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On January 28 2011 19:52 snafulator wrote:yesterday i was plat toss with 31-23 win/loss around 750 points with 6 months of not touching sc2 at all and only 4gate experience, then i saw this thread and looked out for an Terran "macro build order" because i wanted to switch my race.. i found this http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=185963i played the whole night from 0oclock untill now and im in diamond now with nearly 2000 points and 23 more wins than losses the whole thing i did was doing the build order again and again, after i executed the build order from the thread, i was just making siege tanks to defend the expansions and expand really hard. after that i "countered" what the enemy was building (unit wise) so i say macro only can work
Or switching to terran and building tanks, so keep that in mind, you need to either have perfect macro, or play terran 
Just messing with you, I honestly get the point you're trying to make, when you focused on all-out macro and minimal defense you were dominating your opponents. I'm trying to work my way up to diamond myself so it's good to know that this is making a big difference for other players.
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Has anyone tried just straight macroing as Zerg?
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There's two types of players in the lower leagues (and being one of those perpetually stuck at the top of gold players, I have some experience with this):
1 - The casual player who doesn't really care about advancing or significantly improving
2 - The players that want to improve but don't have the tools/knowledge to do so
This is mostly addressed to group 2 since I doubt group 1 would even be asking on a forum about ways to improve.
For group 2, "macro better" doesn't help if you don't know what to look for. I'll borrow the Tiger Woods analogy from earlier since I happen to play golf. When I started, I took a golf class in college and learned the very basics that you would learn in such a class. I could hit the ball consistently but the results of the contact were inconsistant. Sometimes it was straight, sometimes it went far, sometimes it didn't do either. I knew I needed to improve my swing so I started going to the driving range to work on it by myself. Soon I could hit the ball straighter and farther a bit more consistently. Howver, after a few months of playing, I hit a wall at a horrible 20 handicap and just could not improve. At that point, I finally got around to going to a trainer. Lo and behold, all my "improvements" were the problem. I was correcting mistakes with mistakes and limiting my game. I had to unlearn and relearn everything about my swing and ended up dropping 17 strokes from my handicap.
The same concept applies here. "Macro better" is not helpful unless the specific flaws in a player's macro are pointed out. If the player knew what to work on, he would be doing it. This is what sets Day[9] apart in my opinion. His newbie reviews have been invaluable to me and I'm sure most other newbies by pointing out specific flaws and specific mistakes of reasoning common to everyone in the lower leagues. That's the information players need. It's not that a gold leaguer is ignoring the "macro better" advice; his view of what good macro is just differs from that of a master league player. That gap is what needs correction so the gold league player knows specifically what to work on.
Despite that, there has been some solid advice in this thread. The link to the macro benchmarks thread is amazingly helpful IMO and deserves a whole lot more love than its getting.
In fact, if anyone is interested, I can think of an interesting experiment to show the difference in macro between lower and higher league players. Have two players (one gold or lower, one master league) play in separate games against AIs to a predetermined point in time then stop the game and look at where both players are. Developing those types of benchmarks give lower league players much higher quality feedback on where they are in the process.
If any master league players are interested in doing this, I'm a high gold and would be fine with playing as the scrub since I'm actually curious how far I still need to go.
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Going straight for stalker macro does help a lot when you start playing competitive.
I'm one of those who love playing SC2 online against and together with others, but I'm scared of playing ladder and loosing.
Being afraid is obvious stupid, cause it is a game and you should just have fun playing it.
I often screw up games, because I get distracted by being harassed or being under early pressure.
But I do and feel better when just macroing and knowing what to do next, despite doing a fancy build which is good against a specific race or build (when you can handle your build).
So keep doing macro when you're knew to SC 2, it will improve your play a lot.
Once you play calm and concentrated start working on you micro and all those 'fancy' builds.
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I'm interested in seeing whether he will actually get into diamond, for it seems that diamond players, without being harassed, are able to sustain a macro comparable to his while doing other cute things.
Right now, the title misleads. I do hope that he gets promoted though, so that I can present this as incontrovertible proof to my friends in lower leagues. I have a firm belief in the power of macro, reinforced by countless facepalms (OMG I could have won if these 1000 floating minerals are 10 zealots). But we just need an evidence as blunt as this one to convince others.
I'm looking forward to updates!
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I don't think the complaints about the advice to "just macro" were directed so much at the idea that macro is all-important as the attitude of the higher level players.
When Masters/Diamond players give advice to lower league players along the vein of "just macro" they often have a very condescending tone. They act as if macroing well is the easiest thing in the world, forgetting how much work they themselves had to put in to get good at it.
I think it is the idea of saying "just macro" that bothers the lower players, not necessarily the fact that they do need to work on only their macro.
if it was phrased a bit differently, ie "work on keeping your probe count high, your pylon count matched to your supply needs, and your money low through producing units and production facilities", I think things would be a bit less confrontational.
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macro is an important thing but not the only one. sure u can win by only macroing but what if the enemy does the same? terran has mules which mine like crazy, zerg can make workers super fast and toss can use chrono boost which gives u 1 worker extra. if u think about it terran rlly needs mules if they dont want to fall behind and zerg needs time to make those drones. starcraft all comes down to time management. it all depends on what u do with ur time and how much apm u can use. macro is thus the most important thing to do but u should be worried about cheeses etc. thats why poking at the enemy base is important. it gives u the info u need to make good decisions. zerg, for example dont make enough drones with the time they're given. when they dont do that, they will fall behind no matter what they do.
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Thanks for the post of the proof, haha! I was demonstrating this in Protoss Strategy channel using similar constraints:
* Nearly-blind unit composition. No real scouting.
* All attacks and defense a-moving on the minimap.
Beat every gold and platinum player in the channel. Several of the mid-diamonds too! I might have had more fun than the 15+ observers watching.
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I beat a 2600 master zerg under a restriction that I was only allowed 4 sentries for the purposes of getting my expo up and 1 zealot to defend vs early ling pressure, and no other units except for stalkers. IMO if a protoss player can't pull this off vs low master league zergs, then his macro isn't good enough... you can only do this vs zerg though, because PvP doesn't really have a macro game and PvT requires observers.
It makes me sad to see diamond and below players asking "what should I do vs X?" as a disguised way of asking "what is the magic unit composition that will allow me to win this game against someone who is way better than me, and happened to be using X?"
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I think that this is largely correct.
I broke into diamond using terran after 100's of games.
My friend is in bronze and wanted me to get him into diamond.
So I thought... Heck why not. Instead of playing terran tho, I jumped in with Toss.
http://www.sc2ranks.com/us/2007301/Tamil <---- 60% win rate. For some reason it shows as a plat, but in game hes diamond. If you want I can take screen shot.
Now that I think about it, It might just have to do with Toss being a noob race.
Take into account I only 4 gated 3 times (2 were failes  )
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If he wants to win by a-moving alone, he should have chosen terran instead (LOL).
I honestly would be surprised if he managed to get to diamond with just pure stalkers (though i guess if its now with the master league, its doable). I feel that in broodwar, macro is a lot more important because it was very difficult to macro perfectly (due to no mbs or automine). Therefore, the skill gap between those who macroed perfectly (or near it) vs those who couldn't was MUCH larger.
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Maybe slightly off-topic, but IMO newer players shouldn't practice raw macro.
I think working on basic game knowledge and having some knowledge of what to do in every matchup (build orders and stuff) is more important than working on macro at the lower levels. Macro is something that needs to be practiced and would come with practice, you can't just be aware of the fact that your macro is poor improve it within a few games.
By practicing a certain build order and not just thinking about macro, you would also practice something viable at the mid-diamond levels and above by going through the motions of the build and improve macro at the same time. You probably won't get into diamond as fast by building 70 stalkers every game and a-moving them but league results shouldn't be a goal if you really want to get good.
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Diamond is not that hard to get into. A solid build order, macro and COMMON SENSE will get u there. U cannot micro your way into diamond but u can macro your way into diamond or cheese if u feel u cant play on even grounds. When u just worry about macro u focus more on multitasking then anything during this time. U have to do 10 things at one time and that goes up when the game gets longer. Thus u r practicing on the main part of starcraft MULTITASKING. If u cant multitask then u will have a problem at this game in the higher leagues.
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On January 27 2011 22:03 Mercury- wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2011 17:15 InsaniaK wrote:
I wish it was this easy... Zergs can't just macro since we need non-stop scouting and constantly choosing between units and drones. What's it with the Zerg martyr complex? I mean yeah even if they have timing windows and army weaknesses to be exploited at higher levels that should be no issue in Bronze-Plat.
If this is true, I expect an equivalent build for zerg will be posted soon. It'll be nice not to die because I mistook a banshee rush for a hellion rush anymore.
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Mexico18 Posts
It seems like people are taking the "macro gets you to diamond" too literally. It doesn't mean completely ignore build orders and counters. It has more to do with keeping mineral count down, and production up.
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Build orders are an important part of your macro, so I don't see how it's separate.
I think the advice higher level players are trying to stress is for the low level player not to focus so heavily on controlling their army. Instead they should be focusing on keeping money low and maxxing out for a push. High level players encounter cheese all the time, so it's not an excuse, but more of a distraction to macro. Suddenly you have to deal with something unexpected, and this breaks your mental rhythm, you stop producing units, money builds up and you get overwhelmed. This is the problem high level players tell low level players to try their best to avoid. Saying things like: "You can get to diamond on macro alone" is simply stressing the importance of making units, workers, supply room and teching instead of controlling units flawlessly. Once you have solid mechanics and can macro without having to think too much about it, you're able to expand your gameplay into unit control, since your macro is not so much of an issue.
Let's face it. Most low-level players have terrible macro pretty much the moment they start controlling their units. It's called tunnel vision.
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Canada13389 Posts
The only problem with this is that the person got to diamond with a new account. For someone with 500 games played you won't get into diamond on macro alone since you will be playing mid diamonds at one point. Playing mid diamond you ned macro and good decision making
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On February 01 2011 01:12 dUTtrOACh wrote:
Let's face it. Most low-level players have terrible macro pretty much the moment they start controlling their units. It's called tunnel vision.
I think you're dead on here, I'm a mid-level gold player, and I have been analyzing my replays recently to try and find the points where my macro drops off. As soon as I get into the action I start missing queen spits and overlords. I think I'm great at getting the right unit comps and my builds are certainly getting better, but It has recently become painfully obvious that simple mistakes are holding my play back significantly.
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After reading this thread I decided to work on my macro more and so far my win-ratio is going down (I am playing terran in platinum btw).
I am using: 1-rax FE vs terran. I win if terran does not do fast siege tank push.
Against protoss I try 2-rax FE. Most pressing issues are all-ins with sentries or protoss expanding himself and outmacroing me into colosus ball of doom. Everything else seems manageable with 2-base economy unless protoss gets storm without suffering enough economic damage.
Zerg all-ins are easy but it is difficult to win against macro zerg in far positions so I am trying 2 rax bunker rush and I always kill the expo so far but I don't know what to do afterward ... and die horribly to roach all-in counter because my stim is not done and I have overproduced marines. If I don't bunker rush then zerg usually tries to macro himself and it all depends if he gets enough mutas to deny my third.
It seems that my problem is getting supply blocked often. In half of my games this caused my to lose, so yes, my macro is holding me back still
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On January 28 2011 19:52 snafulator wrote:yesterday i was plat toss with 31-23 win/loss around 750 points with 6 months of not touching sc2 at all and only 4gate experience, then i saw this thread and looked out for an Terran "macro build order" because i wanted to switch my race.. i found this http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=185963i played the whole night from 0oclock untill now and im in diamond now with nearly 2000 points and 23 more wins than losses the whole thing i did was doing the build order again and again, after i executed the build order from the thread, i was just making siege tanks to defend the expansions and expand really hard. after that i "countered" what the enemy was building (unit wise) so i say macro only can work
Wow how did I miss this thread, would have helped me a lot ><
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EPT
