[H] How do I impove as a Gold league player - Page 4

PylonBuilder

United States59 Posts

February 14 2011 00:17 GMT

#61

Hi I'm a casual SC2 player and I'm pretty much just like you. I was from the bottom of the bronze league and now i'm just a platinum player, but surely day[9] made all the difference. I've watched your replay and I must say that showtime guy, isn't really in the top levels of diamond Zerg player. However that's OT, here's my thoughts on how you can improve along with the answers to your question.

If any of you guys made your way up the leagues, what did you do to improve?

- Macro ( Low on money, Constantly using your structures)
- Scouting
- Micro (Positioning)
- Not getting supply blocked
- Probes
- Look at the mini map
- "The Tap"

Is watching replays REALLY that important? as I pretty much never do it.

- You want to watch your replays and ask yourself, What could I improve on the next game? What was the turning point of the game? Was my money low? Etc

Is having a practice partner a good idea?

- I think the league matches are pretty much a way to practice against good players. Remember lowing is part of learning.

Is having an APM average of 85 good enough? it only peaks at about 200 when shit hits the fan, or when I have a few bases.

I have 50 APM and it's all I need to make sure my money is spent and I'm not getting supply blocked

Watch more Day9 Dailys and practice what he teaches

knyttym

United States5797 Posts

February 14 2011 00:31 GMT

#62

My question is, how do I improve from here, what will get me into Diamond league?

Making more units will get you to diamond guaranteed. Take the replay where you got outmacroed and stare at your gateways for the whole game. See how there is a buttload of inactivity on them? Ya that's what needs to be fixed. Do the same with your nexus. I realize this advice is very broad but the problems at your current level are just that.

Is watching replays REALLY that important? as I pretty much never do it.

Truthfully it isn't that important right now. Follow what I said above and then take a break from reps. If you can't identify your problems immediately after a game then a.) you aren't thinking about your game properly or b.) your standards are too low. Anything more then 0 seconds downtown between gateways is unacceptable. Keep that lodged in your brain when following the advice at the top.

Is having a practice partner a good idea?

If you can have someone smash you for hours on end then sure. I think the ladder is fine though.

Is having an APM average of 85 good enough? it only peaks at about 200 when shit hits the fan, or when I have a few bases.

It's fine don't worry about it.

GPhalanX

Australia8 Posts

February 14 2011 00:44 GMT

#63

I started out at the release of sc2 as bronze and made my way to diamond until the last 2 months. The biggest key factor is making probes/scv continuously. Drone is a little bit different but the bottomline is to have more workers for you to have sufficient money to create a bunch of units.

I started out just with the workers and then notice I cant keep up with spending the minerals. When makingworkers was already embedded into my brain, I then proceeded on studying how to improve my spendings.

I am still learning up to this point as I cant consistently do it in every match up specially when faced with a lot of harass. But what Im saying is that those two will shoot you up immensely.

I hope this helps. ^_^;

RoyBrown

Australia51 Posts

February 14 2011 03:37 GMT

#64

On February 14 2011 00:41 Shikyo wrote:

Show nested quote +

Is that a joke post? I've won like 40 custom games in a row just doing macro until they move out and then a-move to kill their army, vs bronze-diamond and I'm not even good... Please give me 13 gold players on EU, they can even pick my race.

Vs anything below Diamond I guarantee you that you can just make workers and Stalkers and win 99% of the time assuming you still have something like an observer to detect cloak.

I just played vs my gold league Terran friend and he made a total of 36 workers in a 20min game... it always is like that, you can just win with macro.

It's really arrogant of you to ask for advice, and when we give you true and tested advice, you just say it doesn't work.

Please test on a unit tester what happens when 10 stimmed marauders and 24 Stalkers fight with a-move. Yep, the Stalkers crush.

Oh yeah, and I bet you didn't know that 1 Stalker > 1 Hydra, or did you?

EDIT: So the tldr for beating gold leaguers is to keep making workers and macro well, avoid supplyblocks.

LOL

Dude... 1 stalker does not beat a hydra and I have used a unit tester, you need both attack +1 and armour + 1 for a stalker to beat a hydra 1 on 1.

For someone trying to be and elitist because your so god damn awesome you sure dont know much about the game.

Not only that but hydras are cheaper....Also, I frequently play against players...even in silver league I did, who had + 50 workers under 20 minutes.

You cant just make workers and stalkers, if he won 13 games doin that then as far as Im concerned he got lucky with shit opponents.

Why would I test 10 stimmer marauders vs 24 stalkers? Why wouldnt I test 24 stimmed marauders vs 24 stalkers...idiot. Peoples macro isnt that bad at this level. Not great, but it isnt so bad that people only saturate their main by the 20 minute mark...your an idiot.

4 gaters have about 20-22 probes by the 5 minute mark or so, let alone 20 minutes into the game.

User was warned for this post

Kitetsu

73 Posts

February 14 2011 03:59 GMT

#65

Macro isn't just having a lot of workers, remember that. It also includes constant production, aggressive, but timely expansions, upgrades, and a whole lot more. Like someone just mentioned, watch a replay where you lose, and watch your Nexus(es), Gates/all other production facs, and supply. If you NEVER stop producing on Nexii (?), production buildings, and NEVER get supply blocked, and NEVER go above X minerals and Y gas (difficult to say, but I try to never go over 300 of either when I'm on 2 bases), then you have a legitimate queue to come ask "what can I do better?"

Honestly, I got placed into Gold league, and although I never posted a help thread, I used to be irritated by all the 'macro better' responses that people were getting. But after a couple of months, as I hit a wall and eventually overcame it, I realized that these comments are entirely true.

Protoss actually works better than T or Z in a 'macro only' mode - T usually wants to apply pressure before Z's production and P's tech kicks in, and Z has to be constantly finding a balance between droning/army production.

Just a word of advice - don't be so aggressive to people who are trying to help you. Be open minded about your own areas that need focus instead of just "Rawr gold players > diamond" etc etc.

Eeryck

United States184 Posts

February 14 2011 04:33 GMT

#66

On February 14 2011 12:37 RoyBrown wrote:

Show nested quote +

I am in Silver League. Just recently promoted from Bronze.

I have just macro'd all my Silver league games so far and it pretty much is the blind counter to Silver league. My last 10 match-ups have been Gold and Platinum players and I have just basically done a macro build vs them as well and keep winning.

Pretty much 2-rax, expand, to 4-rax with double starport for M,M&M with upgrades, taking a third at 11 minutes and dropping a few more raxes.

When you a-move a 200 food army and can macro up another 200 food army at your base 2-3 min after the last one died, you do simply just win.

Try it.

peasantrevolution

18 Posts

February 14 2011 04:49 GMT

#67

Not only that but hydras are cheaper....Also, I frequently play against players...even in silver league I did, who had + 50 workers under 20 minutes.

You cant just make workers and stalkers, if he won 13 games doin that then as far as Im concerned he got lucky with shit opponents.

Why would I test 10 stimmer marauders vs 24 stalkers? Why wouldnt I test 24 stimmed marauders vs 24 stalkers...idiot. Peoples macro isnt that bad at this level. Not great, but it isnt so bad that people only saturate their main by the 20 minute mark...your an idiot.

I hate to break it to you, but taking 20 mins to get 50+ workers is actually kind of bad, considering i can get 70 between 13-14 mins, and im not even good. I'm sure its different with terran and zerg, but still.
Also, people at that level do have really bad macro. I was playing custom games to work on on mechanics like tapping and such, and all i had to do was build stuff because i would either get to 200 supply and be 50+ food ahead or wait for them to try and attack with a vastly inferior army. They people i was playing most of the time were mid plat, which is probably like high gold.

Simberto

Germany11402 Posts

February 14 2011 06:02 GMT

#68

On February 14 2011 12:37 RoyBrown wrote:

Show nested quote +

After reading some posts of you, it is quite obvious that the most important thing you need to improve to get better is your attitude. There is no reason to argue aggressively with every single person in this thread trying to help you. Don´t always try to find the flaw in what someone says, and/or try to rationalize that they are wrong, and there is ultimatively nothing wrong with your play. If you are in Gold, there is a reason for it. In almost every case, it is that your macro is bad. Theoretically it could also be that you are good at macro, but suck extremely at decisionmaking and/or unit control. But you would need to be REALLY bad at those if you had good macro to be stuck in gold. Like, only right-clicking and reacting after 10 seconds of your stuff getting shelled, or anti-micro your stuff to not shoot anything useful at all.

Instead, try to listen to people, and maybe think about what they say before completely disregarding that. Maybe, just maybe, improving your macro would be a good idea. Noone is telling you to only build stalkers. You seem to have yourself hung up on that one. That was a demonstration. Someone with good macro wanted to demonstrate that you could actually get into diamond on macro alone. So he decided, KNOWING that it is a disadvantage, to not do any micro at all, and also to not think about unit composition at all. Which are the most important things people mention when saying that macro is not everything. He then played some games on ladder, winning most of them, on PURE MACRO. That guy never meant that this is a good strategy. He wanted to demonstrate that you can have inferior unit composition, don`t micro at all, and still get into diamond just by having good macro.

Just for example, i looked at your "Outmacroed hard" game. Since you seem to believe that people in gold have decent macro, and probably think the same of yourself, i tried to do the same build as you did. Note that i am not good at this game, and still did some mistakes, especially since Protoss is not even my main race.

However, at 14 minutes, which is before you had lost any units at all, you had 117 food, 49 probes, 12 zealots, 2 colossus, 8 stalker and 3 sentrys. Your 1/1 was just finished, you had 1 robo, 5 gates, and an expansion just started.

Now, i personally would probably have gotten that expansion earliers, but i decided to stay on two bases as long as you did.

After 14 minutes, i was at 154 food, had the same amount of infrastructure as you, with an army of 62 probes, 11 zealots, 2 colossus, 14 stalker and 10 sentrys. My 1/1 was 13 seconds from being finished, the rest similar to your stuff. Expansion also just started.

This was my first time trying this build. I am pretty sure that someone who is actually good at this game, or even me with some more experience with this build, could have another 10-30 food worth of army at that point in time. Also, i am pretty sure that i had more stuff than you at any given point in the game, so its not like i cheated and powered hardcore just to have more stuff at a specific point of my choosing. So, doing similar stuff, not even expanding more or something like that, you could have 40-60 food more stuff. This is what macro is about.

In case you do not believe me, here is the replay.

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/139294-2v2-protoss-zerg-metalopolis

farseerdk

Canada504 Posts

February 14 2011 06:07 GMT

#69

On February 14 2011 12:37 RoyBrown wrote:

Show nested quote +

I've tried to be civil the last two times I posted in this thread, but at this point you're just not having any of it.

Stop posting you arrogant little prick. Test some advice before you say its worthless.

I bet I can beat you with mass stalkers. I will make nothing but probes, stalkers and observers. You can make whatever unit composition you want. You will lose.

I rolled a guest account to try playing terran. I got into diamond making ONLY marines, tanks and scvs in EVERY MU. I never even made ravens (i relied on scan for detection).

Kier

Switzerland57 Posts

February 14 2011 07:32 GMT

#70

On February 14 2011 04:51 JustPlay wrote:

Show nested quote +

This is more geared toward improving as a player, but there are certainly things in here that apply to all levels of skill. If you think anything sounds way beyond you, then it probably is, and you don't even have to be good at all of this to make masters.

Zerg is tricky to give advice for because with how the current mineral collection system works you are forced in to basically playing an economic all-in while making some baseline units depending on what you scout. Then you have to decide if that push is really coming now and you need units, if you can just power drones, or if you need some drones and some units in case that push cames after the next inject batch. I watch a lot of low level zergs because I have a lot of friends who play zerg. Their biggest mistakes tend to be related to the following:

(1) You have to know when to pull drones, when to run drones, and when not to while defending. Rule of thumb: if the attack is early and you don't know if you can win it cleanly just defend with your piddly army and drones. If you have a big army then move the drones away and let your army get there.

(2) You have to understand the position you want to engage in while defending, and you have to be able to effectively split up your otherwise useless melee blob of drones/lings. If you're hitting SCVs with speedlings or running them single file vs a 4rax marine all-in you are doing it wrong.

(3) Don't miss injects or let larva get too high if you have resources !! If you suddenly have a burst of larva when you hit your hatchery hotkey you should know it's inject time, but you should probably have enough free actions to just check the inject time yourself when you think it's time. You can inject -> micro -> inject -> micro or move away->inject x3, but you need to be on top of the injects.

(4) Don't lose anything that isn't a patch of zerglings needlessly. Losing a zergling or twelve to some sieged tanks while you are poking around is a-okay as long as the rest of your zerglings and army move backward before that second volley of murder.

(5) Another big thing is SCOUT. You can leave gaps in your scouting of the enemy's base if you have enough game sense to know what he COULD be doing and that you can prepare for it without setting yourself back much. But if you are doing nothing, just send one ling here and another there. It's ALWAYS worth checking expansions if you aren't about to get pushed. Those lings/overlords might even alert you to a drop or some other wacky maneuver.

Keep something outside of his base, keep something halfway between your base and his. You want to know if he is moving out. You NEED to know on some maps, because you can't even reactive spinecrawler on most of the current map pool.

(6) Your goal as zerg is never to death march on a base with a murder ball and win the game. It's always to make decisions that give you an advantage, don't lose the game, and set you up to eventually win. It's generally better to gain a bigger advantage through pressure/economy than it is to over commit. Zerg defense is to attack his army in a good position for you at a bad time for him. Zerg offense is to pressure something and force them in to that position.

If you lose too much in a captain caveman crush them all, bodies flung to the meatgrinder attack, you can't defend in a good position and will eventually lose because they established a good position near your base. The mindset certainly applies to other races, but the reality of attacking/defending only matters at certain timings for other races. For zerg it's all game.

This was wonderfully put. I commend you for that. I myself find that I can keep up with injects with absolute ease, until I have to do something else ^^. Also, it seems so easy as a low Zergy to think that you're winning, and it's hard to fight the urge to 'make a few more units and we can win this!'.

This is why I hope someone makes a zerg version of 'just macro to diamond and build 1 unit to win'. It just feels so fragile all the time.

SheaR619

United States2399 Posts

February 14 2011 08:04 GMT

#71

You claim to know that you know the game well when you in fact don't. I am not trying to diss you but i just want to tell you that at lower lvl of play, people are generally bad at macroing. You are at the point where you have just learn to 1 base macro but when you hit 2 base your macro slip. This is a common theme in lower lvl play where they are super passive on 1 base. Its just basics and can easily be seen by looking at your own replay. This is why looking at replay MATTERS. Such simple thing can be found just by looking at replay instead of making a post for help.

Also that stalker video was to show that macro is the minimum requirement needed to get into diamond. If you are not in diamond, then that mean you can still work on your macro. Even then, it takes a long long long time to fully master macro.

RoyBrown

Australia51 Posts

February 16 2011 10:42 GMT

#72

I have improved a shit ton because of this thread, thanks guys.

I find that in PvT at my level, hoooooooooly shit did it make a big difference, I am crushing the SHIT out of most of my opponents its crazy. At times I'm managing to make a 3rd expansion before some of them even get a second base LOL.

I'm getting so much money I have no idea what to do with it :S
I just need to work out how to get more gas as I find I can keep gas spent constantly, but minerals get right away from me, at least I can remax pretty damn quick with zealots.

Feels pretty epic chronoboosting 3 forges at once. The way real men upgrade.

Drazzzt

Germany999 Posts

February 16 2011 13:38 GMT

#73

Hi,

good that the good advice given helps you. Some points:
The important thing of macro is that you can do it under pressure and expand at the right times.
It's not like: ok, i can build my army up to 150 supply sitting in my base and mostly not forgetting pylons/probes etc.
It's more like: I can build up my army while I try to attack my opponent and stop him from expanding and hitting him at crucial times and expand while attacking (at the same time making pylons, troops, probes, upgrades etc.). So, it needs multitasking! And this is what all (!) lower league players are not capable of and even most diamond/lower master players have a hard time with. (and of course you need to have an ok unit composition -> scouting becomes more and more important at higher leagues).

So, if you can do this stuff simultaneously you will reach diamond league no problem. Like 3 months ago I played the low bronze account of my friend just for fun. It took me ~25-35 random games to reach platinum league only losing against a nice cannon rush pvp. So it is possible and I am actually a zerg player, so my T and P are much worse. A might be a bit harder now as the game is "older" now, but it is nevertheless possible.
So, work on your macro, probably against computer opponents or by having the following mindset during ladder games:
* don't think too much about micro and scouting, just try to constantly build troops/probes/expansions and dont care about losing. Be satisfied even after a loss as long as you didn't let your macro slip.

Edit: Ok, i forgot that you are a zerg player. In this case, it's not possible to not scout :-).
In this regard (as zerg is an adaptive race), zerg is harder than P or T as you can lose to a lot of bullshit. Nevertheless, the principles keep the same. Look at the energy of your Queens e.g. to see how good you were injecting even under pressure...

RoyBrown

Australia51 Posts

March 13 2011 14:14 GMT

#74

Thanks for all your help guys.

Got promoted on my 500th game.

Platinum league player now

Weird thing is though, my colossus avatar hasnt been unlocked....swear to god I have only played as Protoss in 1v1.

Then again maybe I played one of my first games or some shit as another race....no idea.

Now onto diamond league, and then....masters.

And then....oGsMC and then......sandwiches.

Jeffbelittle

United States468 Posts

March 13 2011 14:21 GMT

#75

Diggin the sandwiches.

At this point: you know your macro still isn't amazing as evidence of your league, so go ahead and watch replays where you've lost games recently. Pay attention to primarily 2 things: your nexus and your supply.

How often did you get supply capped? How often were you NOT building workers? How much extra nexus energy did you not use?

After you get those basic ones out of the way, you go to the next set of fundamentals:

Did I scout? How often? What did I do to counter whatever I scouted? Was that the most effective way to do it?How high did I let my minerals get to?

Focus on those basics now. They do really get you into diamond.

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