cares about winning. I've lost count of how many TvZs I've lost but I also realize that I'm playing to improve but I'm not hardcore grinding so if I repeat a mistake etc... it's not the end of the world. My other advice is if you aren't having fun, changes races or play money maps, BGH, UMS etc...
|
Just have fun and enjoy the game man, do not worry...there are many in your same situation feeling the same way, I still feel this way actually...I think most people are not satisfied with where they currently are in BW, which is why it is so competitive. Just keep plugging away and make sure to have fun while you do it, and just keep a positive mindset.
Also a lil smoke and a drink helps, party craft yo
|
I've read what you wrote here and I understand the feeling, but you are never going to reach some magic threshold where the game becomes easy and you can play on par with everyone else. Unless you are Flash or Jaedong there is always going to be a swath of players that will be able to beat you easily. So my suggestion is to look for enjoyment inside of the gameplay. Making improvements to your own abilities and little victories inside of games can be really rewarding even if you don't win. Instead of only keeping track of your wins pay attention to how well you completed tasks inside of a match. Don't get down on yourself because you aren't a god already!
|
Netherlands4652 Posts
On May 10 2017 10:13 reps)squishy wrote:
I ask the opponent who has pretty single handedly defeated me what their iccup rank is and they turn out to be totally oblivious of what iccup is, and it just so happens they have only been playing broodwar for a week or two.
Maybe it makes you feel better to realise that many BW players - especially on battle.net - are quite bm. It's quite likely he was just lying to you to make you feel worse and stroke his own ego some more on winning that game.
If you had just said gg and moved on, you probably wouldn't have felt so bad about your loss.
Stop looking at - or at least caring about - others as much. Stop wasting your time comparing your skill with others, instead let it mere be an inspiration and a motivator.
Theodore Roosevelt: "Comparison is the thief of joy."
|
Hahaha, I feel you man. I remember getting crushed so hard on WGT and PGT. I don't think I took it the same way you did, but thinking back on it, it's kind of funny, because people weren't even very good back then.
I did eventually become quite a competent player though, and I always felt myself improving. Early on when I started learning StarCraft, I took the advice people gave seriously, about watching your own replays, about watching lots of replays of strong players, thinking about the game and reading strategy posts by top players. All those things gave me a lot of food for thought, and in addition to the map making I did, I would say at least 50% of joy from StarCraft was not in the games themselves but in preparing good strategies.
Another thing I realised early was that having a person or a few people to play with every day is what really boosts your skill and helps you learn the game. I think every person who ever got good at this game was in some group of people (called clans if they were intense about it, just friends if they just happened to go to the same channels every day) and played each other a lot.
If you can't claim to have played the same person a few hundred times in StarCraft, you know I really can't say it's that weird that even after 7 years of on and off play you didn't get good. Some people love the ladder, but I gotta guess even those people who get good on the ladder also had a group of friends they liked to play with. That's all those Media guys were, and ToT, and every other clan of top foreigners. Just groups of kids who really got into playing with each other. Same with the strong Koreans, they all started in these clans.
At the end of the day though, maybe my perspective on this is really coloured by my "Johnny" archetype. For me the funnest part of the game is doing odd strategies, and if I didn't know I could gloat after the game to the person, a lot of that joy would have been lost 
|
On May 10 2017 10:13 reps)squishy wrote:
But my wins come from players that have drastic differences in skill. And anyone that I think should be around my level beats me continuously.
I'm sure some wins come from people who are drastically weaker. But unless all you do is just play D- guys or guys that are C and better, then you're invariably going to get wins from people at similar skill.
And anyone that I think should be around my level beats me continuously.
Not sure what you mean by "think should be around your skill level", but obviously if they beat you consistently they are not at your skill level. Either they are better than you give them credit for, you're not as good as you think, or some combination of the two.
This situation I am about to describe hurts me the most. I ask the opponent who has pretty single handedly defeated me what their iccup rank is and they turn out to be totally oblivious of what iccup is, and it just so happens they have only been playing broodwar for a week or two. The weight of that crashes down on me. This player I think to myself should be fighting the interface struggling with the pathing, limited unit and building select. Their success may because they have experience with SC2, but I had success there too reaching masters. Why am I not improving as quickly as this opponent I think to myself.
Some people bullshit about this. "i've been playing two weeks" when in reality they mean they just started playing again two weeks ago but were B rank before. Obviously still going to have decent skill.
Beyond that, some people just have either more natural talent, or are quicker to see the best ways to improve. Yea it's a little frustrating but it's a reality of life. I train pretty serious on the bike and am a pretty strong rider regionally, but every once in a while out of nowhere there will be this guy that hopped on a bike for the first time a year ago having sat on the couch before and now he's smashing us in races. Fast forward another year and he's got a contract with some domestic pro team.
The good news is that efficient, hard work can generally overcome talent until you get way deep into the pointy end of skill, where everyone starts to have to work hard to maintain that level.
The real struggle is not having fun unless I win. I want to know how to enjoy the game even in the face of a devastating loss.
I'll be honest, I don't really relate to this mindset. I play BW because it's a fun game, not because it's fun to win. For me, winning is largely unrelated to fun because it's the actual mechanics of the game itself that are enjoyable: working hard and trying to dance around the keyboard to keep up mechanically, trying to guess my opponents next moves and find the best tactical decisions, microing tense situations, etc. All of that is fun.
If you're only having fun winning, that suggests to me that you don't so much like BW as you like winning at BW, which is a very different thing. I suspect we all enjoy wins more than losses, but even if I'm getting my face smashed in I'm generally having a pretty good time playing.
I can't claim to know to what extent this can be controlled or changed, but the best I can say is
Mindset -> Less Results Oriented - Basically the reason you're happy when you win and angry when you lose is because you are choosing to care about the results. Worry less about the results, and more about the process. As an example, if I'm working on changing my hotkey setup, I don't give a shit if I lose a game because my muta are now on 1 instead of 2, and I instinctively went for the wrong key to run away from a marine ball, thus flying deep over it. That's just something that happens when you're really working to improve.
Additionally, just relax and enjoy playing the game for the general fun of trying to execute a good build order, controlling your units to defend a dangerous timing, nailing those mechanics, etc.
I dedicate lots of time and effort into it with little outcome. For seven years off and on my skill level has always been around D.Lastly to see or feel improvement instead of feeling like my effort is futile.
This sounds like a practice issue to me. In other words, you're either not practicing and just playing BW; OR you're not practicing the right things efficiently.
An easy way to highlight this is that you said you're true D, which tells me right away that your builds and mechanics are major concerns. It's impossible to be D, and really even D+, with solid macro and the ability to move an army around while doing so.
Which tells me you've been playing for seven years and haven't made dramatic improvements in these mechanical weaknesses. Which leads to the question why not?
Either:
1) You haven't tried to - If so, why? Did you not identify it as something important that needs work, miss it entirely, or some other factor?
OR
2) You have tried to improve your mechanics/macro side, but haven't made much progress. If this is the case, then it's a question of why isn't your practice working and/or paying of in this area. This leads me to ask, if #2 is the option you feel best describes your BW mechanics history, what specifically have you done to improve your macro? What's been the method and practice plan for doing so?
|
Weird...
I'd say just make workers all the time and never stop until you watch your replays and you're making them continuously for like at least 12 minutes.
Also, I have no idea why you care if you win or lose. I've had fun losing games, I've hated the things I do when I've won as well. Like, "I feel like cheesing this guy now. Oh, good, I won. I suck so hard, that was not a fun game at all, what if I got 130 ladder points for it...".
I guess I am trying to say that I think the correct mindset for casual gamers is that it's not the destination but the journey towards it that should matter.
|
On May 10 2017 10:13 reps)squishy wrote:
Brood War is not an easy game.
It is easy to learn. Hard to master. So Brood War IS an easy game. Just look at the GethSC games on youtube. That is how we played and enjoyed SC when it first came out. We had no notion on how Korean progamers would one day play the game. We also lost a lot, but we had fun. We played with 4 people vs 2 AI's, but we would lose.
I dedicate lots of time and effort into it with little outcome.
Since SC is easy to learn, hard to master, it should be quite straightforward to make improvements. So if you really dedicate a lot of time to SC and you really see no improvement in your play at all, ie 'no outcome', you need to evaluate how you are playing and practicing. But I have a strong suspicion that your expected outcome is not 'improving'.
For seven years off and on my skill level has always been around D.
If you play on and off, then in terms of mechanics, you are going to be hitting a barrier. Which might be why at the level of strategic thinking and mindset why you cannot improve beyond D. All of us are going to have some upper limit given a certain amount of dedication. It is not completely impossible that for some that is D. That said, if you play a lot of games on motw only, are you really not able to get to D+? I mean, the iccup rank system doesn't grade your skill. It grades the points you scored. I don't want to do the math because I don't remember the numbers, but if you trade games infinitely among a pool of D players, on motw only, you will not stay at D. In fact, you can calculate the iccup rank where you will level out to. I may do the math later.
The real struggle is not having fun unless I win.
Then maybe competitive anything is not for you? You think Flash or Jaedong would be where they are not if they couldn't have fun while losing?
The main way to enjoy SC BW, or chess, or go, or any similar game, is enjoying yourself because you can see your improvement.
Now in SC2 they have a match making system where your match making results will begin to match you so that you will win about fifty percent of the time. Now if I am only happy while winning in SC2, I would be only happy around fifty percent of the time.
If you know that in SC2 you will win 50% no matter what you do, then why is winning so important to having fun? I mean, the design is made to give an illusion, I understand that. But once you see through the illusion Blizzard tries to create, the illusion no longer works. How can you enjoy the game through winning if winning 50% is a constant, ignoring stochastic effects?
But in broodwar there is not a match making system. Implying that anyone playing bw can stoop to win rates far from fifty percent. And that is my case, a win rate that is sub fifty. Loss after loss begins to be aggravating. The worst part is the rare win does not even feel that great, because I think to myself that they are new to the game and I stomped them. Why am I playing against D- players in the first place? Just to get a little taste of blood?
I do understand this. Obviously, matching opponents near in skill level will give better games. And that should lead to more enjoyment from the players (though losing long hard-fought games may induce more frustration that losing short games, in some people). And yes, BW has a problem here, because there is a huge spectrum of skill (which is why the game is so much fun to those that really enjoy it), a relatively low number of players (especially compared to SC2 at release), and a ranking system not based on skill level but on points scored. Many games are going to be one-sided. There are solutions to this. Like finding practice partners. There is no reason why you cannot ask your opponent to become your practice partner after having a close game. Ideally, try this when you lost.
I also get the effect of feeling like most people you beat you should have beaten automatically. And some you lose to you ought to win. So you get this skewed thing in your mind. And it becomes more pronounced when you return after not playing for a long time, and your mechanics are less than they used to be. That's just partly an illusion and overestimating yourself. And partly an inherent effect of being rusty.
Am I seeking some sort of power trip because of my own persistent losing? I want to know how it feels to win, but my wins come from players that have drastic differences in skill. And anyone that I think should be around my level beats me continuously.
This can either not be so, or it might be a result of the style of play you use?
This situation I am about to describe hurts me the most. I ask the opponent who has pretty single handedly defeated me what their iccup rank is and they turn out to be totally oblivious of what iccup is, and it just so happens they have only been playing broodwar for a week or two.
N=1, possibly dishonest opponent, plus you reading too much into what their proper answer according to you should be.
Oh, and if it happens to be true that you are a profound lack of talent for RTS, what would that mean to you?
Overall I want to be able to trade games vs people, but I feel everyone I play is beyond me or a simple walk in the park. I want to know how to enjoy the game even in the face of a devastating loss. Lastly to see or feel improvement instead of feeling like my effort is futile.
If you want to play a game where you can trade games continuously, maybe play dice games? I mean, if you wnat a game where anyone will be 50-50 vs anyone, that is the game for you.
If you want to only rarely lose vs an opponent that is clearly inferior, then SC BW may be the game for you. But that also means you will continuously lose vs an opponent clearly superior. And a small skill difference in SC BW already can give a big performance difference. This means you can also potentially close gaps quickly.
Also if there are any actual D rank players that would like to be a practice partner of mine please PM me. I am not looking for someone to play a game or two with, but a legitimate practice partner that is willing to play many games, watch our replays together and is serious about improvement.
That is the iffy thing with 'actual D rank players'. Most players who are going to perform at D rank if they play right now, have had far higher ranks in the past. And that you are going to notice while you play vs them.
I saw someone debating in the SC BW section, discussing SC:R and interface improvements. According to that person, you either knew how to play, or you didn't. That's just not how it works in SC (or in chess, or go, etc). But it might be how it works in many other competitive video games. The notion that not being a noob anymore gives you the ability to play the game roughly the same way as top players, that is false. And the falseness of it is the appeal of SC BW. And it also allows those who really like SC BW to enjoy the game, despite losing. And some of us, even despite losing AND not improving.
So for you specifically, if you do not like the game the way you play it now and ignoring the option to just 'not play' (games can be a huge time sink and with the same time&talent you can develop skills that enrich your life long term), you can consider doing more deliberate practice. Including against no computer at all, or against the more skilled AI's they have nowadays.
And then next option would be, playing against practice partners you can find. It will be easier to lose vs someone you know and respect vs losing to someone you falsely feel you ought to beat.
|
it's not really your opponent's obligation to tell you his/her rank, so you shouldn't be surprised when people flame you for asking. even if jaedong asks me "yo max?" after zvzing i'm still saying "it's my third game, i just came over from sc2 xD," it's just a respect thing. you're playing your opponent, you're not playing a number or a letter so treat them that way..
as far as having fun while losing, you should really ask yourself what you're playing starcraft for.. are you playing for a competitive outlet? to hang out with friends?? or to just have fun with strangers on the open ladder? yesterday i took a break from playing 1v1 on fish to play a 3v5 compstomp with randoms and i ended up getting backstabbed by a turtling protoss massing carriers that was upset about the recent korean elections, it was probably the most "fun" i have had with bw in years but it was in no way "competitive," it was just fucking hilarious
if you're going to find a practice partner like others in the thread are recommending, i highly suggest that you find a korean that is better than you to practice with, for a few reasons. my experience practicing with foreigners is that they don't actually want to practice, they just want to play games for an hour or 2 then talk about girls or weed or stupid shit lol. or they get mad and rage when they lose. koreans usually won't want to talk to you since they can't speak english and they won't rage since as you say they won't lose. however, that brings us back to your original problem of not enjoying losing. it's okay to hate losing, that's what will drive you in the hardest times to improve. however, it's wrong and irrational to be hard on yourself for losing games. EVERY game that you play, be it 1:1, 2:2, 3:3, 3:5컴퓨터 예쁜여자만와#w, of 4:4, they ALL help you improve mechanics. so even if you're on a losing streak, remember that you're kinda "earning experience" towards getting better mechanics just because you're subconsciously becoming a better player despite what you might think. And if you're not improving mechanically, you should sit down and think about what's holding you back. maybe you're really good at 3 hatch macro because you can hit 5sz6sz7sz quickly, but once you take additional bases you can't reliably input 5sz6sz7sz8sz9sz0so, which slows you down? then think about changing your control group setup to better suit your play style. This includes where your production facilities are centered around controlgroup and vision hotkey wise. DONT undervalue these skills, they're important. Also, i know i'm giving zerg examples but it works for every race.
Okay, so now you have a good practice partner, you're playing compstomps with korean girls, and you are improving all the while with your mechanics on a holistic level. Also you haven't switched to no limit hold 'em yet so that's a plus. next we need to work on your attitude as a competitive player, because that's another important aspect of improving. in my opinion, the most important part of starcraft is loving playing vs good players, win or lose. if you're D, you should want to play vs players that are substantially better than you. and if you get a chance to play vs flash, or more realistically Scan, then play vs them. it has become popular to say "you need to play vs people that are your level, otherwise you'll never improve!" i found this to be really unhelpful, because i was just trading 50:50 with people and it was really muddled when i was reviewing my mistakes because we were both floating money/making build order errors. then i started playing on fish where initially i was going like... 25:75 vs open ladder terrans when zvt is easily my strongest mu.. i quickly realized that i was having way more fun getting owned by koreans, and that they treat the game completely different compared to how foreigners look at it (for the most part). part of this was a sense of "wow, i can actually play and get owned playing real broodwar now," while another part of it was getting much clearer information about where my play sucked.
i distinctly remember during those first few weeks on fish that every terran would always do this stupid 3rax or 5rax push that just straight up owned me whenever i 3hatch mutad. the losses told me that my build was shit, or that i was executing it incorrectly, or that i just wasn't scouting/adjusting enough. low and behold, it was a combination of all 3: my mutas weren't coming out at 6:00, but at 6:30 or something like that, i wasn't cutting corners enough where i could to exploit their aggressive builds, and i wasn't properly scouting their aggression. Additionally, i had issues with the follow up and my whole game tree sucked basically lol. Point being, sometimes you need to compare yourself to good players by getting owned by them, and that's why you should always be happy when someone joins your game that is like 8000-500 on fish. when you get better, it becomes more important. some players become arrogant and more blind to their mistakes the higher level they get, and it hamstrings them from reaching their potential. so always play vs good people, but don't forget to give back to the noob peruvians by also playing with them! owning noobs is showing them the error of their ways, they should be thankful for playing with stronger players.you're privileged atm in that you don't have to seek out better players, since everyone is better than you, so every game is a learning experience.
Long story short, if you wanna have fun then have fun! go play 2:2 or 3:3 on fish, learn some korean and chat with people. if you wanna improve, then set your mind to improving. getting angry about losses won't make you a better player, so try to rationalize away the anger and just chill.
|
I once had the good fortune of talking to a former chess grand master, and he told me of his days teaching younger people chess.
He told me that one lesson he'd teach them was to forget about winning or losing altogether. That's just a 0 or a 1. Forget about the 0 or the 1. Instead, focus on playing your best right now in this moment, and having the most fun that you can in this moment (or this turn of the game, for chess).
Thing is, worrying about losing or winning takes part up part of your attention - which is attention that then doesn't go into what you're doing right now.
Personally, I like to connect this to a quote I found on the internet:
"Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is a mystery.
But today, is a gift.
That's why they call it the present"
Translating to StarCraft, what happened in the match 5 minutes ago is history, so fussing about it doesn't help. It doesn't help to go "oh I could've defended against that better, gahh I mis-macro'd and now I'm floating minerals". Instead, focus on what you can do to spend those excess minerals right now. And you don't know whether you'll win or lose yet, so putting part of your precious focus on winning or losing, is putting that focus to waste - because tomorrow/the future is a mystery.
Take your focus and attention away from having regrets about the past, away from worrying about the future, and put them back where they can make a difference to you: right here, right now.
And have fun! If you're having fun, you'll be more enthusiastic, more energetic, and you'll want to do things, and that excitement and energy can fuel your drive to play well, to learn, to improve.
If you're not having fun, if you find yourself getting tense, making serious-frowny faces - stop! Take a break, go for a walk, stretch, have a cookie, play with the dog - something that makes you happy and relaxed. If you can't do it while having fun, it's probably not worth your spare time . Either make it fun, or do something else for a while! Good luck!
|
You're not alone man
I never got past D+.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
