I am making this guide for you. The type of person that posts in the strategy forum asking for help.
Learn this: Understanding the problem, before finding the solution is how you learn.
First some background music for your enjoyment
Part One: Why you should stop posting 'help me threads'
Dear Starcraft hopeful- I am telling you the most important piece of advice in your starcraft career: "You are the only person that can fix your problems." You can't fix them by reading more guides, you can't fix them by reading more posts from D players, and you certainly can't fix them by typing exhaustive [H] threads in the strategy forum. If you do not understand why you lost, you need to look through your replay again and again. If after watching your game again and agin take a notepad and a pen. Write down every single mistake. Made a rax at 200? mark that down. Queued up 3 marines at one point? mark that down two. If you go through the entire thing, you should have at least 2 pages.
If that doesn't work- please refer to part two of my guide.
Part Two: When you still don't understand why you lost.
Dear Starcraft hopeful- After you have looked over your replay till exhaustion, and compiled notes- then you may look else where. However realize that if you move to step two, you are conceding the fact that you are too stupid to understand why you lost. At step two you need to go here: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Main_Page Read, and re-read everything you can possibly get your hands on. The information posted there is actually useful. And even better- it's not filled with the misleading and idle chatter of 'have not watched your rep but..' or im D but, or im only D- but... If this still does not cure your problem, don't worry! You still have one more steps.
Part Three: When liquidpedia, your brain, and your notes are not enough.
Dear starcraft hopeful- After you have looked over your replay till exhaustion, and compiled notes- and taken a look at liquidpedia, then you can move to step three. In step three- you are going to do the following. Go play more starcraft. Experiment with that same build. Experiment with solutions, that may not always be right- but they will surely give you a very firm grasp as to what is working / not working. In the long run you will have a very deep and rich understanding of the game, and all the variations that one may find while playing.
In conclusion:
Dear starcraft hopeful- I hope that you take what i have said to heart. Following my guide may not be the easiest path. However if you do, you will see imesurable growth in your game play, and will always see an improvement in your skills. Please don't become what i have come to loathe. I hope that you let this information sink slowly into your brain, and let it permeate to the deepest regions of your brain. I hope that it washes away your lazy and impulsive nature. I also hope that it destroys your addiction to the post button.
Thank you for reading my guide. I hope that this has been an informative guide, and i also wish you the best in your starcraft quest. Good luck, and GG's be with you.
On February 16 2010 14:23 huameng wrote: Totally disagree with this "guide". For what other game, sport, activity, is not asking for help the best way to learn?
and also, don't say the reason you are losing is because X race is imba or that X unit is way too overpowered, thats just making excuses to cover up for your weak points.
On February 16 2010 14:21 Seraphim wrote: What is your rank Misrah? :O
Meh doesn't really matter. I only play iccup with my shitty builds / ideas. I am sure that you can find out yourself if your really that interested. I am really not that great.
On February 16 2010 14:23 huameng wrote: Totally disagree with this "guide". For what other game, sport, activity, is not asking for help the best way to learn?
"Hi I play soccer. Help me run faster and think better." or- Help my mechanics! (lol yep I am going to come to your house and show you how to type faster. Please don't think about how to improve, just post a question.) Or better yet (How did i lose??? I have no idea. I thought that I did everything right?) is pretty much the gist of all the [H] threads in strategy. The reason why it is never useful, is because most people are asking for help are looking for a solution. they may find it, however they will never come to understand the problem.
i think the strategy forum is a great place to get personalized help on specific topics, with a wide range of opinions on how to fix your game. A random users input might not be so valuable, whereas another users input is highly regarded around here. Here you get both and everything in between. this came up when i searched help and Misrah
On February 16 2010 14:21 Seraphim wrote: What is your rank Misrah? :O
Meh doesn't really matter. I only play iccup with my shitty builds / ideas. I am sure that you can find out yourself if your really that interested. I am really not that great.
On February 16 2010 14:23 huameng wrote: Totally disagree with this "guide". For what other game, sport, activity, is not asking for help the best way to learn?
"Hi I play soccer. Help me run faster and think better." or- Help my mechanics! (lol yep I am going to come to your house and show you how to type faster. Please don't think about how to improve, just post a question.) Or better yet (How did i lose??? I have no idea. I thought that I did everything right?) is pretty much the gist of all the [H] threads in strategy. The reason why it is never useful, is because most people are asking for help are looking for a solution. they may find it, however they will never come to understand the problem.
I had a forced typing class in my school. Now my WPM is at average 130.
I think when noobs ask for help, it connects them with the community, and helps build it up. Sure, they could simply not post, but then they would be subject to even less human contact, and that's just a drag.
On February 16 2010 14:35 ninazerg wrote: I think when noobs ask for help, it connects them with the community, and helps build it up. Sure, they could simply not post, but then they would be subject to even less human contact, and that's just a drag.
I understand your motivations for writing this post, however I don't think your attitude is any better than those of newbies.
Not all of us have the natural insight needed to see our own mistakes. Sometimes we need an objective eye to help identify the things we missed.
At higher levels players don't need to ask for help, because they have learned to identify their problems. But for intermediate players who grasp the game but sometimes overlook small but important details, the strategy forum is a perfect place for intelligent inquiry and to seek help from other players.
Most posts here don't fit the high standard that I specify above. But that's no reason to ban the smart people from posting on the strategy forum. And even noobs bring in fresh air and remind pros where everyone started.
Even with the creation of liquidpedia, the strategy forum is still a place for intelligent discussion. If you get tired of reading posts by noobs, then it's time to take a break - no one's forcing you to stay here. This forum is one of the central pillars of TL, not a place where you try to impose your standards of posting on others.
On February 16 2010 14:33 ragnasaur wrote: i think the strategy forum is a great place to get personalized help on specific topics, with a wide range of opinions on how to fix your game. A random users input might not be so valuable, whereas another users input is highly regarded around here. Here you get both and everything in between. this came up when i searched help and Misrah
Glad you finally found that!
I am sharing what i have learned from asking for help! It really doesn't help you at all in the long run that's the beauty of it all!
On February 16 2010 14:42 Xstatic wrote: I understand your motivations for writing this post, however I don't think your attitude is any better than those of newbies.
Not all of us have the natural insight needed to see our own mistakes. Sometimes we need an objective eye to help identify the things we missed.
At higher levels players don't need to ask for help, because they have learned to identify their problems. But for intermediate players who grasp the game but sometimes overlook small but important details, the strategy forum is a perfect place for intelligent inquiry and to seek help from other players.
Most posts here don't fit the high standard that I specify above. But that's no reason to ban the smart people from posting on the strategy forum. And even noobs bring in fresh air and remind pros where everyone started.
Even with the creation of liquidpedia, the strategy forum is still a place for intelligent discussion. If you get tired of reading posts by noobs, then it's time to take a break - no one's forcing you to stay here. This forum is one of the central pillars of TL, not a place where you try to impose your standards of posting on others.
I don't have natural insight. I have been playing for some time, and I still suck. It takes me many and many attempts to understand something. I am an idiot.
I am not at a higher level.
Intermediate players do not overlook small aspects of the game, the reason they are intermediate players is because they have polished their game... through experience, and personal understanding.
The strategy forum is not a place for intelligent discussion. You must be joking- strategy is almost as crazy as the blogs sections nowadays.
That's like teaching yourself with a book. Sure learning from the book my get you to point A, but to get to point B and C, you need personalized inputs on specifics. Reading guides are all GENERAL, asking a specific question can help the individual's specific problem.
On February 16 2010 14:21 Seraphim wrote: What is your rank Misrah? :O
Meh doesn't really matter. I only play iccup with my shitty builds / ideas. I am sure that you can find out yourself if your really that interested. I am really not that great.
On February 16 2010 14:23 huameng wrote: Totally disagree with this "guide". For what other game, sport, activity, is not asking for help the best way to learn?
"Hi I play soccer. Help me run faster and think better." or- Help my mechanics! (lol yep I am going to come to your house and show you how to type faster. Please don't think about how to improve, just post a question.) Or better yet (How did i lose??? I have no idea. I thought that I did everything right?) is pretty much the gist of all the [H] threads in strategy. The reason why it is never useful, is because most people are asking for help are looking for a solution. they may find it, however they will never come to understand the problem.
Tennis: 1. Serving motion and style. 2. Grip angle 3. Proper way to hit the ball for topspin/slice 4. Head size
There are more.
The community provides what a coach does: you show them what you've got, and they guide you in the right direction; whether they encourage your current actions or change your course.
If you learn by yourself, many times you learn things the wrong way. A player who picks up tennis by himself may have a harmful serving motion without realizing. This habit will strengthen over time until its harms manifest (wrist problems). Even if the problem isn't permanent (for example, the motion restricted the serve's control), the player now has to lose the habit and pick up the proper way to serve, which he still doesn't know how. In starcraft a comparable example is BBS. You may win a lot because of BBSing, and you say, hey this is great! But if you BBS your way through D+, you're never going to get to C- since BBS won't work against better players. If you spent that much time doing standard build, your overall skills would have been far better than in this case; so, having an input definitely helps.
The problem is that in a sense, those who give advice are lower level players as well, so the input might not be 100% accurate. But whereas having 1 coach with bad input will screw a player (since no one else has the authority to input) having multiple members, such as the community, will have check system where others can correct an invalid input.
You may say that people can just watch progamer vods and replays, but there's big problems with those as well. It's really hard to follow vods because they don't focus on BOs or scouting information etc. It's really difficult to understand a player's rational from a vod that just jumps to different places without a continuity in observing one player. Replays are better. But, the problem is also present that if you don't know what to look for in replays, you can watch 100s of replays and still not get better. I realized just now that watching replays are only effective if you know what to pay attention to. This is comparable to trying to learn tennis from watching a pro play. I don't think you can really go far trying to learn from a pro's motions. You need detailed explanations to pick up the rational, etc. And sometimes you need someone to explain things for you, especially if you're a beginner.
The way I picked up starcraft was gaming (mechanics), reading liquipedia (guide/coach/community input), then gaming again (strategy, understanding of the game, etc.). I've watched vods all throughout the process, but it really doesn't help until after understanding the game, which you need guides (which essentially serve same purpose as inputs, except guides are one-size-fits-all whereas inputs are one-to-one personalized).
Anyways, if your beef with [H] posts is that the posters on TL are D players, then even if that is true, that just points out that the problem is with the posters and the forum, not with the feedback system. If higher posters did provide high quality inputs, then the system would work well. But the fact that higher posters do not post does not mean that the system of asking for help is ineffective.
I think I get the point you're trying to make, most [h] threads nowadays are pretty lame and half the responses in them even more-so, and simply analysing the replay and understanding your obvious mistakes and how the game actually works rather than reproducing what better players tell you to do. However some threads are incredibly productive and definitely still have a place, one that comes to mind is the how to beat turtle terrans on destination thread, that thread was incredibly helpful to probably every protoss that reads this forum.
On February 16 2010 14:54 Seraphim wrote: No offense, but shouldn't you play on a mid-high level in order for your own advice to be valid?
Not at all. Some people are stuck at a lower level of skill because they're too lazy to practice or don't have time, but understand the game well. They can give (potentially) give good advice too.
On February 16 2010 14:21 Seraphim wrote: What is your rank Misrah? :O
Meh doesn't really matter. I only play iccup with my shitty builds / ideas. I am sure that you can find out yourself if your really that interested. I am really not that great.
On February 16 2010 14:23 huameng wrote: Totally disagree with this "guide". For what other game, sport, activity, is not asking for help the best way to learn?
"Hi I play soccer. Help me run faster and think better." or- Help my mechanics! (lol yep I am going to come to your house and show you how to type faster. Please don't think about how to improve, just post a question.) Or better yet (How did i lose??? I have no idea. I thought that I did everything right?) is pretty much the gist of all the [H] threads in strategy. The reason why it is never useful, is because most people are asking for help are looking for a solution. they may find it, however they will never come to understand the problem.
Tennis: 1. Serving motion and style. 2. Grip angle 3. Proper way to hit the ball for topspin/slice 4. Head size
There are more.
The community provides what a coach does: you show them what you've got, and they guide you in the right direction; whether they encourage your current actions or change your course.
If you learn by yourself, many times you learn things the wrong way. A player who picks up tennis by himself may have a harmful serving motion without realizing. This habit will strengthen over time until its harms manifest (wrist problems). Even if the problem isn't permanent (for example, the motion restricted the serve's control), the player now has to lose the habit and pick up the proper way to serve, which he still doesn't know how. In starcraft a comparable example is BBS. You may win a lot because of BBSing, and you say, hey this is great! But if you BBS your way through D+, you're never going to get to C- since BBS won't work against better players. If you spent that much time doing standard build, your overall skills would have been far better than in this case; so, having an input definitely helps.
The problem is that in a sense, those who give advice are lower level players as well, so the input might not be 100% accurate. But whereas having 1 coach with bad input will screw a player (since no one else has the authority to input) having multiple members, such as the community, will have check system where others can correct an invalid input.
You may say that people can just watch progamer vods and replays, but there's big problems with those as well. It's really hard to follow vods because they don't focus on BOs or scouting information etc. It's really difficult to understand a player's rational from a vod that just jumps to different places without a continuity in observing one player. Replays are better. But, the problem is also present that if you don't know what to look for in replays, you can watch 100s of replays and still not get better. I realized just now that watching replays are only effective if you know what to pay attention to. This is comparable to trying to learn tennis from watching a pro play. I don't think you can really go far trying to learn from a pro's motions. You need detailed explanations to pick up the rational, etc. And sometimes you need someone to explain things for you, especially if you're a beginner.
The way I picked up starcraft was gaming (mechanics), reading liquipedia (guide/coach/community input), then gaming again (strategy, understanding of the game, etc.). I've watched vods all throughout the process, but it really doesn't help until after understanding the game, which you need guides (which essentially serve same purpose as inputs, except guides are one-size-fits-all whereas inputs are one-to-one personalized).
Anyways, if your beef with [H] posts is that the posters on TL are D players, then even if that is true, that just points out that the problem is with the posters and the forum, not with the feedback system. If higher posters did provide high quality inputs, then the system would work well. But the fact that higher posters do not post does not mean that the system of asking for help is ineffective.
You don't understand what I was trying to say.
the four examples you are giving me are cold hard facts. There is a right way, and a wrong way to do them. In starcraft- There is no absolute. The problem with asking for help and receiving a solution is this: That solution would only work for that game, on that map, at that time, against that build. fixing your problem in One match may be helpful, however it would be infinitely more helpful to [I[understand[/i] the problem. No one can teach you that. It comes from experience, and many hours of game play. Not reading a single guide, or post.
You may say that people can just watch progamer vods and replays, but there's big problems with those as well. It's really hard to follow vods because they don't focus on BOs or scouting information etc. It's really difficult to understand a player's rational from a vod that just jumps to different places without a continuity in observing one player. Replays are better. But, the problem is also present that if you don't know what to look for in replays, you can watch 100s of replays and still not get better. I realized just now that watching replays are only effective if you know what to pay attention to. This is comparable to trying to learn tennis from watching a pro play. I don't think you can really go far trying to learn from a pro's motions. You need detailed explanations to pick up the rational, etc. And sometimes you need someone to explain things for you, especially if you're a beginner.
I don't talk about watching pro vods at all.
If you learn by yourself, many times you learn things the wrong way. A player who picks up tennis by himself may have a harmful serving motion without realizing.
This is also incorrect. Because eventually as you progress with your play, all of your mistakes will become apparent to you as you play stronger and stronger opponents.
Starcraft is a personal journey. If you really want to learn the game, it all comes down to you. Not posting or reading.
On February 16 2010 14:54 Seraphim wrote: No offense, but shouldn't you play on a mid-high level in order for your own advice to be valid?
Certainly, however I am not telling people how to play the game. I am simply trying to tell them how to learn the game. And from my experiences from moving from D- to where I am now mostly using my idiotic build ideas, I would say that I have a fairly firm grasp on how I got to point A to B. I only wish that I could have spoken to myself years ago. It would have allowed me to progress so much faster
On February 16 2010 14:54 Seraphim wrote: No offense, but shouldn't you play on a mid-high level in order for your own advice to be valid?
Not at all. Some people are stuck at a lower level of skill because they're too lazy to practice or don't have time, but understand the game well. They can give (potentially) give good advice too.
I 100% disagree with this statement. If you are giving advice about how to play the game- you should be a very good player yourself. A low level player is low level for a reason. If you have a very large understanding of the game, mechanics should not be the the thing holding you back till you hit a very high skill level.
Misrah, Koreans talk to each other and ask for help all the time. I see progamers talk to their coaches after games, especially after losing. I don't think discussing the game (even at a beginner's level) is detrimental to developing Starcraft skills. In fact it's probably the opposite; some of your own zerg guides were improved with input from the community.
When properly used, I think the Strategy Forum is the most powerful tool in any Starcraft player's arsenal in improving, short of us paying off progamers for training sessions.
I know you advocate the use of liquipedia, but liquipedia and posting on forums are both ways to reach out to the community to get help. At first, when you don't have a good understanding of the game, you want a general cookie-cutter guide which is what liquipedia provides. But when you feel like you know what you're doing, but you still get stomped, you need a personalized help, which is what the forums should do. It's like classroom lectures and one-on-one guidance. When you first start learning, you need a one-size-fits all class to get a general idea. After you've graduated, you need a more personal guidance, which is what graduate students get from PhDs in writing their thesis. Liquipedia is like the classroom classes that you get in highschool/college. After you've learned the generals, you focus on your specifics, which is what you get from personal feedbacks. Which is what posting [H] is supposed to provide.
And again, if you don't get quality feedback, the problem lies with the community, not the system.
On February 16 2010 15:04 Xstatic wrote: Misrah, Koreans talk to each other and ask for help all the time. I see progamers talk to their coaches after games, especially after losing. I don't think discussing the game (even at a beginner's level) is detrimental to developing Starcraft skills. In fact it's probably the opposite; some of your own zerg guides were improved with input from the community.
When properly used, I think the Strategy Forum is the most powerful tool in any Starcraft player's arsenal in improving, short of us paying off progamers for training sessions.
Trying to compare Korean pro gamers in any way shape or form to our level of play is insignificant. How do you think that they got there in the first place? Through years and years of hard work and dedication. Even when you are on the B team- the only thing you do is play, play, play, play, play- till you get to a point when you finally understand the game at a pro level.
I agree in general with what you are saying about [h] topics in the strategy forum, but I think a player can definitely benefit from feedback about their play. However it's hard to argue the fact that nobody else is going to make u become a better player,even if they give u good advice because it is up to the individual to practice and play smart and put this advice into their games
I was really waiting for somebody to make a post like yours misrah, it pretty much said everything that needed to be said about most [H] posts in the strategy forum, step three is also nearly always one of the best ideas to fix any problem with your game. I salute you for this post.
On February 16 2010 14:54 Seraphim wrote: No offense, but shouldn't you play on a mid-high level in order for your own advice to be valid?
Certainly, however I am not telling people how to play the game. I am simply trying to tell them how to learn the game. And from my experiences from moving from D- to where I am now mostly using my idiotic build ideas, I would say that I have a fairly firm grasp on how I got to point A to B. I only wish that I could have spoken to myself years ago. It would have allowed me to progress so much faster
Fantasy consults Boxer for guidance. Fantasy is a much better player than Boxer right now.
You don't need to be a better player to teach people something. You just need a better understanding of it.
On February 16 2010 15:05 nujgnoy wrote: I know you advocate the use of liquipedia, but liquipedia and posting on forums are both ways to reach out to the community to get help. At first, when you don't have a good understanding of the game, you want a general cookie-cutter guide which is what liquipedia provides. But when you feel like you know what you're doing, but you still get stomped, you need a personalized help, which is what the forums should do. It's like classroom lectures and one-on-one guidance. When you first start learning, you need a one-size-fits all class to get a general idea. After you've graduated, you need a more personal guidance, which is what graduate students get from PhDs in writing their thesis. Liquipedia is like the classroom classes that you get in highschool/college. After you've learned the generals, you focus on your specifics, which is what you get from personal feedbacks. Which is what posting [H] is supposed to provide.
And again, if you don't get quality feedback, the problem lies with the community, not the system.
But those players don't know what they are doing. they are so sloppy in their build order- and mechanics, it's no wonder they lose. I have looked over many [H] replays and pointed out tons of mechanical error, when "they don't know what went wrong" Once again I feel that in the long run it is not doing any good at all.
On February 16 2010 14:54 Seraphim wrote: No offense, but shouldn't you play on a mid-high level in order for your own advice to be valid?
Certainly, however I am not telling people how to play the game. I am simply trying to tell them how to learn the game. And from my experiences from moving from D- to where I am now mostly using my idiotic build ideas, I would say that I have a fairly firm grasp on how I got to point A to B. I only wish that I could have spoken to myself years ago. It would have allowed me to progress so much faster
Fantasy consults Boxer for guidance. Fantasy is a much better player than Boxer right now.
You don't need to be a better player to teach people something. You just need a better understanding of it.
Trying to compare Korean pro gamers in any way shape or form to our level of play is insignificant. How do you think that they got there in the first place? Through years and years of hard work and dedication. Even when you are on the B team- the only thing you do is play, play, play, play, play- till you get to a point when you finally understand the game at a pro level.
On February 16 2010 15:05 nujgnoy wrote: I know you advocate the use of liquipedia, but liquipedia and posting on forums are both ways to reach out to the community to get help. At first, when you don't have a good understanding of the game, you want a general cookie-cutter guide which is what liquipedia provides. But when you feel like you know what you're doing, but you still get stomped, you need a personalized help, which is what the forums should do. It's like classroom lectures and one-on-one guidance. When you first start learning, you need a one-size-fits all class to get a general idea. After you've graduated, you need a more personal guidance, which is what graduate students get from PhDs in writing their thesis. Liquipedia is like the classroom classes that you get in highschool/college. After you've learned the generals, you focus on your specifics, which is what you get from personal feedbacks. Which is what posting [H] is supposed to provide.
And again, if you don't get quality feedback, the problem lies with the community, not the system.
But those players don't know what they are doing. they are so sloppy in their build order- and mechanics, it's no wonder they lose. I have looked over many [H] replays and pointed out tons of mechanical error, when "they don't know what went wrong" Once again I feel that in the long run it is not doing any good at all.
When I first started tennis and my serve was terrible, I had no idea what I was doing wrong. Seriously no idea. A pro would've seen me and said, "It's obvious what you're doing wrong." But I had no idea what the problem was and thus I wouldn't be able to fix it myself without any guidance.
Also, there are details that you can't see with your eyes. For example, it's really important to use your legs when you serve. You have to propel yourself upwards with your relatively more powerful leg muscles. If no one told me about this, I would never have been able to realize it.
On February 16 2010 14:54 Seraphim wrote: No offense, but shouldn't you play on a mid-high level in order for your own advice to be valid?
Not at all. Some people are stuck at a lower level of skill because they're too lazy to practice or don't have time, but understand the game well. They can give (potentially) give good advice too.
Lol, if you never played the game, you don't understand the game at all. There's a lot of D players that think they understand the game, but they don't have the mechanics to execute their intentions. But once you play the game and got past C rank, you'll realize that there's so much that you didn't understand before.
On February 16 2010 14:54 Seraphim wrote: No offense, but shouldn't you play on a mid-high level in order for your own advice to be valid?
Certainly, however I am not telling people how to play the game. I am simply trying to tell them how to learn the game. And from my experiences from moving from D- to where I am now mostly using my idiotic build ideas, I would say that I have a fairly firm grasp on how I got to point A to B. I only wish that I could have spoken to myself years ago. It would have allowed me to progress so much faster
Fantasy consults Boxer for guidance. Fantasy is a much better player than Boxer right now.
You don't need to be a better player to teach people something. You just need a better understanding of it.
Trying to compare Korean pro gamers in any way shape or form to our level of play is insignificant. How do you think that they got there in the first place? Through years and years of hard work and dedication. Even when you are on the B team- the only thing you do is play, play, play, play, play- till you get to a point when you finally understand the game at a pro level.
Do you seriously think that they only played for years? That they never asked anyone for help? That they shut their mouth and played for 10 years to get as good as they are?
No way. The system of asking for help works. It's a proven system and it's worked for so many things over time in history, not just for sports or games but for everything.
Once again, if you argue that the problem is with the quality of posts on TL, that's the problem with the community, not with the system of asking for personal help.
On February 16 2010 15:05 nujgnoy wrote: I know you advocate the use of liquipedia, but liquipedia and posting on forums are both ways to reach out to the community to get help. At first, when you don't have a good understanding of the game, you want a general cookie-cutter guide which is what liquipedia provides. But when you feel like you know what you're doing, but you still get stomped, you need a personalized help, which is what the forums should do. It's like classroom lectures and one-on-one guidance. When you first start learning, you need a one-size-fits all class to get a general idea. After you've graduated, you need a more personal guidance, which is what graduate students get from PhDs in writing their thesis. Liquipedia is like the classroom classes that you get in highschool/college. After you've learned the generals, you focus on your specifics, which is what you get from personal feedbacks. Which is what posting [H] is supposed to provide.
And again, if you don't get quality feedback, the problem lies with the community, not the system.
But those players don't know what they are doing. they are so sloppy in their build order- and mechanics, it's no wonder they lose. I have looked over many [H] replays and pointed out tons of mechanical error, when "they don't know what went wrong" Once again I feel that in the long run it is not doing any good at all.
When I first started tennis and my serve was terrible, I had no idea what I was doing wrong. Seriously no idea. A pro would've seen me and said, "It's obvious what you're doing wrong." But I had no idea what the problem was and thus I wouldn't be able to fix it myself without any guidance.
Also, there are details that you can't see with your eyes. For example, it's really important to use your legs when you serve. You have to propel yourself upwards with your relatively more powerful leg muscles. If no one told me about this, I would never have been able to realize it.
You can't watch yourself play tennis. You can't look at every single movement, slow down the speed- analyze every single muscle twitch. In starcraft with BW chart, the chaos launcher and the new BWAI replay launcher- you can look at every single aspect of your game. Stop comparing a physical sport to starcraft, as they are in two different realms of competition. Playing starcraft and watching a replay of yourself, is nothing like tennis.
On February 16 2010 14:54 Seraphim wrote: No offense, but shouldn't you play on a mid-high level in order for your own advice to be valid?
Certainly, however I am not telling people how to play the game. I am simply trying to tell them how to learn the game. And from my experiences from moving from D- to where I am now mostly using my idiotic build ideas, I would say that I have a fairly firm grasp on how I got to point A to B. I only wish that I could have spoken to myself years ago. It would have allowed me to progress so much faster
Fantasy consults Boxer for guidance. Fantasy is a much better player than Boxer right now.
You don't need to be a better player to teach people something. You just need a better understanding of it.
Trying to compare Korean pro gamers in any way shape or form to our level of play is insignificant. How do you think that they got there in the first place? Through years and years of hard work and dedication. Even when you are on the B team- the only thing you do is play, play, play, play, play- till you get to a point when you finally understand the game at a pro level.
Do you seriously think that they only played for years? That they never asked anyone for help? That they shut their mouth and played for 10 years to get as good as they are?
No way. The system of asking for help works. It's a proven system and it's worked for so many things over time in history, not just for sports or games but for everything.
Once again, if you argue that the problem is with the quality of posts on TL, that's the problem with the community, not with the system of asking for personal help.
You don't understand. Asking for help and finding only the solution will kill you in the long run. the smart player will attempt to understand the problem first. Not simply find a solution. I am not talking about the community or the posting quality in my thread. I am simply offering some friendly advice to the many [H] posters.
On February 16 2010 15:05 nujgnoy wrote: I know you advocate the use of liquipedia, but liquipedia and posting on forums are both ways to reach out to the community to get help. At first, when you don't have a good understanding of the game, you want a general cookie-cutter guide which is what liquipedia provides. But when you feel like you know what you're doing, but you still get stomped, you need a personalized help, which is what the forums should do. It's like classroom lectures and one-on-one guidance. When you first start learning, you need a one-size-fits all class to get a general idea. After you've graduated, you need a more personal guidance, which is what graduate students get from PhDs in writing their thesis. Liquipedia is like the classroom classes that you get in highschool/college. After you've learned the generals, you focus on your specifics, which is what you get from personal feedbacks. Which is what posting [H] is supposed to provide.
And again, if you don't get quality feedback, the problem lies with the community, not the system.
But those players don't know what they are doing. they are so sloppy in their build order- and mechanics, it's no wonder they lose. I have looked over many [H] replays and pointed out tons of mechanical error, when "they don't know what went wrong" Once again I feel that in the long run it is not doing any good at all.
When I first started tennis and my serve was terrible, I had no idea what I was doing wrong. Seriously no idea. A pro would've seen me and said, "It's obvious what you're doing wrong." But I had no idea what the problem was and thus I wouldn't be able to fix it myself without any guidance.
Also, there are details that you can't see with your eyes. For example, it's really important to use your legs when you serve. You have to propel yourself upwards with your relatively more powerful leg muscles. If no one told me about this, I would never have been able to realize it.
You can't watch yourself play tennis. You can't look at every single movement, slow down the speed- analyze every single muscle twitch. In starcraft with BW chart, the chaos launcher and the new BWAI replay launcher- you can look at every single aspect of your game. Stop comparing a physical sport to starcraft, as they are in two different realms of competition. Playing starcraft and watching a replay of yourself, is nothing like tennis.
I watched myself play tennis with my friend who video recorded me. True story. I realized that I looked very awkward, but I had no idea exactly what were the little details that made the big picture bad, until my friends told me to pay attention to this, that, etc.
And I don't think you understand that I'm not comparing a sport to tennis. I'm comparing them in respect to what you've degraded, asking for help from other players. You've made it seem that the system of asking for personal analysis is broken. It's not. You should have made a post titled "Good players should post more on Strategy forums," NOT "don't ask for help in strategy forums."
On February 16 2010 14:54 Seraphim wrote: No offense, but shouldn't you play on a mid-high level in order for your own advice to be valid?
Certainly, however I am not telling people how to play the game. I am simply trying to tell them how to learn the game. And from my experiences from moving from D- to where I am now mostly using my idiotic build ideas, I would say that I have a fairly firm grasp on how I got to point A to B. I only wish that I could have spoken to myself years ago. It would have allowed me to progress so much faster
Your own experience shows that hard work paid off This is especially effective if a player gradually picks up the game and learns things along the way at a constant rate.
But what if the player hits a plateau of skill? Continue reading Liquidpedia? Continue making notes? Continue fighting alone, never getting better?
On February 16 2010 14:54 Seraphim wrote: No offense, but shouldn't you play on a mid-high level in order for your own advice to be valid?
Not at all. Some people are stuck at a lower level of skill because they're too lazy to practice or don't have time, but understand the game well. They can give (potentially) give good advice too.
I 100% disagree with this statement. If you are giving advice about how to play the game- you should be a very good player yourself. A low level player is low level for a reason. If you have a very large understanding of the game, mechanics should not be the the thing holding you back till you hit a very high skill level.
You're not saying coaches lack a good enough understanding of the game to give advice? Just because they can't play doesn't mean their minds and knowledge are inadequate. Knowledge and actual skill are correlated but one does not directly depend on another.
On February 16 2010 15:04 Xstatic wrote: Misrah, Koreans talk to each other and ask for help all the time. I see progamers talk to their coaches after games, especially after losing. I don't think discussing the game (even at a beginner's level) is detrimental to developing Starcraft skills. In fact it's probably the opposite; some of your own zerg guides were improved with input from the community.
When properly used, I think the Strategy Forum is the most powerful tool in any Starcraft player's arsenal in improving, short of us paying off progamers for training sessions.
Trying to compare Korean pro gamers in any way shape or form to our level of play is insignificant. How do you think that they got there in the first place? Through years and years of hard work and dedication. Even when you are on the B team- the only thing you do is play, play, play, play, play- till you get to a point when you finally understand the game at a pro level.
I'm comparing the Korean gaming scene to the foreign gaming scene. Koreans play games together all the time and discuss how to get better, how to improve, who beat who last night, etc. Notice how they get better.
Then we have people bickering about how to discuss strategy, how to learn, etc. Live and let live. Learn and let others learn. Don't post in [H] threads if you get frustrated.
Not all relevant knowledge is in Liquidpedia. And not everyone is going to learn all they need to learn from their replays. There are some things that have to pointed out on an individual basis.
You're advocating one way of learning: practice, practice, practice until you iron out the mistakes and become stronger. It's a good way, and certainly works. I use the same system for my academics, and when I practice enough I get A's ^^ I'm proposing an alternate way for Starcraft: practice the correct things, learn why they work or didn't work, and practice some more, getting better at things along the way. Of course just as much practice is needed, but this way people have more fun than just practicing the same stuff over and over and hoping that improvement will come naturally.
You don't understand. Asking for help and finding only the solution will kill you in the long run. the smart player will attempt to understand the problem first. Not simply find a solution. I am not talking about the community or the posting quality in my thread. I am simply offering some friendly advice to the many [H] posters.
You can't fix them by reading more guides, you can't fix them by reading more posts from D players, and you certainly can't fix them by typing exhaustive [H] threads in the strategy forum.
This clearly implies that the inputs you get are because they are from D players. And if you are not emphasizing the poster's rank aspect, you must mean that getting posts from A+ players won't help you either.
Also, you say experiment with new solutions, try a new build order. The problem is, a player who doesn't understand why they lost in the first place won't be able to have the comprehension to decide whether a BO works or not.
Maybe you mean a player should get the BO from liquipedia. The BO information is great, but you can't win by memorizing and executing the list. There are LOTS of little details that maybe wrong with your gameplay that you may not realize (macro problems, micro problems, etc.). Things that you didn't think about that could help you (creative things such as cliff dropping that new players often don't think of).
Understanding the Flash build page will NOT let you win games alone. There are game specific things such as push timing, 3rd timing, etc that you may not realize by yourself that are obvious to someone who is more experienced, despite that someone not being an A+ player.
On February 16 2010 15:05 nujgnoy wrote: I know you advocate the use of liquipedia, but liquipedia and posting on forums are both ways to reach out to the community to get help. At first, when you don't have a good understanding of the game, you want a general cookie-cutter guide which is what liquipedia provides. But when you feel like you know what you're doing, but you still get stomped, you need a personalized help, which is what the forums should do. It's like classroom lectures and one-on-one guidance. When you first start learning, you need a one-size-fits all class to get a general idea. After you've graduated, you need a more personal guidance, which is what graduate students get from PhDs in writing their thesis. Liquipedia is like the classroom classes that you get in highschool/college. After you've learned the generals, you focus on your specifics, which is what you get from personal feedbacks. Which is what posting [H] is supposed to provide.
And again, if you don't get quality feedback, the problem lies with the community, not the system.
But those players don't know what they are doing. they are so sloppy in their build order- and mechanics, it's no wonder they lose. I have looked over many [H] replays and pointed out tons of mechanical error, when "they don't know what went wrong" Once again I feel that in the long run it is not doing any good at all.
When I first started tennis and my serve was terrible, I had no idea what I was doing wrong. Seriously no idea. A pro would've seen me and said, "It's obvious what you're doing wrong." But I had no idea what the problem was and thus I wouldn't be able to fix it myself without any guidance.
Also, there are details that you can't see with your eyes. For example, it's really important to use your legs when you serve. You have to propel yourself upwards with your relatively more powerful leg muscles. If no one told me about this, I would never have been able to realize it.
You can't watch yourself play tennis. You can't look at every single movement, slow down the speed- analyze every single muscle twitch. In starcraft with BW chart, the chaos launcher and the new BWAI replay launcher- you can look at every single aspect of your game. Stop comparing a physical sport to starcraft, as they are in two different realms of competition. Playing starcraft and watching a replay of yourself, is nothing like tennis.
I watched myself play tennis with my friend who video recorded me. True story. I realized that I looked very awkward, but I had no idea exactly what were the little details that made the big picture bad, until my friends told me to pay attention to this, that, etc.
And I don't think you understand that I'm not comparing a sport to tennis. I'm comparing them in respect to what you've degraded, asking for help from other players. You've made it seem that the system of asking for personal analysis is broken. It's not. You should have made a post titled "Good players should post more on Strategy forums," NOT "don't ask for help in strategy forums."
Once again I don't think that you can compare tennis to starcrarft. Because i have never played a single game of tennis in my life I am not attempting to compare it to starcraft, nor can i understand where you are coming from. You seem very adamant- so i am going to agree to disagree with you on this matter.
On February 16 2010 14:54 Seraphim wrote: No offense, but shouldn't you play on a mid-high level in order for your own advice to be valid?
Certainly, however I am not telling people how to play the game. I am simply trying to tell them how to learn the game. And from my experiences from moving from D- to where I am now mostly using my idiotic build ideas, I would say that I have a fairly firm grasp on how I got to point A to B. I only wish that I could have spoken to myself years ago. It would have allowed me to progress so much faster
Your own experience shows that hard work paid off This is especially effective if a player gradually picks up the game and learns things along the way at a constant rate.
But what if the player hits a plateau of skill? Continue reading Liquidpedia? Continue making notes? Continue fighting alone, never getting better?
On February 16 2010 14:54 Seraphim wrote: No offense, but shouldn't you play on a mid-high level in order for your own advice to be valid?
Not at all. Some people are stuck at a lower level of skill because they're too lazy to practice or don't have time, but understand the game well. They can give (potentially) give good advice too.
I 100% disagree with this statement. If you are giving advice about how to play the game- you should be a very good player yourself. A low level player is low level for a reason. If you have a very large understanding of the game, mechanics should not be the the thing holding you back till you hit a very high skill level.
You're not saying coaches lack a good enough understanding of the game to give advice? Just because they can't play doesn't mean their minds and knowledge are inadequate. Knowledge and actual skill are correlated but one does not directly depend on another.
On February 16 2010 15:04 Xstatic wrote: Misrah, Koreans talk to each other and ask for help all the time. I see progamers talk to their coaches after games, especially after losing. I don't think discussing the game (even at a beginner's level) is detrimental to developing Starcraft skills. In fact it's probably the opposite; some of your own zerg guides were improved with input from the community.
When properly used, I think the Strategy Forum is the most powerful tool in any Starcraft player's arsenal in improving, short of us paying off progamers for training sessions.
Trying to compare Korean pro gamers in any way shape or form to our level of play is insignificant. How do you think that they got there in the first place? Through years and years of hard work and dedication. Even when you are on the B team- the only thing you do is play, play, play, play, play- till you get to a point when you finally understand the game at a pro level.
I'm comparing the Korean gaming scene to the foreign gaming scene. Koreans play games together all the time and discuss how to get better, how to improve, who beat who last night, etc. Notice how they get better.
Then we have people bickering about how to discuss strategy, how to learn, etc. Live and let live. Learn and let others learn. Don't post in [H] threads if you get frustrated.
Not all relevant knowledge is in Liquidpedia. And not everyone is going to learn all they need to learn from their replays. There are some things that have to pointed out on an individual basis.
You're advocating one way of learning: practice, practice, practice until you iron out the mistakes and become stronger. It's a good way, and certainly works. I use the same system for my academics, and when I practice enough I get A's ^^ I'm proposing an alternate way for Starcraft: practice the correct things, learn why they work or didn't work, and practice some more, getting better at things along the way. Of course just as much practice is needed, but this way people have more fun than just practicing the same stuff over and over and hoping that improvement will come naturally.
Hitting a Plateau is merely a figment of the imagination. No one plays perfect starcraft. There is always something you can do better. Even flash knows this.
The only coaches that actually coach in the true sense of the word, were once pro players themselves. ala boxer, iloveoov and the like.
Your final paragraph is amazing. Practicing over and over blindly is not the way to succeed at starcraft (i found that out the hard way) One needs to understand starcraft while practicing. And the only way to understand the game is to play, and attempt builds on your own.
Also, one more decisive example: There was a thread about Strong FD a while back. I watched the rep, and I found that the person made a mistake in the BO. The BO is 9 depot, build depot with the 8th scv that pops out. But what the player actually did was he pulled an scv during 8 and built the depot right when 9 started. So even though it looked as if he made the correct BO (9depot), he lost a ton of mining time and had a ton of wait time which delayed his rax and refinery so much with a too-fast depot that didn't help him at all since he had way too much supply and couldn't use it.
There are such things that you may think that you're doing it right if someone doesn't correct you. These are the worst of habits, and if you never ask for help, you might never know that you were doing this wrong.
You don't understand. Asking for help and finding only the solution will kill you in the long run. the smart player will attempt to understand the problem first. Not simply find a solution. I am not talking about the community or the posting quality in my thread. I am simply offering some friendly advice to the many [H] posters.
You can't fix them by reading more guides, you can't fix them by reading more posts from D players, and you certainly can't fix them by typing exhaustive [H] threads in the strategy forum.
This clearly implies that the inputs you get are because they are from D players. And if you are not emphasizing the poster's rank aspect, you must mean that getting posts from A+ players won't help you either.
Also, you say experiment with new solutions, try a new build order. The problem is, a player who doesn't understand why they lost in the first place won't be able to have the comprehension to decide whether a BO works or not.
Maybe you mean a player should get the BO from liquipedia. The BO information is great, but you can't win by memorizing and executing the list. There are LOTS of little details that maybe wrong with your gameplay that you may not realize (macro problems, micro problems, etc.). Things that you didn't think about that could help you (creative things such as cliff dropping that new players often don't think of).
Understanding the Flash build page will NOT let you win games alone. There are game specific things such as push timing, 3rd timing, etc that you may not realize by yourself that are obvious to someone who is more experienced, despite that someone not being an A+ player.
So let me get this straight- If a new player doesn't understand the game, and reading a bunch of posts isn't going to help... Then the only way is to read a post about the solution to the problem that they don't understand? Like I have said before
It will not help you if you simply find a solution to the problem, if you do not understand the problem first. The only way to understand the problem at hand is through replay analysis, note taking, and play testing. Which i have been advocating with my 3 step guide.
On February 16 2010 15:36 nujgnoy wrote: Also, one more decisive example: There was a thread about Strong FD a while back. I watched the rep, and I found that the person made a mistake in the BO. The BO is 9 depot, build depot with the 8th scv that pops out. But what the player actually did was he pulled an scv during 8 and built the depot right when 9 started. So even though it looked as if he made the correct BO (9depot), he lost a ton of mining time and had a ton of wait time which delayed his rax and refinery so much with a too-fast depot that didn't help him at all since he had way too much supply and couldn't use it.
There are such things that you may think that you're doing it right if someone doesn't correct you. These are the worst of habits, and if you never ask for help, you might never know that you were doing this wrong.
Once again my point- If that player would have followed my steps, they would have seen that they need to fix their mechanics. Through note taking and extensive replay analysis, that would have been avoided. That is step one of my guide.
You don't understand. Asking for help and finding only the solution will kill you in the long run. the smart player will attempt to understand the problem first. Not simply find a solution. I am not talking about the community or the posting quality in my thread. I am simply offering some friendly advice to the many [H] posters.
You can't fix them by reading more guides, you can't fix them by reading more posts from D players, and you certainly can't fix them by typing exhaustive [H] threads in the strategy forum.
This clearly implies that the inputs you get are because they are from D players. And if you are not emphasizing the poster's rank aspect, you must mean that getting posts from A+ players won't help you either.
Also, you say experiment with new solutions, try a new build order. The problem is, a player who doesn't understand why they lost in the first place won't be able to have the comprehension to decide whether a BO works or not.
Maybe you mean a player should get the BO from liquipedia. The BO information is great, but you can't win by memorizing and executing the list. There are LOTS of little details that maybe wrong with your gameplay that you may not realize (macro problems, micro problems, etc.). Things that you didn't think about that could help you (creative things such as cliff dropping that new players often don't think of).
Understanding the Flash build page will NOT let you win games alone. There are game specific things such as push timing, 3rd timing, etc that you may not realize by yourself that are obvious to someone who is more experienced, despite that someone not being an A+ player.
So let me get this straight- If a new player doesn't understand the game, and reading a bunch of posts isn't going to help... Then the only way is to read a post about the solution to the problem that they don't understand? Like I have said before
It will not help you if you simply find a solution to the problem, if you do not understand the problem first. The only way to understand the problem at hand is through replay analysis, note taking, and play testing. Which i have been advocating with my 3 step guide.
Reading posts that tell a person what to pay attention will help.
The problem with finding your own solution is that you don't always find the right solution.
Do you learn calculus by yourself with a textbook? No, you need to have teachers in the following process: 1. Teacher teaches general principles 2. student does homework with mistakes 3. Teacher corrects the mistakes, emphasizing the small details to look out for 4. student practices over and over again and perfects it.
You're advocating that people should not have #3, that students should learn by themselves the little details that hard difficult to pick up. If you've ever taken any math class you know that there are always small details that you always forget unless a teacher reminds you again and again and again. You then practice after these reminders.
[H] threads are supposed to be sort of like homework, where you read a general principle (liquipedia). After you lost a game, you put up a replay and ask for what were wrong. The posters are supposed to point out the more detailed problems for the player to pay particular attention to and improve.
On February 16 2010 15:36 nujgnoy wrote: Also, one more decisive example: There was a thread about Strong FD a while back. I watched the rep, and I found that the person made a mistake in the BO. The BO is 9 depot, build depot with the 8th scv that pops out. But what the player actually did was he pulled an scv during 8 and built the depot right when 9 started. So even though it looked as if he made the correct BO (9depot), he lost a ton of mining time and had a ton of wait time which delayed his rax and refinery so much with a too-fast depot that didn't help him at all since he had way too much supply and couldn't use it.
There are such things that you may think that you're doing it right if someone doesn't correct you. These are the worst of habits, and if you never ask for help, you might never know that you were doing this wrong.
Once again my point- If that player would have followed my steps, they would have seen that they need to fix their mechanics. Through note taking and extensive replay analysis, that would have been avoided. That is step one of my guide.
The thing is that the player WOULD NOT HAVE SEEN THE PROBLEM by himself. I didn't see it until I watched it over 3 times, and I KNOW the BO for strong FD. He did the same BO as on paper, but he did it wrongly. There was NO way he would've figured it out by himself.
If he followed your steps, they would NEVER have known the problem. Not even after watching it 50 times.
You don't understand. Asking for help and finding only the solution will kill you in the long run. the smart player will attempt to understand the problem first. Not simply find a solution. I am not talking about the community or the posting quality in my thread. I am simply offering some friendly advice to the many [H] posters.
You can't fix them by reading more guides, you can't fix them by reading more posts from D players, and you certainly can't fix them by typing exhaustive [H] threads in the strategy forum.
This clearly implies that the inputs you get are because they are from D players. And if you are not emphasizing the poster's rank aspect, you must mean that getting posts from A+ players won't help you either.
Also, you say experiment with new solutions, try a new build order. The problem is, a player who doesn't understand why they lost in the first place won't be able to have the comprehension to decide whether a BO works or not.
Maybe you mean a player should get the BO from liquipedia. The BO information is great, but you can't win by memorizing and executing the list. There are LOTS of little details that maybe wrong with your gameplay that you may not realize (macro problems, micro problems, etc.). Things that you didn't think about that could help you (creative things such as cliff dropping that new players often don't think of).
Understanding the Flash build page will NOT let you win games alone. There are game specific things such as push timing, 3rd timing, etc that you may not realize by yourself that are obvious to someone who is more experienced, despite that someone not being an A+ player.
So let me get this straight- If a new player doesn't understand the game, and reading a bunch of posts isn't going to help... Then the only way is to read a post about the solution to the problem that they don't understand? Like I have said before
It will not help you if you simply find a solution to the problem, if you do not understand the problem first. The only way to understand the problem at hand is through replay analysis, note taking, and play testing. Which i have been advocating with my 3 step guide.
Reading posts that tell a person what to pay attention will help.
The problem with finding your own solution is that you don't always find the right solution.
Do you learn calculus by yourself with a textbook? No, you need to have teachers in the following process: 1. Teacher teaches general principles 2. student does homework with mistakes 3. Teacher corrects the mistakes, emphasizing the small details to look out for 4. student practices over and over again and perfects it.
You're advocating that people should not have #3, that students should learn by themselves the little details that hard difficult to pick up. If you've ever taken any math class you know that there are always small details that you always forget unless a teacher reminds you again and again and again. You then practice after these reminders.
[H] threads are supposed to be sort of like homework, where you read a general principle (liquipedia). After you lost a game, you put up a replay and ask for what were wrong. The posters are supposed to point out the more detailed problems for the player to pay particular attention to and improve.
Once again calculus is not starcraft. Neither is school for that matter. and when you get to college (i am not sure if your already there) you will run into your fair share of terrible professors. In these cases all you have is your book, and your mind.
Also- [H] threads are not homework. they are simply lazy noobs, looking for a quick fix to a problem that they do not understand. Now i don't think that all [H] threads are like this, but the majority are. The poster should have followed steps one through three of my guide, and i would fancy a guess that 90% of the problems a new player faces are easily fixable, once they put their mind to it.
What he did makes it look like he did 9 depot on paper, but he practically did 8depot because he pulled an scv so early, waited until 9/10, then built the depot.
There's NOTHING in the liquipedia page that would have helped him figure this out. It took me a LONG time to notice it.
The problem with your approach is that if the player doesn't spot a specific problem, he will never be able to fix it simply because he doesn't realize it. These are the problems you need others' inputs on.
On February 16 2010 15:36 nujgnoy wrote: Also, one more decisive example: There was a thread about Strong FD a while back. I watched the rep, and I found that the person made a mistake in the BO. The BO is 9 depot, build depot with the 8th scv that pops out. But what the player actually did was he pulled an scv during 8 and built the depot right when 9 started. So even though it looked as if he made the correct BO (9depot), he lost a ton of mining time and had a ton of wait time which delayed his rax and refinery so much with a too-fast depot that didn't help him at all since he had way too much supply and couldn't use it.
There are such things that you may think that you're doing it right if someone doesn't correct you. These are the worst of habits, and if you never ask for help, you might never know that you were doing this wrong.
Once again my point- If that player would have followed my steps, they would have seen that they need to fix their mechanics. Through note taking and extensive replay analysis, that would have been avoided. That is step one of my guide.
The thing is that the player WOULD NOT HAVE SEEN THE PROBLEM by himself. I didn't see it until I watched it over 3 times, and I KNOW the BO for strong FD. He did the same BO as on paper, but he did it wrongly. There was NO way he would've figured it out by himself.
If he followed your steps, they would NEVER have known the problem. Not even after watching it 50 times.
I am going to bed after this, because this is getting exhausting.
If you looked over his rep 3times (and i have my doubts) and saw that odd supply depot, and then proceed to notice that his entire BO begins to fall apart because of that supply depot, then certainly- if that player would have given step one of my guide a fair chance, he also would have noticed how off his timing was?
On February 16 2010 15:36 nujgnoy wrote: Also, one more decisive example: There was a thread about Strong FD a while back. I watched the rep, and I found that the person made a mistake in the BO. The BO is 9 depot, build depot with the 8th scv that pops out. But what the player actually did was he pulled an scv during 8 and built the depot right when 9 started. So even though it looked as if he made the correct BO (9depot), he lost a ton of mining time and had a ton of wait time which delayed his rax and refinery so much with a too-fast depot that didn't help him at all since he had way too much supply and couldn't use it.
There are such things that you may think that you're doing it right if someone doesn't correct you. These are the worst of habits, and if you never ask for help, you might never know that you were doing this wrong.
Once again my point- If that player would have followed my steps, they would have seen that they need to fix their mechanics. Through note taking and extensive replay analysis, that would have been avoided. That is step one of my guide.
The thing is that the player WOULD NOT HAVE SEEN THE PROBLEM by himself. I didn't see it until I watched it over 3 times, and I KNOW the BO for strong FD. He did the same BO as on paper, but he did it wrongly. There was NO way he would've figured it out by himself.
If he followed your steps, they would NEVER have known the problem. Not even after watching it 50 times.
I am going to bed after this, because this is getting exhausting.
If you looked over his rep 3times (and i have my doubts) and saw that odd supply depot, and then proceed to notice that his entire BO begins to fall apart because of that supply depot, then certainly- if that player would have given step one of my guide a fair chance, he also would have noticed how off his timing was?
No. Not a chance. It took an experienced player a while to notice this problem, then a new player certainly would NOT have noticed it, because it is one of those problems that are deceptive; you THINK you're doing it right, and the liquipedia SEEMS to back up your BO, but you're really doing it wrong. My last post should explain this better with the linked thread with replay.
I can see where you're coming from with the "why did i lose" threads, but strategy is also for discussing strategies(go figure) and builds and other things, so I can't say you won't improve by posting in the strat forum. discussion with others stimulates yourself into understanding and coming up with things on your own
Misrah my respect for your ability to learn the game on your own grows post by post as you expound the value of learning the game on your own and internalizing it by yourself. I think I see your point; there's no way anyone from the strategy forum is going to help you when you're in game, so in the end, you're on your own.
That's what makes you so strong as a self-motivated learner, one able to reach the pinnacle of skill on your own. It reminds me of Flash and his strategical ability to think on their feet, which I'm sure no player can learn from someone else.
But the strategy forum is something else; it's a place for weaker and confused players to come and ask questions, discuss what went wrong. They come here to ask for outside input. Regardless of the reason, it's the forum's function to help people understand the game better when they ask for help.
"We are really looking to encourage the people who know what they're talking about. We are equally looking to encourage the people who have no idea what they are talking about, but know that they don't know what they're talking about." - from the Strategy Forum Guidelines
I don't even know what the point of this post is. You're basically saying check liquipedia before posting, watch your replay before posting, and don't post without taking a fair shot at your problem. I think that's basically the forum guidelines. What a waste of my time reading your "guide." Don't post things like this again they just clog up the forum.
You're third step is flawed... just because you see what works against someone else doesn't mean it is the correct way. It could've been your opponent made a mistake or did not punish you for doing something you should've done instead.
I agree with everything You say but i think this advice only applies for people with a basic understanding of the game. If they don't even know what to spot for, how can they even improve? This advice only works for people who knows the rationale between their BO and how it helps; if this people don't even know what to do then asking them to find out their own mistakes is really too hard. Mechanical problems such as an scv building a barracks at 200 can be corrected, but strategical problems such as knowing how to engage and when to engage is something so abstract that even if you watched your replay many times you wouldn't know.
Sure of cause you can say that you can see his unit count and tell yourself that you should hve pushed but no game of starcraft is exactly the same. Thats where the strategy forum comes in - people who are more experienced can point out to you what to look out for and how to react to them. This is how everyone can improve- by consulting people with a better understanding of the game and asking for their advice. OP is one reason why i have not posted a (h) thread- i don't wanna waste the time of tl.net telling me to brush up on my bo. So i totally understand where your frustrations come from
As for the people who are too lazy to brush up on their bo just get a life and start practicing properly
Great post, this is soo true. I remember that there was also very good guide to learning SC by (i think) Chill and he said that it is important when you watch replay (or pro VOD) to look at some situations and think about every possible choice and their outcomes, with an example being zergling drop (or zergling runby?). It should be somewhere in recommended i think
Spending an hour reading posts in a forum is easy, playing an hour of starcraft with full focus and concentration is difficult. Of course the harder option is the best way to get better, it's just most people can't handle it and hope for some sort of short cut.
Another thing that pisses me off about most people wanting to improve is that they almost never ask the person who just beat them for advice. You frequently hear "omg I got smurfed so bad, I never had a chance, fuck this, raaaage quit!"
That simply isn't an effective attitude when you're trying to learn and everyone who complains about being bashed by better players needs to stop being so damn childish, swallow their pride and realise they can benefit from these experiences.
Sure, you can read and learn about the fundamentals about each matchup and the basic mechanics of the game. But in the end, the far superior way to actually become a better starcraft player is through trial and error - as in actually playing the game - failing - revaluate your errors, why they happend and what you can do differently.
From personal experience, going to the strategy forum and asking other D players for advice that you often already know is a waste of time and isn't going to improve your gameplay at all. You often already know what your misstake was and how to correct it, your disbelief in your own gameplay is making you go to the forums and get your already established conclusions confirmed by other D level players.
The time I improved most in Starcraft was when I had an avid 1v1 player who would play several times in a row. Seeing how I was low D playing against a C+, I must have lost like 120 games in total. This player helped me get a stronger early game and set up for mid game, always giving me all sorts of advices as we would play.
Unfortunately, I still have a lot of questions that I would love to debate. I know what my mistakes are each game, but sometimes what I can do better is not always obvious. For example: contains strategy spoiler of TSL + Show Spoiler [NonY vs iDra TSL] +
I see a terran going 14 cc, bunker cross positions. I may have reacted by cutting probes and adding extra gateways. It may not have worked. NonY proxied these gateways, and the timing looked so perfect. He used the three gateways he proxied, and the dragoons were charging the bunker for a few seconds before the tank arrived. If I had made those gateways in my main, the tank would have been there before the dragoons. People have different solutions to different problems. Sometimes it is worth while to hear from their experience instead of spending several hours to develop one of your own.
It is not the fact it is not obvious. It is just so far away from my style. I rarely cheese, so I try to find standard builds that fair well against greedy ones, but sometimes there just isn't a strong standard counter.
I think there's two obvious different sides to this issue but neither side wants to concede their point. So I'm just going to give my own opinion on the matter and people can choose to agree or disagree.
I find that the best way to improve is to BE AROUND BETTER PLAYERS. In every way shape and form. Play better players, ask for advice from better players, do anything you can to immerse yourself with really skilled Starcraft players.
I don't mean watch them stream or watch an FPVOD. Actually talk to them or ask them for a game. There is a lot of flawed advice about games in the Strategy forum, but if you ask a really good player, you're more likely to get good advice. Granted, even upper level players will disagree on various strategical decisions, but they all tend to have similar fundamental thoughts and these beliefs can help you analyze in depth where you messed up your timings and minor nuances that slowed you down.
If you test your BOs and play over and over again against D players, and you find a winning formula, you'll come to the conclusion that your strategies DO WORK. The problem is that they may work against players with unrefined builds, late timings, and poor macro, but they may not work at higher levels. When you play against a B- or higher level player, you'll REALLY KNOW for sure whether or not your build works. At those levels, your opponent is going to have very sharp timing and you WILL be punished for late tech/expo.
Don't be afraid to send a PM to a really good player asking for a few games or even asking for advice if you want it. While the more big name foreigners tend to have flooded Inboxes and thus don't have time to respond, there are quite a few REALLY good foreigners in the B- to B+ range that have quite a bit of free time and would be more than willing to play a handful of games with you or give you tips on how to sharpen your build.
I registered an account on here to try and get some extra help in my game. While I applaud the dedication some have in exhausting their spare time to replay their games over and over again, I simply don't have the time. If someone explains to me what I did wrong in a game, perhaps they'll point out something I might have overlooked, or didn't deem as a problem in the first place (something liquidpedia can never do).
If I didn't see the problem, and liquidpedia can't point it out, what's the use of practicing more and more, getting into a worse habit of whatever my problem is when someone here can inform me straight away that I don't need for example 3 engineering bays? While I'm the only person that can fix my problems, I'm absolutely not the only person that can identify my problems.
People asking for help is the life-blood of the strategy forum. Without newbies like us, there'd be no point in having a strategy forum. If you loathe all the [H] topics, nobody's making you click on them.
Then if you don't have time to dedicate yourself to the game- why are you trying to take it seriously? Like I have said before, you can only grow so far as a player if you seek to only find a solution to your problem. Finding the answer is pointless if you don't understand the problem in the first place.
I am not hating on [H] topics. I am simply trying to help out new players, that i feel do not understand when to make an [H] topic.
Nor am i attempting to moderate this thread. I am just trying to help out new players. It can be a daunting task to try and learn starcraft. I simply wrote this guide in an attempt to help show new players how one can improve rapidly when they first start playing the game.
As much as I like losing every Starcraft game I play, I found I get a MUCH better experience if I win every once in a while, which is why I try and improve when I can. Because I'm a casual player, does that mean I shouldn't try and seek out improvement? If I don't understand what my problem is, how can I attempt to search for it on liquidpedia? It would be much better to try and get some peer feedback of my specific problems than guesstimate on my own what those problems might be.
In your guide you don't state when it IS ok to post a [H] topic, which leads me to believe you're implying it's NOT ok to ask for help around here.
I don't think that the problem that OP is describing has anything to do with people asking for help. The problem is more about the responses.
Of course if people only say "This is what you should have done" then it might only be helpful for that particular game. But if people would say something like this: "You saw him do that and therefore you should do this, but if he would have done that you should have done this" Then the advice could be very helpful.
I really don't see why people asking for help should be a problem.
On February 16 2010 14:21 Seraphim wrote: What is your rank Misrah? :O
Meh doesn't really matter. I only play iccup with my shitty builds / ideas. I am sure that you can find out yourself if your really that interested. I am really not that great.
On February 16 2010 14:23 huameng wrote: Totally disagree with this "guide". For what other game, sport, activity, is not asking for help the best way to learn?
"Hi I play soccer. Help me run faster and think better." or- Help my mechanics! (lol yep I am going to come to your house and show you how to type faster. Please don't think about how to improve, just post a question.) Or better yet (How did i lose??? I have no idea. I thought that I did everything right?) is pretty much the gist of all the [H] threads in strategy. The reason why it is never useful, is because most people are asking for help are looking for a solution. they may find it, however they will never come to understand the problem.
Hi I play the violin and I try to learn alone and I will never get anywhere because it's fucking impossible to learn without exterior help.
Now, you can learn starcraft without help, just by copying, it just happens that other people helping you makes you improve faster.
There must be a reason why level in Korea is 7654352 times better than everywhere else. When your best friend is a A+ level gosu, getting from D rank to B+ goes very quickly. He just sit next to you and explain you what to do and how to do it. And how to interpret what you see, how to react to situations etc...
I know because I never had friends who play starcraft, I did absolutely everything by myself, and I am C rank when I know I could be B if some people around me had explained me my mistakes, and how to solve issues.
In my mind the strategy forum is a place to come and read up on an interesting BO, a new tactic, a new map strategy, or a helpful guide. Instead it has morphed into a corridor filled with the distraught cries of players screaming the same questions over and over. Perhaps asking a vague question such as "What did i do wrong?" and posting a replay will not help you because you have not taken the time to watch it yourself.
With that said, I do support people pre determining a flaw in their play and asking for ways to correct it. This shows the ability to take time to analyse a play, understand what the goals were, and identify errors. And after a long hard reflection on the toilet it is OK to conclude with the decision to ask for help on team liquids strategy forum.
by the way, Misrah... If you include more smiley faces in your OP people will be less obliged to react negatively =)
Having help, as little or even just in the start, helps as with anything in life. Period.
Also, yes you cant find a solution if you don't understand the problem, but people can help you see and understand the problem AS WELL AS help you find a solution
If anything it brings the community together more. Even if (which I completely disagree with) this strat fourm is 100% useless, the community feels stronger with it and bonds are made. Thats something that goes outside the game.
It also depends how seriously you take starcraft. If you want it to be some life's journey with self realization, sure figure it all out yourself. If you just want to play it to get to an acceptable level quickly and own some noobs (owning is enjoyable to certain people) then play it for that. Theres no right or wrong way to look at starcraft. As with learning everything, there are shortcuts. We go to school for a reason, people tell us everything others have already figured out. All of us don't have to refigure out how electricity works or how to multiply matricies etc etc. All of this stuff is fed to us because people have taken long journeys themselves to manually figure it out via trial, erorr, analysis. But those people used things they were spoon fed as well. I mean Einstien spent his life developing so much stuff and figuring out things, but he already used the basic knowledges that he was spoon fed from the great scientists before him. That is how you advance. IF Einstein had to learn from scratch, well he may not even have learned ANYTHING.
The language you speak now, you were taught that. You didnt go by trial and error to make random noises and see how people react. Maybe you did to an extent, but to understand those finer details you need to learn the basics first. I'm sure whoever raised you taught you basic skills in life and let you learn your own on the rest
All, people can help you understand problems, because people do have the same problems (and even if it isnt exactly the same it can give you a very basic understanding if anything), the community is closer, and life is already based off of reading what people have done in the past and modifying or adding onto it.
So many people are reading too far into my guide. I was simply trying to help new players. I did not say that you should never post a H thread. I am simply offering a system of improving yourself that I feel is better for most players. Peole have become to lazy and rely on the post button too much.
On February 17 2010 01:06 Misrah wrote: So many people are reading too far into my guide. I was simply trying to help new players. I did not say that you should never post a H thread. I am simply offering a system of improving yourself that I feel is better for most players. Peole have become to lazy and rely on the post button too much.
your system is better for more experienced players but not new players, read my post above
very bad post i think you are right that one should put more own effort into improving but very often you do not see your own mistakes or do not think of ways that you could have played advices from outside are always helpful but you should still try anything you can to improve on your own and then ask for help
On February 17 2010 01:06 Misrah wrote: So many people are reading too far into my guide. I was simply trying to help new players. I did not say that you should never post a H thread. I am simply offering a system of improving yourself that I feel is better for most players. Peole have become to lazy and rely on the post button too much.
i agree, i think something that should be added to the posting "guideline" would be removal of first person writing. (as i write this in first person ofc)
most of the threads on here, even outside of strategy, are all the same and you can see the content of the first post just by the title.
examples: how was your ______ day? post your ______.
it's like when someone asks you how your day is, knowing that you're obligated to ask them back because they want to talk about themselves.
what does this have to do with the strategy forum? people often times think of some idea that they think is clever and propagate it in the same manner, or in other words they want yes-men and argue with most people that say no.
a possible answer is to have objective/3rd person posting as mandatory because it makes posters reevaluate their thoughts, should they have one of those moments. worst case scenario - the guy who refuses/doesn't read or realize this obviously doesn't really want to improve anyway and will have time to think about it.
On February 17 2010 00:53 PiePie wrote: Having help, as little or even just in the start, helps as with anything in life. Period.
Also, yes you cant find a solution if you don't understand the problem, but people can help you see and understand the problem AS WELL AS help you find a solution
If anything it brings the community together more. Even if (which I completely disagree with) this strat fourm is 100% useless, the community feels stronger with it and bonds are made. Thats something that goes outside the game.
It also depends how seriously you take starcraft. If you want it to be some life's journey with self realization, sure figure it all out yourself. If you just want to play it to get to an acceptable level quickly and own some noobs (owning is enjoyable to certain people) then play it for that. Theres no right or wrong way to look at starcraft. As with learning everything, there are shortcuts. We go to school for a reason, people tell us everything others have already figured out. All of us don't have to refigure out how electricity works or how to multiply matricies etc etc. All of this stuff is fed to us because people have taken long journeys themselves to manually figure it out via trial, erorr, analysis. But those people used things they were spoon fed as well. I mean Einstien spent his life developing so much stuff and figuring out things, but he already used the basic knowledges that he was spoon fed from the great scientists before him. That is how you advance. IF Einstein had to learn from scratch, well he may not even have learned ANYTHING.
The language you speak now, you were taught that. You didnt go by trial and error to make random noises and see how people react. Maybe you did to an extent, but to understand those finer details you need to learn the basics first. I'm sure whoever raised you taught you basic skills in life and let you learn your own on the rest
All, people can help you understand problems, because people do have the same problems (and even if it isnt exactly the same it can give you a very basic understanding if anything), the community is closer, and life is already based off of reading what people have done in the past and modifying or adding onto it.
there are so many logical flaws in this argument that i don't even know where to begin. some people might find this game hard (since you didn't ask for my opinion i think it's relatively easy) all the stuff is right in front of you, just as the op stated (namely your brain). if you don't want to use it and instead choose to rely on making half assed questions then you're going to get half assed results. the op's argument is with the amount and quality of questions, not the act of asking questions.
As with learning everything, there are shortcuts.
you should really really spend a lot of time reevaluating this statement
Misrah, very good thread and thanks for posting it. I'm also really happy with the discussion that has come out of it.
Dozens of times over the last couple of years I have contemplated making a thread in Strategy to ask why I lost a particular game, or what I could improve to avoid losing several games in the same way. Every time I've made myself sit back, cool off, watch the replay a few times, and think about the game for a day or two; and every time I've come up with enough answers on my own that a thread would have been redundant. I don't believe even a little bit that my ability to do this is unique or special, and I see a lot of threads that I think would be unnecessary if the poster would just put in a bit of work. No one's play is perfect, and anyone, no matter what level they are at, who says "I looked at this game and I don't see a single thing I could have done better" is lazy, lying, or both.
PiePie, your post above is valuable and in no way incorrect but I also think it's near orthogonal to the point of this thread. The problem with typical help threads - at least in my eyes - is that they are made by people looking for quick fixes to specific situations, rather than for tools to fix the problem in general. There is something to be said for helping inexperienced players find the tools to help themselves but that has been done so many times now that it is near trivial for someone to find a related old post.
What I like seeing in the Strategy forum is discussions, not question-and-answer threads. Of course there have been threads started with a question that I've liked. However I firmly believe that the correct way to post a question is to formulate it in a way that invites discussion and then to include some seeds for the discussion in the post.
Some posters heAr are spending too much time reading I to this. This guide does not need muti paragrph responses. More than half of you have some how come to believe I think making H threads is bad. The oth half are posting arguments far beyond the acope of my guide. the poster above me gets it
New players should have already read through liquipedia a lot. When a low level player analyzes their own rep, the most obvious problems they'd see is simply macro and control problems. Those are the obvious problems, and those are what most people will find if they were to look in a rep, but not the more detailed problems that better players can find. The chances of a person losing ONLY because of macro and control is too low. Once they fix their macro and control, they'll still be losing because of another reason that they have no clue about.
For example, lets go back a few months at the times where 4 gate 2 archon would work (before zergs thought of simcity) I can guarantee you with your method, a single zerg alone will never think about having better simcity. They'll either be making more sunkens or earlier hydras, both which will destroy their economy. They'll be making the extra defense, then they see they don't have enough drones to build anything. Well, their hydra control could be perfect, they could see no huge mistakes in their replay, just that their build is wrong. And they have no clue about it.
The reason why clans and progaming teams and even the B teams all play together is this exact reason. To ask for help. That's why you see so many good players all in the same clans, because they learn from each other. There are rarely any people that can get to a good level by themselves. People who play starcraft will play to become the best. They won't say "ok, I'm going to reach C- and then i'm going to stay at this level and never get better". Your method of basically not posting in the strategy section until it's some crazy situation will force them to stop improving at a point once they have their mechanics down.
And yes, we SHOULD be comparing ourselves to the progamers because we are trying to improve just like them, and we may not see it, but I bet Boxer/Oov can find millions of errors in Fantasy's play that he can improve on even if we may believe he's only making small mistakes. In the end, we're all trying to improve and smoothen out the little details we might not notice. Just because you might notice them more than other people doesn't mean they shouldn't be posting.
On February 16 2010 15:33 Misrah wrote: Hitting a Plateau is merely a figment of the imagination. No one plays perfect starcraft. There is always something you can do better. Even flash knows this.
The only coaches that actually coach in the true sense of the word, were once pro players themselves. ala boxer, iloveoov and the like.
Your final paragraph is amazing. Practicing over and over blindly is not the way to succeed at starcraft (i found that out the hard way) One needs to understand starcraft while practicing. And the only way to understand the game is to play, and attempt builds on your own.
This is a hugely logically fallacious statement and demonstrates the flaw with your argument. If you need to understand while playing, and the only way to understand is to play, then how is it ever possible to not understand?
...yeah. The answer is, playing doesn't actually teach you to understand the game. Thinking about the game teaches you to understand the game.
I've actually learned something in all the strategy forum threads I've made (like .... 4? or so) because I was looking for something very specific with them. It didn't take even a d level protoss player to tell me that my mistake when I was new to pvp was just poor scouting and neglecting to make zealots vs 3 gate lot, or that vs 3 hatch ling I needed more than 3 cannons.
I've been teaching some of my friends the game recently, and they range from an e rank protoss who didn't use the keyboard until a few days ago to a high d- zerg. The e rank has the best understanding of the game, strangely. The d- zerg just mass games and has triple his apm - but all of them are improving extremely quickly (none of them had played SC before 2 weeks ago). It is a bit aggravating to sit behind a P and tell them how to use hotkeys, but it's not so bad- and doing that saved him a good month of screwing around on his own.
edit : with that said, the worse you are at the game the more useful the strategy forum is going to tend to be.
On February 17 2010 00:53 PiePie wrote: Having help, as little or even just in the start, helps as with anything in life. Period.
Also, yes you cant find a solution if you don't understand the problem, but people can help you see and understand the problem AS WELL AS help you find a solution
If anything it brings the community together more. Even if (which I completely disagree with) this strat fourm is 100% useless, the community feels stronger with it and bonds are made. Thats something that goes outside the game.
It also depends how seriously you take starcraft. If you want it to be some life's journey with self realization, sure figure it all out yourself. If you just want to play it to get to an acceptable level quickly and own some noobs (owning is enjoyable to certain people) then play it for that. Theres no right or wrong way to look at starcraft. As with learning everything, there are shortcuts. We go to school for a reason, people tell us everything others have already figured out. All of us don't have to refigure out how electricity works or how to multiply matricies etc etc. All of this stuff is fed to us because people have taken long journeys themselves to manually figure it out via trial, erorr, analysis. But those people used things they were spoon fed as well. I mean Einstien spent his life developing so much stuff and figuring out things, but he already used the basic knowledges that he was spoon fed from the great scientists before him. That is how you advance. IF Einstein had to learn from scratch, well he may not even have learned ANYTHING.
The language you speak now, you were taught that. You didnt go by trial and error to make random noises and see how people react. Maybe you did to an extent, but to understand those finer details you need to learn the basics first. I'm sure whoever raised you taught you basic skills in life and let you learn your own on the rest
All, people can help you understand problems, because people do have the same problems (and even if it isnt exactly the same it can give you a very basic understanding if anything), the community is closer, and life is already based off of reading what people have done in the past and modifying or adding onto it.
there are so many logical flaws in this argument that i don't even know where to begin. some people might find this game hard (since you didn't ask for my opinion i think it's relatively easy) all the stuff is right in front of you, just as the op stated (namely your brain). if you don't want to use it and instead choose to rely on making half assed questions then you're going to get half assed results. the op's argument is with the amount and quality of questions, not the act of asking questions.
you should really really spend a lot of time reevaluating this statement
Unfortunatly there are shortcuts to everything... If you want to get good or learn things, finding someone who's an expert at it and spending time with him/her/them is faster than just walking out the door and wanting to do it yourself. To start its better to have help. Once you get to a certain level, you are on your own and its better if you learn things.
For new players I do think that they should ask for help and I encourage them. Some people don't think the game is easy, some people do. A person whos first ever game is starcraft will think its hard. A person who has a lot of RTS expirence will probably think starcraft is a bit easier compared to the complete noob. If you say people should just learn starcraft on their own, thats fine. But keep in mind some people just want quick and easy ways to win and get good. I do agree this is less "legit" and probably they wont understand the true underlying things (which is important i agree) but the thing is some ppl just play sc to win. They just like the feeling of beating people and enjoy the interactions. Thats fine with me, I dont play sc for solely that but some people do and its a game so I will let them have their way.
The point is, I am sure everyone has asked for help in things to start out in not only starcraft, but many things as well. It's fine, and it still builds community REGARDLESS. I wouldn't say the help threads are trolls. I mean some may be, but some are also legit and a new player really wants to learn and come in contact with the community.
Also note, A stupid question to YOU may not be one to them. Im very sure at least some of the "stupid" questions ppl ask are legit and innocent.
To all you people out there, keep posting and asking for help. If its justified, people will help you!
PS. Your post seemed a bit condescending, I don't even think the originators post was condescending. I was merely replying to him and I actually spent the time because he is very well organized in his replies. You however seem a tad bit condescending and there is no use for that. For those that disagree with me (which i read another) thank you for being polite and I do agree with some of your points.
"Hi I play soccer. Help me run faster and think better." or- Help my mechanics! (lol yep I am going to come to your house and show you how to type faster. Please don't think about how to improve, just post a question.) Or better yet (How did i lose??? I have no idea. I thought that I did everything right?) is pretty much the gist of all the [H] threads in strategy. The reason why it is never useful, is because most people are asking for help are looking for a solution. they may find it, however they will never come to understand the problem.
This is well worded. A true solution will not only make a problem go away but prevent it from occuring again.
On February 17 2010 01:51 Misrah wrote: This is crazy that people are just putting words into my mouth. This guide does not need novels posted as an answer.
For the last time: I never said asking for help is wrong. I also am not saying making H threads is wrong. Lastly I never said asking questions is bad.
This guide is there to try and help players craft the correct questions, so they can come to understand the problem.
Anyway this thread is getting crAzyyyyyyyyyyy
You are advocating a relatively big opinion by stating that creating help threads does not help the player improve. As a result your thread is getting a big and crazy response. You got what you asked for.
This is bullshit. You sound like a real jerk and make not a single valid point in support of your position. Certainly a substantial amount of understanding this game comes from playing it, but that doesn't disprove the value of discussing the games you play with other players.
On February 16 2010 14:23 huameng wrote: Totally disagree with this "guide". For what other game, sport, activity, is not asking for help the best way to learn?
Practically all of them?
Asking for advice every now and then is a useful way to learn in any activity, but practicing relentlessly is a million times more productive than asking for advice. In chess or go, you will get better by reading books about strategy, but you'll improve more quickly by just doing tons of tactics problems in chess, or tesuji and tsumego problems in go. In rock climbing, you don't get better reading online forums or listening to other people talking about how to do something, you just climb more. Maybe you watch another stronger climber do the route/bouldering problem you're trying to do to figure out a better sequence, but that's only maybe 5% of how you spend your time improving. And in starcraft, I was never that good, but I got to C+ on PGT and ICCUP, which is better than most of the people who post in the strategy forum, but I never read the strategy forums much. I did, however, watch a good amount of replays of top zerg players.
In fact, watching top professionals in whatever activity you want to get better in is almost always a better way to improve than asking for advice. Top GMs in chess, and top professionals in go always talk about studying games of the top players as the best way to improve. In go, especially, top players claim to have studied every recorded game of Shusaku, and to a lesser extent, Go Seigen.
On February 16 2010 14:23 huameng wrote: Totally disagree with this "guide". For what other game, sport, activity, is not asking for help the best way to learn?
Practically all of them?
Asking for advice every now and then is a useful way to learn in any activity, but practicing relentlessly is a million times more productive than asking for advice. In chess or go, you will get better by reading books about strategy, but you'll improve more quickly by just doing tons of tactics problems in chess, or tesuji and tsumego problems in go. In rock climbing, you don't get better reading online forums or listening to other people talking about how to do something, you just climb more. Maybe you watch another stronger climber do the route/bouldering problem you're trying to do to figure out a better sequence, but that's only maybe 5% of how you spend your time improving. And in starcraft, I was never that good, but I got to C+ on PGT and ICCUP, which is better than most of the people who post in the strategy forum, but I never read the strategy forums much. I did, however, watch a good amount of replays of top zerg players.
In fact, watching top professionals in whatever activity you want to get better in is almost always a better way to improve than asking for advice. Top GMs in chess, and top professionals in go always talk about studying games of the top players as the best way to improve. In go, especially, top players claim to have studied every recorded game of Shusaku, and to a lesser extent, Go Seigen.
Do you think it's a coincidence almost all top players (top juniors... worse juniors... tons of players) have a coach? Or do you think they would actually be better off without one? I'm an 1800~ chess player, but if I look at some random Carlsen game I'm not going to get anything out of it. I have no fucking clue what that kid thinks while he plays, and no matter how much I stare at the board, most of the time I'm not going to figure it out. This is where asking people for help comes into the picture; annotated games are the same way, since the author is helping you.
Also, "Asking for advice every now and then is a useful way to learn in any activity, but practicing relentlessly is a million times more productive than asking for advice." is almost certainly bullshit. You think playing chess 8 hours a day makes you better than playing 6 hours and studying 2? No one is saying "never play BW, just read a bunch of strategy, and you'll get A- your first iccup season!" Tactics problems don't really fall into the mass gaming category of practice, since someone wrote a solution, presumably for you to study from. But that doesn't matter, since Misrah isn't telling people to not ask for help and just learn from Flash, he's asking people to learn from no one and just keep playing until they understand how to be better.
On February 17 2010 01:51 Misrah wrote: This is crazy that people are just putting words into my mouth. This guide does not need novels posted as an answer.
For the last time: I never said asking for help is wrong. I also am not saying making H threads is wrong. Lastly I never said asking questions is bad.
This guide is there to try and help players craft the correct questions, so they can come to understand the problem.
Anyway this thread is getting crAzyyyyyyyyyyy
"I am telling you the most important piece of advice in your starcraft career: "You are the only person that can fix your problems." You can't fix them by reading more guides, you can't fix them by reading more posts from D players, and you certainly can't fix them by typing exhaustive [H] threads in the strategy forum. If you do not understand why you lost, you need to look through your replay again and again."
That seems to say all of "asking for help is wrong, making H threads is wrong, and asking questions is bad". If you're the only person that can fix your problems, asking questions certainly isn't good, so it must be bad.
This thread is getting crazy because, at least to me, if everyone agrees with this thread, you are going to actively hurt people trying to get better by telling them to not ask anyone for help and just deal with the game themselves.
Misrah it sounds to me like you have simply failed to convey ur point in this thread. So many ppl can't misconcept ur op. Or can't you stand up for your statement anymore now when you understands ur out in deep water and simply deflect ppl's comment to something that "they dont understand" rather than it was YOU who did not convey this properly..
This was deserving of a blog entry... And looking at your blog, your last entry on the 25th was a help-me post. This thread largely looks like a personal backlash due asking for strategy advice, and then while getting some answers, they did not make you a significantly better player.
What can I say, too bad you are not protoss and asking me for help? Ha.
Your point is by and large correct, but poorly, overaggressive, and exaggeratedly communicated (for example, headlines: posting in strategy does not make you better, [you] should stop posting help me threads) One of the fist things I do when helping someone more in depth is mention how I am a source of many details about starcraft, and they can increase their understanding of the game through me, but actually playing well comes down to them...period. Sure, this is something that people posting for strategy advice should recognize, but probably don't actively have in mind.
Is posting in the strategy forum pointless - of course not. And sure, maybe someone will get some decent answers to a thread, but will those few answers improve their play significantly...probably not. And neither will spending a comparable amount of time playing.
Well cognitive manifestations along with generating the fascinations of experience is a more applicable method of learning; this does not entail repetitiveness, it entails generating experience.
However, an understanding comes from different methods to an extent; and a balance of these processes is the proper way to learn at high speeds.
Developing a skill set in Starcraft is different that processing generalized information and memorizing a set of information. However, I completely agree advice given on this forum, like all the others, shows an inconsistency in professional play and is hardly, if at all, beneficial to a player learning the game.
Well after reading everything over again, I'm glad people agree with me. I also read many new interesting points that I've never even knew. I advise new players to stay away from this thread. And yeah, the author of this thread had a help request himself awhile back. People learn differently so it seems...
so many new to the game go on iccup, get their faces smashed into a brick wall by people who have just outplayed them in every god damn aspect of the game, then come here with their 130 apm replays and ask for help.
you just got outplayed. GO PLAY MORE. there's nothing really to talk about. you've not been building workers, not macroed, not microing, not expanding, wrong timings, forgot upgrades... everything.
On February 17 2010 06:05 pyrogenetix wrote: LONG OVERDUE THREAD, THANK YOU MISRAH
so many new to the game go on iccup, get their faces smashed into a brick wall by people who have just outplayed them in every god damn aspect of the game, then come here with their 130 apm replays and ask for help.
you just got outplayed. GO PLAY MORE. there's nothing really to talk about. you've not been building workers, not macroed, not microing, not expanding, wrong timings, forgot upgrades... everything.
stop reading and play more.
The advice you had at the end was probably some of the worse help/advice/whatever a new player can read.
On February 17 2010 06:05 pyrogenetix wrote: LONG OVERDUE THREAD, THANK YOU MISRAH
so many new to the game go on iccup, get their faces smashed into a brick wall by people who have just outplayed them in every god damn aspect of the game, then come here with their 130 apm replays and ask for help.
you just got outplayed. GO PLAY MORE. there's nothing really to talk about. you've not been building workers, not macroed, not microing, not expanding, wrong timings, forgot upgrades... everything.
stop reading and play more.
Playing more won't do anything if you can't understand what you're doing wrong. For example, if my timings were wrong, how should I fix them? How important are these upgrades? To expect each individual player, and newbie to come up with the correct conclusion on their own is ridiculous.
On February 17 2010 06:05 pyrogenetix wrote: LONG OVERDUE THREAD, THANK YOU MISRAH
so many new to the game go on iccup, get their faces smashed into a brick wall by people who have just outplayed them in every god damn aspect of the game, then come here with their 130 apm replays and ask for help.
you just got outplayed. GO PLAY MORE. there's nothing really to talk about. you've not been building workers, not macroed, not microing, not expanding, wrong timings, forgot upgrades... everything.
stop reading and play more.
I am quoting this just because i find it funny that some one who has been in the community, actually thinks the guide has merit.
On February 16 2010 15:36 nujgnoy wrote: Also, one more decisive example: There was a thread about Strong FD a while back. I watched the rep, and I found that the person made a mistake in the BO. The BO is 9 depot, build depot with the 8th scv that pops out. But what the player actually did was he pulled an scv during 8 and built the depot right when 9 started. So even though it looked as if he made the correct BO (9depot), he lost a ton of mining time and had a ton of wait time which delayed his rax and refinery so much with a too-fast depot that didn't help him at all since he had way too much supply and couldn't use it.
There are such things that you may think that you're doing it right if someone doesn't correct you. These are the worst of habits, and if you never ask for help, you might never know that you were doing this wrong.
Once again my point- If that player would have followed my steps, they would have seen that they need to fix their mechanics. Through note taking and extensive replay analysis, that would have been avoided. That is step one of my guide.
The thing is that the player WOULD NOT HAVE SEEN THE PROBLEM by himself. I didn't see it until I watched it over 3 times, and I KNOW the BO for strong FD. He did the same BO as on paper, but he did it wrongly. There was NO way he would've figured it out by himself.
If he followed your steps, they would NEVER have known the problem. Not even after watching it 50 times.
I am going to bed after this, because this is getting exhausting.
If you looked over his rep 3times (and i have my doubts) and saw that odd supply depot, and then proceed to notice that his entire BO begins to fall apart because of that supply depot, then certainly- if that player would have given step one of my guide a fair chance, he also would have noticed how off his timing was?
No. Not a chance. It took an experienced player a while to notice this problem, then a new player certainly would NOT have noticed it, because it is one of those problems that are deceptive; you THINK you're doing it right, and the liquipedia SEEMS to back up your BO, but you're really doing it wrong. My last post should explain this better with the linked thread with replay.
If he stopped copying build orders off a website and actually put some effort (and by effort I mean put 3 seconds of thought into what was happening on his screen) into understanding what he was doing, he would see doing that had him not mining for several seconds twice, which = "well golly geepers maybe im doing something wrong". This should be common sense to even a new player, making posts and constantly asking for help and copying build orders has probably set him back if anything, he probably has no fundamental understanding of what he's doing and is just pressing buttons.
On February 16 2010 15:36 nujgnoy wrote: Also, one more decisive example: There was a thread about Strong FD a while back. I watched the rep, and I found that the person made a mistake in the BO. The BO is 9 depot, build depot with the 8th scv that pops out. But what the player actually did was he pulled an scv during 8 and built the depot right when 9 started. So even though it looked as if he made the correct BO (9depot), he lost a ton of mining time and had a ton of wait time which delayed his rax and refinery so much with a too-fast depot that didn't help him at all since he had way too much supply and couldn't use it.
There are such things that you may think that you're doing it right if someone doesn't correct you. These are the worst of habits, and if you never ask for help, you might never know that you were doing this wrong.
Once again my point- If that player would have followed my steps, they would have seen that they need to fix their mechanics. Through note taking and extensive replay analysis, that would have been avoided. That is step one of my guide.
The thing is that the player WOULD NOT HAVE SEEN THE PROBLEM by himself. I didn't see it until I watched it over 3 times, and I KNOW the BO for strong FD. He did the same BO as on paper, but he did it wrongly. There was NO way he would've figured it out by himself.
If he followed your steps, they would NEVER have known the problem. Not even after watching it 50 times.
I am going to bed after this, because this is getting exhausting.
If you looked over his rep 3times (and i have my doubts) and saw that odd supply depot, and then proceed to notice that his entire BO begins to fall apart because of that supply depot, then certainly- if that player would have given step one of my guide a fair chance, he also would have noticed how off his timing was?
No. Not a chance. It took an experienced player a while to notice this problem, then a new player certainly would NOT have noticed it, because it is one of those problems that are deceptive; you THINK you're doing it right, and the liquipedia SEEMS to back up your BO, but you're really doing it wrong. My last post should explain this better with the linked thread with replay.
If he stopped copying build orders off a website and actually put some effort (and by effort I mean put 3 seconds of thought into what was happening on his screen) into understanding what he was doing, he would see doing that had him not mining for several seconds twice, which = "well golly geepers maybe im doing something wrong". This should be common sense to even a new player, making posts and constantly asking for help and copying build orders has probably set him back if anything, he probably has no fundamental understanding of what he's doing and is just pressing buttons.
Exactly. Nobody is advocating following things like a robot, rather experience supplemented with good information from guides and help requests is the way to go.
There's no reason why u cant ask for help while trying to understand things yourself...theres no reason why you cant do both lol, depending heavily on either one is bad
Also, "Asking for advice every now and then is a useful way to learn in any activity, but practicing relentlessly is a million times more productive than asking for advice." is almost certainly bullshit. You think playing chess 8 hours a day makes you better than playing 6 hours and studying 2? No one is saying "never play BW, just read a bunch of strategy, and you'll get A- your first iccup season!" Tactics problems don't really fall into the mass gaming category of practice, since someone wrote a solution, presumably for you to study from. But that doesn't matter, since Misrah isn't telling people to not ask for help and just learn from Flash, he's asking people to learn from no one and just keep playing until they understand how to be better.
I wonder why you seem to think playing and studying are so seperate. What I think Misrah is saying is that you should study your own games by yourself, so that you learn to teach yourself how to improve. It doesn't matter if you know that you can counter double nexus with fact cc fact if you lose all your tanks to dragoons when you push out due to bad micro/positioning.
I am a musician, been playing for ~6 years, will be going to a conservatory next year... In all my years of playing, I practice on my own for 5-6 hours every day and I have an hour long lesson once a week. Having a lesson every day would be pointless; there wouldn't be time to really grasp everything from the previous lesson. My teacher once told me something that has stuck with me: "I am not teaching you to play guitar, I am teaching you to teach yourself to play guitar". Many many many of the strategy posts here are people looking for someone to solve all their problems, without the poster doing any work. To me, it feels like 75%+ of the posts could be answered by reading Liquidipidia and doing some self analysis, as Misrah suggests.
You may win a lot because of BBSing, and you say, hey this is great! But if you BBS your way through D+, you're never going to get to C- since BBS won't work against better players
BBS works at any level in a BO1. But yea, learning "standard" is always ideal.
On February 16 2010 14:23 huameng wrote: Totally disagree with this "guide". For what other game, sport, activity, is not asking for help the best way to learn?
using a basic guide to learn to build a suit of armor helps you learn more thoroughly than to piece together pieces of wood, plastic, and metal to make a rickety suit of armor
I'm trying to say that your point is very well supported but it just doesn't make much sense to me at all. I mean, this sight helps out SO MANY PLAYERS with getting better. There are guides for how to think, how to react, why to react, why to think, how to respond to a certain situation and why, AND threads with the latest build order trends. Plus, your basically saying that you just wasted your time posting and replying in this thread.
On February 16 2010 14:23 huameng wrote: Totally disagree with this "guide". For what other game, sport, activity, is not asking for help the best way to learn?
Practically all of them?
Asking for advice every now and then is a useful way to learn in any activity, but practicing relentlessly is a million times more productive than asking for advice. In chess or go, you will get better by reading books about strategy, but you'll improve more quickly by just doing tons of tactics problems in chess, or tesuji and tsumego problems in go. In rock climbing, you don't get better reading online forums or listening to other people talking about how to do something, you just climb more. Maybe you watch another stronger climber do the route/bouldering problem you're trying to do to figure out a better sequence, but that's only maybe 5% of how you spend your time improving. And in starcraft, I was never that good, but I got to C+ on PGT and ICCUP, which is better than most of the people who post in the strategy forum, but I never read the strategy forums much. I did, however, watch a good amount of replays of top zerg players.
In fact, watching top professionals in whatever activity you want to get better in is almost always a better way to improve than asking for advice. Top GMs in chess, and top professionals in go always talk about studying games of the top players as the best way to improve. In go, especially, top players claim to have studied every recorded game of Shusaku, and to a lesser extent, Go Seigen.
Do you think it's a coincidence almost all top players (top juniors... worse juniors... tons of players) have a coach? Or do you think they would actually be better off without one? I'm an 1800~ chess player, but if I look at some random Carlsen game I'm not going to get anything out of it. I have no fucking clue what that kid thinks while he plays, and no matter how much I stare at the board, most of the time I'm not going to figure it out. This is where asking people for help comes into the picture; annotated games are the same way, since the author is helping you.
Also, "Asking for advice every now and then is a useful way to learn in any activity, but practicing relentlessly is a million times more productive than asking for advice." is almost certainly bullshit. You think playing chess 8 hours a day makes you better than playing 6 hours and studying 2? No one is saying "never play BW, just read a bunch of strategy, and you'll get A- your first iccup season!" Tactics problems don't really fall into the mass gaming category of practice, since someone wrote a solution, presumably for you to study from. But that doesn't matter, since Misrah isn't telling people to not ask for help and just learn from Flash, he's asking people to learn from no one and just keep playing until they understand how to be better.
I think that most top player in chess probably have a higher ratio than 3:1 playing/studing:getting coaching. I'm only about as strong as you at chess, though, so I'm not certain about that. But I do go to UMBC, which has a number of strong chess players. All of the 2000-2300 players that go to chess club, which is a good number of them, definitely spend more time mass gaming and studying alone than talking to anyone else. I can't really say how the GMs at UMBC study, since they don't really hang out with the chess club, other than Timur Gareev, who now goes to another school, and Bruci Lopez, before he graduated. Timur I'm pretty sure didn't study or talk to others much about chess, since he insisted that any chess player who has to study a lot doesn't have any talent (not that I agree, since I would say Fiscer was very talented, but he spent 6+ hours a day studying).
I don't know if you're very familiar with go, but I'm much better at go than at chess, and I've never been coached, outside of attending a few lectures at go congress. Most of my gains have been from studying professional games, playing a ton, and studying L&D and tesuji problems. Eric Lui, who is one of the top 5 amateur US players goes to UMBC, and although he has gotten some coaching, he just spends tons of time playing through every big tournament game to learn current joseki/opening ideas and playing on KGS. I think that probably in go more than chess even a relatively weak player can learn a lot from studying professional games, so perhaps studying chess games without any annotation would be difficult for a weak player. On the other hand, I bet if you actually sat down and spent an hour or two per game studying Magnus Carlsen's games, and studied 1-3 per day, you would improve dramatically.
In regards to the comment that for tactics problems "someone wrote a solution, presumably for you to study from," I think maybe this is accurate for chess, but in go, many top professionals say that you should study tsumego without the solutions, since the solution will not help you learn if you do not already understand, and that the process of reading out the solution is much more beneficial.
I don't think that coaching is entirely pointless, but I do think that to actually improve in most things, coaching shouldn't consume more than maybe 5-10% of your time spent at the game. It doesn't matter how much you understand build orders, timings, etc. if you get out-macro'd and out-micro'd the entire game. Similarly, it doesn't matter how much you understand positional advantages in chess or go if you get raped in tactics all game. I got to C+ on PGT and ICCUP playing retarded strategies, like just going sauron style. As long as you can dodge storms halfway decently most players just get raped.
I just dislike the help threads where the OP says "yeah I know my macro was awful and I fucked up my BO and I got supply capped and I didn't micro at all but what else could I have done???" It's like.. you just pointed out the biggest flaws in your game, go fix those before you ask.
eh... i was thinking about making my own blog post or thread about this phenomenon but seeing as how big this shit has gotten already ill make my big post here
when I say GO PLAY MORE i dont mean go on iccup and continuously play mindlessly and get your face kicked in. what I mean is watch some pro replays and get a standard build order down. example would be protoss one gate range obs vs terran. write the build down and you keep doing it. can do it vs comps first since it doesnt matter what the fuck happens later on in the game, you just need to keep your probe production rolling and everything else smooth as fucking silk. not a fucking god damn pylon block ever and your money should be below 300 at all times. you should be hitting everything smack dead center. keep doing it until you're like me who sometimes starts freaking out thinking I didn't build a pylon and will get supply blocked but then a pylon warps in that I built already and didn't realize I built. this sounds like im bragging to you newbie players but it's true. THIS IS HOW GOOD YOU NEED TO BE TO PLAY SC. its not fucking dota for christs sake.
some kid came in with a replay saying he got overrun by 2fact vult when he went 2gate range obs. what the fuck is that shit? obviously he got outplayed but what the fuck do i say? you really need to be fast and YES APM DOESNT MEAN A THING ALL THAT JAZZ but seriously the higher your apm the better you are because you're not even pausing for a split second to think about what you are doing next and thus wasting time. you are constantly highly aware of things that you have to do and prioritize them in your mind and then do them.
hot bid had a pretty good post on PvT "how to get C-" or somethng
............................................ ok after a bit of digging around I cant find it if someone finds it please post here or something it's exactly what you newbies should be practicing. basically you start by training probe production and your nexus should NEVER stop building probes. then you train making units and your gateways should never stop. this of course means pylon production as well. if you can do these three things you should be C- pvt. dont even need upgrades or storm.
what i'm saying, is that you people need to work on your mechanics because it doesnt fucking matter what you're doing, if you are as much as 5 seconds behind in your build you're BEHIND. yes im serious and others would agree 5 secs is enough to change the game.
then when you are done with one build order you learn how it branches out depending on what you scout. then you practice those branches of tech and what should be done. then do another build order and so on.
practice building placement. what building placement makes for better defence (from harass/drops/cloaked), better macro cycles, better space usage. spend a week or two just on building placement.
practice your hotkeys. get used to changing hotkeys. army position. where is your army. what is your army movement speed.
scouting. keeping your scout alive as long as possible. what do you see? what should you be looking for? what is he doing?
learn the maps. what are key points on this map. where can tanks reach? how many units to block this choke? where to build turrets for minimum turret number yet covering all the space for drops.
ALL THIS STUFF COMES FROM PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE
and THEN when you find that little thing that's holding you back, that you find you have problems with constantly and have identified it but still cannot solve it, THEN you come back and post replays and ask for help.
enough of this god damn "races are imba" or "here's a replay what do i do" bullshit. chances are you got fucking outplayed by raw mechanics and no amount of tweaking your build order or whatever other bullshit is going to help.
On February 17 2010 09:13 Alphonsse wrote: I just dislike the help threads where the OP says "yeah I know my macro was awful and I fucked up my BO and I got supply capped and I didn't micro at all but what else could I have done???" It's like.. you just pointed out the biggest flaws in your game, go fix those before you ask.
hahahahahahahah exactly
its like some runner comes up and says "ok i know i weigh like 200kg and I'm a little slow and never train but how can I run that 100m race faster?"
On February 17 2010 09:13 Alphonsse wrote: I just dislike the help threads where the OP says "yeah I know my macro was awful and I fucked up my BO and I got supply capped and I didn't micro at all but what else could I have done???" It's like.. you just pointed out the biggest flaws in your game, go fix those before you ask.
its like some runner comes up and says "ok i know i weigh like 200kg and I'm a little slow and never train but how can I run that 100m race faster?"
what pyro said and the first post in this thread don't really correlate exactly, I think Pyro should make a new and improved thread. All arguments are still directed toward that first post (NOT by pyro by the other dude >>) and I am missing all of the line by line rebuttals now that were so prevalent...
To recognize that some people believe they know the game well enough, how about this: If the information you need you are unable to gleam from reading LP and reading strat forums, how does it need to be presented so that you can make sense of it? Does it need to be about a single game? Is it difficult to accept information that is a rule and not situational. I'd actually like to know as users of the strat forum what you need from us in order for you to play the game. I mean we answer all of your questions. We spoon fed you game knowledge in the most trusted format on the internet. Knowledge, which by the way people are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to come up with. It's not incorrect by any means.
What do you need from us? We really want to give it to you. Maybe not Misrah right now because he's frustrated (sorry to assume your gender) but in general we really do.
Who said i was frustrated? wth? I am trying to help people with this guide...
also cgrinker i don't think that there is any more you can do. Eventually every player is going to need mass games, and cold hard experience to actually use the resources that you have provided for them.
On February 16 2010 14:12 Fontong wrote: And please, by god, do not make a racial imbalance thread!
SCVs are clearly imba, 60 HP and can repair shit for almost no cost. Same with pylons, they can survive nukes and lets you build 50 gateways. Zerg larvae are OP too, they have 10 armor! that's like at least 20 zealot hits without regen. When they turn into eggs they take more hits to kill than ultralisks!
Suggest removing SCV, Pylon, and larvae from SC to fix race imba. Thanks.
OT: The strategy forum exists for a reason. We come here looking for help, and people are nice enough to give help to make it easier for people to learn and advance. The "only you can fix your own mistakes" philosophy quite frankly does not work when you exist in a world with, god forbid, other people.
Who's smarter: the kid that spends 8hrs a day memorizing a textbook and has no thought of his own or the kid that grasps the concepts and aces the test with out reading the txtbook??
On February 16 2010 14:21 Seraphim wrote: What is your rank Misrah? :O
Meh doesn't really matter. I only play iccup with my shitty builds / ideas. I am sure that you can find out yourself if your really that interested. I am really not that great.
On February 16 2010 14:23 huameng wrote: Totally disagree with this "guide". For what other game, sport, activity, is not asking for help the best way to learn?
"Hi I play soccer. Help me run faster and think better." or- Help my mechanics! (lol yep I am going to come to your house and show you how to type faster. Please don't think about how to improve, just post a question.) Or better yet (How did i lose??? I have no idea. I thought that I did everything right?) is pretty much the gist of all the [H] threads in strategy. The reason why it is never useful, is because most people are asking for help are looking for a solution. they may find it, however they will never come to understand the problem.
Gotta love when a player who doesn't know wtf he's talking about, who admits to being a mediocre/bad player, writes a guide telling other people how to play starcraft. Take a bow.
I have to agree with this. Most people who make topics here are better off spending a few minutes asking friends, who can actually go ingame and help them.
On February 16 2010 14:12 Fontong wrote: And please, by god, do not make a racial imbalance thread!
SCVs are clearly imba, 60 HP and can repair shit for almost no cost. Same with pylons, they can survive nukes and lets you build 50 gateways. Zerg larvae are OP too, they have 10 armor! that's like at least 20 zealot hits without regen. When they turn into eggs they take more hits to kill than ultralisks!
Suggest removing SCV, Pylon, and larvae from SC to fix race imba. Thanks.
OT: The strategy forum exists for a reason. We come here looking for help, and people are nice enough to give help to make it easier for people to learn and advance. The "only you can fix your own mistakes" philosophy quite frankly does not work when you exist in a world with, god forbid, other people.
This thread is smug nonsense. Being taught well and having the intelligence to direct your own improvement aren't mutually exclusive. You've obviously never done any sport or anything like that in depth as you'd know how important a good teacher is.
On February 16 2010 14:54 Seraphim wrote: No offense, but shouldn't you play on a mid-high level in order for your own advice to be valid?
Not at all. Some people are stuck at a lower level of skill because they're too lazy to practice or don't have time, but understand the game well. They can give (potentially) give good advice too.
I disagree. Low rank players do not actually understand the game and most of their knowledge comes from watching VODs or talking to other people. A bad player, no matter what the reason may be, does not understand the game well. Their advice is merely an exact repetition of what a good player told them. By low rank I mean actually bad, not stuck at D because they don't have time.
On February 17 2010 12:54 imBLIND wrote: Who's smarter: the kid that spends 8hrs a day memorizing a textbook and has no thought of his own or the kid that grasps the concepts and aces the test with out reading the txtbook??
That example is stupid. If every kid were able to grasp concepts without studying the material, we would all be ridiculously smart, and schooling would be trivial.
On February 16 2010 14:54 Seraphim wrote: No offense, but shouldn't you play on a mid-high level in order for your own advice to be valid?
Not at all. Some people are stuck at a lower level of skill because they're too lazy to practice or don't have time, but understand the game well. They can give (potentially) give good advice too.
I disagree. Low rank players do not actually understand the game and most of their knowledge comes from watching VODs or talking to other people. A bad player, no matter what the reason may be, does not understand the game well. Their advice is merely an exact repetition of what a good player told them. By low rank I mean actually bad, not stuck at D because they don't have time.
I agree. I'm D+ and have bad mechanics, but despite that, I feel primarily limited by game understanding in every match-up except TvZ. This is despite having watched plenty of progames along with reading liquipedia and such.
On February 17 2010 12:54 imBLIND wrote: Who's smarter: the kid that spends 8hrs a day memorizing a textbook and has no thought of his own or the kid that grasps the concepts and aces the test with out reading the txtbook??
Actually both suck by themselves. You need both to be good at any thing. If you just memorize things then you are limited by what you have memorized and if you just learn things on your own then you are limited by time (one person learning alone will always be slower/more behind than multiple people learning together, i.e. if you follow the OPs advice you will always be behind everyone else). You can break both limits by doing both.
Do you really think if all the starcraft players or players of any game for that matter had tried to learn the game by themselves that we would have the game mechanics that we have today?
On February 17 2010 12:54 imBLIND wrote: Who's smarter: the kid that spends 8hrs a day memorizing a textbook and has no thought of his own or the kid that grasps the concepts and aces the test with out reading the txtbook??
Actually both suck by themselves. You need both to be good at any thing. If you just memorize things then you are limited by what you have memorized and if you just learn things on your own then you are limited by time (one person learning alone will always be slower/more behind than multiple people learning together, i.e. if you follow the OPs advice you will always be behind everyone else). You can break both limits by doing both.
Do you really think if all the starcraft players or players of any game for that matter had tried to learn the game by themselves that we would have the game mechanics that we have today?
... the moral of the story is that you need to put effort into what you do, not who's smarter or better.
What the OP is getting at is that you have to help yourself before others can help you. Almost every single [H] thread and [Q] thread i have seen barely meets the strategy forum requirements. They are making us help them without putting any serious thought into their own replays.
There's nothing wrong with a help me thread, but it gets very tiresome when they just say "hey i kno i didn't macro very well why did i lose?" or "is it better to do x or y?" and other very simplistic questions that are easily answered by 1) actually analyzing the replay and 2) focus on fixing it in game.
It's like expecting the book to teach you or acing the test with a cheat sheet; that is exactly what is happening to the strat forum. We're giving out cheat sheets and textbooks and the noobies are learning nothing .
What the noobies are doing is called Help Vampiring. I used to do this until someone pointed it out to me. Essentially they are expecting everyone else to do the work for them. For instance, they'll upload a replay and ask everyone to review it for them - why? You can easily look over your own replays and catch your own mistakes. Admittedly, there are times when it is a genuinely interesting/ useful thread/replay. However, I think the point the OP was making was directed more towards the general questioners of this forum. TL;DR: Don't ask others inane questions you know the answer to - answer them yourselves.
It'd be nice if more threads in Strategy were suggesting strategy, rather than asking for it I think that is the largest problem.
There are times though when a novice player looks at his own replay, and though he can see simple mechanical mistakes (missing supply, not constant production, mismatched units ... whatever) he will not notice triggers that should have told him to react. Like most Protoss players can look at a replay, see they got contained by lurkers and say 'wow, my zealots were really bad against lurkers.' So they think, 'okay, I need to stay in my base a little longer to wait for dragoons and observer tech.' But this is the wrong solution. What they need to do is see the signs of lurkers before they arrive, so that they can already be building goons and ob tech before the lurkers get there, so that once they're contained it won't take 5 minutes to break out.
In that, threads that suggest strategy would still be good for these people to read... because they'd learn about these triggers. But definitely unless they know what to watch for they're not going to figure them out quickly on their own. Although I'm considering making a strat thread of pretty pictures to suggest themes new players need to think about.
He's not saying, don't post in the Strat section. What he wants to for us to learn is that, we have to exhaust ourselves first thinking why we lost before writing a pretty long post asking for advice.
I haven't read the entire thread but is seams allot of people are comparing asking stuff on thees forums to the same as asking your coach about stuff in any sport. the thing is thats not true at all, its like reading a text book about how to play soccer instead of having coach teaching you how to play soccer. the only time a text book would be of any use at all in a situation like this is when you identified what the problem is and is looking for examples of how you can solve the problem or at least a similar problem and the try them out for yourself.
It is NOT bad to ask for advice. Be sure to find out YOU, YOURSELF on what's wrong with your play. Of course, you will know that something is wrong thru the guides that you have read and the advice you've received from other people. If you still aren't contented with your play and have really tried your best on improving but is still stuck on something, you ask for help. You're not supposed to ask for help each time you fall, most of the time you have to get back on your feet by yourself.
Sports need to have coaches because you have to have someone telling you what's wrong with what you're doing but, in starcraft you have replays. You can watch it over and over again. Now, coach for sc teams would devise strategy, find holes in opponent's play. That way, their coach can go with the "thinking", "outplanning" your opponents while you can practice and practice and practice.
TLDR
Find the answer within yourself before asking for help, it's just that there are many [H] threads asking for help wherein they could tell what's wrong with their gameplay just by looking thru their rep one more time.
On April 05 2010 23:09 Batibot wrote: It is NOT bad to ask for advice. Be sure to find out YOU, YOURSELF on what's wrong with your play. Of course, you will know that something is wrong thru the guides that you have read and the advice you've received from other people. If you still aren't contented with your play and have really tried your best on improving but is still stuck on something, you ask for help. You're not supposed to ask for help each time you fall, most of the time you have to get back on your feet by yourself.
Sports need to have coaches because you have to have someone telling you what's wrong with what you're doing but, in starcraft you have replays. You can watch it over and over again. Now, coach for sc teams would devise strategy, find holes in opponent's play. That way, their coach can go with the "thinking", "outplanning" your opponents while you can practice and practice and practice.
TLDR
Find the answer within yourself before asking for help, it's just that there are many [H] threads asking for help wherein they could tell what's wrong with their gameplay just by looking thru their rep one more time.
On February 16 2010 14:23 huameng wrote: Totally disagree with this "guide". For what other game, sport, activity, is not asking for help the best way to learn?
Exactly. When i play football i always ask everyone why i dropped the ball. They're always so helpful Bottom line of this thread is that terrible play cannot be guided. You simply have to keep playing and get the fundamentals down before you can do anything better. Granted yes, people can watch your replay and say "oh, you went for a FE but you laid your hatchery down at 500 minerals"
....But do you really need people to tell you this?
When you're about a C level player or higher I could see asking for help on deep strategic problems, but having sloppy gameplay cannot be rectified with advice.
People come here looking for advice are almost always looking for a "shortcut" to magically improve their game. The thing is, they're not going to find one.
Any advice that someone gives you (pro or not), is not going to get you where you want to be right away. YOU have to go find some things out on your own, instead of RELYING ON EVERYONE ELSE TO FIGURE IT OUT FOR YOU.
Have you ever watched "exciting" players from back in the early 2000's like Boxer or Tsunami who don't seem to play like ANYONE else you had ever seen? It's because they put the time in to learn the game on their own. They didn't mindlessly copy replays. They understand some things about the game that even today's top rated Kespa players do not yet understand.
Someone mentioned Boxer coaching other players? That is why.
There's really not much else to say about this topic...
I think a lot of people don't watch progames enough and really study how progamers use specific builds and the different ways they transition in the midgame and lategame. It takes up tons of time and I don't do it anymore, but when I first started really playing I seriously watched every single ZvT and ZvP game that showed up in the VOD thread. And you need to stop asking people for help every single time you play a game and just sit down and play and play until you understand why you are winning or losing in the middle of the game and if at a loss as to why you lost even after watching the replay then you watch an applicable progame.
tbh I sometimes don't even really think it's a good idea to even really ask questions on this forum as most people don't really know what they're talking about and for a beginner it is sometimes difficult to really tell who actually knows what they're talking about and those that are just spewing a load of shit. The only way you can bypass this phase and be able to filter out the good advice is by watching tons of games and playing. I do understand that it is more difficult for non-Korean speaking players to get the same amount of information out of progames because they can't understand what the commentators are saying, and also because the really really good non-Koreans that commentate on games don't commentate on all games like Day9, but there isn't really a super easy way around it besides lots of watching, reading, and playing.
On April 06 2010 04:00 BruceLee6783 wrote: Have you ever watched "exciting" players from back in the early 2000's like Boxer or Tsunami who don't seem to play like ANYONE else you had ever seen? It's because they put the time in to learn the game on their own. They didn't mindlessly copy replays. They understand some things about the game that even today's top rated Kespa players do not yet understand.
Someone mentioned Boxer coaching other players? That is why.
There's really not much else to say about this topic...
On April 06 2010 04:00 BruceLee6783 wrote: Have you ever watched "exciting" players from back in the early 2000's like Boxer or Tsunami who don't seem to play like ANYONE else you had ever seen? It's because they put the time in to learn the game on their own. They didn't mindlessly copy replays. They understand some things about the game that even today's top rated Kespa players do not yet understand.
Someone mentioned Boxer coaching other players? That is why.
There's really not much else to say about this topic...
No.
No what?
Guys, in short, Misrah is trying to save all of the [H] posters lots of time by sacrificing some of his own, and if that isn't appreciated, then you don't get it.
On April 06 2010 04:00 BruceLee6783 wrote: Have you ever watched "exciting" players from back in the early 2000's like Boxer or Tsunami who don't seem to play like ANYONE else you had ever seen? It's because they put the time in to learn the game on their own. They didn't mindlessly copy replays. They understand some things about the game that even today's top rated Kespa players do not yet understand.
Someone mentioned Boxer coaching other players? That is why.
There's really not much else to say about this topic...
No.
No what?
Guys, in short, Misrah is trying to save all of the [H] posters lots of time by sacrificing some of his own, and if that isn't appreciated, then you don't get it.
You are hilariously wrong if you think Boxer and Tsunami understand the game more than any of the players on the top of the KESPA rankings.
On April 06 2010 04:00 BruceLee6783 wrote: Have you ever watched "exciting" players from back in the early 2000's like Boxer or Tsunami who don't seem to play like ANYONE else you had ever seen? It's because they put the time in to learn the game on their own. They didn't mindlessly copy replays. They understand some things about the game that even today's top rated Kespa players do not yet understand.
Someone mentioned Boxer coaching other players? That is why.
There's really not much else to say about this topic...
No.
No what?
Guys, in short, Misrah is trying to save all of the [H] posters lots of time by sacrificing some of his own, and if that isn't appreciated, then you don't get it.
You are hilariously wrong if you think Boxer and Tsunami understand the game more than any of the players on the top of the KESPA rankings.
They know some things that 300+apm mechanics cannot help you with. That's all I'm saying.
Think of the ramifications of being the first gosu's in history. Who did they learn from?
Todays top rated players have reference access to tons of old replays/VODS to get them to a high level of play without all the hard work involved in researching a game that had not been mapped out yet.
BW is much more outlined and mapped out today for people looking to improve. There are tons of builds and strategies waiting to be discovered, but you won't probably ever see because no one has seen a pro using it yet.
On April 06 2010 04:00 BruceLee6783 wrote: Have you ever watched "exciting" players from back in the early 2000's like Boxer or Tsunami who don't seem to play like ANYONE else you had ever seen? It's because they put the time in to learn the game on their own. They didn't mindlessly copy replays. They understand some things about the game that even today's top rated Kespa players do not yet understand.
Someone mentioned Boxer coaching other players? That is why.
There's really not much else to say about this topic...
No.
No what?
Guys, in short, Misrah is trying to save all of the [H] posters lots of time by sacrificing some of his own, and if that isn't appreciated, then you don't get it.
You are hilariously wrong if you think Boxer and Tsunami understand the game more than any of the players on the top of the KESPA rankings.
They know some things that 300+apm mechanics cannot help you with. That's all I'm saying.
Coming up with fancy creative build orders =/= understanding of the game. Knowing exactly what to do and when and why and how, and what your opponent can do in every situation = understanding the game. Reacting instantaneously, instinctively, and correctly to what your opponent is doing (what you scout) = understanding the game. That's something that all of the top korean players have atm. That's why we get the same kinds of macro games over and over, with slight variations in build order. It's all about optimization and taking risks and knowing how and when you can pull it off. This kind of intelligence isn't very observable to casual spectators, as opposed to emp/nuking nexuses, but it's what makes the difference between Flash and go.go. The bottom line is there's so much going on in standard play, but hardly anyone really appreciates it. They just think it's another boring game when it's really so much more.
There's no point in putting effort into answering back to a post that has no basis and is generally best to just be ignored.
I mean, your whole post talking about how recent players have reference to much more resources and have years of experience and experimentation to work on. Your entire post can be used for my argument that you are wrong.
Not to mention the fact that you think that you are trying to insinuate that modern players don't experiment and innovate... which anyone who actually watches the game would know is flat out wrong.
I put far too much effort into replying back to you.
On April 06 2010 05:30 BruceLee6783 wrote: Think of the ramifications of being the first gosu's in history. Who did they learn from?
Todays top rated players have reference access to tons of old replays/VODS to get them to a high level of play without all the hard work involved in researching a game that had not been mapped out yet.
BW is much more outlined and mapped out today for people looking to improve. There are tons of builds and strategies waiting to be discovered, but you won't probably ever see because no one has seen a pro using it yet.
Of course there are tons of different builds and strategies that the pros don't use. You can try any sort of creative build you want and try to make it viable. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The problem is you perfect the strategy, use it on iCCup, quickly rank up to D+, C-, C, C+, maybe even B-. But then you hit a brick wall and you can't go further because it just doesn't work CONSISTENTLY anymore. Consistency is what dominates the current builds, because at higher levels people are playing to win. And you want to be able to win 100% of the time, not just 50%. You want to be able to win based on your own skill - by outplaying your opponent, not because your opponent fails to react properly. That's why you use optimized builds. These builds don't have to be exactly the same as ones used by the Koreans (hell, the build I use nearly every single ZvP is nowhere close to any Korean "standard" build). That's where your creativity comes in. You adjust the standard build so it works for you. You optimize it so you can get the maximum advantage possible against your opponent in every situation, taking into account the current builds people commonly use (which are, more often than not, copied from progamers). You don't have to pull a nuke rush to be creative; you just have to discover your own style. At higher levels, you start to realize that these subtle differences in style are what define a player, and not making up crazy build orders.
On April 06 2010 05:36 koreasilver wrote: There's no point in putting effort into answering back to a post that has no basis and is generally best to just be ignored.
I mean, your whole post talking about how recent players have reference to much more resources and have years of experience and experimentation to work on. Your entire post can be used for my argument that you are wrong.
Not to mention the fact that you think that you are trying to insinuate that modern players don't experiment and innovate... which anyone who actually watches the game would know is flat out wrong.
I put far too much effort into replying back to you.
At least this post has some substance, but no one can argue my experience. I am not talking about build orders. I'm talking about being sneaky, and the kind of sneaky that doesn't involve hiding tech buildings.
And yes, we can all argue against your experience since you seem to be very misguided in how you interpret the state of the game. It isn't a stretch at all to say that you are just completely wrong.
On April 06 2010 06:11 BruceLee6783 wrote: Then please explain why current top rated players want old schoolers to coach them.
Tell me what having a coach is good for if current top players understand more than their coach does.
Do you believe the coaches exist only to offer encouragement?
Management. There are very, very few coaches that have ever contributed to the advancement of strategy more than the actual players. A lot of the strategical minds that players consult for advice are other players. I'm sorry, but iloveoov and Kingdom just by themselves aren't enough to support your ideas as we can all easily just pull out the countless interviews done by game winners where they cite other players like 98% of the time.
i didnt read the whole thread but i just want to give you all something on the way. Misrah is/was a guy who made some weeks/months ago daily blogs/posts how imba everything is and on iccup he told me during a ladder game that terrans need no skill to win a midgame TvZ, after that game i tried to ignore his posts.
Misarah- your post sounds valid and also states the obvious of what a player should do to be better. But you deliver it with so much distain that it left a bad taste in my mouth.
"you are conceding the fact that you are too stupid to understand why you lost."
"I hope that it washes away your lazy and impulsive nature"
Really. No one wants to read a "guide" that insults there intelligence. Also to top it off you your self posted in the strategy guide. Asking things about why you didn't win? That kills me. Now do I have permission to call you a lazy impulsive person who was too stupid to understand why he lost? I understand where you coming from with your post but no need to insult people via forum.
discussing strategies is important. however, only when players are playing with equal or close to equal mechanics. like koreans progamers, you can talk about strategical errors like rather than adding more gates, you should have expanded. rather than getting lurker tech you should have switch to mutas. or how to adjust to certain things in the game but what I notice is 90% of the threads here are of games where people ask for help on why they lost with their 3 hatch lair 5 hatch hydra build when its done completely wrong, and they have terrible macro, etc etc.
I think most of the threads on here can be summed up to "practice your build more". Most of the problems are early/mid game. This reminds me of watching Old Boy when someone on KT said "anyone can play early game well, its about their decisions in the late game". but most of the people don't even play early game well so when they lose, its not "why doesn't my strategy work" its really just "I need to play faster".
Misrah was just saying skill comes from playing games, not from explaining how to play BW.
You can't speculate on which progamers know the most because we've never been in one of their houses. Chances are that they're all fucking experts at this game b/c they have to play it in front of an audience.
On April 06 2010 07:58 BruceLee6783 wrote: Boxer is an actual player.
He is also now a completely irrelevant player amongst the competition and strategical development.
Doesn't keep him from providing insight.
People took what he did and improved on SOME of it, but there are still things that go unseen by others. His mindset, attitude, and approach to the game. Something you don't see in many players.
I just fail to see any innovation from todays players.
On April 06 2010 07:58 BruceLee6783 wrote: Boxer is an actual player.
He is also now a completely irrelevant player amongst the competition and strategical development.
I just fail to see any innovation from todays players.
See, now saying this in the light of the slew of innovations that Flash has brought to TvP and TvZ in the past few months is why I am not taking you seriously.
You must've missed the thread about innovation in today's game in terms of management, macro and economy. Yes "innovation" is no longer nuke rush or carriers lockdowns anymore, but Flash, Savior, iloveoov are all innovators in terms of how to macro and manage the game. you can't say thats less innovative than what boxer did.
On April 06 2010 11:02 BruceLee6783 wrote: They are still replicating his old strats, no matter how many layers of polishing they may have added
Oh really? Like Valkonic? Like actually pressuring muta openings instead of just turtling. Like economic optimization? Like 3 hatch muta threat while powering drones? Prove it or quit the silliness.
Boxer isn't even in the same galaxy as oov and Savior in terms of quality/quantity of innovation and influence, and Flash is not far behind.
On April 06 2010 11:02 BruceLee6783 wrote: They are still replicating his old strats, no matter how many layers of polishing they may have added
What are you expecting, a new unit to be invented? If you want to see innovation in current starcraft, you just have to open your eyes.
On-topic, I really like Misrah's OP! It's not "don't ask for help", it's "don't ask for help until you've thought it through yourself", which is the absolute best way to improve. Practice, reflect, discuss --- if you skip the "reflect" step you're missing out.
On April 06 2010 12:31 Ver wrote: Boxer isn't even in the same galaxy as oov and Savior in terms of quality/quantity of innovation and influence, and Flash is not far behind.
That's a bit strong, no? Mind games and micro have their honorable place in starcraft, and Boxer basically wrote the book on those. (Also, he's the first person I saw use any kind of Valkonic build, although of course it was off one base --- against Killer in one of the GOM tournaments. I think Fantasy's first televised usage of valkyries came shortly after that. I just mention it because you included Valkonic on your list.)
On April 06 2010 11:02 BruceLee6783 wrote: They are still replicating his old strats, no matter how many layers of polishing they may have added
What are you expecting, a new unit to be invented? If you want to see innovation in current starcraft, you just have to open your eyes.
On-topic, I really like Misrah's OP! It's not "don't ask for help", it's "don't ask for help until you've thought it through yourself", which is the absolute best way to improve. Practice, reflect, discuss --- if you skip the "reflect" step you're missing out.
On April 06 2010 12:31 Ver wrote: Boxer isn't even in the same galaxy as oov and Savior in terms of quality/quantity of innovation and influence, and Flash is not far behind.
That's a bit strong, no? Mind games and micro have their honorable place in starcraft, and Boxer basically wrote the book on those. (Also, he's the first person I saw use any kind of Valkonic build, although of course it was off one base --- against Killer in one of the GOM tournaments. I think Fantasy's first televised usage of valkyries came shortly after that. I just mention it because you included Valkonic on your list.)
No, that game against Killer game after every Terran on SKT1 was experimenting with mech builds. In fact, back when SKT1 first started experimenting and started the whole mech era phase, Boxer was still on ACE. Fantasy was the first person that used valk builds in the modern context in a way of a viable build that has the stability and strength to be used as a "standard" build rather than as just a 1-time use novelty.
And Boxer really pales in comparison to iloveoov and Savior when it comes to how much they have influenced the way people think and play today. Much more so for iloveoov. A lot of people discredit Flash and still disparage him as a "macro bot" and it's so infuriatingly annoying because Flash is hands down the most influential player of post-Savior BW. Yes, Bisu was the one that fully nailed forge fe stargate play as the absolute standard in PvZ but Flash also really changed how TvP is played since Katrina and his style of upgrade Terran in TvP has prevailed as the standard even when Fantasy had a great deal of success with his own different style. In TvZ he had blown up the mentality of defending within your base during mutalisk timing. And it happened all of a sudden right in everyone's face, and so many people don't realize how big of a deal it was. Flash broke like 3-4 years of TvZ mentality against mutalisks in a single game and then he also stomped on the mentality that letting a Zerg take his fourth gas is a death sentence for the Terran. These are years standard thought that Flash pretty much destroyed in weeks.
Flash deserves recognition for being the one that has pretty much lead almost every lasting Terran innovation in his time since Savior. There is no Zerg or Protoss player that can claim the same.
I always assumed that people who posted for help have already thought it through and are looking for second opinions or more insight. While it's great to always play a lot and be diligent about analyzing your game, the fact remains that there will always be people with more "answers" than you have -- thus you can speed up your learning if you can discern good information from bad. IMO, the "problem" lies in people not specifying what ranks they want help from. It's not going to be beneficial if every time you ask for help, only people below your level are giving you advice.
I'm in college at the moment and recently while doing a homework assignment I came across a math problem I just couldn't get the right answer to. I tried for a good 15 minutes to break down the parts of the relatively simple problem and for some reason could not find my error. By this time I had been working on my assignment for about an hour, with another math assignment before it taking around two hours as well, so I had effectively been staring at my own handwriting on clean, lined white sheets of paper for three hours straight. Eventually I gave up and went to see my instructor just before class to help me with this one problem I just couldn't nail down. What I missed was simply a negative sign. Basic, simple, humble little negative sign.
I agree that we should take the responsibility of finding an answer for our question upon ourselves, however, sometimes taking that responsibility is done by asking the right question. When you've been staring at replays for hours, working yourself silly analyzing your play, often times it's the things we take for granted, like that +2 attack upgrade you KNOW you got, you neglect to check. Another objective view comes along and spots your mistake immediately.
hmmm,i have big problem.when i make mutalisk i win the games,but when i make 3 hatch into 2 hidralisk i sometimes lost,becuose my macro was bad,i dont know how fix
I can't believe how quickly this thread has grown in size... obviously it would be inflammatory since many people replying are long time followers of the strategy forums. I'm not saying that it's trollish, it's a topic of serious debate.. however it did generate a lot of discussion.
On February 16 2010 13:39 Misrah wrote:
Part One: Why you should stop posting 'help me threads'
If you do not understand why you lost, you need to look through your replay again and again. If after watching your game again and agin take a notepad and a pen. Write down every single mistake. Made a rax at 200? mark that down. Queued up 3 marines at one point? mark that down two. If you go through the entire thing, you should have at least 2 pages.
I do this for a lot of my games. I have a folder with like at least fifteen sheets of paper about my games and what I could have done to do better in them.
On February 16 2010 13:39 Misrah wrote: Go play more starcraft.
Watching replays and doing this is the correct way to improve...(Just look at how much the Pros practice) but I wouldn't say strategy guides are worthless. People should at least give the starcraft compendium a proper readthrough... just being mindful of what they say counters what... That part is outdated.
edit: I would still post in the strategy forum though... just sparingly.
how is this still not locked? lol. I'm surprised people are arguing about Misrah even though I'm pretty sure he doesn't come here any more lol.(@ strategy forums)
On April 07 2010 02:04 3FFA wrote: how is this still not locked? lol. I'm surprised people are arguing about Misrah even though I'm pretty sure he doesn't come here any more lol.(@ strategy forums)
If you want to improve as fast as possible then what he said is quite true, [H] threads are often like a "ok plz tell me , I don`t wanna figure out by myself" give up button.
It all depends on how and why the [H] thread is made and it can be as helpful as it can be bad for improvement.
Though it greatly helps to develop community, lets people share their opinions and experience from their starcraft journey , its definetely a good thing overall imo.
On April 07 2010 02:04 3FFA wrote: how is this still not locked? lol. I'm surprised people are arguing about Misrah even though I'm pretty sure he doesn't come here any more lol.(@ strategy forums)
im here in spirit.
lol! Apparently! Since everyone is arguing with u when your not even talking u must be!
the point is that most people starting threads in the strat forum these days are asking the wrong questions. The question is not "what did I do wrong?" but instead "what did I do right?". Most people are making far too many mistakes and are so far behind in their play that even if they make the right decisions and the right moves, I know for a fact that they will still get slammed.
imagine you are fighting in a ring vs an experienced mma fighter. you are nowhere near fast/strong enough nor have the technique or reflexes. vs experienced sc players, your reaction speed is shit, you don't know the map, you don't know the positions your army should take at certain points of time to block certain builds/attacks.
so no, making an H thread will not help you much. you are simply looking for an easy excuse to not playing more games and getting the necessary mechanics down. of course it's ok to ask if you really don't know, but 99/100 times the OP knows what he's doing wrong.
probably more important that instead of asking anyone for help try to find the right person to help you. try to find someone who plays the same race as you and is a few ranks better, and go over replays with them as they can usually do a really good job of telling you where you went wrong
From my personal experience, you have to learn the game a couple times. Not going to go over all the stages now, just want to tell you that I totally agree, that when you are learning the game, you can help yourself more than anyone else. However, strategy forum is still very useful for discussing specific opinions and problems.
if it werent for the strategy forum i'd have never known that you need dragoons vs a low-econ mass hydra build. seriously all three steps do not apply.
(1) ok, so i write down every little mistake. didnt rally a few gates, slightly late robotics, things like that. i still wouldnt have known.
(2)liquipedia doesnt mention how to deal with certain unit compositions, it just talks about BOs and random things like storm dodging or magic boxes. nowhere in liquipedia does it mention that you need dragoons vs mass hydra.
(3) LOL i would have continued to mass zealots and templar in every single following game i played, and therefore STILL wouldn't have learned. i mean dragoons suck vs hydras so you can't blame me when i dont use them right?
EPT
Helping is like loving. The more the better!
Liquipedia
