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Ok. Background story:
I've been an avid fan of SC for 8 months (or something like that). Up until recently I mostly just watched other people play for entertainment, but as my knowledge about the game increased dramatically I've decided to become an active player myself.
None of my friends are SC-fans, despite me raving and ranting about how great, deep and entertaining the game is. But last Sunday (after I had just finished talking about the MSL finals) a friend of mine said ''Ok, let's play a Bo5''. It made me really happy; I'm finally going to play SC with a friend (which will make practising a lot funnier than getting raped by some random dude on Iccup). He mentioned that he had played some Starcraft with another friend many years ago, but once he refered to Carriers as ''Those bananas that spew out a billion small things'' (or something similar), I realized practising with him would not improve me in any way what so ever (IMO it's basically neccesary to lose in order to learn). I would like to point out that I'm really bad myself. Due to inexperience my micro sucks, my macro sucks, my APM sucks, my timing sucks, my mechanics sucks. The only thing I'm remotely good at is knowledge of strategies and (mostly Terran) BO's and stuff (the type of things you can learn by simply watching others play).
We played a practise game later the same day. I'm Terran, he's Protoss. Since I didn't want to rape him too hard and therefore scare him off so that he would never play again I decided not to try very hard. It didn't matter. I absolutely raped him to death like Jaedong would rape me. I mean, he got a shuttle that he tried to attack me with (''It doesn't do anything!''). That's how bad he is.
So before we play our super epic Bo5 he needs a lot of practise to at least put up a fight. To motivate him and to spice things up I said ''You can have as much practise time as you want to, and I'll help you improve. We'll play all 5 games and I'll pay you 2,46 dollars for every game you win. If you win the majority of them (at least 3) I'll give you an additional 12,29 dollars.'' I will not lose a single dime of course, but it makes it a lot more interesting and hopefully it will motivate him to reach a level where he doesn't have 20 APM, attack me with empty shuttles and I won't have twice his population 5 minutes into the game.
So, on to the thing I wanna get some help with. He's probably gonna come over to my place tomorrow for a Starcraft Lesson. Since Starcraft is soooo deep, there is so much I want to bring up. What I want help with is; where should I begin? What should I teach him? How deep should I go? Gimme tips. I figure it would be good to start by teaching him really basic things such as his tech tree and the units he has to his disposal (he plays Protoss) as well as general stuff like always produce probes, don't save up minerals in the bank, etc. Agreed? If so, where do I go from there?
Also, I'm not a Protoss player myself. This makes it difficult when it comes to BO's. Could some Protoss player write down like a universal, super standard BO for Protoss and how to adapt that to what I (the Terran) am doing? Is 8 Pylon, 10 Gate, 12 Gas, 14 Core, 15 Pylon or something like that a good start, or am I way off? If it is, how do you go from there into different directions (IMO there are more or less three branches of BO's, they can be designed for three different initial directions; attack/rush (Proxy Gates, 3 Rax Sunken Break etc), economy (14 CC, 1 Fac Expo etc) and tech (DT rush, Cloaked Wraiths etc)).
Should I dive deeper into the vast ocean of SC knowledge? Should I introduce him to the concept of timing pushes and such things, or will they do him no good on the really low level on which we are? What (if any) VOD'S would you recomend I show him?
Any help about what/how to teach him to make him as good (mostly at PvT) as possible in a short period of time would be appreciated.
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Tell him to play through campaign and then after that start playing some casual games with you. He won't strive to become better until he enjoys the game. Starting off with straight up build orders is detrimental to the starcraft experience IMO.
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On March 25 2009 11:12 nevake wrote:
Tell him to play through campaign and then after that start playing some casual games with you. He won't strive to become better until he enjoys the game. Starting off with straight up build orders is detrimental to the starcraft experience IMO.
well said. he needs to dream about SC before he will improve. show him pro games of your favorite players to get him interested and also to see just how huge SC is in korea.
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^What he said.
My friend really got me into SC by showing me pro SC on youtube from VioleTAK.
Show him vids of pro SC with english commentary, otherwise he won't know whats going on.
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On March 25 2009 11:16 omninmo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2009 11:12 nevake wrote:
Tell him to play through campaign and then after that start playing some casual games with you. He won't strive to become better until he enjoys the game. Starting off with straight up build orders is detrimental to the starcraft experience IMO. well said. he needs to dream about SC before he will improve. show him pro games of your favorite players to get him interested and also to see just how huge SC is in korea.
The first thing I did was telling him to play through the campaign, but it seemed like he didn't want to do it that way. I got into SC by watching 1vs1, and that's also the way I started playing. The competitive aspect of the game was what attracted me so immensly to it. I never really enjoyed playing the campaign myself to be honest. I guess it's a good way to learn the basics, but I do not see it as essential. Thanks for the advice, though!
I have already shown him a couple of pro games earlier (I showed him and explained the brilliance in Leta vs Luxury on Destination (Leta's super build) for instance) and as I said, I rave and rant about SC and it's pro gaming scene quite often so he's very aware of how big it is in Korea. I have already gotten him interested, but how do I make him not suck extremely hard? Imagine this being a real school. I'm a teacher and he's a student in a classroom. What should be taught in the first lesson?
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He is protoss. He will win anyway. No need for training.
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Start him with something that's commentated... be it the GOM casts, or an SC2GG caster. That's a good way to get people started, because even less knowledgeable casters usually do a good job outlining the action that's going on.
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teach him hotkeys and build orders that can really help noobs the most
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the campaign and then vs computer(s) i guess to know what unit does what and the counters etc. just play vs comps for now so he gets the rhythm and basic units down like zlot goon, vult tank, ling hydra etc etc.
but if he tried to attack with a shuttle then he has a looooooong way to go.
get him to use hotkeys, i cannot stress this enough. newbs will ALWAYS try and get out of using hotkeys. once he starts using hotkeys his speed will pick up immensely.
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teach him how to deflect cheese while playing standard
then macro/micro
then tactics? idk...
.. find someone else to help your friend, it's much much funner to play sc with someone on your skill level, or slightly better.
getting face smashed won't help him <_<
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You're going to need a lot of patience, that's the only advice I can give. He won't understand the simple concepts that most of us who have been playing for years will have, even little things like spamming apm or why certain units work and some don't in different situations.
Teach him one BO and tell him to sit there playing against computer, spamming and making as many units as possible. Macro, macro, macro should be the main lesson, and his micro will develop in time.
Basic Protoss (versus Terran):
9 pylon
10 gate
11 assimilator
13 cyber
17 goon
range
goon
23 pylon
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On March 25 2009 11:52 Boblion wrote:
He is protoss. He will win anyway. No need for training.
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For a sec I thought this said [H] How to tea...bag
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As a relative newbie myself who has been trying to improve for some time now, I warmly recommend that you start with macromanagement. The biggest problem beginners (like me) have is that they leave their resources to pile up and thus end up lacking enough economy/tech/units to put up much of a fight. While it is good to have some sort of standard Build Order to follow, it is currently the most important that he spends his resources on something rather then nothing. In order to do that, he must learn to use hotkeys. For starters, concentrate on binding Control hotkeys and learning the default hotkeys of some of the basic units and structures (P for Probe/Pylon, Z for Zealot, G for Gateway etc.).
A good way to practise macromanagement is by making a multiplayer game with a computer, removing the computer just before the countdown ends and then pressing "Continue playing" when prompted. This allows the player to practice a build without the pressure of a regular game.
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Play single player with cheats. It's a pretty interesting way to learn all the units and the tech tree. You can let him explore the tech and do random stuff while you explain how each unit is used. I suggest you use protoss to mind control a zerg and terran computer so you can show all 3 races at once. Don't forget power overwhelming!
Don't go straight into timing attacks and build orders. If he doesn't know a shuttle can't attack he won't understand what timing attacks and the other stuff are. The first thing you need to learn in any real time strategy game is all the units and spells and their purposes. Of course, you also need motivation/interest. That can be achieved in many ways, campaign and progaming for instance.
After explaining units, explain the concepts of competitive SC, such as macro and micro, what to do im a standard game, etc.
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Well, if he's protoss, just show him some fpvods from battle.net attack or intothemsl. Seing a fpvod of nada had a really big impact on me when I was newbie and really motivated me to play harder and improve my actions and multitasking. That might apply for him aswell.
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The only way a true newbie can improve is by fostering a rivalry with another newbie. Both newbies will strive to be better than the other. This is the best motivation you can get out of starcraft at that level. Playing repeatedly against a computer or against nothing will feel pointless after a couple times. Losing against a vastly stronger player won't give him anything back for his efforts.
So teaching someone the ropes is more a problem of matchmaking than about what things you should teach him. It should become pretty obvious what kind of knowledge he is ready to absorb when you see him play. Learning unit counters and some basic macro is probably the most important things early. If he is even able to use hotkeys or vaguely follow build orders, he is not really a newbie.
At some point you must have been a newbie too. We all supress memories of those dark, horrible days. We were massing tier 1 units with 4 workers mining mouse only. And we were hoping that it would be enough to hold off those first twelve waves of attacks. And maybe, just maybe we would have time to get up 1 or 2 capital ships so we could win the game.
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A friend of mine who said he was ok at starcraft after I was ranting and raving about how great it was challenged me. He said he knew he wouldn't win because he hasn't played in a while but he thought he would put up a pretty decent fight...
The game was a TvZ me T him Z. I finished it in about 5 mins without losing a unit, not even my scout, with the first push from a 2 rax build lol.
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watch a ton of vods from gomtv and listen carefully to tasteless' commentating, i recommend the games from the star invitational and classic season 1
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teach him 2 gate. works every time.
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do what boxer did, make lots of zeolots and just play with friends around same skill level.
as long as he is having fun, he will get better at the game.
Fun = skill, maybe
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I havent read any of the replies in the thread, but I bet a bunch of them say that he needs to train his APM up real high, then start analysing replays, learning 1 map and 1 build order extremely well etc.
How to teach a noobie SC? Easy, have fun with him. Play fastest possible map, play BGH, play silly micro games. The most important thing to get when your first learning any RTS game is how everything fits together.
How do carriers attack?, what the hell does dark swarm do? how important is it to build drones?
Sure you can just give him the answers to these questions, but unless hes planning on studying starcraft, its just not going to be effective. And most of all, its not going to be fun.
This will deter your friend very very fast. So just play around. Get on bnet, team up and play 2v2 BGH. Let him build whatever the hell he wants, and you do your best to keep yourselves in the game. Play comp stomps together. Play micro games which show off the different ways you could use units in game.
You dont want to just create a drone that plays starcraft, you want to create a player who has an understanding of the game and enjoys playing it. Competative will come later, right now just focus on the fun.
EDIT: Just to make this long post longer
Dont let him lose too much. If you find hes losing a lot, play a comp stomp or a 2v2 in which you obliterate the newb opponents. Sure he might not do crap, but he will still see it as a win.
After he gets an understanding of the game, then let him watch you (You, Not an FPVOD) play a 1v1 game over your shoulder. Answer his questions, and provide a rolling commentary of your game as you go. This should interest him in working towards getting more competative.
To sum up everything ive said, just dont go too hardcore. Keep it light and fun until he wants to go hardcore.
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EPT
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