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QuadroX
386 Posts
Is there a way to consistently improve at a lower pace having such small time to dedicate to the game, and if it's possible what's the most efficient way of doing that? P.S. It's very challenging mechanically to do what you want to do, and you get to that point when you can think and do things (at your "previous good" level) only after pretty big amount of games played before. | ||
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HerbMon
United States465 Posts
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kogeT
Poland2040 Posts
So my "practice routine" is: 1) Have 1-2 maps where you can practice micro / macro, just run through hotkeys on keyboard to make units, practice f2,f3,f4 macros, wraith/muta micro etc. Do it for 20 minutes a week mb. 2) In your free time, watch some starcraft (traveling, before sleep etc) just to keep up with meta a bit 3) Forget ladder, do that only if you have extra time. Try to have few practie partners OR participate in leauges or tournaments that have a fixed time, that way you are committed to something. 4) Try to have a plan for every game - think about the map, build you will play & why, and make sure you have a basic analysis in head before start. This is also your place to experiment and develop based on new meta. 5) Rest of the time focus only on playing 1-2 standard builds on standard maps where you focus primarly on late game, mechanics and standard skills | ||
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Poegim
Poland264 Posts
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IntoTheStorm
116 Posts
On November 28 2019 17:57 QuadroX wrote: Is there a way to consistently improve at a lower pace having such small time to dedicate to the game, and if it's possible what's the most efficient way of doing that? I do not think there is a way to improve at a lower pace after a certain cap is reached. I used to play like 4 hours daily, back in 2003 to 2006. Then I reached my limit for those hours - I mean the following: every game I won or lost I knew why I won it or lost it. And the games I did lose, the losses where I was outsmarted were few (except cheese games but I do not count them as being outsmarted. And yes, I main protoss so I did my fair share of dirty cheeses as well). It was usually because the other player was more efficient with his execution than I was. I got to a certain awareness where they could not sneak an expo just like that, for example. You just scout them and you feel something does not look right with what they have and you start searching where their money is going, we see that all the time on the streams now. So after I reached my limit I just stayed there and played while still trying to improve of course but in reality I did not. But look at kogeT's advice - it is pretty reasonable way to reach this limit I am speaking of in the shortest way. | ||
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ggsimida
1148 Posts
stop taking the dumb purist stance of "macro is the only way to play the game" inculcate more cheese and aggression into your game. such games are more action packed, makes your mind constantly engaged (great for warding off old age dementia), also makes games shorter allowing you to squeeze more games into a limited time span. also adds more unpredictability when you do play competitve boX, also makes you more cheese resistant. know thy self, know thy enemy. | ||
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iFU.spx
Russian Federation371 Posts
Don’t think about apm. Be focused. Try to remove all things that disturb. Choose one strategy to play vs each race and go ladder or custom (play vs better player if you can). Get a conversation about your games with someone near skill. Think about strategy as a tree of decisions and its impact for win probability. Always watch replay of losses and analyse why it happened | ||
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Dangermousecatdog
United Kingdom7084 Posts
A little micro, a little scouting, a little gamesense goes a long way. Concentrating on macro is just limited returns. | ||
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XenOsky
Chile2279 Posts
try to implement the whole keyboard to your game play, do this by playing vs PC or in an empty map like herbmon said. This process takes about a week of practice 1 hour daily, force yourself to use the F keys, muscle memory is key, use all keybinds, use all hotkeys from 1 to 0, learn all the shift and ctrl comands, get used to them, get comfortable with them. https://tl.net/forum/bw-strategy/104910-mechanics-of-starcraft https://tl.net/forum/bw-strategy/450579-other-basics Then comes the process of cleaning your actual play, building placement, timing, build orders, etc. once you are comfortable with your speed/keyboard usage/mechanics/builds you can practice like spx and koget posted above. at this point you can save the replays of games that u lose and u had no idea why, take one day to review them critically. Compare your own play to top players, recording youself is really useful to see when and why u are missclicking, miss controling, missing macro rounds, how Good or bad your camera positioning is, etc... read this : https://tl.net/forum/bw-strategy/135766-how-to-improve if you are consistent enough, u Will improve rapidly even with Little practice time. 3 hours daily is like 12 games a day, that is not a low number of games imo, specially if you are focused on improving and your main focus is not to just get mmr. Starcraft is a long term goal, no top player came out of nowhere, + Show Spoiler + unless ure playing zerg, that shit is easy, 6 months and ure gosu On November 28 2019 22:46 Dangermousecatdog wrote: Just play the game. If you are only playing 1 hour a day, that hour better be used for playing and analysing your losses. A little micro, a little scouting, a little gamesense goes a long way. Concentrating on macro is just limited returns. this advice is actually quite bad, im sorry to point it out , but if you just play the game with no clear plan / goal / method , you will stagnate and get frustated quite easily because there is no clear path to follow, unless ure a genius for RTS games, and strategy comes to you naturally just playing the game blindlessly wont help you improve. | ||
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PorkSoda
170 Posts
I’m in the same boat as the OP. I work full time, have a 1 year old, and a wife that wants to hang out with me. I only play stupid games like bunker d and random turret d because I don’t have to practice to play them and won’t care if I have to stop playing in the middle of a game. I want to play more Starcraft and will have to do something like I described above if I ever want to play 1v1. | ||
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Cryoc
Germany909 Posts
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QuadroX
386 Posts
Noted so far: * Practice builds/mechanics/F-Keys on empty maps (about 30 mins) * Practice micro on micro maps e.g. muta control (15 mins +-) * Always have a game plan, solid single build for each matchup and prefer standard macro maps (FS, CB) where you can practice it * Watch Starcraft when you have time (but prioritise playing I guess), like if you're waiting at the post office or taking train * Watch replays of games you lost if it's not clear, should always know why you lost a specific game * Practice partners/custom games are better than ladder practice * Cheese builds come to resque when you accept that you're worse player and never can compete mechanically at macro due to being old and rusty, or/and lack of practice Oh and some people still hit the wall knowing that only putting more hours into the game will get them further in ranks. | ||
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Dangermousecatdog
United Kingdom7084 Posts
On November 28 2019 22:54 XenOsky wrote: this advice is actually quite bad, im sorry to point it out , but if you just play the game with no clear plan / goal / method , you will stagnate and get frustated quite easily because there is no clear path to follow, unless ure a genius for RTS games, and strategy comes to you naturally just playing the game blindlessly wont help you improve. Hey, I am no genius, but I recognise that if time is limited, a greater proportion of more of that time should be used to actually play the game and analyse your games. Where did I say he should play with no clear plan / goal / method ? I said he should analysis his replays.You can't analyse your replays if you have nothing in mind to analyse. He didn't say he is starting to play the game for the first time. He said he played the game at a previous good level already. So, I am assuming he has a basic level of knowledge and skill already. The year is 2019 not 2009. There's tons of resources available for him to learn already, what is missing is applying it. So he must know a build already and how to execute it. Where people fail mostly is in scouting and recognising when to change the next branch of the build. If he can't play mindfully, then he can't improve anyways. If you hardly ever go ahead and play the game, you aren't exactly improving at the game are you? You are just improving at a hallucination of the game. | ||
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capacityex
27 Posts
User was temp banned for this post. | ||
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Highgamer
1439 Posts
AND most importantly: It's actual competition, keeps your fire buring. edit: Extra hint: Don't care about stats/winning.  Personnaly, if I know that I currently don't have the time to actually practice, I do one of two things: I ladder whenever I'm even even just slightly in the mood, for the reasons mentioned above. Or, if the day at work was too hard, I make a few dry-runs through my bread-n-butter builds in the singleplayer. I think the only realistic goal in those times is to stay in shape, somewhat, not to improve. Better wait for a free weekend or a few days of vacation and prepare to really go all out on practice of one build, one micro-technique, one map that's been bugging you, etc. And if you think you have some spare cerebral-activity, obviously you can try to practice specific stuff for an hour or two, or look up a few facts, analyze a pro game, etc. On November 28 2019 19:53 IntoTheStorm wrote: I do not think there is a way to improve at a lower pace after a certain cap is reached. I used to play like 4 hours daily, back in 2003 to 2006. Then I reached my limit for those hours - I mean the following: every game I won or lost I knew why I won it or lost it. And the games I did lose, the losses where I was outsmarted were few [...]. It was usually because the other player was more efficient with his execution than I was. [...] I think this point has a lot of truth to it - but it's not necessarily "sad but true". Similarly to IntoTheStorm, if I only get to play a few hours/games a week, I can feel how a) my best mechanics only return after the 1-2 games I play - and then I have to stop... (and you need those mechanics if you're playing your max-rank). b) I lose to stuff that I know how to beat, but because my mind drifted away from BW for the last few days/weeks, I get caught on the wrong foot again. Similarly, sometimes I just can't get my head around the madness that is lategame, even though I know I did better when I had more time. There's no helping this, BW from C-rank or B-rank on (my guess) is like a sport that you do semi-seriously. Several hours of practice a week are just necessary to even keep your level, let alone improve. You will improve even at that rate, but veeery slowly: The stuff/knowledge that you don't have to practice but that rather you just have to see again and again until it sinks deep into your brain. You'll profit from this if ever you should be able to re-establish a more voluminous playing schedule. Just play, don't put yourself down for stagnating, have fun and stay in shape. | ||
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outscar
2832 Posts
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Highgamer
1439 Posts
On November 29 2019 06:11 outscar wrote: I don't know if even playing 1 hour daily will make you better. I play around 2 hours everyday and I still suck so bad at this game, hanging barely on 50% winrate. Some people are naturally bad and they need a lot of time to get better. You know that just means the matchmaking is working alright? But I guess you mean on the same rank also. Still, with the broad range of skills and kind of competition/opponents you meet in this game, you can improve quite a bit in different skill-fields without even realizing it. Almost everyone who plays has played for many years, there's quite a bit of depth to the play of most people I encounter even on C/B, you fix one hole in your play only to find a dozen more lurking around the corner. And whenever you have a small run and go 50-100 points up, you're sure to meet better opponents who'll "put you back in place". Under these circumstances, if you crawl up 10-20 points on your average MMR (which you probably don't know as you oscillate in a range of several hundred points normally) that would be quite an improvement actually, even if you stay locked on 50 win%. | ||
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TT1
Canada10011 Posts
Always pay attention to when they expo, how they scout, when they add production facilities (and how many they make) and their worker count. Another helpful thing is comparing your supply relative to a progamer's. So in a standard macro where nothing has happened i have X supply at 10 minutes and FlaSh has 110 supply at 10 minutes. Setting small in game goals is a good way to improve, it gives you something to focus on. For example, you can start by not getting supply blocked, not missing worker production for the first 5 minutes (if you're T/P), hitting X supply at X minute. Work your way up from easy goals to harder ones. i highly recommend watching these tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/user/IIjinjinnII/videos | ||
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Highgamer
1439 Posts
On November 29 2019 07:58 TT1 wrote: i highly recommend watching these tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/user/IIjinjinnII/videos You mean these? + Show Spoiler + | ||
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EndingLife
United States1597 Posts
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Jan1997
Norway671 Posts
My suggestions: Analyze replays of the few games that you do play. Try to learn the most common plays people play on ladder and find out how to counter them. Find 1 or 2 universal builds and stick to them. | ||
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XenOsky
Chile2279 Posts
On November 29 2019 05:25 Dangermousecatdog wrote: Hey, I am no genius, but I recognise that if time is limited, a greater proportion of more of that time should be used to actually play the game and analyse your games. Where did I say he should play with no clear plan / goal / method ? I said he should analysis his replays.You can't analyse your replays if you have nothing in mind to analyse. He didn't say he is starting to play the game for the first time. He said he played the game at a previous good level already. So, I am assuming he has a basic level of knowledge and skill already. The year is 2019 not 2009. There's tons of resources available for him to learn already, what is missing is applying it. So he must know a build already and how to execute it. Where people fail mostly is in scouting and recognising when to change the next branch of the build. If he can't play mindfully, then he can't improve anyways. If you hardly ever go ahead and play the game, you aren't exactly improving at the game are you? You are just improving at a hallucination of the game. Better use your limited time to PLAY WELL. How do you play well? You play as cleanly as possible. He is asking for efficiency. If you practice 10 minutos a day, be efficient. | ||
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Poegim
Poland264 Posts
On November 29 2019 06:11 outscar wrote: I don't know if even playing 1 hour daily will make you better. I play around 2 hours everyday and I still suck so bad at this game, hanging barely on 50% winrate. Some people are naturally bad and they need a lot of time to get better. Win ratio doesnt mean anythin, only your MMR is valuable. ELO system will always make most ppl ~50% win ratio bro, its only about how quick, this is why many ppl just removing and creating new accounts, they belive their winratio is bad and they ashamed. But this is how it works, when u reach ur top level u will get ppl with same skill, with means everyone after that will get ~50% win rate. Its like black hole bro, when u across event horizon there is only one destination in your live, and it is singularity or just ~50% win ratio in elo / ladder / systems. | ||
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Dangermousecatdog
United Kingdom7084 Posts
On December 14 2019 16:57 XenOsky wrote: This random guy reply to a post I made 16 days ago lol.Better use your limited time to PLAY WELL. How do you play well? You play as cleanly as possible. He is asking for efficiency. If you practice 10 minutos a day, be efficient. Playing well against AI is not the same thing as playing well against humans. If you are happy to assume that to play broodwar well is to play against AI well, then go ahead. I'll assume that to play broodwar well is to play against fellow humans well. The AI will never muta micro against you, and it will never properly respond to your strategy. You will never be forced to change your intended branch of your BO. I am assuming he already has basic macro skills. Everybody else seems to ignore that he wrote he has played to a previous good level before and is asuming he is a complete noob who has never played a game before for some reason. | ||
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PorkSoda
170 Posts
Once I get to the point that I almost never have to look at my keyboard (yes you read that right, I can’t touch type. I know, it’s embarrassing) then I’ll start practicing builds against the computer on circuit breakers or fighting spirit. Then once I’m comfortable with a standard opening against each race I’ll do some ladder. EDIT: I also got a bunch a replays off bwreplays and it’s ridiculously helpful for understanding build orders. It’s also going to be really helpful for learning good building placement. | ||
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kogeT
Poland2040 Posts
On December 15 2019 01:20 PorkSoda wrote: So I’ve picked up playing again after a long break. I changed my hotkeys away from the grid, because while intuitive it’s actually quite awkward at times. I’ve been practicing on a multitasking map where you have to build a base while a zealot chases a worker that you have to keep alive, save a civilian from an island using an SCV, and break a Zerg front with sunkens and a lurker. My mechanics are cleaning up really quickly and I’m hovering around 200 apm by the end of each game. It’s a good way to improve mechanics for sure. Once I get to the point that I almost never have to look at my keyboard (yes you read that right, I can’t touch type. I know, it’s embarrassing) then I’ll start practicing builds against the computer on circuit breakers or fighting spirit. Then once I’m comfortable with a standard opening against each race I’ll do some ladder. EDIT: I also got a bunch a replays off bwreplays and it’s ridiculously helpful for understanding build orders. It’s also going to be really helpful for learning good building placement. Cool to hear. Just FYI Grid is not really good for BW as the base idea behind grid is to not move your hand, while in BW you cannot reassign 1234567890. | ||
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Dangermousecatdog
United Kingdom7084 Posts
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chozen86
United States60 Posts
I'm around 1200-1300 MMR, and have found at my level the multitask UMS map (I think it's the same one PorkSoda is mentioning) is giving me the highest return on investment. I already have 1 build learned quite well for each MU, so am not really learning any new builds. And then every time I play vs a human (on ladder or practice partner), I always analyze the rep to learn from it. I can see improvement in my play, although it is extremely slow - easiest to tell by comparing reps vs months ago, can see noticeable differences in macro, multitask, scouting, defending vs. various cheeses, not throwing away army as easily, etc. Hasn't showed up as much in my MMR though  I also watch FVPODs and VODs when I can (especially those who talk aloud when they play, like Bonyth) and that really helps me slowly and surely improve my game knowledge, which will eventually make its way into game sense as I am able to read what I see in game. | ||
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onlystar
United States971 Posts
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QuadroX
386 Posts
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