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On January 25 2011 02:24 Spreek wrote:Show nested quote +[B]
You can compare it to chess in that regard. To play at a high level, you need both a deep understanding of strategy and very good tactical abilities. However, even if your understanding of strategy is very mediocre, you can still be a pretty good player just by calculating (macroing in SC terms) well, but it doesn't work the other way around. You can have a great understanding of strategy, if you're terrible at calculating, you'll never get to a remotely high level.
I'm a pretty high level chess player (2200+), and I'm not too sure about this analogy. I guess it kinda depends on what you define pretty good player as. I suspect that you would probably get to about 1400-1500 ELO (BTW for those who don't know chess ratings, a 1500 is probably the equivalent of Plat SC2.) and then hit a wall without ANY strategy, e.g., you don't castle, you don't play for control of the center, you don't have a plan. While tactics do play a huge role in chess (as macro does in starcraft), it cannot be described as everything.
Similarly I think you'll hit a wall at platinum with just macro and no strategy at all. However, basic strategy coupled with macro should easily be enough to get you into diamond, just as I think (correct me if I'm wrong) basic chess principles plus good tactics should be enough for a ~1800 rating.
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Proposal for new test: Some strong Masters player should make a new account and purposely supply block themselves on 2nd pylon/overlord/depot every game. Other than that play as well as they can. So sortof the opposite of good marcro. See how high they can get. >
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On January 26 2011 04:48 KillerDucky wrote:Proposal for new test: Some strong Masters player should make a new account and purposely supply block themselves on 2nd pylon/overlord/depot every game. Other than that play as well as they can. So sortof the opposite of good marcro. See how high they can get. >
Probably say something like you're not allowed to build the next pylon/overlord/depot until it says you have not enough supply to build something.
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This is the sort of thing I really enjoy reading about, and why I have been concentrating on just two things this week (verrrry new player haha) fending off cheese so I can get in position to Macro, and then, Macro. More than once I've gotten my army to 200/200 and found that my opposition only just took his natural. I know I am playing against other noobs as a total noob myself, but I found that rather shocking to be honest, it seems that at lower levels people practice the strategies which get them the biggest win ratio for the least effort.
Cheese is great for that because you only have to perfect one build order, and for a newer, inexperienced player it is MUCH harder to fend off than it is to perform, so it's no wonder this stuff flourishes at lower levels of play.
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I am a Gold-leaguer who would LOVE to ONLY concentrate on macro. I want to see what the Redditer's build orders are so I can emulate them to get a solid sense of timings. I cant wait to check this out.
Thanks for the advice from all the high level players in here.
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A piece of advise: if you want to do what redditer did (ie:not scouting, massing only one unit...) dont use zerg. To be acceptably safe without scouting you need a race that can make workers and soldiers at the same time.
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1. do the same thing with only marines
2. if your macro is good, then focus on microing the marines as well
3. name yourself marineking
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I think that macro fundamentals are the most important... as a platinum zerg player who knows he DEFINITELY needs to work on his macro.. does any masters league players or high diamond level players like to offer up a build for me to practice with?
it seems like the OP had a simple enough build so i dont see why we cant come up with a zerg one that can help me practice my macro
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Are you allowed to have multiple accounts. I would like to try this out
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On January 25 2011 22:30 Orome wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2011 02:24 Spreek wrote:[B]
You can compare it to chess in that regard. To play at a high level, you need both a deep understanding of strategy and very good tactical abilities. However, even if your understanding of strategy is very mediocre, you can still be a pretty good player just by calculating (macroing in SC terms) well, but it doesn't work the other way around. You can have a great understanding of strategy, if you're terrible at calculating, you'll never get to a remotely high level.
I'm a pretty high level chess player (2200+), and I'm not too sure about this analogy. I guess it kinda depends on what you define pretty good player as. I suspect that you would probably get to about 1400-1500 ELO (BTW for those who don't know chess ratings, a 1500 is probably the equivalent of Plat SC2.) and then hit a wall without ANY strategy, e.g., you don't castle, you don't play for control of the center, you don't have a plan. While tactics do play a huge role in chess (as macro does in starcraft), it cannot be described as everything. Similarly I think you'll hit a wall at platinum with just macro and no strategy at all. However, basic strategy coupled with macro should easily be enough to get you into diamond, just as I think (correct me if I'm wrong) basic chess principles plus good tactics should be enough for a ~1800 rating.
I think you guys have some pretty high standards for "good" chess players, as I'm sure making it to 1500 (let alone 1800) from nothing would be much more difficult than making it to plat from no rts background.
Correct me if I'm wrong, that just seems really hard :/
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On January 27 2011 14:22 gogatorsfoster wrote:
Are you allowed to have multiple accounts. I would like to try this out
The guy who did it just said that he played on his own guest account.
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I wish it was this easy... Zergs can't just macro since we need non-stop scouting and constantly choosing between units and drones.
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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.
Quite the opposite! Zergs can 'just macro' way better than the other races, you just have to know when to stop 'just macro'ing and actually make enough units to survive.
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On January 27 2011 17:25 Negative Zero 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. Quite the opposite! Zergs can 'just macro' way better than the other races, you just have to know when to stop 'just macro'ing and actually make enough units to survive.
and we know that by scouting .. so if this isn't allowed a zerg autolooses
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make a reasonable amount of units along with the drones
it can't be that hard to blind balance, it's not an all or nothing game right? you'd never be able to make enough units in a single wave if that was the case
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On January 24 2011 13:31 malphigian wrote:Reddit starcraft has recently been plagued by a lot of discussion around some lower level players complaining about the advice they get from diamond/masters level players. The usual advice is "focus on macro, you can get to diamond by macro alone". The complaints had to do with bronze/silver players saying they faced more cheese so they don't get to macro. One redditor decided to put it to the test. He made a guest account, threw his placement matches, and then proceeded to play games just macro'ing to near max army of strictly stalkers then a-moving to victory. Original Post with replaysFollow Up to outline when he started losing gamesI figured it was worth reposting this over here as I see a lot of the same conversations going on in the [L] strategy threads here (I'm only a platinum myself) and it's nice to see an attempt at some actual evidence behind an argument. I might quibble that this is a pretty expansive definition of macro (he is doing a number of basic mechanical things at a much higher level that his opponents), but it's a pretty interesting experiment and he's obviously not using any unit composition or micro tricks.
this pretty much sums reddit's attempt:
On January 24 2011 14:46 Linconis wrote:
I don't doubt this is accurate, but its almost seems the same as if tiger woods played a round with only his 5 iron and then was like "See, You can get into the PGA just by having a good swing"
Just macro, no scout, mass units is somewhat of a delayed cheese. The simple fact this worked just goes to show how shallow league placement is while also being a slap in the face of Starcraft as strategy game.
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On January 27 2011 17:43 Vari wrote:
make a reasonable amount of units along with the drones
it can't be that hard to blind balance, it's not an all or nothing game right? you'd never be able to make enough units in a single wave if that was the case
Have you ever played ZvP? Even with scouting it's hard to see a 4gate since he denies almost all scouting with zealt+stalker. A 4gate will completely ravage a zerg if he doesn't know it's comming, and if the zerg mistakes something else for a 4gate he's fucked in the macro game. So no balance is pretty much impossible vs protoss. Also vs terran if no scouting was to be done you'd have to prepare for A LOT of things.(banshee/thor/2rax/hellion) in which case you'd have to make a million spinecrawlers+sporecrawlers while going roach+ling+bling.
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Quite the opposite! Zergs can 'just macro' way better than the other races, you just have to know when to stop 'just macro'ing and actually make enough units to survive
Yes, but with zerg you dont "know" when to stop droning, you have to find out by scouting your opponent. Maybe at very high levels, when the opponents follow their build orders perfectly, you can know exactly when to stop droning. However if you oponent is suboptimal, you need to scout him to see if you can eke a few extra drones to take advantage of his poor execution. However this also requires a great deal of knowledge from the zergs part, as he has to know what hes seeing and how to react to it. Just macroing just wont work for zerg.
make a reasonable amount of units along with the drones
it can't be that hard to blind balance, it's not an all or nothing game right? you'd never be able to make enough units in a single wave if that was the case
Man, if blizzard wanted the zerg to work like the other races they wouldnt have bothered to create a larva mechanic. Zerg cant compete with the other races unless it makes as many drones as it can in the early game.
The strength of terran is it long range units and defensive capabilities, the strength of protoss is its spellcasters and warp in, the strenth of zerg is its larva mechanic: to be capable of only making drones and then make units at the last minute. If you take away the only strength zerg has, how do you expect to win against the other races?
And yes, you can technically make all the units necessary at the last minute, havent you ever played with zerg? Its a nerve racking race, you feel SO undefended...
And you also need to scout to know what unit composition you are fighting, try to kill a 4 gate with only zerglings if you opponent is minimally capable of using forcefields or terrain to his advantage.
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On January 24 2011 14:36 Chill wrote:
Nothing new here. Macro alone will easily get you into the 80th percentile, as shown. It's cool that he actually put his money where his mouth to put some tangible results next to the claim though.
Ya on Weapon of Choice Chill has been saying this since day 1. As a Platinum player I can say this is definitely true. Early game I am pretty good, but in the late game my Macro is terrible! That is why I cannot get out of Platinum (although I don't play much).
If you ever wanna improve the most in any league lower then Diamond, just practice purely Macro. Im not talking just 1a your whole army every time, but focus like 90% of your attention on your Macro.
Great too see someone put the effort into actually proving this is true, although I never doubted it/Chill! 
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EPT
