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On December 16 2010 02:25 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2010 02:14 telfire wrote:On December 16 2010 02:02 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:Think about it. I have 50 minerals and a Barracks. I forget to make a marine. Now I have 100 minerals by the time I start my first marine. I queue a second marine because I read some dumbass giving stupid advice on TeamLiquid, and guess what? By the time the first marine's done I'm at 100 minerals again! That 50 IS STILL FLOATING AND COMPLETELY UNUSED. Yes, And the next time you would have idled because your macro slips, you'll be back at 50 again and you have produced that marine instead of idling the baracks. =/ The mistake will happen again, and again, and again, get used to it. WRONG. The next time you would have idled because your macro slips, you'll gain ANOTHER 50 and get higher and higher. Queing does NOT solve this. Your math is wrong, you have no logic, and you refuse to think about it the right way. There is a VERY GOOD REASON that EVERYONE in the RTS community KNOWS queuing is bad. IT IS. You can argue all day long, you'll still be wrong. Not queuing is making the assumption that in the future, your macro will never ever slip. I queue, because I know that my macro will slip at some point and I build a margin of error for that. NO!!!! Queing IS A WASTE OF MONEY. It is completely IRRELEVANT whether or not your macro is good! Queing is still a complete and utter waste of money! Every single unit that is queued is simply money in the top right, that's ALL it is. It doesn't help you AT ALL. Queuing DOES NOT cover up your "future mistakes". It doesn't do that at all. You have no evidence or logic to suggest that it does. ALL OF THAT MONEY IS WASTED. The thing you should do if you expect yourself to have bad macro (and have come to the stupid, idiotic conclusion that you can't improve it) is BUILD MORE BUILDINGS so you can actually use that money. Queing doesn't cover ANYTHING up it only gives you a completely and utterly false sense of having good macro. It is every bit as bad as having lots of money in every single way, period. Okay, I see what the problem is (besides the misuse of upper-case). You know that it does not get higher when you queued it right? That's the entire point we're making? If you queued up 2 marines, and your macro slips a while, you've made a buffer for yourself. So you will keep producing as usual even though you forgot it for a while because you were tied up. That's the point of queuing up, it stops your facilities from idling in the future, or at least makes it a tonne less likely, because you've built a buffer.
Making extra buildings gives you a much bigger, much more significant buffer.
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On December 16 2010 01:53 telfire wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2010 01:52 darmousseh wrote:
Whoa, at first I thought it said "Queening is bad" and I thought there was some insightful math or theorycrafting about queens being a waste of resources since this is supposed to be a strategy thread, but then I read it again and saw that it basically was saying something that anyone who has ever played an rts would know.
Don't Queue. Profit.
Making the next set of units like 3 seconds before the current set finishes is fine, but anything more than that and you aren't playing efficiently. No dude, he's trying to argue that queuing is good, that's what's so fucked up about it.
He's trying to hide the fact that he is a bad player and trying to justify a bad decision kinda like "no scouting" discussions. If you are queueing units then it hides the fact that your money is really high. If you have high money, then work on keeping it low by getting more upgrades or units or making more production buildings. The only time you should ever have more than 1k minerals is when you have a 200/200 army and have already gotten all of your necessary upgrades and have enough production buildings to basically remax your army in 3-4 production cycles.
How do threads like these survive?
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On December 16 2010 02:28 telfire wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2010 02:25 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:On December 16 2010 02:14 telfire wrote:On December 16 2010 02:02 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:Think about it. I have 50 minerals and a Barracks. I forget to make a marine. Now I have 100 minerals by the time I start my first marine. I queue a second marine because I read some dumbass giving stupid advice on TeamLiquid, and guess what? By the time the first marine's done I'm at 100 minerals again! That 50 IS STILL FLOATING AND COMPLETELY UNUSED. Yes, And the next time you would have idled because your macro slips, you'll be back at 50 again and you have produced that marine instead of idling the baracks. =/ The mistake will happen again, and again, and again, get used to it. WRONG. The next time you would have idled because your macro slips, you'll gain ANOTHER 50 and get higher and higher. Queing does NOT solve this. Your math is wrong, you have no logic, and you refuse to think about it the right way. There is a VERY GOOD REASON that EVERYONE in the RTS community KNOWS queuing is bad. IT IS. You can argue all day long, you'll still be wrong. Not queuing is making the assumption that in the future, your macro will never ever slip. I queue, because I know that my macro will slip at some point and I build a margin of error for that. NO!!!! Queing IS A WASTE OF MONEY. It is completely IRRELEVANT whether or not your macro is good! Queing is still a complete and utter waste of money! Every single unit that is queued is simply money in the top right, that's ALL it is. It doesn't help you AT ALL. Queuing DOES NOT cover up your "future mistakes". It doesn't do that at all. You have no evidence or logic to suggest that it does. ALL OF THAT MONEY IS WASTED. The thing you should do if you expect yourself to have bad macro (and have come to the stupid, idiotic conclusion that you can't improve it) is BUILD MORE BUILDINGS so you can actually use that money. Queing doesn't cover ANYTHING up it only gives you a completely and utterly false sense of having good macro. It is every bit as bad as having lots of money in every single way, period. Okay, I see what the problem is (besides the misuse of upper-case). You know that it does not get higher when you queued it right? That's the entire point we're making? If you queued up 2 marines, and your macro slips a while, you've made a buffer for yourself. So you will keep producing as usual even though you forgot it for a while because you were tied up. That's the point of queuing up, it stops your facilities from idling in the future, or at least makes it a tonne less likely, because you've built a buffer. Making extra buildings gives you a much bigger, much more significant buffer. It also loses you battles because you can't micro and command SCV's at the same time to go the right spot, while you can queue up and micro at the same time.
Also, it hardly gives you more advantage, you have to realize that after you queued up for the first time and invested like 200 minerals into that, you will never have idle time ever again. You basically pay some price to be assured of never having idle time ever again.
On December 16 2010 02:31 darmousseh wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2010 01:53 telfire wrote:On December 16 2010 01:52 darmousseh wrote:
Whoa, at first I thought it said "Queening is bad" and I thought there was some insightful math or theorycrafting about queens being a waste of resources since this is supposed to be a strategy thread, but then I read it again and saw that it basically was saying something that anyone who has ever played an rts would know.
Don't Queue. Profit.
Making the next set of units like 3 seconds before the current set finishes is fine, but anything more than that and you aren't playing efficiently. No dude, he's trying to argue that queuing is good, that's what's so fucked up about it. He's trying to hide the fact that he is a bad player and trying to justify a bad decision kinda like "no scouting" discussions. If you are queueing units then it hides the fact that your money is really high. If you have high money, then work on keeping it low by getting more upgrades or units or making more production buildings. The only time you should ever have more than 1k minerals is when you have a 200/200 army and have already gotten all of your necessary upgrades and have enough production buildings to basically remax your army in 3-4 production cycles. How do threads like these survive? No, he is admitting that he is an imperfect player and he uses a strategy that accounts for that. Rather than using a strategy that assumes that he is perfect which he is not.
Queuing up is not about dumping money, it's about building a buffer for the future so that when your macro slips again, your facilities don't become idle.
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Lower league players should try and never que, for the most part the pro players and high diamond players who que are only doing it because they know they won't be able to be paying attention for the next x amount of time so they need to focus on micro, at any other league, queing should be avoided because it is very likely that you are not super micro gosu all over the map.
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On December 16 2010 02:31 darmousseh wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2010 01:53 telfire wrote:On December 16 2010 01:52 darmousseh wrote:
Whoa, at first I thought it said "Queening is bad" and I thought there was some insightful math or theorycrafting about queens being a waste of resources since this is supposed to be a strategy thread, but then I read it again and saw that it basically was saying something that anyone who has ever played an rts would know.
Don't Queue. Profit.
Making the next set of units like 3 seconds before the current set finishes is fine, but anything more than that and you aren't playing efficiently. No dude, he's trying to argue that queuing is good, that's what's so fucked up about it. He's trying to hide the fact that he is a bad player and trying to justify a bad decision kinda like "no scouting" discussions. If you are queueing units then it hides the fact that your money is really high. If you have high money, then work on keeping it low by getting more upgrades or units or making more production buildings. The only time you should ever have more than 1k minerals is when you have a 200/200 army and have already gotten all of your necessary upgrades and have enough production buildings to basically remax your army in 3-4 production cycles. How do threads like these survive?
Because some bad players think that queuing in the early game can be justified and some other delusional fantasyland players also think that queuing in the late game can't be justified under any circumstance.
Besides, this is the SC2 strategy forums \o/
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Its not vs queueing vs keeping your money low. Queue just gives the appearance that your money is low, you actually just have money tied up in the queue, which is no different than in your bank.
When a building is destroyed, do you lose the money for stuff in the queue?
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Essentially what this post is about is this.
I have a problem, I am unable to do X effectively, so lately I've been doing Y even though i know i'm not supposed to. Most people tell me that not doing X is bad, but I am not good enough to do X so i've been doing Y. Is doing Y so bad? (Replace X and Y with anything you want)
If you are having a problem keeping money low, then freaking work on fixing that problem. That's the only way to get better.
Let me give you some examples of X and Y.
X = scouting
Y = not scouting
X = keeping money low
Y = queueing units
X = Saving money
Y = Using a credit card
X = Practicing
Y = Cheating
X = Learning to play
Y = Whining about balance/Trying to justify bad ideas.
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On December 16 2010 02:42 darmousseh wrote:
Essentially what this post is about is this.
I have a problem, I am unable to do X effectively, so lately I've been doing Y even though i know i'm not supposed to. Most people tell me that not doing X is bad, but I am not good enough to do X so i've been doing Y. Is doing Y so bad? (Replace X and Y with anything you want)
If you are having a problem keeping money low, then freaking work on fixing that problem. That's the only way to get better.
Let me give you some examples of X and Y.
X = scouting
Y = not scouting
X = keeping money low
Y = queueing units
X = Saving money
Y = Using a credit card
X = Practicing
Y = Cheating
X = Learning to play
Y = Whining about balance/Trying to justify bad ideas.
i can apply this format to some of my real life friends and just about anything they do, awesome
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On December 16 2010 02:42 darmousseh wrote:
Essentially what this post is about is this.
I have a problem, I am unable to do X effectively, so lately I've been doing Y even though i know i'm not supposed to. Most people tell me that not doing X is bad, but I am not good enough to do X so i've been doing Y. Is doing Y so bad? (Replace X and Y with anything you want)
If you are having a problem keeping money low, then freaking work on fixing that problem. That's the only way to get better.
Let me give you some examples of X and Y.
X = scouting
Y = not scouting
X = keeping money low
Y = queueing units
X = Saving money
Y = Using a credit card
X = Practicing
Y = Cheating
X = Learning to play
Y = Whining about balance/Trying to justify bad ideas.
No, it's not about that, it's about knowing that you will never, ever, be able to have perfect macro and never skip a production cycle if you don't queue up, and building a buffer for yourself by making a small deposit at one point to give yourself a margin.
Yeah, not queuing up and having spot on macro and mechanics even in the face of pressure and 3-pronged attacks is the idea situation, but also unatainable, I play it safe, I know that there will be a time, especially in hectic mid-game that I will slip, so I queue because I anticipate that I will be making errors.
Sure, I could train to never make errors again, but it's an unrealistic goal.
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Speaking of queuing, I see top players queue up units all the time.
Especially early game with workers. Is there any possible way you can get more money by queuing at strategic times? Or is it just that they know exactly how many units they'll be making with that money anyway so it doesn't hurt them to spend it right away?
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On December 16 2010 02:32 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2010 02:28 telfire wrote:On December 16 2010 02:25 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:On December 16 2010 02:14 telfire wrote:On December 16 2010 02:02 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:Think about it. I have 50 minerals and a Barracks. I forget to make a marine. Now I have 100 minerals by the time I start my first marine. I queue a second marine because I read some dumbass giving stupid advice on TeamLiquid, and guess what? By the time the first marine's done I'm at 100 minerals again! That 50 IS STILL FLOATING AND COMPLETELY UNUSED. Yes, And the next time you would have idled because your macro slips, you'll be back at 50 again and you have produced that marine instead of idling the baracks. =/ The mistake will happen again, and again, and again, get used to it. WRONG. The next time you would have idled because your macro slips, you'll gain ANOTHER 50 and get higher and higher. Queing does NOT solve this. Your math is wrong, you have no logic, and you refuse to think about it the right way. There is a VERY GOOD REASON that EVERYONE in the RTS community KNOWS queuing is bad. IT IS. You can argue all day long, you'll still be wrong. Not queuing is making the assumption that in the future, your macro will never ever slip. I queue, because I know that my macro will slip at some point and I build a margin of error for that. NO!!!! Queing IS A WASTE OF MONEY. It is completely IRRELEVANT whether or not your macro is good! Queing is still a complete and utter waste of money! Every single unit that is queued is simply money in the top right, that's ALL it is. It doesn't help you AT ALL. Queuing DOES NOT cover up your "future mistakes". It doesn't do that at all. You have no evidence or logic to suggest that it does. ALL OF THAT MONEY IS WASTED. The thing you should do if you expect yourself to have bad macro (and have come to the stupid, idiotic conclusion that you can't improve it) is BUILD MORE BUILDINGS so you can actually use that money. Queing doesn't cover ANYTHING up it only gives you a completely and utterly false sense of having good macro. It is every bit as bad as having lots of money in every single way, period. Okay, I see what the problem is (besides the misuse of upper-case). You know that it does not get higher when you queued it right? That's the entire point we're making? If you queued up 2 marines, and your macro slips a while, you've made a buffer for yourself. So you will keep producing as usual even though you forgot it for a while because you were tied up. That's the point of queuing up, it stops your facilities from idling in the future, or at least makes it a tonne less likely, because you've built a buffer. Making extra buildings gives you a much bigger, much more significant buffer. It also loses you battles because you can't micro and command SCV's at the same time to go the right spot, while you can queue up and micro at the same time. Also, it hardly gives you more advantage, you have to realize that after you queued up for the first time and invested like 200 minerals into that, you will never have idle time ever again. You basically pay some price to be assured of never having idle time ever again. Show nested quote +On December 16 2010 02:31 darmousseh wrote:On December 16 2010 01:53 telfire wrote:On December 16 2010 01:52 darmousseh wrote:
Whoa, at first I thought it said "Queening is bad" and I thought there was some insightful math or theorycrafting about queens being a waste of resources since this is supposed to be a strategy thread, but then I read it again and saw that it basically was saying something that anyone who has ever played an rts would know.
Don't Queue. Profit.
Making the next set of units like 3 seconds before the current set finishes is fine, but anything more than that and you aren't playing efficiently. No dude, he's trying to argue that queuing is good, that's what's so fucked up about it. He's trying to hide the fact that he is a bad player and trying to justify a bad decision kinda like "no scouting" discussions. If you are queueing units then it hides the fact that your money is really high. If you have high money, then work on keeping it low by getting more upgrades or units or making more production buildings. The only time you should ever have more than 1k minerals is when you have a 200/200 army and have already gotten all of your necessary upgrades and have enough production buildings to basically remax your army in 3-4 production cycles. How do threads like these survive? No, he is admitting that he is an imperfect player and he uses a strategy that accounts for that. Rather than using a strategy that assumes that he is perfect which he is not. Queuing up is not about dumping money, it's about building a buffer for the future so that when your macro slips again, your facilities don't become idle.
Day9 made an excellent daily a few months ago about why queueing is bad and why queueing in a game makes you a worse player.
Essentially, the purpose of a game is to win and the best way to win a game is play as optimally as you can. If you are not playing optimally, then you can improve. If your goal is to be able to play optimally, then in sc2, the most optimal play is produce units at the exact moment your previous unit finishes. Most pros aren't this good, so they either 1. Make a unit a few seconds early or 2. Make a unit a few seconds late. Since 1 tends to have less drastic consequences, most pros start their next production cycle a few seconds before their current production cycle finishes (or a few seconds after if you are zerg or you are using warpgates). The goal however, is to remove to minimize this as much as possible. Another goal is to use your minerals efficiently and to keep your mineral count low. If you have stockpiled 100 minerals, then that is 100 more minerals that could have been your army meaning you have a smaller army. When you queue units, you aren't producing them faster, you are giving yourself the illusion that you are keeping your money low. So if you see your money high, you think "Oh I guess I can queue more units" which is the worst decision possible. If you have too much money, then it means you don't have enough tech/production buildings/workers/supply/static defense. When you are practicing, even if you aren't good at producing on every cooldown, pretending that the cooldown doesn't matter will not help you improve, it will make you worse. You will develop a bad habit that will be difficult to break when you get better if you are ever able to get better.
When the federal agents are trying to determine if a bill is counterfeit do you know what they do? Do they study what a counterfeit looks like? No! They study the real thing. Only by learning all of the intricacies of what a real bill looks can they recognize when something is a counterfeit. Only by trying to play optionally by practicing learning to keep your money low and your queue empty can you learn to recognize when you aren't playing optimally.
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It is just about knowing that you need your attention somewhere else soon so you won't be able to perfectly keep up with macro. If you have like 5 rax and 3 OCs you can't really perfectly build every unit just when the old one is finished. It is no crime to queue up one or two Probes/SCVs, and will yield you a more constant worker production than trying to do it perfectly once you enter midgame. What you should avoid though is queuing up more expensive units that also take a longer time to build. You also shouldn't queue up in the early game because you want to execute your BO as cleanly as possible.
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On December 16 2010 02:49 TedJustice wrote:
Speaking of queuing, I see top players queue up units all the time.
Especially early game with workers. Is there any possible way you can get more money by queuing at strategic times? Or is it just that they know exactly how many units they'll be making with that money anyway so it doesn't hurt them to spend it right away? They have their build orders planned. I mean, it's not tht hard. Of course I queue up first til 9 probes, and then til 13, because I go 9 pylon -> 13 gate.
In later game it becomes more unpredictable and you can't do that any more.
That said though, I actually queue as much as I can possible queue at any time, I've trained myself to have a decent mental tab on just how much stuff I have in the queue and I cancel it automatically when I want to build different stuff as a response to something. It's not that unnatural to have 300 minerals and 200 gas floating at the time you have your three gates and one robo down, I usually put that in a queue and cancel it before every warp gate cycle.
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On December 16 2010 02:49 TedJustice wrote:
Speaking of queuing, I see top players queue up units all the time.
Especially early game with workers. Is there any possible way you can get more money by queuing at strategic times? Or is it just that they know exactly how many units they'll be making with that money anyway so it doesn't hurt them to spend it right away?
Queueing up workers in the beginning isn't terrible since you already have a specific plan in mind and you have absolutely nothing to spend the money on. This isn't the case past like 9 supply. As a rule of thumb i don't queue the workers at the beginning so that I don't get into a bad habit. If i find myself with too many queued workers, i go an cancel some of them, even if i'm going to remake them 5 seconds later. Once you have 9 supply, queueing workers makes your build slower.
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Please read "The Goal" if you want a book to describe why you don't want a large inventory of parts in a production cycle. Everything you have should be contributing value, in this case either mining minerals/gas or creating attacking units which are actively attacking the enemy. Having resources stuck in "inventory" (ie queuing marines), is non value added, hence why its better to have an extra barracks and train yourself to always be activating the next production cycle, maybe only having one marine in queue before the current cycle ends.
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"Don't queue" vs "Spend dat money" ??
If you queue, you did not spend your money... you just set it in a pile marked "Do not open before christmas"
Queueing just gives you the illusion that you are improving when you are not.
At best, queue 1 unit. Then it is easier to manage when you need to build things, without making your christmas savings pile too large.
But in the spirit of play to improve, what would you rather do?
Just try to not queue, and see how it goes. If you miss out on building some units, then you have spare money, make another building, and catch up that much faster. Worst thing that can happen is you lose, which is a stronger message to try hard to macro better. ^^
Just rethink the question "Spend your money" into "Spend your Effective Money" where Effective money is Your money + the value of all your queued things. Think of it like the people debating APM. "You need high APM to be awesome!" no, no you don't.... if anything you need high EAPM. Try to improve where it matters. Lose some games now, to win more games later. ^^
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On December 16 2010 02:57 darmousseh wrote:
The goal however, is to remove to minimize this as much as possible. Yes, this is the goal, and this is a goal that is unrealistic to try to attain.
'
Yes, the most ideal situation is to not queue and have spot on macro, but this is unrealistic to think you can achieve this. And in your attempts to try to achieve this you will have many an idle production facility.
Don't aim too high if missing means you have nothing at all.
Another goal is to use your minerals efficiently and to keep your mineral count low. If you have stockpiled 100 minerals, then that is 100 more minerals that could have been your army meaning you have a smaller army. When you queue units, you aren't producing them faster, you are giving yourself the illusion that you are keeping your money low. So if you see your money high, you think "Oh I guess I can queue more units" which is the worst decision possible. If you have too much money, then it means you don't have enough tech/production No, you'renot giving yourself the illussion you have your money low, you're making a buffer.
You're building in a safety for yourself so that next time you slip up, you have things queued so production goes on as usual.
I don't queue to 'keep money low', I queue to make a buffer for myself anticipating that in the future I might slip.
buildings/workers/supply/static defense. When you are practicing, even if you aren't good at producing on every cooldown, pretending that the cooldown doesn't matter will not help you improve, it will make you worse. You will develop a bad habit that will be difficult to break when you get better if you are ever able to get better. Well, I don't expect that, with training, I will ever be able to have perfect mechanics.
Let's be realistic, very few people in this thread have the potential to become progamers, even with rigorous practice, and even progamers still quite often lapse production cycles.
Also, as said before, you can, and should, cancel your queued units if you have other plans with that money.
When the federal agents are trying to determine if a bill is counterfeit do you know what they do? Do they study what a counterfeit looks like? No! They study the real thing. Only by learning all of the intricacies of what a real bill looks can they recognize when something is a counterfeit. Only by trying to play optionally by practicing learning to keep your money low and your queue empty can you learn to recognize when you aren't playing optimally. This analogy means nothing, bills are not games of StarCraft 2.
I could just as well make an analogy saying that the only way to spot a killer is to learn about killer psychopathy, and not to try to see what makes people a normal man and everytime someone is weird call them a killer.
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On December 16 2010 02:47 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2010 02:42 darmousseh wrote:
Essentially what this post is about is this.
I have a problem, I am unable to do X effectively, so lately I've been doing Y even though i know i'm not supposed to. Most people tell me that not doing X is bad, but I am not good enough to do X so i've been doing Y. Is doing Y so bad? (Replace X and Y with anything you want)
If you are having a problem keeping money low, then freaking work on fixing that problem. That's the only way to get better.
Let me give you some examples of X and Y.
X = scouting
Y = not scouting
X = keeping money low
Y = queueing units
X = Saving money
Y = Using a credit card
X = Practicing
Y = Cheating
X = Learning to play
Y = Whining about balance/Trying to justify bad ideas.
No, it's not about that, it's about knowing that you will never, ever, be able to have perfect macro and never skip a production cycle if you don't queue up, and building a buffer for yourself by making a small deposit at one point to give yourself a margin. Yeah, not queuing up and having spot on macro and mechanics even in the face of pressure and 3-pronged attacks is the idea situation, but also unatainable, I play it safe, I know that there will be a time, especially in hectic mid-game that I will slip, so I queue because I anticipate that I will be making errors. Sure, I could train to never make errors again, but it's an unrealistic goal.
Imagine if a baseball player said "If I swing at the ball, i might hit a pop fly, so I'm just not going to swing". Getting on base 100% of the time might be an unrealistic goal, but ti doesn't stop them from trying. Yes, macro can slip in the middle of battle, but that doesn't mean you should play sub optimally during that time. If anything, it should encourage you to multitask better.
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I think there is a problem with saying "queuing is bad" when trying to teach new players or lower skilled players. Queuing is bad if the money could be better spent on production buildings/upgrades. e.g. a terran player going bio on 2 base with 4 or 5 production buildings up and building an army. That is when you build either A another production building or B another tech building.
You have to better elaborate and explain things properly sometimes.
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I feel like a lot of people are missing the point that the OP's trying to make. Yeah, queuing units is BAD, but at low levels it's better to queue units than forgetting to make them.
As for the argument that it's a bad habit and queuing units will only take you to gold or something, I'm pretty sure people are smart enough to learn not to queue units eventually. I mean, give them some credit, lol.
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EPT
