EPTI'm a bad SC2 player(played Brood War over the years since release, but I was just a kid and never played too much online) that become increasingly interested in Brood War and was wondering, at this point given how developed Brood War is, what is the best way to start learning and playing? Should I just hop on iCCup and get puliverised again and again until I get it? I play Terran if that matters. Thanks for any advice.
Best way to begin getting into Brood War?
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Requisition
United States97 Posts
I'm a bad SC2 player(played Brood War over the years since release, but I was just a kid and never played too much online) that become increasingly interested in Brood War and was wondering, at this point given how developed Brood War is, what is the best way to start learning and playing? Should I just hop on iCCup and get puliverised again and again until I get it? I play Terran if that matters. Thanks for any advice. | ||
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Sero
United States692 Posts
After you've picked out a build order and seen how to use it, try finding someone else who's new to practice with. There's usually a lot of people in channel "op teamliquid" - that could be a good place to start. | ||
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duncan.mc
United States231 Posts
And yes, once you're comfortable with your builds then ICCup is the best place to start. It will be difficult as hell just starting out. But once you start getting those wins it's soooo satisfying. Don't worry about losing, worry about improving. There are two channels in ICCup you should be hanging out in. Most importantly is: op teamliquid There's usually people hanging out there of all skill levels that are willing to play you and give help. Secondly is: op sGs Which is the newly created clan mentioned below. Lastly, if you want some BW friends to chat with you can also join the clan just recently created in these forums: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=195780 And our website: http://starcraftgenerations.webs.com/ We'll be glad to have you and help you out. | ||
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NicksonReyes
Philippines4431 Posts
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=80272 and practice your build orders against them. This is easier than practicing online and harder than Blizzard's AIs  .Btw, www.Broodwarai.com shut down? | ||
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Release
United States4397 Posts
Barracks expo/14CC vs zerg Barracks expo vs protoss barracks/gas vs terran. | ||
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infinity2k9
United Kingdom2397 Posts
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FyRe_DragOn
Canada2056 Posts
most important is to make friends w/ ppl around your level | ||
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qzmpwxno
Papua New Guinea152 Posts
Also don't memorize build orders, that's not the point. You should try to logically understand why you should be making a certain building or unit or researching a certain spell and the timings and stuff, instead of memorizing it like cramming for a final... Remember, as much skill as it takes to play a management/macro/crazy multitasking game (and how impressive), it's always rewarding to cheese or allin once in a while too | ||
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awu25
United States2003 Posts
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D4L[invd]
Canada110 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + but srsly... burn sc2 first, that will help u improve! | ||
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meegrean
Thailand7699 Posts
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numLoCK
Canada1416 Posts
And as fun as BW is, getting macro stomped by D level players over and over is not gonna get you into it. Find someone you have a chance against and have fun. I used to see a ton of players get turned of BW by the "do exactly what this build order says for 10 minutes straight over and over in single player, and then get crushed on iccup" mentality. Play around, have fun, and learn as you go. As someone else mentioned, if you can find an IRL friend that is even better. | ||
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Requisition
United States97 Posts
On April 30 2011 12:21 D4L[invd] wrote: Personally, I started off with UMS... that's where I figured I loved the game since it was so FUN!! and then I realized there was so much more like micro and macro, then I played with my friends alot... and became serious. but yeah, don't forget about the ums classics! lurker defense games ^^ + Show Spoiler + but srsly... burn sc2 first, that will help u improve! Thats basically what my Brood War playing turned into. I would go awhile without touching it and then binge on UMS games for a couple months straight. Rinse and repeat. =D EDIT: Anyone know if you can run Brood War in windowed mode while fullscreened? I tried the plugin with Chaos launched, but even the doubled size is too small for me. | ||
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By.Fantasy
Thailand123 Posts
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phosphorylation
United States2935 Posts
you will become inspired and even learn a thing or two | ||
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ninini
Sweden1204 Posts
I think the first priority would be to learn the shortkeys: b+b = barracks, v+f = factory, etc. Make sure you use proper finger placement too. For instance, when you build a Supply depot, you should have your thumb on B, your long finger on S and your little finger on SHIFT. Then you click B+S+SHIFT(hold), then you click on the minerals. That means, the SCV will return to the minerals when he have finished the building. After that, you should adopt a set of hotkeys: 1->0 and F-keys. Make sure you write down the setup and then practice it. A tip here is to focus on the early/mid game production and movement. IMO, for Terran and Protoss, hotkeys aren't important for late game production. Building placement and APM are a lot more important. In the early and midgame it's however very important that you're efficient, so try and hotkey as many production buildings as possible, and then use them for units or other stuff later on. To learn these things, I would recommend starting out with the Campaigns. Even if you have finished them a few times, practicing shortkeys and getting used to a hotkey setup is a lot more fun to do in the campaigns, and you don't feel that pressure to defend or finish off the opponent as fast as possible, so you'll get better quality practice. Don't worry about multi-tasking, focus on making the production as efficient as possible, focus on building placement, and then when you have a mid-sized balanced army, attack and don't worry about the production until all your units are dead. Since you're using smaller unit sizes, you'll also learn micro. So, macro, micro, macro, micro. Rinse and repeat. When playing the Standard Starcraft campaigns, I would recommend that you go mech in all matchups, because you'll not be able to get a good feel for mnm without the medics. Don't skip these campaigns entirely, because what I remember, the Terran BW campaign had quite a lot of non-macro maps, and a lack of TvZ and TvP, so you might get better quality training from the Standard Campaign. I remember there were a few really fun Dropship heavy TvT's in the BW Campaign though. If you haven't seen much pro BW, it might be a good idea to do that first, so you know the basic unit compositions. And when doing the campaigns, try to keep your upgrades at the same level as the opponent, or you might get a skewed idea on your units strength. When you are more comfortable with hotkeys and shortkeys, look at builds orders. But focus on the order first and don't worry about food, because at first you will not have fast enough hands to execute them at the right food count, but knowing the right order is great. Look at liquipedia for that. Here's my hotkey setup: F2 CC F3 CC F4 CC and for TvZ (Bio) 1 CC/Medics 2 CC/Marines 3 Scouting SCV/Marines 4 Marines 5 Medics/Factory 6 Barracks 7 Barracks/Dropships&Vessels 8 Barracks/Tanks 9 Scan 0 Scan The / represents transitions as the game goes on. This is pretty standard hotkeys, although most Terrans use 1-3 for marines, and the Vessels and Tanks at 4-5~, but I rarely A-move Tanks when going Bio, so I think it's more convenient to have it close to O, where I can siege up/down faster, and Vessels are more convenient at 7 for the same reason. Ironically, hotkeying Tanks is a lot more important when going Bio than when going Mech. That's because Mech is "larger" and more resilient and can handle Dark swarm better, plus with mines, a larger tank count, and since mech have higher HP, lurker busts (when they run up next to your units with their lurkers and burrow) is not as lethal as when you're going Bio. And against Protoss, there's no lurker-alike unit that you have to look out for. So, hotkeying those tanks is extremely important, or you will lose them. For TvP/T/(Z) (mech) 1 CC/Factory 2 CC/Factory 3 Scouting SCV/Factory 4 Factory 5 Factory 6 Barracks/Vultures 7 Dropships/Vessels 8 Tanks 9 Scan 0 Scan I put my first Factory at 5, and then just move downwards. If I go drop heavy, I can hotkey the first Starport too, on one of the Factory keys. It's not as crucial to hotkey tanks alone as when going bio, but I use it at 8, for early pushes, where I would want 5 factories hotkeyed. Later on you can use a handful of hotkeys and then just assign whatever you can find and A-move. That's what most pros do. I think 4-8 is standard for Factories, and 1-3 for units, but I use this setup because I find it more convenient. | ||
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Requisition
United States97 Posts
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maybenexttime
Poland5546 Posts
http://www.youtube.com/user/nevake http://sc.plu.cn/vod/ ;] | ||
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Gann1
United States1575 Posts
On April 30 2011 12:02 Release wrote: The first thing you want to learn are the basic openings. Barracks expo/14CC vs zerg Barracks expo vs protoss barracks/gas vs terran. I wouldn't recommend 1 rax cc against protoss to a beginner. I'd recommend FD instead | ||
FlaShFTW
United States10151 Posts
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Magus
Canada450 Posts
On April 30 2011 22:27 ninini wrote: Most of the Iccup D- players would beat 2 complete newbies at a 1v2. I won a 1v5 semi-complete newbies at the same time at D-... /brag.  Okay but to prevent this from being a useless post, definitely go learn the units, learn some builds, and find some people to play against who don't make you want to ragequit life. | ||
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intotheheart
Canada33091 Posts
If it's been said before, I'm really sorry, haha. Just bear that in mind. | ||
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Armathai
1023 Posts
Since you mentioned you liked UMS maps and had played them before, there are quite a few micro/macro training maps out there that will help you improve, although nothing replaces playing against real opponents. https://rapidshare.com/files/459991897/training-terran.scx <- Micro Training Map (mixed tvz,tvp) https://rapidshare.com/files/459991918/tvsp.scx <-Macro Training Map (TvP) (sorry for rapidshare, megaupload not working at university >_<) | ||
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Djagulingu
Germany3605 Posts
2- Read Ver's how to improve guide, which is this. 3- Do what he says. EDIT: And you even play Terran. You need this guide, only this guide and nothing but this guide. | ||
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Muff2n
United Kingdom250 Posts
Practice the minimum number of maps. How you layout your base is important and you need to be familiar with your base layouts. If you are set on playing terran, I suggest you scout well after starting your rax and then with a 2nd scout if on a 4p map and he isnt at the 1st place. I would also always start your rax on 10. This is a small economic consession, but rine micro is HARD. As you get more confident holding off cheese rushes you can then move back the scouting and place the rax on 11. Example builds I would suggest: TvP siege expand with enough rines that you dont need to wall (so keep making rines till you notice he hasnt 2 gated or something). I wasted time learning to wall as a novice and I wish I had just learned how to macro better instead of losing billions of games cos my wall was not zeal proof etc. But then again my brain is retarded at stuff like that and you might not have my problems! TvZ 2 rax expand then later 1 rax expand when you get better. Bio is hard but I think you have to start learning it. TvT 1 fact expand into 5 facts (academy and armoury at appropriate timings of course) Dont mess about with drops or anything till you can macro well enough. GL hf oh and if you can constantly produce workers, that is the key. Its surprising the number of people who can't do that even at higher levels. | ||
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evilfatsh1t
Australia8641 Posts
its pretty hard for a noob but knowing builds is a must if you want to improve 2. practice against computers get your mechanics up to scratch...test out your hotkeys etc and get used to the game 3. find custom ai get better ai versions where they start off with more money or something or they use similar builds to pros. helps you improve macro and game sense a LOT 4. find a friend who you can play against a lot and you have a chance of winning. its better if hes better than you...since he can teach you along the way etc 5. iccup the worst place to go to to improve if youre a noob. i suggest only using iccup to improve once you have all the fundamentals down and just need to improve decision making/apm | ||
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ninini
Sweden1204 Posts
On May 01 2011 07:25 Muff2n wrote: TvZ 2 rax expand then later 1 rax expand when you get better. Bio is hard but I think you have to start learning it. I would not recommend 2 rax expand. It's a terrible build that won't help you against pool first pressure, and will only help slightly against mass speedlings, which is easy to defend with 1 rax expand anyway. All you need is a scv at their natural, to scout for aggression, and then you just have to act accordingly. The key to defending against zerglings is not marine count, but rather to keep your marines alive. Against pool first builds, SCV's and sim city are your friend. 4 marines will lose to 6 lings if you don't control them, but 1 marine can also survive 6 lings if you back him up. 2 rax expand is also terrible against 3 hatch muta, which is the most common build in ZvT. The only reason why anyone would want to do 2 rax expand is if they want to put on early pressure themselves, but this won't work if you're a beginner, since it will be very hard not to suicide your marines, and even if you do some good damage, you wouldn't know how to transition into midgame. It might be a fun aggressive build to do if you're two noobs playing eachother, but for learning purposes it's a bad idea. | ||
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Rodiel3
France1158 Posts
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quirinus
Croatia2489 Posts
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=190074 Or use the search function to find similar blogs/threads, because there's plenty of them. | ||
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_Quasar_
Russian Federation4405 Posts
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Skew
United States1019 Posts
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XenOsky
Chile2268 Posts
1 month after Download a rep pack or fre reps of FlaSh TvZ, watch his build order, then his trends, then work your assoff to improve your macro 1 month after that Download a rep pack or few reps of FlaSh TvT, watch his build order, then his trends, then work your ass off to improve your macro... 1 month after that you are a C- player + Show Spoiler + meanwhile, you are making friends and all the good stuff edit: not Necessarily you have to do it by periods of months, it can be a week or even a day of pure TvP, or TvZ training ... the point that im trying to make here is consistent and organized training... | ||
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Requisition
United States97 Posts
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maybenexttime
Poland5546 Posts
You bind locations on the map that way (e.g. your production structures and enemy's natural when you're containing him). You can use F keys to change rally points easily like this: | ||
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Taekwon
United States8155 Posts
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synapse
China13814 Posts
That's how my BW days went | ||
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phosphorylation
United States2935 Posts
bw, as great as it is, is still a game so you should try to have fun while learning it and not make it a chore whether that means to play silly UMS games, silly 1v5 games against noobs, whatever | ||
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Kznn
Brazil9072 Posts
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Requisition
United States97 Posts
On May 02 2011 07:24 maybenexttime wrote: It's shift+F2/3/4. You probably used crtl+F2/3/4. You bind locations on the map that way (e.g. your production structures and enemy's natural when you're containing him). You can use F keys to change rally points easily like this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e18ancDxBUE Haha, you are exactly right, thank you! On May 02 2011 07:32 Kznn wrote: I guess picking a favorite player is a very good thing to do. Just follow him, try to copy his style, his build orders, etc. Go online, play some games on iccup and get used to lose a lot. But the most important thing is to get friends to play with you. This game is so much more amazing when you are competing with friends. Have fun, this game is amazing I like Flash, but it somehow feels lame to be a fan of the top dog. | ||
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d_so
Korea (South)3262 Posts
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disqMt
4 Posts
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infinity2k9
United Kingdom2397 Posts
If you're totally new though i suggest playing through the SP, and playing some games against CPU on iccup maps to get used to the game first. With no matchmaking most people on the ladder are going to be decent at the game and looking to win so it won't be much fun starting out unless you play the game quite a bit first. | ||
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Xenocide_Knight
Korea (South)2625 Posts
A lot of people say that it will give you bad habits but it's tons of fun and will get you aquainted with all of the units/races. Unless you've already done that in which case just watch progames and find friends to play with. Op Teamliquid usually has a some people chillin in it. (most are afk though). On May 02 2011 09:01 disqMt wrote: Hey can anyone help me out? I just got Starcraft BW, and i am having a hard time figuring out how to 1v1. All i see is custom games. How do i ladder? If you are talking about iCCup, you want to go under the "one vs one" tab or the "top vs bottom" tabs. Those are the ranked games. | ||
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infinity2k9
United Kingdom2397 Posts
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MageKirby
United States535 Posts
Also, when any of my friends wanna start StarCraft, I always start them off with protoss, even if they want to learn zerg or terran. Protoss is easier to handle from start due to it's less micro intensive and more durable units, and by slowly learning ProtossvsDesiredRace, you learn some in's and out's of the game. After you are somewhat comfortable with the game, then you can move to the race you want. | ||
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funnybananaman
United States830 Posts
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kainzero
United States5211 Posts
also if you can, watch proleague streams with chat, you learn a bit since it's more like live commentary and most people are pretty educated when they watch. most people. | ||
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_Quasar_
Russian Federation4405 Posts
- Podolsk server. It's a russian server that's joked about in russian community (like, if u play bad, they call you "podolsk noob" XDDDD ). That's an exaggeration, but yeah, there's much lower level than on Iccup. You can get your first 1v1 win there - Garena. Need to install garena launcher, then enter garena system, choose the room, run the game and play in the menu option of "UDP game" (as Garena emulates LAN). Probably the place with the lowest skill of players, not all have even 1.16.1 version... so there're probably many people like you, who just started SC or play veeery casually. If you want to have fun with just your present level, you can go there | ||
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Requisition
United States97 Posts
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kainzero
United States5211 Posts
i quit because i went 11-42 on iccup 2 years ago, and i think all my wins were against D- players or TvTs. also i think my TvZ record was like 1-18, with my lone win coming off a guy who did 1 hatch lurkers. i really would love a place where i can relax and play BW without having to practice build orders and building placement for weeks, just to eke out a win. then i can finally kiss SC2 goodbye. | ||
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BYAHH
United States20 Posts
But getting good at bw? It takes a lot of deep thought and understanding. Once you have a build order figured out and everything and you think you know a lot from all the pro VODs you have watched, don't ever forget to watch your own replays - especially the games you lost. Sometimes why you lost may be very apparant (i.e. vs some sort of cheese you didn't scout) but it's still important to confirm why you lost and reflect on what you should have done, given the limited information you had. You should also make sure you understand what your goal is whenever you play. When you learn a BO, usually there's some sort of goal behind it - whether it is to set you up for a big late game or some sort of timing push. I think Ver may have mentioned this in his guide to get better, but you should watch pro vods and stop the video at crucial moments and guess what the player is going to do. Then you unpause and see if he did what you thought he'd do, and then think about why. Making the correct decisions is make or break when you're trying to win games on iccup. | ||
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Coraz
United States252 Posts
On May 01 2011 03:29 maybenexttime wrote: http://www.teamliquid.net/vods/ http://www.youtube.com/user/nevake http://sc.plu.cn/vod/ ;] Hi!!! How do I navigate the chinese site? when I click on a VOD i get a black flash applet and nothing loads. Do I need an account to view vods? | ||
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.AK
United States561 Posts
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knyttym
United States5797 Posts
Learning terran is like smashing your head against a brick wall in hopes that the wall will crumble. About a month in your head will harden ever so slightly. A year in, you develop a helmet. But the pain.... the pain is always present. *Flashback to all those DT drops* Seriously though, build refinement is absolutely key. Executing a simple build order is going to be harder then you first anticipate. Terran at low ranks is all about defending the gimmick whether it be bulldog, DT drop, or 2 hatch lurkers. | ||
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Sawamura
Malaysia7602 Posts
On May 01 2011 05:32 IntoTheheart wrote: I'm not sure if anyone else's said this,but units are really really REALLY stupid in BW. In SC2 they're not as bad so they'll move wherever you need them to without extra clicks, but BW units don't have this intelligence. Also, tanks/lurkers/units in general won't have the smart-fire which means that they'll focus-fire everything. If it's been said before, I'm really sorry, haha. Just bear that in mind. The thing is with sc2 players they want everything to be automated in terms of micro and macro that they only want to make decision how damn boring if i can't control my unit and my units will just micro themselves out of battle and not user dependent probably for you guys they are smart and because of that the players get lazy he doesn't watch his unit properly he just 1a2a and gg compared to broodwar you have to babysit unit and macro at the same time . . Bw is much more lively compared to boring sc2 unit which has no live or any interesting skill. Seriously that is my opinion with units so bland every time i watch a sc2 game i fall asleep. | ||
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buhhy
United States1113 Posts
On May 03 2011 13:44 Coraz wrote: Hi!!! How do I navigate the chinese site? when I click on a VOD i get a black flash applet and nothing loads. Do I need an account to view vods? You don't need an account. It should load though, is noscript blocking the flash player or something? | ||
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Requisition
United States97 Posts
On May 03 2011 14:04 kNyTTyM wrote: Do you want to play casually and win some of the time? Choose protoss Learning terran is like smashing your head against a brick wall in hopes that the wall will crumble. About a month in your head will harden ever so slightly. A year in, you develop a helmet. But the pain.... the pain is always present. *Flashback to all those DT drops* Seriously though, build refinement is absolutely key. Executing a simple build order is going to be harder then you first anticipate. Terran at low ranks is all about defending the gimmick whether it be bulldog, DT drop, or 2 hatch lurkers. Any gimmicks to fear from my fellow Terrans? | ||
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aimaimaim
Philippines2167 Posts
Thats the 1st time I became addicted to BW and stopped following Dota and WC3. :D | ||
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Requisition
United States97 Posts
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Snipinpanda
United States1227 Posts
On May 07 2011 08:33 Requisition wrote: aimaimaim, do you have any recommendations of progames that helped you get into BW? http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=190074 are all very good games. If you want want english commentated games, there should be vods on the gomtv site of gom classic? Also I believe nukethestars on youtube does them,or if back in 2007-08 there were also a bunch. | ||
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Stratoss
Czech Republic129 Posts
Bisu vs. sAviOr MSL Finals - I believe it's the reason why Bisu is called The Revolutionist (or one of them?). Day[9] and NonY commentating. Actually I only now noticed it's Day[9] there, it was the first game of BW I ever watched before I even knew Day[9] or TL. Spoiler alert: You'll know the results of the games before they even begin. | ||
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Nazza
Australia1654 Posts
On May 04 2011 06:26 Requisition wrote: Any gimmicks to fear from my fellow Terrans? http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Barracks_Barracks_Supply_(vs._Protoss) http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/JoyO_Rush | ||
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buhhy
United States1113 Posts
On May 07 2011 16:13 Nazza wrote: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Barracks_Barracks_Supply_(vs._Protoss) http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/JoyO_Rush BBS and wraith builds mainly, maybe 14 CC, but it's not that bad. Terran cheese kinda sucks.... | ||
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ninini
Sweden1204 Posts
On May 04 2011 06:26 Requisition wrote: Any gimmicks to fear from my fellow Terrans? In TvT it's proxy 1-2 rax and 2 port wraith you need to look out for. 2 Fact can also be tough to deal with, but with a good early game macro you should be able to deal with it. I think it's worth it to delay your CC to get 3-4 early marines. It helps protect against 2 fac, but proxy rax especially. | ||
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Requisition
United States97 Posts
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