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I think one thing that you might consider putting in is some consideration for low level zerg players in the section about choosing a build per matchup. Sure, it's all good for Protoss and Terrans to chose a build, but when I was at this stage in my learning, choosing a build is what screwed me up more than anything. I tried to copy what I was seeing players like Ret, IdrA, or Machine doing, but what I didn't realize for quite some time is that they had only the loosest of a notion of what they were doing, and were playing almost completely reactively. Weather this is right or wrong, almost every top Zerg plays like this, except perhaps CatZ. It's hard to say definitively something like...
"I want to 15 pool 16 hatch versus protoss, power drones for a little bit, then tech to lair, get burrow and roach speed, and expand behind roach pressure, and then get my spire when my third base completes"
Sure, I've seen Machine do this plenty of times, and it works beautifully when the Protoss is doing something like 3 gate sentry into a more passive play, but if he's 6 gating (or any warpgate based all-inish style pressure), when you try to power drones like this, you're going to die to that 6 gate, or if he early expands and goes phoenix, you need to be taking a third expo really quick and whoring drones like there's no tomorrow. DT rush or blink stalkers is the same thing. If I copy a timing that I see Machine using for spire, for instance, and my opponent went for a super fast colossus play, I can very easily get steamrolled because I didn't have those corruptors out. If a protoss builds a colossus den that zerg sees and then sees your heavy roach composition and decides to start building a ton of immortals instead of colossus, the zerg is going to be sitting there with a ton of roaches and corruptors that basically aren't going to do them any good, and those immortals are going to destroy your entire army. You need to be constantly darting overlords in his base and sacrificing lings to scout his composition at all times or you're likely to get screwed.
Sure, this is to an extent true with the other races, but other races are inherently more geared toward the lower level player in so much as you can be constantly build workers and units, so you'll have something to defend with if a terran all of a sudden decides to attack, where that's not necessarily true for early game zerg. By trying to copy a professional player's builds which are designed (in most cases) around building up a lot of drones early, you're going to die a lot to timing rushes and pressure situations.
This isn't a comment on balance at all, just the way the races are designed. With the current builds already existing, it's difficult for a zerg to try a proactive approach at the game, that is to say, having a straight forward idea of what he wants to do and doing it. There are a million little things that force you to adapt your play, or die very quickly in a silly fashion.
For this reason, I wouldn't advocate choosing a build and sticking with it, but rather analyzing professional players responses to scouting and working heavily on their own scouting (in addition to their mechanics, of course) for low level zergs. While I don't like that this is how it is on some level necessary to play, at the current time, it is. Not to say that will always be the case, things like mutalisk stacking and even heavy defiler usage wasn't figured out or popularized for a long time in brood war, so who knows who will come around and revolutionize the way zergs play and when, but right now, the standard plays rely SO much on constant scouting.
Sorry if this was already posted, but I didn't see it anywhere. Sure, this somewhat applies to the section on game sense, but you do say that you advise players to forgo thinking too much about this for some time in favor of other areas of improvement. I'm interested in what your advice on the matter is though. Cheers, and good work.
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On April 12 2011 13:13 Arisen wrote:
Snip...
Thanks for the quality response!
Actually, a build can very easily be a flow-chart of prepared reactions. For example a Zerg can safely go pool, gas, hatchery as their opening, and then open up multiple reactions from there on. These reactions can be pretty simple: no nexus or late nexus -> prepare for four gate. 3 Gate Expand (Nexus on time) drone while looking for probes around the map with speedlings. Have basic understanding of when 6 gate pushes can occur, and develop some overlord scout timings that higher tier players are using to count gateways and look for tech.
A build isn't simply a static plan with no deviation whatsoever, it can quite easily (and often is) a plan with multiple branches or avenues. Perhaps this should be detailed within the guide.
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On April 12 2011 14:46 CecilSunkure wrote:Thanks for the quality response! Actually, a build can very easily be a flow-chart of prepared reactions. For example a Zerg can safely go pool, gas, hatchery as their opening, and then open up multiple reactions from there on. These reactions can be pretty simple: no nexus or late nexus -> prepare for four gate. 3 Gate Expand (Nexus on time) drone while looking for probes around the map with speedlings. Have basic understanding of when 6 gate pushes can occur, and develop some overlord scout timings that higher tier players are using to count gateways and look for tech. A build isn't simply a static plan with no deviation whatsoever, it can quite easily (and often is) a plan with multiple branches or avenues. Perhaps this should be detailed within the guide.
Exactly. I was just hoping you'd put a bit in your guide speaking to zergs who might not know. Like I said, when I was at this stage in my learning, following advice meant more for a terran or protoss set me back in my learning because I couldn't figure out why I was losing even though I was copying something I saw IdrA doing. I'd be getting a spire at the exact same time every game versus protoss and die a lot to early colossus, or be getting the hydra den when I saw machine doing it and die to immoral pressure. It wasn't until I realized that I was focusing way to much on that build and not on the other thing the pros were doing this whole time (scouting). That's when I really started to learn the most, when I realized that (apart from their opener) that they weren't following a "build" per se, but a predetermined response to scouting information. While I think this is a bad way to have to play (as opposed to the way it was in BW, where you could have a predetermined composition and just rearrange the ordering you got the key components of your build to adapt to their opening), it's currently what zerg have to do versus Terran and Protoss. Just something I thought I might bring to your attention. Again, great job. Peace.
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best thread ever btw, thank you so much. This has improved my play significantly.
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In the '[6.01.2] Keyboard, mouse, and hand positioning' section, you mention
'I personally have my keyboard perfectly perdendicular to my body'
I feel this could be misleading as perpendicular to your body would entail the keyboard being at a 90degree angle to your body making it very difficult to play.
Perhaps it is just the way i read it but i feel parallel would be a better word 
+ Show Spoiler +'The segment AB is perpendicular to the segment CD because the two angles it creates (indicated in orange and blue, respectively) are each 90 degrees.' wikipedia
Other than that i love your guide. Really has helped me alot. Thankyou
I think it speaks volumes of your guide that this is the only complaint i have.
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The Grubby replay is the worst you could have chosen. he gets gas stealed, he sets a pylon at his enemys natural, hes getting pylon blocked. the whole build isnt better than some1 doing it on the fly through all the happenings.
I continue reading and hope its gets better.
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infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
Lol Cecil & FabInt, that's such a pointless argument about a rather subjective topic :p
Out of curiosity, how much better do you think I am compared to you Cecil? I want to know your scale haha
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On April 14 2011 00:24 infinity21 wrote:
Lol Cecil & FabInt, that's such a pointless argument about a rather subjective topic :p
Out of curiosity, how much better do you think I am compared to you Cecil? I want to know your scale haha
I get defensive when people say that what I took the time to write is wrong 
I'd say you're twice as skilled currently due to superior mechanics.
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On April 14 2011 02:46 CecilSunkure wrote:Show nested quote +On April 14 2011 00:24 infinity21 wrote:
Lol Cecil & FabInt, that's such a pointless argument about a rather subjective topic :p
Out of curiosity, how much better do you think I am compared to you Cecil? I want to know your scale haha I get defensive when people say that what I took the time to write is wrong I'd say you're twice as skilled currently due to superior mechanics.
Going by your explanation of how to compare players' skills, I think infinity's actually closer to 10x more skilled 
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On April 14 2011 02:54 iamke55 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 14 2011 02:46 CecilSunkure wrote:On April 14 2011 00:24 infinity21 wrote:
Lol Cecil & FabInt, that's such a pointless argument about a rather subjective topic :p
Out of curiosity, how much better do you think I am compared to you Cecil? I want to know your scale haha I get defensive when people say that what I took the time to write is wrong I'd say you're twice as skilled currently due to superior mechanics. Going by your explanation of how to compare players' skills, I think infinity's actually closer to 10x more skilled
But that would mean GSL tier players are about 10x better than him... Hmm I'm not sure. Somewhere between 2 and 10x Infinity is
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infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
How much do you charge for lessons? I will coach for 2-10 times what Cecil charges. Pm me for details etc.
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I put together a spreadsheet to help me compare my worker count to what it should be if I had constant worker production. I thought about making my own thread for it but it not really big enough for its own [G] thread. Since you link to tools to help people improve, it might be worth adding to the macro/mechanics section.
Starcraft 2 Worker Count Calculator
It's really easy for the little things to add up -- even in MLG pool play, one player would sometimes be 3-4 workers ahead after 6-7 minutes.
Also kinda surprised not to see the unit production calculators at http://sc2calc.org referenced in the macro/mechanics section at all.
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Great guide! Matter of fact, I’ll be personally implementing some of stuff; however, just as a person that writes reports all day long for work, there is some room for improvement (if you don’t mind self criticism). There are a lot of misspelled words, formatting issues and few grammar problems that make the read less than desirable.
If you want, I’d be happy to re-write it. It would take me a few days, because of real life stuff i.e. work, but it wouldn’t take me long to do. Other than that, it’s a fantastic guide. Thanks for the hard work!
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On April 12 2011 18:56 PoisedYeTi wrote:In the '[6.01.2] Keyboard, mouse, and hand positioning' section, you mention 'I personally have my keyboard perfectly perdendicular to my body' I feel this could be misleading as perpendicular to your body would entail the keyboard being at a 90degree angle to your body making it very difficult to play. Perhaps it is just the way i read it but i feel parallel would be a better word + Show Spoiler +'The segment AB is perpendicular to the segment CD because the two angles it creates (indicated in orange and blue, respectively) are each 90 degrees.' wikipedia Other than that i love your guide. Really has helped me alot. Thankyou I think it speaks volumes of your guide that this is the only complaint i have.
I noticed this as well.
My thought process, which immediately tried to justify the mistake, assumed he meant "perpendicular to your direction of focus," but he clearly means to say "parallel with your shoulders."
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On April 08 2011 23:42 Albrithe wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2011 13:13 CecilSunkure wrote: [2.04] You suck You suck. There is a mindset you need to have in order to grow. I briefly mentioned it in section 4.04 by quoting Damien Rice. This is the only thing that struck me as odd in the writeup that hasn't been addressed since my last read through. It feels weird while reading to say that you're going to quote something later. Quote it now, and reference it later as already having been quoted.
self quoting myself, because I still think it's relevant and no one responded to it.
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Thanks for this very well-done writeup. I'm not a noob or anything but this is still helpful to me to reinforce good practice habits and general mindset for playing. Also, did you see Tasteless gave this a shoutout on his twitter? Here it is:
Tweet
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On April 15 2011 06:28 Babru wrote:
Im a noob when it comes to changing stuff on a computer.
"Simply download the tool pack, open the correct registry editor, log off and back and walla! You can now enjoy a perfect 1 to 1 ratio of mouse to cursor movement!"
I downloaded the pack, i open it and see many different stuff. I only want to turn off my mouse acceleration. Am i to doubleclick on the "Disable_WelcomeScreen+Login_Accel.reg" file? Are there different alternatives to choose from? Whats the 100% to 200% abou?. Am i to choose the best option for me? If so, how do i know which on to choose?
Thx for anyone willing to explain this to me.
Open this file: Windows7_MouseFix_TextSize(DPI)=100%_@6-of-11
Then turn off your computer, and turn it back on. Move your mouse around, it should feel different
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EPT![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Perpendicular-coloured.svg)
