Tournament for low league players (like really low, F-E) would really help.
Ladder numbers are too low so it's really hard to find matches that are somewhat even. Structures tournament can help there and are way more fun to play than ladder.
Additional content to learn the game is not really necessary imo. There is already a lot and having competitive options where you are not crushed by players with 150 apm more than you is more important.
On September 11 2018 05:47 leublix wrote: Tournament for low league players (like really low, F-E) would really help.
Ladder numbers are too low so it's really hard to find matches that are somewhat even. Structures tournament can help there and are way more fun to play than ladder.
Additional content to learn the game is not really necessary imo. There is already a lot and having competitive options where you are not crushed by players with 150 apm more than you is more important.
This would be cool tbh. I would join the league. Only reason i hardly play now is because of the huge skill gap between players. It always feels like I'm a CPU in comparison to other players and learning is actually quite difficult when you get hulk smashed with ease in the first 5 mins.
On September 10 2018 15:44 bovienchien wrote: I have been playing Starcraft so much. Last season, I played more than 2000 games. My max mmr was 1650.
I often get F, D, C rank. I don't know difference between F rank and C rank. They have high apm, most people who play with me, have than 200 apm.
F, D, C rank are the same: apm, strategy, micro, marco, cheese, knowledge about Starcraft.
I also don't know why I won, I lost a lot of games. Yesterday, it was my first time, I reached B rank and immediately I lost 5 games stretch.
Finally, I think ladder games, it isn't for people who play Starcraft less than 6 months seriously. Blizzard should open option to players who choose their level. They can't play a game, when they lose very easily in 10 games stretch. Actually, I have 1500 mmr, it's a success.
I have played Starcraft for 15 years. My level likes a newbie.
Ouch... I know the feels lol. Basically sums me up. There is hardly any skill gap in the tiers cause they all feel indistinguishable in terms of skill. Everyone is so damn good now that even the "noobs" destroy me with ease lol.
On September 09 2018 20:32 nanaoei wrote: the content is to play the game with people you know, at your level. hypothetically speaking, that's how you learn organically and can get the quality of game you look for.
I definitely think that having a small community of sorts (or at least 1 friend) that you can play friendly matches with without being toooo stressed out about results, plus post game review is really helpful.
This + playing single player vs computer macroing to 200/200 while moving army around middle of the map was useful for me back in the day when I first started playing.
On September 09 2018 20:32 nanaoei wrote: the content is to play the game with people you know, at your level. hypothetically speaking, that's how you learn organically and can get the quality of game you look for.
I definitely think that having a small community of sorts (or at least 1 friend) that you can play friendly matches with without being toooo stressed out about results, plus post game review is really helpful.
This + playing single player vs computer macroing to 200/200 while moving army around middle of the map was useful for me back in the day when I first started playing.
Same I still do this, is maxing out against the computer as quickly and consistently as possible while playing as if I am a real opponent by scouting and making moves as if the computer was about to harass or atk.
On September 09 2018 20:39 onlystar wrote: yeah i dont know what to tell you here.. just do what everybody else does? watch what (safe) buildorders are used at pro level and work from there? you dont need to copy it 100% just basicly do the same opening go from there...
I'm not convinced that pro level build orders are actually good for beginning players. For one thing, they're usually too optimized for economy/tech, with just a bare minimum of defense. As a beginner it's too easy to just get rolled from minor screwups early on, and you probably can't handle all that much economy anyway, so you just end up floating resources. Much easier to just build more static defense instead. I mean, you're not going to win any starleagues that way, but that's probably not a realistic goal anyway so....
Also, it just takes some of the fun away when all you do is blindly copy someone else's build orders. I wish we had more of a community of lower-level players who felt free to try their own and experiment. There's a lot of strategies that don't work at the pro level, but still work just fine at lower levels. Like hydras in ZvZ for example.
On September 09 2018 20:39 onlystar wrote: yeah i dont know what to tell you here.. just do what everybody else does? watch what (safe) buildorders are used at pro level and work from there? you dont need to copy it 100% just basicly do the same opening go from there...
I'm not convinced that pro level build orders are actually good for beginning players. For one thing, they're usually too optimized for economy/tech, with just a bare minimum of defense. As a beginner it's too easy to just get rolled from minor screwups early on, and you probably can't handle all that much economy anyway, so you just end up floating resources. Much easier to just build more static defense instead. I mean, you're not going to win any starleagues that way, but that's probably not a realistic goal anyway so....
Also, it just takes some of the fun away when all you do is blindly copy someone else's build orders. I wish we had more of a community of lower-level players who felt free to try their own and experiment. There's a lot of strategies that don't work at the pro level, but still work just fine at lower levels. Like hydras in ZvZ for example.
I would say just keep it simple. For example don't get supply blocked, constantly make workers, and don't float over x amount of minerals (x will vary obviously)
I'm not convinced that pro level build orders are actually good for beginning players. For one thing, they're usually too optimized for economy/tech, with just a bare minimum of defense. As a beginner it's too easy to just get rolled from minor screwups early on, and you probably can't handle all that much economy anyway, so you just end up floating resources. Much easier to just build more static defense instead. I mean, you're not going to win any starleagues that way, but that's probably not a realistic goal anyway so....
Also, it just takes some of the fun away when all you do is blindly copy someone else's build orders. I wish we had more of a community of lower-level players who felt free to try their own and experiment. There's a lot of strategies that don't work at the pro level, but still work just fine at lower levels. Like hydras in ZvZ for example.
That's probably a good point, but is there any solid beginner friendly builds to study?
By solid I mean with a good chance to do well in a long macro game, non-all-in builds. The things I usually see that's kind of easier for lower level players are early game cheese like 4 pool, 9 pool speed, BBS, proxy gates etc.
I think they are easier coz the longer the game goes the more you falling behind unable to keep up with macro. We don't see any 2002 builds as well, but maybe some of them were pretty good. I think sometimes it's useful to get back in history and try to make sense of 1 base zerg, 1 base protoss builds and things like that. But I might be wrong, not sure.
On the other hand instead of practicing easier wrong builds you can focus on improving your mechanics doing the right builds eventually at OK level.
As a huge noob myself, I think there's not really a problem with the quality/amount of beginner-level resources for teaching strategy and game concepts. The point has already been made in this thread that the information is a bit scattered and disorganized, but that's not anywhere near the biggest hurdle for new players imo. What is really needed are resources for teaching mechanics. And I'm talking something way more than "hotkey your Nexus to 0 because that's close to P" and stuff in that vein. What I really think I would benefit from is some instruction in how to actually perform the mechanics that I need. Someone posted an ASMR video of NaDa in a different thread, which I watched just to see what his hands were doing. There's not a lot of chances for noobs to actually see that part of SC. More stuff like that, but actually designed to be instructional, would be great. People may complain "noobs aren't willing to learn/practice that because it's not as fun", which is probably partly valid, but the fact is, I've found NO such videos or resources at all. And please no one respond by posting that stupid hotkey trainer map with the civilian you have to rescue, I don't find that map helpful or applicable to ladder games.
The best advice really is to just play with people who are at your level.
"Figuring things out for yourself is the only freedom anyone really has. Exercise that freedom."
Back when I was a noob, I had a couple of friends who were also nooby. I played Zerg against my friend's Terran. Because I knew he was afraid to attack against Lurkers, I built a couple of lurkers, put them in a choke point, and then massed queens with broodling, and just killed him by casting spawn broodling over and over. It was a completely asinine strategy, but I came up with it and it worked against my friend, so I felt overwhelming pride. The process of thinking about how to beat someone specific who is at your level is the most fun part of learning. Really focus on that.
Lower league cups would be fun and something I'd probably sign up for.
Biggest hurdle as a newbie terran feels like army management and getting into some kind of rhythm with production and hotkeying reinforcements etc.
There's also the retarded losses that could be avoided by better highlighting of facts such as bunker repair stops if bunker reaches full health, and how to hold position scv's (that I need a marine for it is seriously nowhere on the wiki).
On September 12 2018 01:24 badpenny wrote: As a huge noob myself, I think there's not really a problem with the quality/amount of beginner-level resources for teaching strategy and game concepts. The point has already been made in this thread that the information is a bit scattered and disorganized, but that's not anywhere near the biggest hurdle for new players imo. What is really needed are resources for teaching mechanics. And I'm talking something way more than "hotkey your Nexus to 0 because that's close to P" and stuff in that vein. What I really think I would benefit from is some instruction in how to actually perform the mechanics that I need. Someone posted an ASMR video of NaDa in a different thread, which I watched just to see what his hands were doing. There's not a lot of chances for noobs to actually see that part of SC. More stuff like that, but actually designed to be instructional, would be great. People may complain "noobs aren't willing to learn/practice that because it's not as fun", which is probably partly valid, but the fact is, I've found NO such videos or resources at all. And please no one respond by posting that stupid hotkey trainer map with the civilian you have to rescue, I don't find that map helpful or applicable to ladder games.
I think that the dearth of content for total noobs is because, if I recall my formative years properly, when you are first getting acquainted with the game you are expected to familiarize yourself with fundamental concepts through playing. Play the campaign to learn what all the buildings and units do. After that, the beginner resources that have been available for well over a decade, namely build orders, hotkey threads, etc. show you a basic outline of what to do. It is then your task to practice those build orders to get them down pat. Nowadays you can download tons of replays to see exactly how pro players do things, you can watch FPVODs, etc. I don't think watching or reading even more things will help as much newer players want or expect. It ultimately comes down to practicing - pushing yourself to play faster, using hotkeys better, and learning the usual interactions you will experience like 1 Gate Expand vs. FD through experience, then rewatching your own replays, comparing to what you know from progamer VODs and reps, etc.
I think the major issue is that noobs are too varied in just how noob they are. Every noob has a certain set of fundamental issues out of a countless number of issues that a player may have. It's simply impractical to address every issue, and it's impractical for noobs to read/watch every possible issue being addressed. Coaching 1 on 1 seems to be the best answer to solving the specific issues that new players face, but I also think that a lot of new players can already get ahead just by using existing resources and through practice. Maybe I'm not fully understanding exactly what people are looking for, but it's safe to say that if it doesn't exist then it wasn't necessary for the development of the current batch of players that are not noobs. Maybe you are expecting to develop much faster than is reasonable? Or, as I said before, maybe your expectations for resources and how much they will improve your gameplay aren't realistic? I don't mean to be insulting but what is being said just seems to run counter to my own experience when learning this game.
To elaborate a bit more, I didn't have a coach of any sort until I was already at what would be a consistent 1500-1600 MMR today. I had friends who were even skill with me or a bit below, or a bit better. I simply mass gamed with them, watched VODs, read builds, watched my own replays, and talked with my friends about the game which helped strengthen our knowledge. Personally, I think that just about everything necessary to improvement is already available - you just need to go out there and grab it. For example, there are a few people that send me reps and I analyze them and tell them what I think they did wrong, kind of like coaches in CPL but on a one-shot basis. I have a few friends I can still call on to 1v1 with if they are free, and talk about the game afterward. Use the resources that are already out there, and most importantly, practice. Practice should make up the majority of your training IMO, not watching, reading, and being coached. The more you play, the more comfortable you get with the GUI and hotkeys, the more easily you can exercise your will on the game and improve.
On September 12 2018 07:00 voltz_sc2 wrote: I think Jaedong has a video for F ranked players that someone gave English subtitles, on YouTube. I found that helpful to learn standard play.
I think this videos are a perfect example of what I said earlier, when I said that progamer strategies might not be the best for noobs, especially Jaedong's ZvP video. The opponent actually killed off Jaedong's natural and made it into his main, and with a four base economy behind it! Of course Jaedong still won, because he's a pro playing against some schmuck, but still. He only survived because he could massively out-micro the opponent whenever he needed to. An actual F-rank player, in that sort of situation, would have died 100%.
I liked Effort's videos a lot better, because they showed strategies that were actually practical for an F-rank player to execute. Like for ZvT he showed early +1 carapace zerglings, or a straight rush into ultras. Those are not pro strategies at all, but they work much better than expecting a noob to execute perfect muta micro to get the fastest possible defilers, which seems to be the basis of a lot of pro zerg ZvT strategies.
I'm not convinced that pro level build orders are actually good for beginning players. For one thing, they're usually too optimized for economy/tech, with just a bare minimum of defense. As a beginner it's too easy to just get rolled from minor screwups early on, and you probably can't handle all that much economy anyway, so you just end up floating resources. Much easier to just build more static defense instead. I mean, you're not going to win any starleagues that way, but that's probably not a realistic goal anyway so....
Also, it just takes some of the fun away when all you do is blindly copy someone else's build orders. I wish we had more of a community of lower-level players who felt free to try their own and experiment. There's a lot of strategies that don't work at the pro level, but still work just fine at lower levels. Like hydras in ZvZ for example.
That's probably a good point, but is there any solid beginner friendly builds to study?
By solid I mean with a good chance to do well in a long macro game, non-all-in builds. The things I usually see that's kind of easier for lower level players are early game cheese like 4 pool, 9 pool speed, BBS, proxy gates etc.
I think they are easier coz the longer the game goes the more you falling behind unable to keep up with macro. We don't see any 2002 builds as well, but maybe some of them were pretty good. I think sometimes it's useful to get back in history and try to make sense of 1 base zerg, 1 base protoss builds and things like that. But I might be wrong, not sure.
On the other hand instead of practicing easier wrong builds you can focus on improving your mechanics doing the right builds eventually at OK level.
Bear in mind that, the longer the game goes on, the less important your initial build order is. After 30 minutes, are you even going to remember whether you went 12 pool or 12 hatch to start? If you have a "build order loss" than you'll probably just die pretty quickly. If your build order has some huge, obvious flaw than you'll probably notice it on your own.
On September 12 2018 07:00 voltz_sc2 wrote: I think Jaedong has a video for F ranked players that someone gave English subtitles, on YouTube. I found that helpful to learn standard play.
I think this videos are a perfect example of what I said earlier, when I said that progamer strategies might not be the best for noobs, especially Jaedong's ZvP video. The opponent actually killed off Jaedong's natural and made it into his main, and with a four base economy behind it! Of course Jaedong still won, because he's a pro playing against some schmuck, but still. He only survived because he could massively out-micro the opponent whenever he needed to. An actual F-rank player, in that sort of situation, would have died 100%.
I liked Effort's videos a lot better, because they showed strategies that were actually practical for an F-rank player to execute. Like for ZvT he showed early +1 carapace zerglings, or a straight rush into ultras. Those are not pro strategies at all, but they work much better than expecting a noob to execute perfect muta micro to get the fastest possible defilers, which seems to be the basis of a lot of pro zerg ZvT strategies.
I'm wondering if learning these silly cheesy strategies that have no staying power above a certain MMR is even worth it. Sure, you learn mechanics while you're doing this, but you're learning the game from an angle that will never be relevant to you again. Doesn't it make more sense to do things that are actually viable even if you suck at them, and focus on getting better at not sucking at them? Or at the very least, choosing army-heavy builds like 10/21 Gate Dragoon vs. Terran so that you can learn how to play with a relatively safe build that is at least somewhat similar to real builds?
I get that if noobs aren't winning their games, they might ragequit and never get to the point of nailing that FD timing or defending against that 9 Pool with FFE, but aren't pro builds the better way for them to spend their time and actually improve at the strategic elements of the game?
On September 12 2018 07:00 voltz_sc2 wrote: I think Jaedong has a video for F ranked players that someone gave English subtitles, on YouTube. I found that helpful to learn standard play.
I think this videos are a perfect example of what I said earlier, when I said that progamer strategies might not be the best for noobs, especially Jaedong's ZvP video. The opponent actually killed off Jaedong's natural and made it into his main, and with a four base economy behind it! Of course Jaedong still won, because he's a pro playing against some schmuck, but still. He only survived because he could massively out-micro the opponent whenever he needed to. An actual F-rank player, in that sort of situation, would have died 100%.
I liked Effort's videos a lot better, because they showed strategies that were actually practical for an F-rank player to execute. Like for ZvT he showed early +1 carapace zerglings, or a straight rush into ultras. Those are not pro strategies at all, but they work much better than expecting a noob to execute perfect muta micro to get the fastest possible defilers, which seems to be the basis of a lot of pro zerg ZvT strategies.
I'm wondering if learning these silly cheesy strategies that have no staying power above a certain MMR is even worth it. Sure, you learn mechanics while you're doing this, but you're learning the game from an angle that will never be relevant to you again. Doesn't it make more sense to do things that are actually viable even if you suck at them, and focus on getting better at not sucking at them? Or at the very least, choosing army-heavy builds like 10/21 Gate Dragoon vs. Terran so that you can learn how to play with a relatively safe build that is at least somewhat similar to real builds?
I get that if noobs aren't winning their games, they might ragequit and never get to the point of nailing that FD timing or defending against that 9 Pool with FFE, but aren't pro builds the better way for them to spend their time and actually improve at the strategic elements of the game?
I think you're taking what I said to too much of an extreme. I'm not saying you have to do super cheesy strategies every game, I'm just saying you don't have to follow the same ultra-economized builds that the pros use. Maybe start off by building a lot of cannons, and gradually shift to building fewer cannons as you get better at reacting to small movements on the minimap. Or like you said, you can start off with doing army-heavy builds, and then change to more econ-heavy builds once you feel with macro+micro at the same time. I just feel like Starcraft has lost some of what it had when I was a kid, before broadband internet, when we all felt free to develop our own strategies.
On September 12 2018 07:00 voltz_sc2 wrote: I think Jaedong has a video for F ranked players that someone gave English subtitles, on YouTube. I found that helpful to learn standard play.
I think this videos are a perfect example of what I said earlier, when I said that progamer strategies might not be the best for noobs, especially Jaedong's ZvP video. The opponent actually killed off Jaedong's natural and made it into his main, and with a four base economy behind it! Of course Jaedong still won, because he's a pro playing against some schmuck, but still. He only survived because he could massively out-micro the opponent whenever he needed to. An actual F-rank player, in that sort of situation, would have died 100%.
I liked Effort's videos a lot better, because they showed strategies that were actually practical for an F-rank player to execute. Like for ZvT he showed early +1 carapace zerglings, or a straight rush into ultras. Those are not pro strategies at all, but they work much better than expecting a noob to execute perfect muta micro to get the fastest possible defilers, which seems to be the basis of a lot of pro zerg ZvT strategies.
I'm wondering if learning these silly cheesy strategies that have no staying power above a certain MMR is even worth it. Sure, you learn mechanics while you're doing this, but you're learning the game from an angle that will never be relevant to you again. Doesn't it make more sense to do things that are actually viable even if you suck at them, and focus on getting better at not sucking at them? Or at the very least, choosing army-heavy builds like 10/21 Gate Dragoon vs. Terran so that you can learn how to play with a relatively safe build that is at least somewhat similar to real builds?
I get that if noobs aren't winning their games, they might ragequit and never get to the point of nailing that FD timing or defending against that 9 Pool with FFE, but aren't pro builds the better way for them to spend their time and actually improve at the strategic elements of the game?
I think you're taking what I said to too much of an extreme. I'm not saying you have to do super cheesy strategies every game, I'm just saying you don't have to follow the same ultra-economized builds that the pros use. Maybe start off by building a lot of cannons, and gradually shift to building fewer cannons as you get better at reacting to small movements on the minimap. Or like you said, you can start off with doing army-heavy builds, and then change to more econ-heavy builds once you feel with macro+micro at the same time. I just feel like Starcraft has lost some of what it had when I was a kid, before broadband internet, when we all felt free to develop our own strategies.
Oh ok. I was going off of what you listed as Effort's suggestions and I thought to myself "these just get people cheesy wins, not actual gamesense." What you're saying here about the cannons makes more sense to me.
I think there is still a time and place for goofy strategies, and when people are asking to improve, that is not one of them. You can still style on people in pub games with silly strats if you're good enough, or you can sit at the bottom of the MMR table and do whatever you feel like doing (but don't expect to get much better at the game), or find a group of friends to goof around with. Mostly though I think it is your personal experience that is affecting your answers here (although I admit that is true for most of us).