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On July 13 2018 02:45 WGT-Baal wrote:
@aweb: you make really good points.
I believe for newer players who havent played iccup much, the actual ranking (MMR) value is very important for motivation and i also have some friends who tried and were obsessed with trying "not to lose points" after starting at 1500. So if you start at 0 then obviously you dont have this problem. But then the problem is if you do that, you will forever be on the region where people start their new account and it will actually make it way harder to ever improve as opposed to hovering around, say, 1200MMR.
The new league system will hopefully fix this by introducing ranks so that 1000-1550 is D (for example, the numbers dont matter) and then people will focus on the letter (D/silver, w/e you want to call it) and not the difference between 1450 and 1448 (if that makes sense).
All the past ladders such as WGT, PGT and iccup used that rank system rather than the MMR/points. Sure the points were there but nobody would use that to give their rank and it worked pretty well.
@op: sadly the player population is fairly small so the steps can feel higher but dont despair! I m sure you ve improved more than you think in little ways. Sometimes it s just a little thing holding you back and when it clicks it feels great. I sucked at pvt for 15years, always being below 25% and 2yrs ago for some reason i finally started getting better, there is no single root cause: slightly better macro probably, better army (goon) control, faster expo (less afraid of vults) etc... They all pile up and you need to fix one at a time. Good luck!
Edit: typo because i cant write properly on my phone TT
Like you could type properly ever 
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A bit late to the party, but in his own words Stork won a championship under 200 APM. While he is a Protoss so comparatively fewer APM is needed, it does show that knowing where to spend APM is far more important than having more APM.
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On July 13 2018 04:36 FFW_Rude wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2018 02:45 WGT-Baal wrote:
@aweb: you make really good points.
I believe for newer players who havent played iccup much, the actual ranking (MMR) value is very important for motivation and i also have some friends who tried and were obsessed with trying "not to lose points" after starting at 1500. So if you start at 0 then obviously you dont have this problem. But then the problem is if you do that, you will forever be on the region where people start their new account and it will actually make it way harder to ever improve as opposed to hovering around, say, 1200MMR.
The new league system will hopefully fix this by introducing ranks so that 1000-1550 is D (for example, the numbers dont matter) and then people will focus on the letter (D/silver, w/e you want to call it) and not the difference between 1450 and 1448 (if that makes sense).
All the past ladders such as WGT, PGT and iccup used that rank system rather than the MMR/points. Sure the points were there but nobody would use that to give their rank and it worked pretty well.
@op: sadly the player population is fairly small so the steps can feel higher but dont despair! I m sure you ve improved more than you think in little ways. Sometimes it s just a little thing holding you back and when it clicks it feels great. I sucked at pvt for 15years, always being below 25% and 2yrs ago for some reason i finally started getting better, there is no single root cause: slightly better macro probably, better army (goon) control, faster expo (less afraid of vults) etc... They all pile up and you need to fix one at a time. Good luck!
Edit: typo because i cant write properly on my phone TT Like you could type properly ever
Rotfl. Fair point. But in the old PL LR threads I was too excited about CJ or too sad about players (hydra...) doing ridiculous things to type properly
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On July 12 2018 21:55 QuadroX wrote:
I know it's probably just another "MMR is broken" post. Let's hope things will improve with rankings, but here's a couple of words from a completely new player.
As an example in Warcraft 3 you have a decent level system. First you go up to like level 25-30 then stay there for a while until you learn how to play properly then eventually go up to levels 35-40 which meant you're pretty good.
In SC2 there's was decent ranking system as well. You play constantly and you see how you go up the ladder, eventually you get transferred from bronze to silver then to gold then to plat etc.
Overall you play and you see the results. Like before I was lvl 20 in WC3 or in bronze SC2 and now after a year I'm in plat or diamond, or have 40 lvl battle.net. That boosts your confidence and you see that you are actually making some progress, you improve.
I feel like SC:R battle.net does not have this at all. I started playing a year ago (never played BW before). I play almost every day and my MMR stays the same all the time. When I just started it was around 1100-1500 going up and down like crazy. Having over 1000 games played it's still the same. MMR goes around the same range, never goes higher than 1500. Most of the time around 1250-1400 range. I face the same opponents. I win the same people and lose to the same guys. It's like there's a wall you hit every time you go closer to 1500. Something happens around this MMR (maybe smurfs of pros) and you drop down with like 15-20 loses in a row sometimes.
I feel that (subjectively) no matter how long you play you just stay exactly where you were all the time. I don't see any results or any progress. It's hard to say even by past replays whether I played worse or not. I wonder if it's possible to improve eventually over the years without devoting to the game 8-10 hrs a day like Koreans do. It's very frustrating..
I completely understand your point. And I think you are getting fed information that is irrelevant and/or nothing to do with what you're asking. I along with many others are facing similar situations as you and the answer is simple. It really comes down to 2 points of interest, 1 of which KogeT hit on the head (kudos to KogeT).
Point 1: As KogeT mentioned, there are constantly new names and smurfs being created. So it doesn't matter what your MMR is. Depending on the location and time you play, you may very well end up playing 2K++ MMR people on smurf on new name over and over (until they achieve too many points to match with you anymore). The solution to this is simple...people should only be allowed to have one name for laddering. People will start bitching and whining about "what if I need to practice blah blah blah"....then just play a melee game. Host a "1v1 zerg only" or something. You don't NEED to ladder. Laddering is about finding good 1;1 games and trying to see your rank and how far up the totem pole you can move. Me for example, I've gotten slammed by Nyoken about 8 times in 30 games under various accounts of his. That should literally never happen. I should never even be considered in the same stratosphere. So this is point 1 about why it happens. Whoever is powerbombing you over and over is just some really good player who made a new name for any number of reasons.
Point 2: The second point is about Blizzard itself. They fucked up the ladder system big time. People are gonna cry and bitch and moan here too but basically I don't care. I use myself an example. When the ladder system was still fresh, I was playing ALL kinds of people from all over the world. This was awesome. I got to play people of all different skill levels. I was playing mostly competative games with a few lopsided ones. Now, with whatever "fix" (fix my ass) blizzard did, it takes forever to match me. And when I do, I play the same 10 people over and over. I either stomp them or they stomp me. It is not enjoyable and I hover around the same MMR...moving up and down quickly, for no reason. The solution to this is simple; go back to how it was or improve it to be similar to how it was, minus the lag.
So this is basically the correct answer. You can ignore everything else in the thread. I just saved you 2 hours of your time.
You're welcome.
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On July 13 2018 04:37 RWLabs wrote:
A bit late to the party, but in his own words Stork won a championship under 200 APM. While he is a Protoss so comparatively fewer APM is needed, it does show that knowing where to spend APM is far more important than having more APM.
Good post.
It's fairly simple actually.
Spammed APM is 100% useless. Effective APM can be very useful/important.
If your opponent makes smarter moves than you, your APM won't help you much (unless he's really slow as F).
If you're both equally smart/experienced, the one with more APM is very likely to win. + Show Spoiler +Unless he's Protoss and you're Terran, then you'll need more APM anyway :p
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Point 2: The second point is about Blizzard itself. They fucked up the ladder system big time. People are gonna cry and bitch and moan here too but basically I don't care. I use myself an example. When the ladder system was still fresh, I was playing ALL kinds of people from all over the world. This was awesome. I got to play people of all different skill levels. I was playing mostly competative games with a few lopsided ones. Now, with whatever "fix" (fix my ass) blizzard did, it takes forever to match me. And when I do, I play the same 10 people over and over. I either stomp them or they stomp me. It is not enjoyable and I hover around the same MMR...moving up and down quickly, for no reason. The solution to this is simple; go back to how it was or improve it to be similar to how it was, minus the lag.
Yeah, agreed. They said they did it to control lag, but if they had designed it properly, I would still be playing as many people as before. I didnt lag against anyone, european, korean, south american. I mean the tr changed but I got tr8-10 maybe 3 times, ever. Playing the same guy again and again is hugely demotivating.
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Im pretty sure Flash would win even with 100apm vs 99% foreigners. Becouse he know, what he should click.
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As you mentioned, BW is just sooo much more difficult then any other RTS game to improve on. But as someone said, there is nothing more reward when u do improve on it, for me personally it took me years to get anywhere close to where i wanted to be skill wise. And that took hours of playing, and back then we didn't have any vods or anything like that. So i still think Replays is the best way to go, and dont rush thru the replay.. Play it at slow speed so you can see how ur opponent reacts to you moves, and see what you could have done different and how you could have fooled him somehow. 1 year is baby years in BW to be honest, and that is why this game has survived this long i imagine, because when u actually get close to the skill level you want to be.. No better feeling actually! So just keep grinding, even if u get a player that is much better then you, watch and study the replay! And try to learn different build orders, that will help you big time!
Good luck, and you need a thick head to survive brood war
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France1919 Posts
@OP
SoonTM we will have a brand new ranking system, with letters and most likely tiers, so the feeling of progression should be much better than it is now.
Just hang in there! you should be proud of having put that much effort in the hardest game.
As for judging your progress a decent way to do it is to check your population in relation to the in-game clock.
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refine your builds, have clear goal, and never stop producing shit...
focus on these 3 and you will improve drastically.
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On July 12 2018 22:22 LG)Sabbath wrote:
Nah it just takes time, way more time than you think to level up. Learning has diminishing returns, it is not as easy to go from 1000 to 1500 as it is to go from 1500 to 1800. And going from 2000 to 2500 is extremely hard, I know talented players who can't do it.
I assure you there are no pros below 2000 mmr, in fact 1600-1800 players are generally mediocre, and in the KSL stream the pros played 2200 mmr players and completely destroyed them as well, like the games were hilariously one-sided.
Keep practising, be more systemathic about your learning, write down what you want to focus on next, which BOs, and so on.
Here are some mistakes I still make as a 1900 player that leave a lot to improve, for example:
- I don't know some BOs very well
- Some kinds of rushes still work against some of my BOs, they are not fine tuned
- I get supply blocked when approaching 200/200 sometimes
- My handling of large armies is sub-par
- My APM goes way down in late game
There's always room to improve...
man, the skills of progamers are so under rated by the casual viewer just because people have no idea what they're seeing in a first person vod or a replay. Once you realize everything that's going on in a progamer's game you understand it's WAY harder than you imagined.
Like, to constantly create workers from all your expansions without queuing, upgrading to +2 as soon as +1 is done, monitoring the mini map, keeping ahead of supply, controlling your army, casting your spell, AND on top of it you constantly have to adjust your strategy based on what the opponent is doing and be ABOVE 300 APM just to stay alive.
I can do 1, maybe 2 of those things, but not ALL of them. The more you know how progamers play, the more you realize how hard it really is.
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On July 13 2018 04:56 Ty2 wrote:
Wow, surprised to see this thread only 6 hours old, yet already having 2 and a half pages of comments.
=/
+ Show Spoiler +ty2: let me add +1 post to let you know your thread is popular.
1 year is a very short amount of time to learn anything. Continue to focus on the basic mechanics of the game, and your APM will gradually climb. Using hotkeys is the only way to increase APM.
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You gotta do focused training/improvement. Focus on improving 1-2 things at a time, while doing a solid build that's not too fragile. If you just spam games mindlessly, you won't be able to improve much. It also helps if a good player gives you a blueprint for playing a match, and some tips where to improve, after watching a few of your replays or obsing you.
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I'll chime in with everyone from FBW about to collective sigh because it's "Schamtoo ranting about ladder again."
I think the few points hit are excellent, and I agree with EvilEye a ton. I think the worst of it, is most times I complain as a person who's been playing for a year plus (which doesn't mean a ton, I know) is that the people who bark down at me are the ones not at my skill level.
Smurfing/new accounts are probably the biggest problem. This creates a weird problem laddering, I've run into people who literally have never played the game before,and then people who made a new 1500 account to get some queues. While, both are good for practice, for laddering, which is _literally to prove a ranking_ it's maddening. Some of my points won feel like I don't deserve them because I gained 15 from some person who had 30 apm. The other feel like it's unfair to lose because I'm literally being matched against someone who's 2k+. I guarantee at least 25% of my matches are like this.
To further new account problems, there's no weighted average of games to rank. So a new player with 0 games can take 30 points off of me at 1600, even though I have 500 games proving I'm 1600. This knocks me down to 1570. In SC2, a weighted avg is applied (iirc) so it generally keeps you at a stabilized MMR until you have some truly breakthrough performance. I have a 50-50 winrate but my MMR changes WILDLY all the time when I ladder, that makes ZERO sense.
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On July 12 2018 21:55 QuadroX wrote:
I feel that (subjectively) no matter how long you play you just stay exactly where you were all the time. I don't see any results or any progress. It's hard to say even by past replays whether I played worse or not. I wonder if it's possible to improve eventually over the years without devoting to the game 8-10 hrs a day like Koreans do. It's very frustrating..
Here are some resources that may be interesting to you.
 How to practice
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/stet_tcl/How_to_Improve_by_Ver.pdf
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/bw-strategy/78677-the-difference-between-koreans-and-foreigners
What are your goals in starcraft? I think the easiest race to play at low to intermediate levels is protoss, but you can play whatever you enjoy the most.
You can ignore most of the the discussion on APM. I don't really play anymore but I'm a 2000+ protoss player with ~150 APM.
edit: Let me tell you one thing though, I KNOW your macro is crap. If you simply consistently build workers, don't get supply blocked, spend your money, and follow a half-way decent build order you WILL be able to get WELL past 1500 MMR. Don't get caught up in spending too much effort over microing units if it means your money piles up.
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edit: Let me tell you one thing though, I KNOW your macro is crap. If you simply consistently build workers, don't get supply blocked, spend your money, and follow a half-way decent build order you WILL be able to get WELL past 1500 MMR. Don't get caught up in spending too much effort over microing units if it means your money piles up. Disagree with the bold strongly:
-Players should do what they find fun, thats the best way to improve, as its a game afterall. improvement shouldnt come at the expense of fun
-pushing your micro to the limits while trying to spend your money is an impossible task for a beginner, but is the process by which you work on multitasking. Your never going to be able to micro and macro unless you first fail a thousand times trying.
Worst trap to fall into for a new player: I wont try x because i cant do it. Exactly wrong.
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On July 13 2018 10:05 Dazed. wrote:Show nested quote +edit: Let me tell you one thing though, I KNOW your macro is crap. If you simply consistently build workers, don't get supply blocked, spend your money, and follow a half-way decent build order you WILL be able to get WELL past 1500 MMR. Don't get caught up in spending too much effort over microing units if it means your money piles up. Disagree with the bold strongly: -Players should do what they find fun, thats the best way to improve, as its a game afterall. improvement shouldnt come at the expense of fun -pushing your micro to the limits while trying to spend your money is an impossible task for a beginner, but is the process by which you work on multitasking. Your never going to be able to micro and macro unless you first fail a thousand times trying. Worst trap to fall into for a new player: I wont try x because i cant do it. Exactly wrong.
My point is that micro tends to have diminishing returns, ie: the first 20% of effort accomplishes 80% of the desired effect. Getting your army into the correct general position and then letting a few "a-clicks" take the wheel while you go back for a round of macro and build a new nexus or add on a few gateways is usually the correct decision (especially the building of more units part).
I feel that a lot of new players get caught up watching their army do battle. Meanwhile, they are building up a bank, and even if you slightly out-micro your opponent, if they have 10 more units on the way and you don't, you'll still lose.
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On July 13 2018 01:54 rel wrote:
BlueStar saying FiShEyE having 150 apm, like it has relevance with how the game is today lol.
Lol exactly.
The overall level of play is always improving.
So it could be that OP is improving but also the people he plays at 1500 are also improving at the same rate so it is hard to see progress.
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You will need to continue practicing and grinding out games, rework your practice regimen, and you will notice a drastic change and improvements.
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EPT
