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V1.1 - Last Update: 6/15/2012
Thanks to Hot_Bid for hosting the file for me on TL <3
[G] How to Improve Efficiently at SC2 1v1
| Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy |
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
Thanks to Hot_Bid for hosting the file for me on TL <3 | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
Questions and answers! On April 05 2011 05:12 mamuto wrote: Cecil, how many games have you played on the ladder? Just wondering, you mentioned you went silver to masters, trying to figure out how long it took you to get better. I myself started off in bronze and am currently high diamond ^.^ fellow brotoss btw I think I played 2500 games, plus more recent custom games as I joined a team I practice a lot with: http://kiwiclonearmy.sadlife.net/ On April 05 2011 12:42 Dhalphir wrote: Here's a question I've actually been wondering for a while. How do you deal with the fact that the same situation comes up during ladder play so infrequently? For example, if I face a particular Terran build, lose to it, and have some ideas for how to beat it, unless I can find a practise partner good enough at Terran to replicate the build decently (not always possible) my chances of being able to replicate the game to try different things are pretty difficult. For you I imagine this is quite simple having the team access that you do, but what do you recommend for those who don't have this option? Practice partner thread is I feel your best answer. Back when I wasn't on a team I'd go there and add like 15 people at a time, then msg all the ones online for practice games. On April 05 2011 23:27 syva wrote: Hey, first-post bronze-leaguer here  Thank you very much, very grateful for this guide; will be putting all this to practice this evening. I am, however, confused by one issue. You suggest putting all nexuses onto a single hotkey, but how can I then ensure workers are only being created from a specific nexus. I wouldn't want to be creating workers at a nexus where the mineral patch is already saturated. Sorry if I have missed something here. After hotkeying all your nexuses onto one hotkey, rally all your workers the base with the least probes  On April 05 2011 23:58 rastaban wrote: I have a question as I am stuck on the first section regarding goals. You mentioned setting clearly defined and measurable goals rather than saying I just want to improve. I guess it seems most of the measurable goals, say "Get into masters" If I really meant it I feel I would be best served by learning a very effective cheese strat and perfecting it as this method seems the fastest way to rank up until the higher levels (ala bitbybit.prime.we). How do I set a measurable goal that involves deepening my understanding and focusing on being a more rounded player? do I just set the goal above and then try to go about in a different manner? or should I be looking at goals like "play a 30 minute game while keeping money below 450" or something like that. Thanks, You should be thinking like this: I want to play at a Master's level of skill by playing focusing mostly on my macro. I say later on that lower Master's players are the only players on the NA that have basic macro down, so you should read the whole guide then go back and focus on the macro portions. On April 06 2011 07:29 Neosta2 wrote: Can you also comment on the graphic settings? I know many pros play on lowest settings - however I found it hard to spot cloak units and also force fields on lowest setting I play with everyone on lowest! :O On April 15 2011 07:45 kawaiiryuko wrote: Using windows 7, I turned off "Enhance Pointer Precision" which seems to have the same effect as turning off mouse acceleration. Is this the same thing? If so, it seems a lot easier than doing a registry edit, no? Or am I confused? Yes actually, it is the same for SC2. However some other games require a registry edit. I suggest just following what I wrote, and if all else fails go ahead and just uncheck that box. On July 05 2011 23:49 IstandAlone wrote: Hi Cecil ! Thanks for this great piece of work. I have however another question about mouse settings that I don't think have been answered (i've read the whole thread). I use a razer mouse with sensitivity settings. Should I temper with those ? Or leave the slider on middle position ? I actually feel more confortable with the slider all the way up while having SC2 setting on 51. Sorry if this is a dumb question. Basically, you want a 1:1 ratio between what movements your mouse reads and what movements your OS has your cursor move. To do this in windows, you set your mouse sensitivity slider to 6/11 (halfway). Then to adjust your sensitivity you change your DPI readings on your mouse. So if the razer lets you move some slider to adjust the Razer's readings sensitivity, then go ahead. However, in all scenarios it's ideal to have your SC2 slider at 51%, and windows slider at halfway, with only the mouse's DPI settings being changed. | ||
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oPPRoBe
United States199 Posts
Reminds me of the guide ver wrote a while back for BW. I'll be sure to keep this bookmarked and will read it. Thanks for your effort! | ||
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Ydriel
Italy516 Posts
Awesome job! | ||
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lazydino
Canada331 Posts
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Zachatron
United States33 Posts
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Gecko
United States519 Posts
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setmeal
162 Posts
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WriterLee
Andorra12 Posts
User was warned for this post User was temp banned for this post. | ||
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space_yes
United States548 Posts
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QuothTheRaven
United States5524 Posts
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ElusoryX
Singapore2047 Posts
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kzn
United States1218 Posts
However, I am uncomfortable with advising people to change mouse grips, certainly on the basis of opinion alone. Mouse grips are, for most people, something that has been a constant for many years, and they seem to be unconsciously chosen. The fundamental point about your mouse is that you be able to accurately perform the necessary actions at speed, without having to think about it, after sufficient practice. Based on my experience and observation, as long as you're comfortable with the grip it doesn't matter what the grip is. And on top of that I use a palm grip and I have no idea why razer says the shoulder is the pivot ~_~ | ||
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AirbladeOrange
United States2571 Posts
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World_Ender
China40 Posts
.PDF version please! So i can read this on my kindle at work hehe! Shoot, you can probly pop this onto Amazon's storefront and charge a few bucks. :D | ||
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EliteReplay
Dominican Republic913 Posts
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
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13th Marine
United States344 Posts
Are noobs allowed to ask questions about applying this? If so: I've been trying to improve in this way, albeit in a way less refined form, but have recently hit a brick wall of sorts. Specifically, once I finally got over my denial of getting placed in Bronze League and made it my goal to take a game off a Master League, I chose MarineKing's 2 Rax FE as the single build I would work on as I improve my macro, micro, and mechanics. I had the most fun watching MKP in the GSL, knew it worked in many situations at a high level of play, and found it fun to play as well once I got started. But then as I started getting a little bit better and got promoted to Silver, and now to Gold, I've entered the territory of players who, at least in my experience, love to 4-Gate or Baneling Bust, or Cloaked Banshee Rush, and can actually execute the builds reasonably well compared to the Bronzes. At first, I was randomly matched against Terran and Protoss only, so at that point I told myself that I would just make the build work. And eventually I learned how to stop them, even though a lot of those games just felt weird for whatever reason. But once I finally started getting matched against Zergs, I've lost all but one game to Baneling-based play, since they always seem to hit me during that very vulnerable moment when my expo has just gotten up. Should I still try to make the build work, or should I add a second build? That one win against a Zerg was actually using MKP's Mech-based play instead... And how will I know when I am ready for additional builds? Thanks again! | ||
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nobbob1
Canada145 Posts
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nttea
Sweden4353 Posts
On April 03 2011 14:46 13th Marine wrote: That was a great read, thank you for writing it up. Clears up many things. Are noobs allowed to ask questions about applying this? If so: I've been trying to improve in this way, albeit in a way less refined form, but have recently hit a brick wall of sorts. Specifically, once I finally got over my denial of getting placed in Bronze League and made it my goal to take a game off a Master League, I chose MarineKing's 2 Rax FE as the single build I would work on as I improve my macro, micro, and mechanics. I had the most fun watching MKP in the GSL, knew it worked in many situations at a high level of play, and found it fun to play as well once I got started. But then as I started getting a little bit better and got promoted to Silver, and now to Gold, I've entered the territory of players who, at least in my experience, love to 4-Gate or Baneling Bust, or Cloaked Banshee Rush, and can actually execute the builds reasonably well compared to the Bronzes. At first, I was randomly matched against Terran and Protoss only, so at that point I told myself that I would just make the build work. And eventually I learned how to stop them, even though a lot of those games just felt weird for whatever reason. But once I finally started getting matched against Zergs, I've lost all but one game to Baneling-based play, since they always seem to hit me during that very vulnerable moment when my expo has just gotten up. Should I still try to make the build work, or should I add a second build? That one win against a Zerg was actually using MKP's Mech-based play instead... And how will I know when I am ready for additional builds? Thanks again! You are ready for additional builds once you can identify when the build you are using is not working! Try to decide however if it's actually your build that's letting you down and not other things, you might for example get better at identifying that the zerg is going to be agressive with alot of banelings and make a barracks wall in response. This guide is sick good btw! I'm a low master league player and i feel it can help even me^^ | ||
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AbeToss
United States60 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + 2.02: The thing about growing is that it often times hurts. In order for you to become something new, you have to press outside of your current boundaries until you become used to your uncomfortable state, 2.04: Other people just have some sort of vague natural appreciation for the pros. 4.02: At the time this is written, Liquid Tyler is absolutely the best foreigner Protoss (perhaps this is simply my opinion, oh well). 4.03 Common macro-oriented mistakes that players make are: not having solid worker production; forgetting to queue in unit for amounts of time; making too many workers; not constructing a building at the correct time. A great exercise to undergo is to load up a replay of a professional performing the build you have chosen. Make sure you have never seen this replay before ever. After the game starts to pick up (scouting information is starting to be gained around the 2-4 minute mark), pause If you can do this then you will save yourself a lot of unnecessary practice and toil, thus improving your game quickly and efficiently by learning what other far more skilled than you 6.01.1 If you have a mouse reading at a low sensitivity (i.e. a cheap mouse) and turn up a slider setting, then all the slider is doing is multiplying what your mouse reads by a constant (or a formula if acceleration is on), thus resulting in information loss and inaccurate precision! 6.01.2 The palm grip usually is a result of a player using their shoulder as their pivot. This is (I'd assume) good for FPS playing. I know though that the palm grip is terrible for RTS play. RTS play benefits from The advantages of this positioning allows you have the most precise cursor movements, as the only mouse movement you will be doing is moving the mouse with your fingertips. 6.03 The rule of thumb is that if you can use a hotkey to do an action, and you use your mouse then you are being inefficient. This is a great write up! The section about 1:1 mouse movement blew my mind. I implemented those changes and immediately started noticing that is was much more difficult to highlight any words in my browser. It'll take me some time to get used to making precise mouse movements but I think I'll benefit from in it the long run. Having started off in platinum league and working my way into masters, I'd have to say this is the most important piece of advice you have to offer: Often times you'll hear people claim that the only thing you should focus on is your "macro", or perhaps they call it "mechanics". The thing is, is that you can't just practice pure macro, pure strategy, or pure mechanics. You should be aiming to start your improvement with a single known strategy at a time, so you can rest assured that the strategy you are practicing is a solid one. This allows you to isolate just your mechanics or macro, meaning that I have actually told you throughout this document to practice both your macro and strategy both at the same time in an equal dose. Failing to properly pace yourself, or failure to start your practice with this simple balance will result in a slow growth, and slow growth is not what we aim for. We aim for efficient growth! I 100% agree with you. We all suck. The pros such much less so in comparison they are highly skilled and we should do everything we can to emulate them!. Everyone will always suck in the sense that they can always improve. Whoever can improve the fastest and dedicate the most time to their game will become the best (suck the least). Thanks for putting so much time and effort into this so that we may all benefit from your hard work! | ||
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StreetHeat
United States225 Posts
Thank you for all the time and effort involved in making this! | ||
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AbeToss
United States60 Posts
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GenesisX
Canada4267 Posts
Awesome guide as usual! | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 03 2011 16:10 GenesisX wrote: Thanks Cecil Awesome guide as usual!<3 | ||
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Authweight
United States304 Posts
EDIT: Awesome guide, btw | ||
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awwnuts07
United States621 Posts
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Xylarthen
United States137 Posts
I am however, very impressed by how much empirical evidence you provide for your points, and from sources outside of TL. EDIT: Upon reviewing again, I am very impressed by how much empirical evidence you provide for your points. | ||
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Valckrie
United Kingdom533 Posts
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Neverplay
Austria532 Posts
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Piski
Finland3461 Posts
Always liked your threads. | ||
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The.Doctor
Canada333 Posts
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Phadt
Sweden92 Posts
Being a diamond player who's taken a break from the game a bit and who wants to get back into it I feel there are some great stuff here that will not only help me get back to my own level, but also keep getting better and better. p.s. "Dragging your cursor from the top left to the bottom right is the absolute best way to create a box for everyone but the professionals." I naturally box top right to bottom left. This is still moving towards my pivot but I feel I can push more with my stabilizing ring finger rather than drag with ring finger + thumb. Don't know if it's something I should change or if it doesnt matter. p.p.s. I've gone into the registry and changed so my caps key is disabled and can now instead be used as a ctrl key. I hold my left hand around wasd with pinky on shift as standard, and I feel the caps key is a lot easier to reach than the ctrl key if I want to bind 1-7 or 8 with ctrl grps. | ||
Teoita
Italy12246 Posts
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shawty
United Kingdom294 Posts
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h41fgod
Sweden377 Posts
However, it feels about twice as long as it should be. | ||
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Legendre2k
8 Posts
As a person having worked a bit with statistics, I have to take issue with what you say about skill levels though: Think of it this way: the people in the top 10% of the SC2 ladder on the North American server are ten times better than the people in the top 50%. The people in the top 1% are 10 times better than the people in the top 10%. The people in the top .01% are 1000 times better than the people in the top 1%. This might sound strange if it's the first time you've heard it, but in reality it rings truer than you'd think. I think you are here mistakenly inferring skill from rarity. Like so many other phenomenons with humans, I believe we can think of skill as something normally distributed. To take IQ as an example, 50% of the population have an IQ of 100 or more, while only 1% has an IQ over 150 (these numbers are not 100% correct, see this image). If you have an IQ of 150 while I have one of 100, does that mean you are 50 times "smarter" than me (since it is 50 times rarer)? No, IQ wise you are only 50% (1.5 times) smarter. However, getting an IQ score that extreme is very rare, and it is that rarity with respect to SC2 placements you are calling skill. In reality, the differences are not that extreme, although any pro would probably consistently kick my platinum ass | ||
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infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
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me_viet
Australia1350 Posts
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Octothorpe
United States52 Posts
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windsupernova
Mexico5280 Posts
I am a random player so I am wondering what are some good builds for Terran where I can practice a lot of aspects of the game? | ||
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loving it
Canada271 Posts
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Latedi
Sweden1027 Posts
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Ruyguy
Canada988 Posts
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Zeyhn
Sweden12 Posts
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iChau
United States1210 Posts
I use grid, maybe that's why. 1- army 2- nexus 3- natural nexus 4- warpgates + all other buildings 5- third nexus 6- 4th nexus 7- 5th nexus and on and on I don't know why I did it, but I did it when I first played. I can actually maintain production out of the 2nd and 3rd nexuses all the way to late-game if I feel like it. My macro with nexii is pretty great imo. However, I have a question. Why do people use their nexii on one hotkey? Every time I do this, I kinda screw up because I can't view one nexus and then the other at rapid succession. Also, I cannot see when the probes are going to finish so that I can make the next 2 probes at a near-finish time. Everytime I tap the nexii hotkey when they're in the same one, it just jumps to any nexii it wants and it basically confuses me. Thanks. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 04 2011 01:19 infinity21 wrote: Cecil, I have to disagree with your refining builds section since you're more or less equating it to having good mechanics. Refining builds is more than just being able to match a pro's supply at a given time. I'd suggest you read my guide on it (in sig/profile) for some ideas. Will do, thanks for the feedback. Hopefully I can fix whatever you disagree with. Edit: Your guide is more about refining your own builds rather than imitating better players. Although I agree that mimicking a pro's supply is not all there is to refining a build, I tried to make that clear by saying: On April 03 2011 13:13 CecilSunkure wrote: In order to mimic professional players you can't simply place the right buildings when they did; you have to try to understand the decision making and the strategies and reactions that the professional players have. If you can do this then you will save yourself a lot of unnecessary practice and toil, thusly improving your game quickly and efficiently by learning what other far more skilled than you players have already figured out. Perhaps I should just articulate and put more emphasis in my article on my above paragraph? Maybe add in another practical way about achieving this? | ||
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Gomas
Poland311 Posts
Thanks so much dude, will be of great help for everyone I'm sure. Now off to read some more! | ||
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infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
On April 04 2011 05:13 CecilSunkure wrote: Will do, thanks for the feedback. Hopefully I can fix whatever you disagree with. Edit: Your guide is more about refining your own builds rather than imitating better players. Although I agree that mimicking a pro's supply is not all there is to refining a build, I tried to make that clear by saying: Perhaps I should just articulate and put more emphasis in my article on my above paragraph? Maybe add in another practical way about achieving this? I think both of us could have expanded more about this. For newer players, obviously they can't go out and refine a build into tournament-ready material. They need to copy builds from pros in order to improve the fastest - I definitely agree here. Where I deviate from your reasoning a bit is that I think it's better to just mass games and lose a bunch against players in various fashions in order to figure out the underlying logic or the weaknesses of a build. It's a matter of being consistent with what you expect a player to be able to do. If a player is expected to copy builds from pros, he won't be able to give any proper reasoning behind the various moves that pros make. Heck, they won't even be able to identify what half the moves are because they simply lack the experience. More experienced players will be able to better support their decisions and be able to rationalize the decision making of a better player because they have had the experience to build a working model of how a sc2 game flows in their head. While your exercise of looking at a pro replay and trying to figure out their decision making process can be beneficial for players of a sufficient caliber, I don't think it's as useful to the newbies simply because they benefit more from imitating the build and racking up their exp points. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 04 2011 05:41 infinity21 wrote: Where I deviate from your reasoning a bit is that I think it's better to just mass games and lose a bunch against players in various fashions in order to figure out the underlying logic or the weaknesses of a build. It's a matter of being consistent with what you expect a player to be able to do. If a player is expected to copy builds from pros, he won't be able to give any proper reasoning behind the various moves that pros make. Heck, they won't even be able to identify what half the moves are because they simply lack the experience. Yeah you're right. I definitely overlooked the fact that most players don't have the experience to figure out what the pros decision making looks like. I did include this bit in a later part of the guide: On April 03 2011 13:13 CecilSunkure wrote: The next step is to simply make decisions during practice. Not sure if decision X will work? Well, then try it. Not sure if this is a good time to attack? Then attack! Don't know if his army will defeat yours? Attack him! Curious to see how that same battle would have went if you had a better position, or he a worse position? Try it out! The best way to learn to make good decisions is to figure out which ones are bad. I think I see what you're saying. I need to write about going about a trial and error process of figuring out the purpose, strengths, and weaknesses of the builds they are mimicking. Since a lot of new players won't be able to sufficiently understand decision making of professional players, I need to write about how to figure that out on your own. Is that what you are saying? | ||
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infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
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Eleaven
772 Posts
Thanks cecil for your work and efforts. For a lot of the community this should be very helpful | ||
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Joseph123
Bulgaria1144 Posts
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NoMicroWin
United States688 Posts
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Volka
Argentina408 Posts
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TheAntZ
Israel6248 Posts
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 04 2011 05:59 infinity21 wrote: something like that Updated! Hope that fixes it up to where it should be. | ||
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ODKStevez
Ireland1225 Posts
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gongryong
Korea (South)1430 Posts
Halfway through, will be commenting on contents once im done | ||
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tvardary
United States9 Posts
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KamiDaHobo
United States10 Posts
I've gone from losing games and floating thousands of minerals, to taking out Diamond and Masters level players with the strength of a few finely tuned builds. Many thanks for everything you're doing for the community! | ||
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Katagiri
Lithuania3 Posts
As a beginner I really don't even know how to practice my mechanics, I was wondering if you could add any specific exercises that people should use to improve? Are there some kind of exercises that would train multitasking and army group control? Or do PRO's don't do any specific exercises? | ||
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lagbzz
Poland171 Posts
[8] Additional resources and links With terran and protoss stuff coming up, that will be the most helpful source out there. | ||
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Alvas
United States309 Posts
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 04 2011 08:00 Katagiri wrote: This guide is awesome! As a beginner I really don't even know how to practice my mechanics, I was wondering if you could add any specific exercises that people should use to improve? Are there some kind of exercises that would train multitasking and army group control? Or do PRO's don't do any specific exercises? I suppose I took it for granted people would know, but I'll go ahead and add that into the control groups section. Thanks for the question! Will update OP soon. Edit: Updated - Added an important note to the mechanics section, search for [6] to find it. Does that answer your question? On April 04 2011 08:09 Alvas wrote: absolutely great thread, though I hope you were joking when you talked about delaying college to play SC2... that scared me a tad... Wasn't even kidding. If I get good enough I won't go to college yet. | ||
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underdawg
United States399 Posts
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 04 2011 10:16 underdawg wrote: yo, i box from bottom right to top left. is it worth it to suck complete ass for maybe weeks while i relearn it? Yup. As long as your macro is okay. Macroing better will be more beneficial than boxing correctly will. Also, if you're right handed boxing from bottom right to top left is the worst direction possible. | ||
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statikg
Canada930 Posts
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jarrydesque
584 Posts
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AbeToss
United States60 Posts
On April 04 2011 10:26 statikg wrote: You could sell this to a starcraft magazine, they probably will just steal it from you now. If any existed .Well maybe Pony Tales could feature it. | ||
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Jyyro
United States12 Posts
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 03 2011 15:14 AbeToss wrote: Typos + Show Spoiler + 2.02: The thing about growing is that it often times hurts. In order for you to become something new, you have to press outside of your current boundaries until you become used to your uncomfortable state, 2.04: Other people just have some sort of vague natural appreciation for the pros. 4.02: At the time this is written, Liquid Tyler is absolutely the best foreigner Protoss (perhaps this is simply my opinion, oh well). 4.03 Common macro-oriented mistakes that players make are: not having solid worker production; forgetting to queue in unit for amounts of time; making too many workers; not constructing a building at the correct time. A great exercise to undergo is to load up a replay of a professional performing the build you have chosen. Make sure you have never seen this replay before ever. After the game starts to pick up (scouting information is starting to be gained around the 2-4 minute mark), pause If you can do this then you will save yourself a lot of unnecessary practice and toil, thus improving your game quickly and efficiently by learning what other far more skilled than you 6.01.1 If you have a mouse reading at a low sensitivity (i.e. a cheap mouse) and turn up a slider setting, then all the slider is doing is multiplying what your mouse reads by a constant (or a formula if acceleration is on), thus resulting in information loss and inaccurate precision! 6.01.2 The palm grip usually is a result of a player using their shoulder as their pivot. This is (I'd assume) good for FPS playing. I know though that the palm grip is terrible for RTS play. RTS play benefits from The advantages of this positioning allows you have the most precise cursor movements, as the only mouse movement you will be doing is moving the mouse with your fingertips. 6.03 The rule of thumb is that if you can use a hotkey to do an action, and you use your mouse then you are being inefficient. This is a great write up! The section about 1:1 mouse movement blew my mind. I implemented those changes and immediately started noticing that is was much more difficult to highlight any words in my browser. It'll take me some time to get used to making precise mouse movements but I think I'll benefit from in it the long run. Having started off in platinum league and working my way into masters, I'd have to say this is the most important piece of advice you have to offer: I 100% agree with you. We all suck. The pros such much less so in comparison they are highly skilled and we should do everything we can to emulate them!. Everyone will always suck in the sense that they can always improve. Whoever can improve the fastest and dedicate the most time to their game will become the best (suck the least). Thanks for putting so much time and effort into this so that we may all benefit from your hard work! Thanks for the help and feedback! I've updated the OP with those spelling mistakes. | ||
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StrinterN
Denmark531 Posts
On April 03 2011 13:17 oPPRoBe wrote: O_o Looks like a boss thread. It sure was! :D Gave me alot to think about. | ||
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eatenbyagrue
25 Posts
On April 04 2011 08:15 CecilSunkure wrote: Wasn't even kidding. If I get good enough I won't go to college yet. This is a serious mistake. Even if against huge odds you actually manage to eake out a living playing SC2 tournaments, that's what it will be, eaking out a living. And if you just get somewhere near the top, but just not good enough to get into the money, this isn't even anything that will help you on your resume. Try explaining delaying college to play video games to prospective employers. | ||
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inTheMood
Norway128 Posts
Going to study this and hopefully improve ^_^ <3 | ||
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CatNzHat
United States1599 Posts
I just started playing starcraft 2 in January, and it's my first RTS game, so i was in bronze league for a few weeks... I spent those weeks learning the interface of the game, I have some proffessional FPS gaming experience and I type quite fast, so my hand speed was never the issues, and once I learned the hotkeys/macro techniques I was fine macro wise. I've hit a wall on the strategy front though, I win about 90% of my TvTs (43 out of my last 50 TvTs), and around 65% of my TvZs, and about 25% of my TvPs. Once you maxed out the efficiency of your builds (don't miss depots, less than 400 minz, never queueing up units, never missing scvs, being able to just barely produce out of my production structures while still being able to afford the upgrades I need and expand at safe timings, etc..) I think that people shouldn't try to "learn" the mechanics, they should just play normally, and it will come to them quickly, if they don't know what good mechanics look like, then they can watch the day[9] vidz. To learn how to learn, you need to stop focusing on the specifics, and just absorb and process information as fast as possible. | ||
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hassook
United Arab Emirates16 Posts
thankx for the guide i was searching for something like this and here i find it! | ||
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aLuLz
Germany175 Posts
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jtRok
United States25 Posts
Thanks! | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 04 2011 16:45 eatenbyagrue wrote: This is a serious mistake. Even if against huge odds you actually manage to eake out a living playing SC2 tournaments, that's what it will be, eaking out a living. And if you just get somewhere near the top, but just not good enough to get into the money, this isn't even anything that will help you on your resume. Try explaining delaying college to play video games to prospective employers. Really? I've already delayed college for a year and am playing video games. You know, I play video games for a profession as well. I work for Microsoft as a balance tester for the new Age of Empires game coming out, called Age of Empires Online. As I type this, I'm getting ready to go to work and play 1v1 with a player that went to WCG for Age 3 a year or two ago Anyone who wants to get into SC2 professionally shouldn't be doing it for the money anyways. Debby downer. | ||
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Dismantlethethroat
114 Posts
On April 03 2011 13:55 WriterLee wrote: Starcraft 2 is gay as shit anyway. Play a real game like BLOPS. User was warned for this post Lol why are you on here dude? Anyway, when I saw tapping I though it meant guitar tapping lol. Nice thread. Very helpful. | ||
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Xism
Norway126 Posts
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IzieBoy
United States865 Posts
not sure why you check minimap? | ||
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Mithriel
Netherlands2969 Posts
I have to say i thought it would be good.... but damn its even way better then i thought! Learned so much on how to approach the game and to teach and test myself on improving. I mean i knew i sucked, but now i know how to take that info and turn it into something useful. | ||
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Sewi
Germany1697 Posts
Crazy work man! | ||
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Shiladie
Canada1631 Posts
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ReNhoSoft
Mexico69 Posts
Also, if anyone has translated it already, please say so, there's no use in doing the same thing twice. | ||
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athief
United States85 Posts
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 05 2011 03:44 ReNhoSoft wrote: Holy wall of text! That's an awesome write up Cecil, do you mind if I translate it to spanish and post it on other communities? A lot of guys just don't know how to read english, and I feel that it's a shame they can't read such quality posts like theese. Obviously I'll give credit to you guys, but I wanted to know if you're ok with it. Also, if anyone has translated it already, please say so, there's no use in doing the same thing twice. Go ahead! Thanks everyone for the replies! I would like to hear about some of the content when you're done reading though! | ||
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VdH
Romania78 Posts
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Kadyn
41 Posts
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H0bgawblin
United States109 Posts
Are you running for president? | ||
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CCa1ss1e
Canada3231 Posts
"This is because it allows you to place the pivot of your in the exact position as shown here:" Place the pivot of your what? Or.. Anyway, just noticed this error, will read the other 99.99% when I have time. gJ | ||
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miragev2
United Kingdom104 Posts
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Kazragore
United States369 Posts
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skyR
Canada13817 Posts
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SmoKim
Denmark10301 Posts
!!!!!!!!!!!! | ||
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mamuto
United States88 Posts
fellow brotoss btw | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 05 2011 05:12 mamuto wrote: Cecil, how many games have you played on the ladder? Just wondering, you mentioned you went silver to masters, trying to figure out how long it took you to get better. I myself started off in bronze and am currently high diamond ^.^ fellow brotoss btw I think I played 1500 games, plus more recent custom games as I joined a team I practice a lot with: http://kiwiclonearmy.sadlife.net/ | ||
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rastaban
United States2294 Posts
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Yurie
11711 Posts
(I feel avoiding those problems is something you should learn as you learn to improve your apm. ^^) | ||
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blackone
Germany1314 Posts
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andiCR
Costa Rica2273 Posts
Thats me in the screenie! | ||
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Datum
United States371 Posts
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DivinO
United States4796 Posts
Wow. Holy shit. Well done. I'm sorry this post is terrible. But excellent guide overall. Covers all bases. Great for improvement. | ||
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mamuto
United States88 Posts
On April 05 2011 05:14 CecilSunkure wrote: I think I played 1500 games, plus more recent custom games as I joined a team I practice a lot with: http://kiwiclonearmy.sadlife.net/ Oh wow. I just passed 400 ladder 1v1s... >.< I think that's a huge factor as well, tbh, just the raw experience you get from playing so much, you get to see all sorts of games, builds, strategies used against you that will make you a better player, far more than any practice of mechanics/macro/micro ever will. Not to say the latter isn't beneficial, but having 1k-2k-3k games played is huge. In the same token, its always awesome beating someone who more than triples you in the amount of games played. Makes me feel good haha! Keep it up Cecil, been looking out for your posts, you have some good stuff to say. I'll check out that link too. Mamuto | ||
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1Lamb1Rice
United States435 Posts
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Loomies
United States645 Posts
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unsaid
45 Posts
Personally I found it VERY useful that when you click on a unit (both on the map or in the group screen) with CTRL pressed down you chose all of the units of this type around. It makes right positioning a lot easier, in case with protoss players it's a common mistake to have zealots lagging behind stalkers a bit before important fights in the midgame, which can cost you a game. Just press ctrl-stalkers and move them back every 5-6 seconds. aaaaaaaah. also, such a comprehensive article should really have a chapter about capitalizing on the experience you possibly have from other games, such as poker, wc3, cstrike or smth ;]. There must be a reason why 2/3 of european top sc2 players came from wc3. And personally I noticed that learning sc2 was easy, when I just bought the game I could defeat guys with 500+ games having only just played 40-50 games( was already diamond ) | ||
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knL
Germany400 Posts
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Nemara
Sweden69 Posts
There's a general attitude coming from the TL community that you need to do alot more than just play a shitload of games to get good. That's incorrect, unless you're trying to get high masters (everyone below that, including me, sucks). Otherwise, just have fun with the game, play as games as you have time to / can be arsed to, and you'll improve. User was warned for this post | ||
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SilverJohnny
United States885 Posts
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 05 2011 06:10 Nemara wrote: This thread makes me sad. If you wanna get good at sc2, dont read this wot. Thinking about all the stuff in the op will make the game like work and not fun. For example, if you're going to be thinking "I suck" all the time, you're not going to enjoy yourself at all. There's a general attitude coming from the TL community that you need to do alot more than just play a shitload of games to get good. That's incorrect, unless you're trying to get high masters (everyone below that, including me, sucks). Otherwise, just have fun with the game, play as games as you have time to / can be arsed to, and you'll improve. The thread is titled How to Get Good Efficiently. Efficiently. You don't have to play to get better, and if you want to play to just have fun, then why would you play to get better efficiently? Furthermore: On April 03 2011 13:13 CecilSunkure wrote: You need to be reading this with a willingness to learn and grow. Your goal should be to grow. The thing about growing is that it often times hurts. In order for you to become something new, you have to press outside of your current boundaries until you become used to your uncomfortable state, and the new distance you traveled becomes your current boundary once again. How about you read the first post before critiquing it. | ||
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Klaent
Sweden374 Posts
Thx alot, nice work. | ||
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DibujEx
Chile130 Posts
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number1gog
United States1081 Posts
This thread is amazing. Mad props to Cecil. | ||
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Steel
Japan2283 Posts
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Killcycle
United States170 Posts
Mine can wait, I love YOU. haha :D This is worth reading over several times as I play through the ladder, will very likely become an important reference material for me. You doth rock many socks, ser. | ||
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BobMcJohnson
France2916 Posts
Also when you mention the Newbie Tuesday Day9 dailies at the beginning of the mechanics section, you may want to add the daily #252 ( http://day9tv.blip.tv/file/4712303/ ), which is an "introduction" to those two dailies, and is basically a FP vod of day9 playing versus the AI while showing what are good mechanics and how to improve them. And once again great job :D | ||
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jmack
Canada285 Posts
This is a great OP. Thanks. | ||
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pyro19
6575 Posts
Thanks and Bookmarked for future readings. | ||
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H0bgawblin
United States109 Posts
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CardinalSC
United States145 Posts
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Schenkee
Scotland322 Posts
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Lmui
Canada6210 Posts
A few points The shoulder pivot in FPS games is primarily because due to some quirk of biology, the shoulder responds faster than the wrist or elbow to stimulus(tiny but measurably so) which is why the majority of top FPS gamers use a shoulder pivot. It'll get the mouse moving towards a point faster than using the wrist and as I'm sure you're familiar with, with enough practice it can get just as precise for a single motion compared to the other two motions. I have no idea however, whether that translates into being just as good as the pivot on the wrist bone with practice. Also on the topic of zerg hotkeys I personally have: 1: Hatcheries 2: Queens 3: Ground Army 4: Mutalisks/Infestors(Rarely will I have both at once) 5: Any unit that I'll want to get to quickly (generally my creep queen which changes to an overseer after the queen dies eventually) however, in another topic discussing hotkeys there were just as many people putting hatches and queens on 4,5 and 6 and sticking army on 1/2/3 which I'd say is up to preference primarily. The only conclusion I can draw is in general, queens and hatcheries are bound side by side. As for F-keys I personally have F1 as idle worker and F2 as any "Hidden Expo" (Any hatchery which tends to create rally point nightmares if a push comes). | ||
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Steel
Japan2283 Posts
On April 05 2011 06:54 CardinalSC wrote: Is there a PDF version? He said he would put one up soon, HOWEVER this transfers very neatly into Microsoft Word for those wanting a more printer friendly copy! | ||
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raf3776
United States1904 Posts
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MrthePig
United States84 Posts
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goneim
China201 Posts
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Zim23
United States1681 Posts
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TemplarCo.
Mexico2870 Posts
On April 03 2011 13:55 WriterLee wrote: Starcraft 2 is gay as shit anyway. Play a real game like BLOPS. User was warned for this post If so, why the hell are you in TL.net?? On topic now, this is awesome!! very useful especially the hotkey setup part!! Thanks!! :D | ||
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anilusion
Sweden247 Posts
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Mashes
Canada441 Posts
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MajorityofOne
Canada2506 Posts
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Karliath
United States2214 Posts
:D | ||
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BlackWhole
United States40 Posts
Imagine if a professinal Baseball player.... thanks for releasing so quickly! im excited to apply this to my game! | ||
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era
United States268 Posts
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Wolf
Korea (South)3290 Posts
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boon2537
United States905 Posts
This is an awesome guide. Perhaps one of the best guides I've ever read. | ||
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bankai
362 Posts
As a protoss player, I wanted to know, what are good pro games to download for these builds: 1) PvP - kcdc 2 gate robo 2) PvT - Genius 2 gate robo 3) PvZ - inControl 3gate sentry expand I know its kinda obvious who to look up (i.e. kcdc, genius, inControl) but im assuming they (as pro players) dont use those builds every game they play. I dont wanna sit there downloading 100 of their games and searching each one to find a good execution of the build im interested in. Any suggestions on good replays of these at pro level?? | ||
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Vansetsu
United States1452 Posts
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Lexpar
1813 Posts
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leo23
United States3075 Posts
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GreatFall
United States1061 Posts
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RaiKageRyu
Canada4773 Posts
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Eeeegor
Australia809 Posts
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Existential
Australia2107 Posts
On April 05 2011 09:04 Lexpar wrote: I haven't had time to read this yet... but why is it blue??? :o Certain people have blue posts in the strategy section if they are considered to have consistent, valid points and knowledge of the game... Or something along those lines. | ||
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Aezo-
Canada378 Posts
On April 05 2011 09:04 Lexpar wrote: I haven't had time to read this yet... but why is it blue??? :o Blue posters are those who are known to give quality posts. So pay attention to them. Edit: Beat to it. And I'm definitely going to follow this guide thanks a lot! | ||
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Kinch
United States258 Posts
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`chain
United States124 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + THANKS A LOT | ||
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RoastedNuts
Canada25 Posts
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MaxField
United States2386 Posts
I have not finished it yet,but i am so impressed i had to let you know. Thanks a bunch man!! | ||
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azzu
Germany141 Posts
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Giwoon
Korea (South)431 Posts
On April 03 2011 13:55 WriterLee wrote: Starcraft 2 is gay as shit anyway. Play a real game like BLOPS. User was warned for this post LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL what a joke User was warned for this post | ||
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kellymilkies
Singapore1393 Posts
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ReaperX
Hong Kong1758 Posts
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thesideshow
930 Posts
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Myrkul
Croatia132 Posts
I am very impressed with your cognitive abillities. I am curious as to the details of how you've developed the aproach to problem solving you demonstrate here. It is very methodical and analytical, traits that are not common among teenagers. Actually untill the emergence of positivism a century ago they weren't common among anyone, except mathematicians. I'm particularly interested in how and when you became aware of the importance of clear definitions when discussing a subject? | ||
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Mylkal
United States47 Posts
Well deserved spotlight ^^ | ||
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ImmortalTofu
United States1254 Posts
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yoden
United States64 Posts
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 05 2011 10:18 Myrkul wrote: I gather from your introduction that you're still in high-school, so that would make you 17-18? The following comment is based on that assumption. I am very impressed with your cognitive abillities. I am curious as to the details of how you've developed the aproach to problem solving you demonstrate here. It is very methodical and analytical, traits that are not common among teenagers. Actually untill the emergence of positivism a century ago they weren't common among anyone, except mathematicians. I'm particularly interested in how and when you became aware of the importance of clear definitions when discussing a subject? Yeah I'm about that age. I do a lot of studying and thinking. I learned that clear definitions are required whenever communicating with someone, as when two people communicate it's actually never words alone that are being tossed around, the words are just tools at which to communicate ideas. So, I need to make sure that everyone is hearing my ideas, not just my words. If you want you can PM if you have more specific questions | ||
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Orphen
United States101 Posts
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bloodorc44
United States31 Posts
You know, I play video games for a profession as well. I work for Microsoft as a balance tester for the new Age of Empires game coming out, called Age of Empires Online. Can we get a confirmation on this? I absolutely adore the AoE series, and was crushed when Ensemble Studios split up. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 05 2011 11:00 bloodorc44 wrote: Can we get a confirmation on this? I absolutely adore the AoE series, and was crushed when Ensemble Studios split up. Confirmation? How about when the Non-Disclosure Agreement is lifted from Beta I start streaming gameplay of the new game while I'm at work? | ||
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noproblem
United Kingdom161 Posts
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gogogadgetflow
United States2583 Posts
On April 05 2011 11:00 bloodorc44 wrote: Can we get a confirmation on this? I absolutely adore the AoE series, and was crushed when Ensemble Studios split up. Don't get your hopes up kiddo. It is going to be more like farmville than anything. It's an affront to the greatness that is AoE that it will bear the same name. | ||
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FinestHour
United States18466 Posts
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TheAlchemist89
160 Posts
Cheers | ||
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Nazza
Australia1654 Posts
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RebelMusic
United States66 Posts
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GutsSC2
United States45 Posts
I've been wanting to try and put a guide of some sort together but folks like you blow anything I could do out of the water. Great job, I'll give it a thorough read soon. | ||
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Arnfasta
United States183 Posts
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nosliw
United States2716 Posts
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Dhalphir
Australia1305 Posts
Love this writeup. Will be reading several times!! | ||
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hitman133
United States1425 Posts
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
I was lucky enough to learn a lot of the stuff mentioned here from Korean PC Bangs in the SoCal area and my knowlege of RTS from Age of Empires II. If I had lacked both of those, this would probably be my first look into how to become a pro =) KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK. And if you need any midmaster PvP, send me a PM =) | ||
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rfoster
United States1005 Posts
On April 05 2011 11:03 CecilSunkure wrote: Confirmation? How about when the Non-Disclosure Agreement is lifted from Beta I start streaming gameplay of the new game while I'm at work? dude how did you land such a nice job while in high school theres no good work for kids here forgot to mention how much i love the guide. A lot of times I get so obsessed with winning and ladder score I let it cloud my judgment, and what you said about how you shouldn't care about winning is so true | ||
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Phant
United States737 Posts
One thing I would like to suggest (just something I do) is that in the early game when you don't have too many units, to still use 3 hotkeys in the following setup. 1, all of your units 2. melee units. 3. ranged units. When I do this i can easily select my entire army with 1 and move them around, then during combat you can easily position your army, and retreat with just 1-> right click. It's pretty minor, but I think it can be helpful at times during early aggression. It also makes focus firing a little easier once you have your army in a desired position. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 05 2011 12:18 phant wrote: Great guide! I'll have to bookmark this for later. One thing I would like to suggest (just something I do) is that in the early game when you don't have too many units, to still use 3 hotkeys in the following setup. 1, all of your units 2. melee units. 3. ranged units. When I do this i can easily select my entire army with 1 and move them around, then during combat you can easily position your army, and retreat with just 1-> right click. It's pretty minor, but I think it can be helpful at times during early aggression. It also makes focus firing a little easier once you have your army in a desired position. I'd say it's better just skip keeping them all on one hotkey to get used to using two. That's what I do, even with my first Zealot/Stalker. | ||
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The Final Boss
United States1839 Posts
I love things like this that you can find on a lot of forums that are just really about helping you get better at a certain game; I remember seeing these in DotA and W3 all the time on forums. Thanks man, people like you really make forums a helpful place instead of straight up trolls-trolling-trolls Yahoo Answers Style. | ||
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Dhalphir
Australia1305 Posts
How do you deal with the fact that the same situation comes up during ladder play so infrequently? For example, if I face a particular Terran build, lose to it, and have some ideas for how to beat it, unless I can find a practise partner good enough at Terran to replicate the build decently (not always possible) my chances of being able to replicate the game to try different things are pretty difficult. For you I imagine this is quite simple having the team access that you do, but what do you recommend for those who don't have this option? | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 05 2011 12:42 Dhalphir wrote: Here's a question I've actually been wondering for a while. How do you deal with the fact that the same situation comes up during ladder play so infrequently? For example, if I face a particular Terran build, lose to it, and have some ideas for how to beat it, unless I can find a practise partner good enough at Terran to replicate the build decently (not always possible) my chances of being able to replicate the game to try different things are pretty difficult. For you I imagine this is quite simple having the team access that you do, but what do you recommend for those who don't have this option? Practice partner thread is I feel your best answer. Back when I wasn't on a team I'd go there and add like 15 people at a time, then msg all the ones online for practice games. | ||
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crms
United States11933 Posts
thank you so much kind sir. | ||
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On April 05 2011 12:48 crms wrote: I want to personally thank you for making a wonderful guide. This reeks of that broodwar mentality where everyone is bad and everyone can improve. This was the feeling I was hoping to get when starcraft 2 came out and was kind of disappointed it didn't seem to be there anymore. thank you so much kind sir. Existed far before BW but it's true. I never heard of overpowered or cheese (maybe once) or allins as words instead of strategic discussion until I started playing Starcraft 2. My other RTS experience (Total Annihilation, Age of Empires II & exp) had none of this in clans etc. | ||
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FluidTek
Australia50 Posts
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ven
Germany332 Posts
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(Spiff)
Canada82 Posts
Great job with this | ||
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Theclutch
United States119 Posts
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 05 2011 13:53 (Spiff) wrote: Looks amazing!! but what are the dots on the iographica? i use the program as well but don't know what they are? I am starting to believe they are repeated clicks? Great job with this They are when the mouse stands still. On April 05 2011 13:09 ven wrote: So how do I setup my screen hotkeys if I disable mouse scrolling? Or how do I make any kind of adjustments, if my screen only shows half of the fight? Use the minimap! | ||
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Rhyme
United States1069 Posts
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rickybobby
United States405 Posts
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Midori8
Australia126 Posts
It was also set out and organized really well. | ||
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EviL.sc
Portugal82 Posts
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Kamais_Ookin
Canada4218 Posts
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bloodorc44
United States31 Posts
Confirmation? How about when the Non-Disclosure Agreement is lifted from Beta I start streaming gameplay of the new game while I'm at work? That would be excellent!! Thank you so much, you're very kind! | ||
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keioh
France1099 Posts
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Tgee
Denmark54 Posts
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FezTheCaliph
United States492 Posts
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Groslouser
France337 Posts
Insta bookmarked, now time to put it to use. | ||
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deji
Estonia46 Posts
I'm unsure about the section on mouse control. You mentioned that RTS gamers need more accuracy than FPS gamers. Being a very good FPS player but a mediocre RTS gamer, I have to disagree. The current trend in FPS gaming is very low sensitivity to make millimeter adjustments consistent and precise (because "micro" is way more important in FPS compared to RTS), most players need over 20cm of scrolling to do a 360 degree turn. It's hard to equate precisely to an RTS game, but something similar might be about 10-15cm to move the pointer from one edge of your view to the other. I'm curious as to how sensitive the mouse is for top RTS gamers, but I suspect that for optimal accuracy, the FPS style of including your forearm to move the mouse is better. | ||
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GreggSauce
United States566 Posts
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NET
United States703 Posts
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Swap
Sweden144 Posts
(Didnt read all the pages before this) Couldnt you do a nice pdf for printing too? | ||
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Spekulatius
Germany2413 Posts
This should be read by everyone even if he only has the slightest interest in improving. So much good information, techniques and last but not least, motivation. What a wonderful, wonderful contribution. Posts like this make this community great. Thank you, CecilSunkure! | ||
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Alou
United States3748 Posts
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Deleted User 135096
3624 Posts
"RTS play benefits from being have to have precise movements" I assume you mean semething like, RTS play benefits from the need to have precise movements, or benefits from having precise movements, or having the need for precise movements. The way you worded it here is a little clunky. Other than that, this article quite well written. Kudos | ||
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Binabik
Germany686 Posts
Today I went online and played a map called Micro Practice (EU) for 1 hour, resulting in me understanding that my micro SUCKS. I'm Protoss and know (Masterleague #10) I finally started to work on my micro again ;D. Took me an hour to really get the 4 Stalkers vs 14 Marines Hit and Run and finally win it 70% of the time :D No more 1Racks FE against me @all Terrans! Tomorrow I'm going to try the 5 Stalkers vs 12 Roaches  I always thought that laddering enough would help every single aspect of your game play, but it's like in Soccer, you just have to train for specific situations and stay fit all the time. edit: I have 1/2/ Army 3 Robotics 4 Starpot and 5 Nexus as my hotkeys, often use Phoniex/Colossi as Unit Composition | ||
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MangoTango
United States3670 Posts
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ztoa03
Philippines181 Posts
(hehe, does this mean Jaedong is hard work and Flash is pure talent? or it's the other way around?) | ||
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Tommylew
Wales2717 Posts
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PassiveAce
United States18076 Posts
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caradoc
Canada3022 Posts
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syva
United Kingdom6 Posts
Thank you very much, very grateful for this guide; will be putting all this to practice this evening. I am, however, confused by one issue. You suggest putting all nexuses onto a single hotkey, but how can I then ensure workers are only being created from a specific nexus. I wouldn't want to be creating workers at a nexus where the mineral patch is already saturated. Sorry if I have missed something here. | ||
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Bobbias
Canada1373 Posts
I had always been thinking of trying to get a lesson from you, but I always had a feeling in the back of my head that told me there were other ways, and that I wasn't at the skill level where a lesson would tell me something I didn't already know. I've always had the "I suck at this game" mentality because hey, I'm in bronze, that alone tells me I'm pretty damned bad at this game, but my problem was that even though I've known I'm bad, and I've known roughly what I'm bad AT (My mechanics are bad, I don't hotkey nearly enough, I still have plenty of moments where I either supply block myself, or am not building probes, I still haven't tried to just learn one build, and instead opt to just do my own thing etc. etc.) so I didn't need someone to tell me what was wrong, I needed to find a way to to get better. So a HUGE thanks for this post. | ||
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Reasonable
Ukraine1432 Posts
User was warned for this post | ||
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Flowne
Netherlands71 Posts
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Osmoses
Sweden5302 Posts
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rastaban
United States2294 Posts
You mentioned setting clearly defined and measurable goals rather than saying I just want to improve. I guess it seems most of the measurable goals, say "Get into masters" If I really meant it I feel I would be best served by learning a very effective cheese strat and perfecting it as this method seems the fastest way to rank up until the higher levels (ala bitbybit.prime.we). How do I set a measurable goal that involves deepening my understanding and focusing on being a more rounded player? do I just set the goal above and then try to go about in a different manner? or should I be looking at goals like "play a 30 minute game while keeping money below 450" or something like that. Thanks, | ||
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ReNhoSoft
Mexico69 Posts
On April 05 2011 23:27 syva wrote: Hey, first-post bronze-leaguer here Thank you very much, very grateful for this guide; will be putting all this to practice this evening. I am, however, confused by one issue. You suggest putting all nexuses onto a single hotkey, but how can I then ensure workers are only being created from a specific nexus. I wouldn't want to be creating workers at a nexus where the mineral patch is already saturated. Sorry if I have missed something here. I think I can answer that one. When you throw down your first expansion, you'll wan't to transfer some probes from your main to your natural, trying to even the amount of workers on each base. This way you can create probes from both nexus without worriyng too much about saturation. Another thing you can do is rallying your main nexus to the mineral patches of your natural, that way every worker you create will go to your nat without needing to transfer probes. Transfering probes is better, but rallying your nexus to a common base can be usefull when your main is depleted or something like that. On April 05 2011 23:58 rastaban wrote: I have a question as I am stuck on the first section regarding goals. You mentioned setting clearly defined and measurable goals rather than saying I just want to improve. I guess it seems most of the measurable goals, say "Get into masters" If I really meant it I feel I would be best served by learning a very effective cheese strat and perfecting it as this method seems the fastest way to rank up until the higher levels (ala bitbybit.prime.we). How do I set a measurable goal that involves deepening my understanding and focusing on being a more rounded player? do I just set the goal above and then try to go about in a different manner? or should I be looking at goals like "play a 30 minute game while keeping money below 450" or something like that. Thanks, You need to clarify what it means to be a "rounded player", otherwise you'll end up with a lot of arbitrary goals that won't make any sense. How good/bad do you think a rounded player should be in terms of macro/micro/mechanics/gamesense/etc? | ||
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Warmyth
Netherlands107 Posts
On April 05 2011 23:58 rastaban wrote: I have a question as I am stuck on the first section regarding goals. You mentioned setting clearly defined and measurable goals rather than saying I just want to improve. I guess it seems most of the measurable goals, say "Get into masters" If I really meant it I feel I would be best served by learning a very effective cheese strat and perfecting it as this method seems the fastest way to rank up until the higher levels (ala bitbybit.prime.we). How do I set a measurable goal that involves deepening my understanding and focusing on being a more rounded player? do I just set the goal above and then try to go about in a different manner? or should I be looking at goals like "play a 30 minute game while keeping money below 450" or something like that. Thanks, I personally dont think you should set 'numbers' in your goal like 30 minute game. I think you sould try to set your goal als following: 'I want to get into master league trough winning games by out-macro'ing the other player' In my opinion 'outmacro'ing' the other players means having a bigger and stronger (better upgrades for example) This way you will need to get to deepen your understanding of the game and lets you become a more rounded player, because you will get to face a lot of different tactics, and will learn how to respond to them so in the end you will have the bigger and better army. Hope this helps, but just remember you dont always have to go on till minute 30. If you see a player do something incredibly greedy or stupid, you should punish those things! | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 05 2011 17:58 Tgee wrote: This seems really archaic, you totally ignore the idle worker hotkey, the base cam hotkey, the event hotkey(spacebar) and the unit selection modifiers(ctrl, shift) that allow very efficient manipulation/making of a unit selection. Thanks for borderline insulting me. Did it ever cross your mind that I just omit those things because they suck? Thanks for reminding me about shift and ctrl, however. I did forget to mention those ones. On April 05 2011 23:27 syva wrote: Hey, first-post bronze-leaguer here Thank you very much, very grateful for this guide; will be putting all this to practice this evening. I am, however, confused by one issue. You suggest putting all nexuses onto a single hotkey, but how can I then ensure workers are only being created from a specific nexus. I wouldn't want to be creating workers at a nexus where the mineral patch is already saturated. Sorry if I have missed something here. After hotkeying all your nexuses onto one hotkey, rally all your workers the base with the least probes On April 05 2011 23:27 Bobbias wrote: Why haven't I seen this thread before? This is an absolute godsend for me and so many people. I had always been thinking of trying to get a lesson from you, but I always had a feeling in the back of my head that told me there were other ways, and that I wasn't at the skill level where a lesson would tell me something I didn't already know. I've always had the "I suck at this game" mentality because hey, I'm in bronze, that alone tells me I'm pretty damned bad at this game, but my problem was that even though I've known I'm bad, and I've known roughly what I'm bad AT (My mechanics are bad, I don't hotkey nearly enough, I still have plenty of moments where I either supply block myself, or am not building probes, I still haven't tried to just learn one build, and instead opt to just do my own thing etc. etc.) so I didn't need someone to tell me what was wrong, I needed to find a way to to get better. So a HUGE thanks for this post. Thanks Bobbias <3 On April 05 2011 23:58 rastaban wrote: I have a question as I am stuck on the first section regarding goals. You mentioned setting clearly defined and measurable goals rather than saying I just want to improve. I guess it seems most of the measurable goals, say "Get into masters" If I really meant it I feel I would be best served by learning a very effective cheese strat and perfecting it as this method seems the fastest way to rank up until the higher levels (ala bitbybit.prime.we). How do I set a measurable goal that involves deepening my understanding and focusing on being a more rounded player? do I just set the goal above and then try to go about in a different manner? or should I be looking at goals like "play a 30 minute game while keeping money below 450" or something like that. Thanks, You should be thinking like this: I want to play at a Master's level of skill by playing focusing mostly on my macro. I say later on that lower Master's players are the only players on the NA that have basic macro down, so you should read the whole guide then go back and focus on the macro portions. | ||
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Redunzl
862 Posts
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ShamTao
United States419 Posts
Well, this in addition to your other guides on TL has shown some exemplary dedication to the community, so thanks! Now, for my question: Do you have any advice for keyboard hand positioning? While this may seem an obvious point (i.e. put your hand by the hotkeys), some people may have a way of more easily navigating their higher numbered hotkeys. For example, I always have my higher tech on 9 (for upgrades) and forge(s) on 0, but since I have to stretch my hand to reach them, I almost never get to tap them ingame to check their status. If the only way to tap these efficiently is just forcing myself to do it, then I'll just have to practice it, but just because hand placement on the keyboard wasn't mentioned in the OP i wasn't sure if you had any opinion/advice on the matter. Also, thanks for keeping up with the thread! | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 06 2011 02:29 ShamTao wrote: Hi CecilSunkure! Well, this in addition to your other guides on TL has shown some exemplary dedication to the community, so thanks! Now, for my question: Do you have any advice for keyboard hand positioning? While this may seem an obvious point (i.e. put your hand by the hotkeys), some people may have a way of more easily navigating their higher numbered hotkeys. For example, I always have my higher tech on 9 (for upgrades) and forge(s) on 0, but since I have to stretch my hand to reach them, I almost never get to tap them ingame to check their status. If the only way to tap these efficiently is just forcing myself to do it, then I'll just have to practice it, but just because hand placement on the keyboard wasn't mentioned in the OP i wasn't sure if you had any opinion/advice on the matter. Also, thanks for keeping up with the thread! Well keyboard placement was mentioned, I just didn't go into crazy detail on. And the answer is nope! You just have to get used to moving your left hand around | ||
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omgCRAZY
Canada551 Posts
oh and btw there is a spelling mistake at [2.01] What this document is about This document aims at giving all players the oppuritunity to greatly improve their game. By this I mean that anyone who reads this document should have the tools necessary to become a... not important really but thought I might as well point it out, especially if you are putting this into a PDF | ||
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Canadium
Canada171 Posts
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iamke55
United States2806 Posts
On April 06 2011 04:47 Canadium wrote: I feel like this could all be summed up in a few words. Watch the Day9 Daily Sunday through Thursday @ 7pm PST..... It's an adequate write at best. Obviously not or it wouldn't be spotlighted. | ||
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dukethegold
Canada5645 Posts
On April 06 2011 04:47 Canadium wrote: I feel like this could all be summed up in a few words. Watch the Day9 Daily Sunday through Thursday @ 7pm PST..... It's an adequate write at best. Maybe some people like it better when the information is in written format and easy to track? The majority of people learn best visually, rather through audio. Or perhaps people would like to see the point of view from someone other than Day9. I, for one, found the post to be very helpful. Great applause as I understand a comprehensive guide takes ages to be written. | ||
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maven9
13 Posts
This is a great link for all you need on how to turn off mouse acceleration for Windows 7! 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! Here's software from SteelSeries to disable mouse acceleration for Mac Snow Leopard. http://cdn.steelseries.com/tools/steelseries-exactmouse-tool.dmg It seems to work with non-SteelSeries mice as well (tested with a SteelSeries Ikari Laser and Logitech VX Revolution). | ||
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blae000
Norway1640 Posts
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RoachyRoach
81 Posts
On April 06 2011 04:47 Canadium wrote: I feel like this could all be summed up in a few words. Watch the Day9 Daily Sunday through Thursday @ 7pm PST..... It's an adequate write at best. I find Day9 extremly annoying. His stream is informative, if your willing to sit through 2 hours of retarded banter and him constantly switching to his webcam view to see his reaction faces and whatnot. Sometimes he can be fun and knowledgable, but I always find myself screaming at the screen "GET TO THE F-ING POINT!" edit: More on topic. Cecil, I loved this read. I read the whole thing on my blackberry on my way home from work and it seriously puts you in a good mindset for starting to grow as a player. Still on my way home, my fingers are twitching 1a2a3a...i need SC2 NOW | ||
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icclown
Denmark270 Posts
On April 06 2011 05:27 RoachyRoach wrote: I find Day9 extremly annoying. His stream is informative, if your willing to sit through 2 hours of retarded banter and him constantly switching to his webcam view to see his reaction faces and whatnot. Sometimes he can be fun and knowledgable, but I always find myself screaming at the screen "GET TO THE F-ING POINT!" Amen to that!!! | ||
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fer
Canada375 Posts
If you want some proof, take a glance at the Quake community, where 90% of the top 20 use mouse acceleration. An otherwise magnificent guide however. Props. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 06 2011 05:27 RoachyRoach wrote: I find Day9 extremly annoying. His stream is informative, if your willing to sit through 2 hours of retarded banter and him constantly switching to his webcam view to see his reaction faces and whatnot. Sometimes he can be fun and knowledgable, but I always find myself screaming at the screen "GET TO THE F-ING POINT!" edit: More on topic. Cecil, I loved this read. I read the whole thing on my blackberry on my way home from work and it seriously puts you in a good mindset for starting to grow as a player. Still on my way home, my fingers are twitching 1a2a3a...i need SC2 NOW Yeah I feel the same way :/ He does too much goofing off, and I just don't have time to watch 30 minutes of teaching and 30 minutes of goofing off. | ||
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ReNhoSoft
Mexico69 Posts
On April 06 2011 05:37 CecilSunkure wrote: Yeah I feel the same way :/ He does too much goofing off, and I just don't have time to watch 30 minutes of teaching and 30 minutes of goofing off. Different styles for different people. I prefer to read the information, so this guide suited my needs perfectly, but I'm pretty sure a lot of guys would struggle reading so much information. No, i'm not calling anyone dumb, it's just that this guide is HUGE. I've been translating it since yesterday and oh god, my brain hurts already and I haven't been able to translate half of it yet :/ I guess all that goofing around that Day9 does helps those of us who want a more lighthearted explanation. Thats what I think at least | ||
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meegrean
Thailand7699 Posts
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MapleFractal
Canada307 Posts
Thanks again for the great thread. | ||
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Ftwpker
United States165 Posts
What are some unused hotkeys for terran( id like to set them to screen hotkeys). My current f1-f12 buttons require me to press fn button near the windows button which makes using those hotkeys a hassle. | ||
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Yurie
11711 Posts
On April 05 2011 23:39 Reasonable wrote: How can you start as silver? That's a mystery to me. I was in diamond after 10 games in Beta. Don't mean to brag, but there is obviously a natural factor involved, a factor of intellectual attribute. Similar to when some guys do quite well in school w/o trying and others study day and night and still get lower grades. There is a factor of when you start and what prior experience you have. If you start now, from scratch and reach diamond in 10 games it means you have played multiple rts games in multiplayer prior to this. This means you have most likely spent as much time learning the basic skill set as somebody that has been playing sc2 since release. As for school, I think the same thing applies there. The foundation is important, how you learn is as important, if not more important than the amount of time you put in. Being able to quickly and correctly deduct what you need to know from a text compared to memorising the entire thing. | ||
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mordek
United States12704 Posts
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xzumiex
Belgium100 Posts
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Loomies
United States645 Posts
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Neosta2
China117 Posts
I know many pros play on lowest settings - however I found it hard to spot cloak units and also force fields on lowest setting | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 06 2011 07:29 Neosta2 wrote: Can you also comment on the graphic settings? I know many pros play on lowest settings - however I found it hard to spot cloak units and also force fields on lowest setting I play with everyone on lowest! :O | ||
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oGm`REM
United States870 Posts
Keep it up ~~ | ||
BisuDagger
Bisutopia19175 Posts
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ChineseWife
United States373 Posts
<3 TL;DR - It took me about 6 months (since release) of hard work to learn this stuff, so all you noobies and aspiring gosus please thank Cecile for condensing his knowledge and sharing it with the community! | ||
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BenKen
United States860 Posts
On April 06 2011 05:37 CecilSunkure wrote: Yeah I feel the same way :/ He does too much goofing off, and I just don't have time to watch 30 minutes of teaching and 30 minutes of goofing off. Well Day 9 did something similar to this for BW, but now it's kinda obvious he's milking his show for all it's worth these days. I mean, it's not like anyone has 300+ hours worth of unique and useful knowledge to dish out all the time. I'm not trying to bash Day 9 though, I still love the guy. Day 9's old BW podcasts on improving really were can't miss stuff though. More importantly, THANK YOU so much CecilSunkure! I've seen most of this information in bits and pieces over the past year or so (including in Day 9 dailies) but to have it all in one well written document is solid gold. | ||
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ChineseWife
United States373 Posts
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Leeoku
1617 Posts
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Ursadon-n-Pals
United States928 Posts
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Irave
United States9965 Posts
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SpiritAshura
United States1271 Posts
Very nice and detailed guide sir, I imagine anyone diamond and below could follow this and make large strides in their play quickly! | ||
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FrodaN
754 Posts
Give Day[9] a break, especially considering how much content people demand out of him with how young SC2 is. After all, Sean had 10 years of BW to talk about in his dailies. As for the OP, great post and guide. You are contributing a ton to the community by doing this and I hope you will be rewarded one day. | ||
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Minzy
Australia387 Posts
i play with everything on low, but textures on extreme or high, whatever is the highest, its very easy to spot cloak like this i think. | ||
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Tiazi
Netherlands761 Posts
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zatic
Zurich15314 Posts
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Mintastic
United States166 Posts
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Maieu_san
Belgium6 Posts
I'm only a low level Bronze player, trying to get better. And this guide is going to help me greatly with that! Thanks a million for this! Allready made a pdf of this for myself | ||
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Saiton
Sweden467 Posts
Hats off to Cecil, one of the greatest contributors to TL.net | ||
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Z3kk
4099 Posts
Mod note was right on!! So good--thanks. This is basically the definitive source for improvement. Heck, you could sell this, the quality is so high! ;D | ||
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Tgee
Denmark54 Posts
On April 06 2011 01:59 CecilSunkure wrote: Thanks for borderline insulting me. Did it ever cross your mind that I just omit those things because they suck? Thanks for reminding me about shift and ctrl, however. I did forget to mention those ones. On April 03 2011 13:13 CecilSunkure wrote: [6.04] Hotkeys and Control Groups The rule of thumb is that if you can use a hotkey to do an action, and you use your mouse then you are being inneficient. With this in mind, every time you can use a hotkey instead of your mouse, use the hotkey! It's as simple as that! Why you disregarding yourself bro | ||
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ChApFoU
France2982 Posts
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Grape
145 Posts
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Harmonious
179 Posts
On April 03 2011 13:13 CecilSunkure wrote: Keyboard positioning is most important for how you hit 1a2a3a; how you order attack commands to your army is highly dependent on how your keyboard is positioned. I personally have my keyboard perfectly perdendicular to my body, and I hit 1a2a3a with my front three fingers Great post. I have changed attack to be the f key. So for me it is 1f2f3f4f which is very easy to do. It did require some other keys to be changed, but that was not big deal. For protosses it affects force fields. I don't play that much, but I made the change after playing a couple of 100 games in SC2 and BW and I didn't find it very hard to change the habit. Does anyone have thoughts around this? | ||
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B.I.G.
3251 Posts
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Wodus
Germany25 Posts
Great Post! Reading through it and in particular the chapter 4 "How to choose a built" I was wondering though how to do this practically. For instance, I myself, am a Gold League player, with about 50 games played in 1on1 mode. I enjoy the game for fun and play a lot with friends. So I played like 400 games 2on2, 3on3, 4on4, mostly random. However I decided to improve my 1on1 play therefore I like to settle on a race (T or P, managed to cross Z off my list). I decided to start with T and would like to analyse MarineKingPrimes replays. Now, how do I know in which replay he executed a certain built I am looking to mimick perfectly and with no shananigans? You suggested Toss builts in your OP now I wonder are there any references for the other 2 races, that provide well documented builts, that are frequently used by progamers AND to which are replays available that include a neat execution of those builts? P.S.: I do not intend to dump the work on other people just to make it easy. I rather look for people, who might have done this previously and are willing to share their results. Especially the common builts, that are frequently used by progamers should be of interest by more then a few who want to improve. Cheers, Wodus | ||
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Harrad
1003 Posts
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wacksteven
United States139 Posts
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B.I.G.
3251 Posts
On April 05 2011 06:10 Nemara wrote: This thread makes me sad. If you wanna get good at sc2, dont read this wot. Thinking about all the stuff in the op will make the game like work and not fun. For example, if you're going to be thinking "I suck" all the time, you're not going to enjoy yourself at all. There's a general attitude coming from the TL community that you need to do alot more than just play a shitload of games to get good. That's incorrect, unless you're trying to get high masters (everyone below that, including me, sucks). Otherwise, just have fun with the game, play as games as you have time to / can be arsed to, and you'll improve. User was warned for this post team liquid is a community of players that have an exceptional love and interest for this game, and therefore most of us are motivated to become better at it. this guide helps with just that. the "you suck" part of this thead isnt meant to demotivate you, but to make you realize and accept that there is so much more to learn. if you cant understand that this thread isnt the place for you or your posts. on topic: im interested to learn more about navigating using hotkeys because i find it hard without scrolling too much | ||
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lurked
Canada918 Posts
I'm Diamond league, trying to break into the Masters league, and I think this guide will be a huge help. I noted a lot of different points that I'll start working on tonight. Thanks again for such a high quality post! | ||
Beyonder
Netherlands15103 Posts
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slmw
Finland233 Posts
On April 03 2011 13:13 CecilSunkure wrote: Here are some additional links for mouse accuracy practice games! http://aim400kg.ru/en/ http://www.bigfatarcade.com/full.php?id=5593 http://dagobah.net/flash/Cursor_Invisible.swf I tried all of those games, but not one of them had the feeling of really practicing quick mouse accuracy. DiscDash would be ok if it wasn't so buggy. I combined the idea of invisble cursor and DiscDash, and came up with a prototype of a mouse accuracy practicing game: http://zen.zc.fi/~yuizy/acc/test.swf There is no scoring, but at the end of the game you get to see the average miss in pixels and time in hundredth of a second in each movement. [ Format: pixels (time) ] By practicing different kind of movements with an invisible cursor, and then focusing on the ones that are most inaccurate, one could systematically develop a better mouse accuracy. I don't know if this actually works, as my own results are getting slightly better but they do vary a lot and I don't know if it's the general mouse accuracy that's improving or just specific to the flash game. Please test it and give feedback if you think this kind of game would actually be good for systematical training. | ||
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Rossweazel
United Kingdom135 Posts
Thank you for your efforts. | ||
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Spiffeh
United States830 Posts
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synapse
China13814 Posts
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ProfessorCold
United States41 Posts
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julianto
2292 Posts
What are your starting BO recommendations for all the other match-ups? TvT: TvP: TvZ: PvT: PvP: PvZ: ZvX too if you want. Thanks! | ||
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Chaosvuistje
Netherlands2581 Posts
My brain.... is exploding! HELP! I'm so going to read through all of this great write up. | ||
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iamke55
United States2806 Posts
On April 06 2011 21:27 B.I.G. wrote: might it be an idea for people to practice 2 builds, a very safe one and a macro oriented one? There is no point learning a very safe build if it's not also your macro build as well. You're not going to beat a good player with it so if you want 2 builds, one of them should be macro/safe and the other should be some kind of 1 base timing. If you're protoss, the 2nd build should be 4 gate for sure. | ||
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cowsrule
United States80 Posts
On April 06 2011 01:59 CecilSunkure wrote: Thanks for borderline insulting me. Did it ever cross your mind that I just omit those things because they suck? Thanks for reminding me about shift and ctrl, however. I did forget to mention those ones. While that may be true for Protoss, spacebar is quite useful when a queen pops (or spire if you dont hotkey that when you build it) or you hear an attack alert. In addition, the "idle worker" hotkey is very useful if you ever have a reason to spread your workers (i.e hellion harass) making it extremely easy to get everyone back and mining (shift + f1 selects ALL idle workers). Whether or not it is worthwhile to leave the idle worker hotkey as f1 is debatable since the camera hotkeys are great, but I wouldn't classify it as useless. Excellent guide, would read again. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 07 2011 03:29 cowsrule wrote: While that may be true for Protoss, spacebar is quite useful when a queen pops (or spire if you dont hotkey that when you build it) or you hear an attack alert. In addition, the "idle worker" hotkey is very useful if you ever have a reason to spread your workers (i.e hellion harass) making it extremely easy to get everyone back and mining (shift + f1 selects ALL idle workers). Whether or not it is worthwhile to leave the idle worker hotkey as f1 is debatable since the camera hotkeys are great, but I wouldn't classify it as useless. Excellent guide, would read again. Aren't you that Zerg from the GameClucks LAN that played me round one? Thanks for the feedback, but I'm not sure I can incorporate it into the guide; I just don't play Zerg and don't really have a way of clarifying or verifying this. | ||
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LoLAdriankat
United States4307 Posts
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triangle
United States3803 Posts
I was actually kinda curious about the section "you suck" though. While I agree that acknowledging weakness is important to ensure that one does not get complacent, I've found that thinking that I suck at a game actually makes me play worse. I tend to panic in situations that I've actually go under control and stuff like that. I'm sure this sort of thing varies from person to person, but I feel like that section should be more about understanding specifically what you need to improve on rather than putting yourself down. | ||
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`Forte
United States128 Posts
On April 07 2011 07:32 triangle wrote: Wow, this is an incredible guide. I was actually kinda curious about the section "you suck" though. While I agree that acknowledging weakness is important to ensure that one does not get complacent, I've found that thinking that I suck at a game actually makes me play worse. I tend to panic in situations that I've actually go under control and stuff like that. I'm sure this sort of thing varies from person to person, but I feel like that section should be more about understanding specifically what you need to improve on rather than putting yourself down. I don't think the message Cecil was trying to make was that you should think, "I suck I'm awful at this game, I'm super far away from the pros and won't get good," but rather to acknowledge that you are bad and can improve drastically at the things you think you're good at. A lot of bronze - gold players, including some of my friends, say things like, "I'm just in bronze cause everyone cheeses and has no skill," or, "I'm only in silver because I do macro games that work against good players," or, "My macro is good, but Terran is just so OP--that's why I can't get into plat." To improve efficiently, you have to be aware that there is so much of your gameplay that can be improved. If you're in gold, your macro can't be even close to good--knowing this can let you focus on your true skill levels and get better. Great guide! There's a lot of awesome information in here. | ||
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LemonSC
Brazil20 Posts
This guide is really motivational. | ||
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Kenpachi
United States9908 Posts
Lets have that 1v1 we were suppose to have a long time ago. Though youd probably destroy me lol :SHoly shit my mouse accuracy sucks | ||
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pAzand
Sweden539 Posts
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rednax
Sweden12 Posts
1: army 2:army 3: army 4: hatches 5: queen 6: queen 7: queen etcetc | ||
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DarKFoRcE
Germany1215 Posts
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freeto
United States122 Posts
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ninjasteve
1 Post
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Belligra
United Kingdom40 Posts
i feel like a celebrity by association :D ! gna have to harrass him to put burrow in though, couldnt get burrow last time we played around on it which is a pita. very good guide, read through it all and i was doing most of the basic tips but its really helped. im currently 22-4 so far this season ( only in bronze so not exactly impressive) but its much better than last seasons performance. | ||
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Roggay
Switzerland6320 Posts
That being said, is it bad to box top right to bottom left? | ||
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Breadloaf
United States15 Posts
I'll admit right away that this post is motivated out of a bit of frustration. I jumped on the ladder right away after I noticed flaws in my play like playing with my scouting drone too much and missing overlords because of it, and I just tried to focus on keeping my money low and not missing any injections. I lost to tech rushes three games in a row. And I can't help feeling like my new focus on macro was costing me the ability to react to the game as it happened. I'm not good at this game yet, and spending my pitiful apm on microing the occasional ling up his ramp definitely hurts my ability to constantly hit my queen timings and unit production, but without it I feel like I'm playing blind. In an earlier post you mentioned that you didn't play Zerg, but I wanted to ask if you think a Zerg player needs to think about improvement in a different way, compared to players in the other races, which, I think, benefit more from the "stick to a single build order in each matchup" mentality that you advised. And if any other Zerg players want to comment on this, please do. I really want to find a way to apply your guide to my play, but I feel like I'm running into a wall. | ||
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EZPikachu
United States51 Posts
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xzumiex
Belgium100 Posts
The problem what I had that is that i never know why I lost, couldn't figure out why. I'm at the section where u explain the 3gate expand from Grubby. I wrote down what he got at the 5min mark, 10min and so on, i played ladder vs zerg knowing that I need those buildings, expansions and probes at that minute mark. It was so hard to follow but haven't lost a PvZ thanks to this article, it's a great article. Note that I always play the 3 gate expand but now i'm getting more stuff but still have to practice it tons & tons so get everything right. Just a simple question: what build do u suggest for me for PvT (2gate robo or 3gate expand) | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 07 2011 21:01 Roggay wrote: I didnt read it all, but I have a question about the section on Boxing. I always have boxed from top right to bottom left and I like it like that because I'm boxing in the direction of my minimap (which I use a lot for screen deplacement, when I don't have the hotkey to do it. I almost never use the border of the screen for camera mouvements). Seeing your mouse trace, we can clearly see that you had to go perpendicular to your usual boxing route to clic on your minimap. That being said, is it bad to box top right to bottom left? That is an interesting point and it can be up for debate which is better, but I definitely stand up with what I said earlier in that pulling towards your pivot grants you the most accuracy. On April 08 2011 02:46 Breadloaf wrote: Thanks for taking the time to post such a quality guide. It was an informative read and I really appreciated the occasional harsh tone. It was really motivating. I'll admit right away that this post is motivated out of a bit of frustration. I jumped on the ladder right away after I noticed flaws in my play like playing with my scouting drone too much and missing overlords because of it, and I just tried to focus on keeping my money low and not missing any injections. I lost to tech rushes three games in a row. And I can't help feeling like my new focus on macro was costing me the ability to react to the game as it happened. I'm not good at this game yet, and spending my pitiful apm on microing the occasional ling up his ramp definitely hurts my ability to constantly hit my queen timings and unit production, but without it I feel like I'm playing blind.. In an earlier post you mentioned that you didn't play Zerg, but I wanted to ask if you think a Zerg player needs to think about improvement in a different way, compared to players in the other races, which, I think, benefit more from the "stick to a single build order in each matchup" mentality that you advised. And if any other Zerg players want to comment on this, please do. I really want to find a way to apply your guide to my play, but I feel like I'm running into a wall. Nope, I've played Zerg offrace before and I've never had that problem, probably because my mechanics are much stronger than yours. If you're losing to quick tech builds it's not because you didn't micro a ling into their base because it should be walled off. You probably didn't suicide an overlord into their base at the proper time. I know from playing Protoss that tech is likely to go down around the 5 minute mark (that's about the time you have the money to put a robo, twilight, more gateways, or stargate). You can also suicide an overseer after Lair tech, and scout the front of the ramp with lings. Focus on nailing your macro; winning isn't important. I've said this before in the guide. You are correct though that Zerg has to play more reactively than Terran or Protoss, because both dictate the pace and flow in many ways. On April 08 2011 03:59 xzumiex wrote: Hi CecilSunkure, thank you very much for this article. The problem what I had that is that i never know why I lost, couldn't figure out why. I'm at the section where u explain the 3gate expand from Grubby. I wrote down what he got at the 5min mark, 10min and so on, i played ladder vs zerg knowing that I need those buildings, expansions and probes at that minute mark. It was so hard to follow but haven't lost a PvZ thanks to this article, it's a great article. Note that I always play the 3 gate expand but now i'm getting more stuff but still have to practice it tons & tons so get everything right. Just a simple question: what build do u suggest for me for PvT (2gate robo or 3gate expand) 2 gate because of the faster observer. | ||
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gun.slinger
Canada258 Posts
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Darkybald
46 Posts
Wasn't there a tool that helped with tapping? I cant find it anymore. It was posted after the day9 coaching djweat episode. | ||
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gavinashun
101 Posts
Do you have a similar recommendation for Terran players as to what a great starting build to learn would be? I had a very similar idea that I wanted to focus on 1 BO only per matchup so I could focus on macro/mechanics. Thanks! | ||
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wkfnwkwkfn
Canada3 Posts
User was banned for this post. | ||
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.Sic.
Korea (South)497 Posts
On April 03 2011 14:46 13th Marine wrote: That was a great read, thank you for writing it up. Clears up many things. Are noobs allowed to ask questions about applying this? If so: I've been trying to improve in this way, albeit in a way less refined form, but have recently hit a brick wall of sorts. Specifically, once I finally got over my denial of getting placed in Bronze League and made it my goal to take a game off a Master League, I chose MarineKing's 2 Rax FE as the single build I would work on as I improve my macro, micro, and mechanics. I had the most fun watching MKP in the GSL, knew it worked in many situations at a high level of play, and found it fun to play as well once I got started. But then as I started getting a little bit better and got promoted to Silver, and now to Gold, I've entered the territory of players who, at least in my experience, love to 4-Gate or Baneling Bust, or Cloaked Banshee Rush, and can actually execute the builds reasonably well compared to the Bronzes. At first, I was randomly matched against Terran and Protoss only, so at that point I told myself that I would just make the build work. And eventually I learned how to stop them, even though a lot of those games just felt weird for whatever reason. But once I finally started getting matched against Zergs, I've lost all but one game to Baneling-based play, since they always seem to hit me during that very vulnerable moment when my expo has just gotten up. Should I still try to make the build work, or should I add a second build? That one win against a Zerg was actually using MKP's Mech-based play instead... And how will I know when I am ready for additional builds? Thanks again! I am not sure exactly, but MKP's 2 rax expand might be either outdated, relies on doing damage to zerg early game, or works only on specific maps. I would not ever recommend expanding against zerg without getting siege tanks. The safer build is probably 2 rax harass, add 2 gas, get a factory and then move out. Or maybe you can do something else that transitions into siege tanks and then expand. | ||
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NeWeNiyaLord
Norway2474 Posts
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JustPlayin
United States27 Posts
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Albrithe
Canada187 Posts
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. | ||
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Engore
United States1916 Posts
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Catchafire2000
United States227 Posts
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dukethegold
Canada5645 Posts
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Burns
United States2300 Posts
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Falkner
Philippines9 Posts
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REM.ca
Canada354 Posts
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ShamTao
United States419 Posts
On April 06 2011 02:33 CecilSunkure wrote: Well keyboard placement was mentioned, I just didn't go into crazy detail on. And the answer is nope! You just have to get used to moving your left hand around Okie doke, then. Sorry for missing that, but thanks for answering the question! | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 09 2011 16:34 Engore wrote: This thread got bumped by artosis and tasteless at gsl wc :D shows how awesome this guide is. Whoa. Could yo link me? | ||
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TheWarbler
United States1659 Posts
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Ghost.573
United States126 Posts
They mentioned it while they were casting the GSL finals and then Tasteless linked it on his twitter account. By the way really like the guide, good read with some great info. Im taking my time reading parts of it at a time and trying to start working on them. | ||
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Misanthrope
United States924 Posts
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mansnicks
Latvia120 Posts
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Chamenas
96 Posts
3rd set, World Championship Finals (free on Gomtv.net) about 9 minutes and 20 seconds in. Also, Tasteless posted it on his Twitter CallMeTasteless. | ||
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eXalt
United States71 Posts
Just posted! Great job on the guide by the way ^^ | ||
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Goibon
New Zealand8185 Posts
Oh well, at least my clicking will improve :D | ||
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fuzzy_panda
New Zealand1681 Posts
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Razith
Canada431 Posts
During the first few minutes of the game, when I have just 1 command center and 1 barracks on my hot keys, I'll often tap while scouting to make sure I don't forget to keep building marines and SCVs. A quick tap shows me where the progress bar is so I can stay on top of my macro. However, when I get into mid-late game and have more than 1 CC bound to my hot key and multiple production facilities on a hot key, all I see is the white bars to show ques, but nothing about duration. I could tap, see all these white bars and think "Ok I'm producing", but in reality they could be 5 seconds away from completing. Is there a trick to over come this? | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 10 2011 08:59 Razith wrote: The only question I have is about tapping. During the first few minutes of the game, when I have just 1 command center and 1 barracks on my hot keys, I'll often tap while scouting to make sure I don't forget to keep building marines and SCVs. A quick tap shows me where the progress bar is so I can stay on top of my macro. However, when I get into mid-late game and have more than 1 CC bound to my hot key and multiple production facilities on a hot key, all I see is the white bars to show ques, but nothing about duration. I could tap, see all these white bars and think "Ok I'm producing", but in reality they could be 5 seconds away from completing. Is there a trick to over come this? Just get in the habit of knowing when they are about done. If in doubt, just keep 2 SCVs in each queue -that's what I do. | ||
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Razith
Canada431 Posts
On April 10 2011 10:31 CecilSunkure wrote: Just get in the habit of knowing when they are about done. If in doubt, just keep 2 SCVs in each queue -that's what I do. That's what I've been doing as well. I check regularly and generally start queuing another cycle when there's only one white line / I feel like its been there a while, but it'd be nice to have a more accurate way to tell. Too bad there aren't mini production bars. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 10 2011 10:37 Razith wrote: That's what I've been doing as well. I check regularly and generally start queuing another cycle when there's only one white line / I feel like its been there a while, but it'd be nice to have a more accurate way to tell. Too bad there aren't mini production bars. Well I actually don't mind. Don't want the game playing everything for the player -you need some sort of way for higher skilled players to separate themselves from the lower-tier players... Just a thought. | ||
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Razith
Canada431 Posts
On April 10 2011 10:38 CecilSunkure wrote: Well I actually don't mind. Don't want the game playing everything for the player -you need some sort of way for higher skilled players to separate themselves from the lower-tier players... Just a thought. Would it really be that big of a change? Zerg can see the number of larva on each hatchery (but not larva inject) when bound to a hot key, Protoss can see the warp-gate cool down ticking away when bound to one key. All races suffer from the lack of a production bar with multiple buildings bound, but Terran suffers the most as this is all our production facilities. It would also require the the same amount of actions. Regardless, I'm going to have to tap through my keys to see if my building is producing or not. This doesn't remove the amount of actions, but rather feeds in more accurate information. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 10 2011 10:49 Razith wrote: Would it really be that big of a change? Zerg can see the number of larva on each hatchery (but not larva inject) when bound to a hot key, Protoss can see the warp-gate cool down ticking away when bound to one key. All races suffer from the lack of a production bar with multiple buildings bound, but Terran suffers the most as this is all our production facilities. It would also require the the same amount of actions. Regardless, I'm going to have to tap through my keys to see if my building is producing or not. This doesn't remove the amount of actions, but rather feeds in more accurate information. No I don't think it would be a very big change, but this change along with a lot of other similar changes can be a big change in all. I'm just being overly idealistic | ||
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Razith
Canada431 Posts
On April 10 2011 10:56 CecilSunkure wrote: No I don't think it would be a very big change, but this change along with a lot of other similar changes can be a big change in all. I'm just being overly idealistic Haha well I do agree with you about not making this game over simplistic. I love games with high skill caps that make for amazing play; if anything that is what makes them so interesting to watch (got my fingers crossed for Tribes Ascend ). I would be against things like auto cast injects for zerg, but I think this would be a harmless change.Heck look at the ability to select 255 units at once now. I bet in BW days they would say it would make the game too easy. Now you're punished for leaving your units in a ball due to aoe. | ||
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poboxy
Canada48 Posts
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uGoatt
United States85 Posts
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LucienL
Netherlands8 Posts
There are also a variety of different palm grips you should familiarize yourself with. You should familiarize yourself with the three types of grips. The palm grip usually is a result of a player using their shoulder as their pivot. This is (I'd assume) good for FPS playing. I know though that the palm grip is terrible for RTS play. RTS play benefits from being have to have precise movements, and if your pivot is all the way in your shoulder you will have a pretty hard time making precise movements. I have to disagree with this. Just like how writing is done best from the shoulder, it's a very strong way to control your mouse. Using a low sensitivity was very common in Quake 3 because, amongst many other things, it let you control your lightning gun way better. To kill someone with a lightning gun you had to keep your aim on them constantly, which was hard when they were making small, quick movements constantly, trying to dodge your aim. It was easier to pull off that kind of precise aim with a low sensitivity - so low that you HAD to use your entire arm to control your mouse. defensive players who needed supreme accuracy would often use a very low sensitivity in that game. Another thing is that mouse acceleration is hugely misunderstood. Variable mouse acceleration is bad, sure, but real mouse acceleration is that you basically have two sensitivities. One default sensitivity, and a second sensitivity setting which kicks in if you move your mouse beyond a certain speed. This let Quake 3 players have extremely low sensitivities which were good for accuracy and precise movements, without restricting their freedom. It's ashame this kind of acceleration has basically vanished. That said, high sensitivity is still viable, and especially so in RTS games. It's just that low isn't bad either. | ||
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Akta
447 Posts
I like clear logical structures. What are opinions built on, how does your brain analyze the thousands of questions you ask yourself every day and so on. We take finished usually vague conclusions from previous experiences and use them when we think about something. Sometimes it can be very complicated but every single opinion and choice can be broken down and analyzed. For example political preferences tend to be built on somewhat simple blocks of base opinions. Example: How do I approach X? 1, 2, 3 and 4 tells me to approach X the Y way. 1 was based on 101, 102, 103 and 104. 101 was based on 1001, 1002, 1003 and 1004. And so on. Perhaps we go 1 or 2 depths down for an average quick though, it probably needs to work like this to be efficient. But of course the system leads to an extreme amount of errors in our thought processes. So how should we learn things etc? Well crystal clear logical structures are proven to be efficient and perhaps that is all there is to it. Most people don't have structured thought processes and goals for anything. Take a random computer game someone plays and the person likely just wants something. Someone wants to have the best gear in WoW and someone else wants to beat everyone else in sc2. The way I see things, if you want to become good at something the logical goal should be to get better. If someone asked me how to become the word champion in sc2 I would answer "by getting better at sc2". Mental structure: 1 Problem: Want to win GSL. Solution: Get better at playing starcraft 2. <--- Main goal. 2 1 sub problem: Want to get better at starcraft 2. Solution: 3 2 sub problem: Solution: 3.1 3 sub problem: Solution: 3.11 3.1 sub problem: Solution 3.12 3.1 sub problem: Solution: 3.121 3.11 sub problem: Solution: 4 2 sub problem: Solution: 4.1 4 sub problem: Solution: I love stuff like this and I don't question the goal section, I just don't quite understand it. | ||
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SushilS
2115 Posts
*Cancels all appointments for the rest of the day!lol.* | ||
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Braag
United States15 Posts
Could anyone help? | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 11 2011 01:37 Braag wrote: I need some help with the mouse acceleration, I have messed around with it for a couple of hours now and I haven't been able to change anything, I have deleted the regedit files, did the markc fix, and did everything multiple times to make sure I did it right, however I see NO difference. Could anyone help? Download the registry tools, find which one to run, then run it. Then log off, and back on. That's it. | ||
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spinal2k
Portugal148 Posts
thank you for this. Tastless brought me here! | ||
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Fuze
Belgium6 Posts
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BearSandwich
United States44 Posts
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Braag
United States15 Posts
On April 11 2011 02:02 CecilSunkure wrote: Download the registry tools, find which one to run, then run it. Then log off, and back on. That's it. Exactly what I did, I also did it multiple times, no dice. ;/ | ||
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AceHarT
Singapore3 Posts
under your hotkey section for protoss, you mention f1: warp in pylon f2: main nexus and so on. how to you bind those to the f1 f2 f3? | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 11 2011 12:01 AceHarT wrote: hey cecil, under your hotkey section for protoss, you mention f1: warp in pylon f2: main nexus and so on. how to you bind those to the f1 f2 f3? http://day9tv.blip.tv/file/4712303/ Go into your hotkeys settings within SC2 and bind save screen position #1 to ctrl + f1, and jump to screen position #1 f1. | ||
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Azzur
Australia6255 Posts
The guide is about BW but it contains a lot of non-specific improvement suggestions. People have much to learn from both Cecil and Ver! | ||
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RoachyRoach
81 Posts
You and this guide got a shoutout in a game during the GSL world championships! Nice job :D | ||
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aMelo
Canada38 Posts
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AceHarT
Singapore3 Posts
On April 11 2011 12:32 CecilSunkure wrote: http://day9tv.blip.tv/file/4712303/ Go into your hotkeys settings within SC2 and bind save screen position #1 to ctrl + f1, and jump to screen position #1 f1. hi cecil, thanks for clearing that up | ||
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Treemonkeys
United States2082 Posts
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 11 2011 23:54 Treemonkeys wrote: Man, I guess I really should get rid of mouse acceleration. The problem is I have been playing with it for so long, I'm not sure if it will help to get rid of it. You think I wrote it without thinking that some people might have used it all their life? Of course not. I've used all my life as well until recently. Just play some games (like OSU!) and get used to it It took me about a week to get used to it, and now I'm more accurate with my mouse. | ||
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CASLsoju
Canada253 Posts
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Samura1Jack
Sweden111 Posts
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Treemonkeys
United States2082 Posts
On April 12 2011 02:25 CecilSunkure wrote: You think I wrote it without thinking that some people might have used it all their life? Of course not. I've used all my life as well until recently. Just play some games (like OSU!) and get used to it It took me about a week to get used to it, and now I'm more accurate with my mouse. That's exactly what I needed to hear, thanks. | ||
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henery
Canada89 Posts
The palm grip has it's advantages as well. It is used in conjunction with a low sensitivity, choose one you are comfortable with. When I played FPS the "rule of thumb" was a 180 spin was half the mouse pad, in SC2 I say one side of the screen to the other is 2/3 the mouse pad. although it is different for everyone and you just need to try a couple to get used to it. This grip required a lot of lifting your mouse and relocating it on your mouse pad in FPS but not so much in RTS. The advantages this mouse holds are it's extreme precision. The reason this grip is so precise is the low sensitivity. Any "mistake" that you or the hardware makes is amplified at a high or even medium sensitivity. The disadvantage of this grip is the distance that you need to move the mouse. The greater distance means you increase the time it takes to make the same mouse click. This disadvantage can be almost eliminated with extremely fast mouse speeds which is achievable with today's high tech mice. If you ever watch a pro FPS players using the palm grip in person you will find that they are moving their mouse all around the mouse pad at an extremely high speed, the speed at which they can move their mouse eliminates the negative aspect of the palm grip that you would expect. Tip when using the palm grip. - different styles - elbow pivot - with this you rest your elbow on something and don't move at your shoulder. When you move the mouse it will move in an arc to do any x axis movement, and you will use your fingers to do y-axis movement (a kind of combination between claw and palm). I do not recommend this for RTS because of the lack of distance you can move in the y-axis with your fingers although some mice come with software that allow you to change the x/y sensitivities separately making this style feasible. - shoulder pivot - with this you move your entire arm, pivoting at both your elbow and shoulder. I suggest you keep your mouse vertical at all times with this style. - keep your hand off the pad - If your hand is on the mouse pad when you move it around you are going to get rug burn on your hand. Primarily on claw grips pivot point. If you don't keep that off the pad you will regret it after an hour or so of playing - play around with sensitivities - (already touched on in claw, same thing here) Maybe you don't like the low sensitivity. Maybe you want something closer to what you use to browse the TL forums. That is perfectly ok, you use what is comfortable to you. - take breaks - the shoulder pivot style takes a lot of energy to use as you are probably moving your arm all over the place at high speeds. Drink some water and rest your arm every once and a while. You will find it help your body and your mind. - mouse accel - TURN IT OFF! Caps in needed so bad right there. Mouse accel destroys the palm grip because of fast you are moving the mouse. Just turn it off. - you can box in any direction - that's right, go ahead an try it. No accuracy lost because of where your hand starts and ends, it's all the same. This means that boxing will be faster because no matter where your mouse is on the screen it will be always be close to an optimal boxing location. to sum it up I might be a bit biased in saying this but I think palm is the most precise mouse grip you can use, but to be precise and fast is where it gets difficult and where this grip falls short to most people. May your every mouse movement be blessed with good luck no matter what grip you use, and great OP. ps. I don't know if this grip helps with carpel tunnel or not, but I would imagine it would because of the lack of wrist movement (as with the shoulder style anyway). Anyone else know anything about that? | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 12 2011 03:45 henery wrote:I come from FPS where low sensitivity and a combination of palm grip and fingertip grip gets used. You mention that RTS play is hindered by palm play because RTS requires precise mouse movements, however I know the reason that palm grip with low sensitivity is used in FPS is because it is more precise. I will explain and if you would like to add anything about the palm grip feel free to use what ever you want from what I am about to say. The palm grip has it's advantages as well. It is used in conjunction with a low sensitivity, choose one you are comfortable with. When I played FPS the "rule of thumb" was a 180 spin was half the mouse pad, in SC2 I say one side of the screen to the other is 2/3 the mouse pad. although it is different for everyone and you just need to try a couple to get used to it. This grip required a lot of lifting your mouse and relocating it on your mouse pad in FPS but not so much in RTS. The advantages this mouse holds are it's extreme precision. The reason this grip is so precise is the low sensitivity. Any "mistake" that you or the hardware makes is amplified at a high or even medium sensitivity. The disadvantage of this grip is the distance that you need to move the mouse. The greater distance means you increase the time it takes to make the same mouse click. This disadvantage can be almost eliminated with extremely fast mouse speeds which is achievable with today's high tech mice. If you ever watch a pro FPS players using the palm grip in person you will find that they are moving their mouse all around the mouse pad at an extremely high speed, the speed at which they can move their mouse eliminates the negative aspect of the palm grip that you would expect. FPS isn't the same as RTS, and thus requires a different type of grip. Sure I am biased, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The optimal schema for hand grip would be the one with small muscle to cursor movement ratios, because you don't need excessively small and precise movements locked onto a specific point. If you make your muscle to cursor movement ratio larger, then the small imperfections or twitches that your hands/arms have become negligible, thus making it easier to keep a cursor on a specific spot allowing for easy tracking of targets. However with RTS games you shouldn't be required to track targets much or scroll your mouse distances off the screen like a fast turn in FPS, and thus small imperfections in precision are much more negligible due to the style of the game compared to an FPS. Who cares if you're off by two pixels when boxing two units, you still got the box over both units right? In an FPS if you're off by two pixels that might cost you the entire game. RTS games require a mouse to move very quickly and make accurate jumps across a static screen position, thus your priorities are to be able to jump to many locations very quickly all the time, as well as being able to make those jumps precise. Since you neither need to move the location of the screen with your mouse in such a dramatic way as in FPS games, and you don't need to track a single point in space for relevant periods of time, you want a very small muscle movement to mouse movement ratio. This allows you to make many jumps very quickly simply because you're not moving your hand as far, and those tiny imperfections in reading or muscle twitches can be mostly ignored due to the nature of RTS gaming. I guarantee you that an FPVOD of my mouse movements compared to yours will help demonstrate this: http://www.justin.tv/kiwiclonearmy/b/283427723 Disclaimer: I was freestyling and playing pretty casually. My mouse movements aren't super accurate to the pixel, but really they don't need to be because there are more important things about playing an RTS than minimizing the affect that tiny imperfections in muscle movements/mouse reading has on my cursor movement. | ||
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henery
Canada89 Posts
). I can move my mouse just as fast as you with my mouse style, but I have been using my mouse the way it is for a really long time. I unfortunately have no way of showing you this because Canadian internet sucks and I would have to pay a ton of money to get any upload speed at all. I could fraps a 30 second clip for you when I get home, but 30 seconds is really just not enough to prove anything (I will if you want me to though). I just want you to know that there are other equally good options and not to limit people reading your excellent guide to a certain mouse style.edit : this clearly shows that even though we have equal enough skill in the mouse department that skill is negligible because his knowledge of the game is so much better then mine. Ps. For anyone else who is reading this. You should be choosing a mouse style that is most comfortable to you. I had a friend hold his mouse at an angle under his hand because that is what he found comfortable (his arm was like / but the mouse was like | ). And remember that the hardest part about precise mouse movements and proper key strokes isn't actually hitting them, it is the thinking and decision making process that Cecil talked about already. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
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henery
Canada89 Posts
. I just don't think we see eye to eye in that I believe that at the highest of level palm can be just as fast as claw, but it takes a ton of practice that I think should be placed in other areas. The only reason I use it is because I have used it since I was 10. Just for reference here is a video of fatal1ty using the palm grip in a game of Quake4 + Show Spoiler + there are a lot of sections of not a lot of mouse movement, but I would like you to focus on the parts where he does around a 90 degree turn extremely fast with very high precision. Now imagine that speed and precision applied to the static screen of SC2. That is what I'm trying to say :D edit: wow spelling edit2: LOL at zerg rage. I love it :D maybe he should start getting detection? /back on topic of this great OP now | ||
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FabledIntegral
United States9232 Posts
Think of it this way: the people in the top 10% of the SC2 ladder on the North American server are ten times better than the people in the top 50%. The people in the top 1% are 10 times better than the people in the top 10%. The people in the top .01% are 1000 times better than the people in the top 1%. This might sound strange if it's the first time you've heard it, but in reality it rings truer than you'd think. Completely and utterly false. People in the top 1% can take games off the top 0.01% easily. Someone who's "top 50%" aka a midlevel gold/platinum player would have a much harder time beating someone ranked in the top 10%. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 12 2011 06:03 FabledIntegral wrote: Completely and utterly false. People in the top 1% can take games off the top 0.01% easily. Someone who's "top 50%" aka a midlevel gold/platinum player would have a much harder time beating someone ranked in the top 10%. I'm in the top 1% (actually more top .1%). The top .01% is the top 200 players of Master's league (global), and I don't think I'd be able to very easily take a game off of that. Actually, I bet I'd lose 10/10 times against that. | ||
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Mithrandir
United States99 Posts
On April 12 2011 06:03 FabledIntegral wrote: Completely and utterly false. People in the top 1% can take games off the top 0.01% easily. Someone who's "top 50%" aka a midlevel gold/platinum player would have a much harder time beating someone ranked in the top 10%. Even if you can take a game off of them, that doesn't mean you're equal in skill. Sc2 is a very volatile game, it's much more coinflippy than something like chess (in my opinion, although some pros have said the same). However, improving from the 50th percentile to the 99th percentile is much easier than going from the 99th to the 99.9th. There are a huge number of tiny details pros know that masters player's do not, and over the course of a game they add up. This is why someone like ROOTDestiny can get to platinum league only making queens. Because going from bronze to platinum and even low diamond is mostly a matter of learning how to play fast and efficiently. Going from diamond to masters and beyond is much, much deeper. | ||
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FabledIntegral
United States9232 Posts
On April 12 2011 06:26 CecilSunkure wrote: I'm in the top 1% (actually more top .1%). The top .01% is the top 200 players of Master's league (global), and I don't think I'd be able to very easily take a game off of that. Actually, I bet I'd lose 10/10 times against that. Ok, I have consistency qualified as top 200 or are hovering right outside (typically around 215). I have taken games off the top players no problem, and have also lost games to people far below me. To say that people in the top 0.01% are 1,000x better than people in the top 1% is mindblowing levels of ignorance. The skill differential isn't that much. If you're 1,000x better than someone else, you're not going to drop a single game in a Bo21 or something. It's just highly exaggerated, the tiny nuances of the game that the top tier know and the average masters don't are exactly that, tiny nuances, not mindblowing things that are HOLY CRAP WTF. The difference between top 50% and top 10% is much, much, much larger. I'm not saying that the top 0.1% can't regularly smash the top 1%, I'm just saying that someone in the top 10% will smash someone who is just top 50% much harder. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 12 2011 06:57 FabledIntegral wrote:The difference between top 50% and top 10% is much, much, much larger. I'm not saying that the top 0.1% can't regularly smash the top 1%, I'm just saying that someone in the top 10% will smash someone who is just top 50% much harder. Well I disagree. Also top 200 of what? Top 200 of NA is nothing like the top 200 of KR, so I think you're view is a bit distorted by misjudging where you lie. Anyways, who cares if you've taken some games off of what you think to be top players, or lost some to lower players. We've already established that winning != skill range. | ||
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FabledIntegral
United States9232 Posts
On April 12 2011 07:15 CecilSunkure wrote: Well I disagree. Also top 200 of what? Top 200 of NA is nothing like the top 200 of KR, so I think you're view is a bit distorted by misjudging where you lie. Anyways, who cares if you've taken some games off of what you think to be top players, or lost some to lower players. We've already established that winning != skill range. Winning is exactly what matters. You seem to have quite a distorted view yourself on how large the skill gaps exactly are. You will not win, even occasionally, against someone who is 1,000 times better than you. But it's not even uncommon for someone in the top 1% to beat someone in the top 0.1%. Sure, maybe they'd more than likely lose a Bo9 without winning a single game. But if they played 20 games, they'd probably win at least one. It simply doesn't happen when you're 1,000x better than someone. Yet if you have someone who's around 50%, I'd wager money they couldn't even manage to pull a single game of someone top 10% in a Bo51. The skill difference there is immense, to the point the person in the top 10% knows what an early double gas means, and so forth, while the person sitting in gold league has utterly NO concept of timings, even from allins. You find gold players that still miss their first depot, or have idle scvs sitting for 10+ seconds within a few minutes into the game. In short - if you were 1,000x better than someone you could EASILY beat those calibre of players in a 1v3 or 1v4. There's no way even MC or MVP could beat 2 of me at once in a 1v2. Yet I've taken Platinum/low Diamonds in 2v1's before. The distance between MC and I is much more marginal (despite the fact he could trounce me repeatedly for the longest time ever) than me and someone in say low diamond (aka my roommate, who I can regularly beat using 60% handicap). | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 12 2011 07:27 FabledIntegral wrote: Winning is exactly what matters. You seem to have quite a distorted view yourself on how large the skill gaps exactly are. You will not win, even occasionally, against someone who is 1,000 times better than you. But it's not even uncommon for someone in the top 1% to beat someone in the top 0.1%. Sure, maybe they'd more than likely lose a Bo9 without winning a single game. But if they played 20 games, they'd probably win at least one. It simply doesn't happen when you're 1,000x better than someone. Yet if you have someone who's around 50%, I'd wager money they couldn't even manage to pull a single game of someone top 10% in a Bo51. The skill difference there is immense, to the point the person in the top 10% knows what an early double gas means, and so forth, while the person sitting in gold league has utterly NO concept of timings, even from allins. You find gold players that still miss their first depot, or have idle scvs sitting for 10+ seconds within a few minutes into the game. Okay now we're going in circles. I'm in the top 1% (actually more top .1%). The top .01% is the top 200 players of Master's league (global), and I don't think I'd be able to very easily take a game off of that. I would lose a BoAnything against the top 200 of the world. Sounds like you're talking about top 1% and top .01% of Master's league on NA, when I've been referring globally the whole time. | ||
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FabledIntegral
United States9232 Posts
On April 12 2011 07:32 CecilSunkure wrote: Okay now we're going in circles. I'm in the top 1% (actually more top .1%). The top .01% is the top 200 players of Master's league (global), and I don't think I'd be able to very easily take a game off of that. I would lose a BoAnything against the top 200 of the world. Sounds like you're talking about top 1% and top .01% of Master's league on NA, when I've been referring globally the whole time. Irrelevant if it's global or not, considering I've taken games off top players that play on the international scene. Highest calibre player I can think of is Fenix. Also, if players were 1,000x better they could trounce us even with their offraces, but I've beat both TT1 and Strelok on their offraces before. It's not a massively skill discrepancy like you say, which is why you hear players like Avilo saying he's beaten the top tiered players as well. What you're saying is just simply not true, it's blatantly and utterly false. You're comparing members that are solidly in Diamond at top 10% to those who are meager in Gold. Gold players don't have a clue what they're doing, Diamond players can go with semi-refined builds, react to opponent's, etc. You're going to tell me that the skill differential there is not only less than those between the top .1% and .01%, but it's hundreds of times less? EDIT: In short, what you're essentially saying is that someone who was an A (possibly A-) in BW is 1,000x worse than someone who was Olympic status on iCCup, and that someone who was a B/B+ on iCCuP is only 10x better than someone who is a TERRIBLE D- player (D- was still probably better htan 50% of the starcraft community). It's ABSURD. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 12 2011 07:38 FabledIntegral wrote: I'm about .1%, oGs players are about .01%. Yes, I'd say they are 100 times better than me (probably more). Yes, I think this skill difference is larger than Diamond to Gold.You're going to tell me that the skill differential there is not only less than those between the top .1% and .01%, but it's hundreds of times less? Edit: On April 12 2011 07:38 FabledIntegral wrote: Irrelevant if it's global or not It kinda is relevant, as the population of global to local makes the skill difference to percentage ratio very different. | ||
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FabledIntegral
United States9232 Posts
On April 12 2011 07:41 CecilSunkure wrote: I'm about .1%, oGs players are about .01%. Yes, I'd say they are 100 times better than me (probably more). Yes, I think this skill difference is larger than Diamond to Gold. Edit: It kinda is relevant, as the population of global to local makes the skill difference to percentage ratio very different. First of all, you said 1000x difference. Second, you're not just saying that "the skill difference between mid-Gold and mid-Diamond is smaller than the skill difference between top 0.1% and top 0.01%" (which is preposterous in itself), you're saying that it's not just smaller, but 100x smaller. As I said before, how do you account that an oGs would undoubtedly lose in a 1v2 vs two players of my calibre, but a top 10% leveled Diamond player could easily beat two Gold level players? I would simply WALK over MC if I had two of me, but he's supposed to be 1,000x better than me?! Hardly! I just don't understand your logic in why you think this. | ||
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To3-Knee
Canada100 Posts
Now, I'm not saying I agree with the differences stated by Cecil. However, I don't think it is far off (if not pretty correct) to what is true. I think as an example of skill difference, it is true. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 12 2011 08:04 FabledIntegral wrote:First of all, you said 1000x difference. Second, you're not just saying that "the skill difference between mid-Gold and mid-Diamond is smaller than the skill difference between top 0.1% and top 0.01%" (which is preposterous in itself), you're saying that it's not just smaller, but 100x smaller. As I said before, how do you account that an oGs would undoubtedly lose in a 1v2 vs two players of my calibre, but a top 10% leveled Diamond player could easily beat two Gold level players? I would simply WALK over MC if I had two of me, but he's supposed to be 1,000x better than me?! Hardly! I just don't understand your logic in why you think this. .1 -> .01 = 100x is the same as 1 -> .01 = 1000x. Also it's not fair to say that skill in 1v1 necessarily = winning, and is very unfair to say that skill in 1v1 = ability to win 1v2. What you're seeing when a Diamond beats 2 Gold players, is a smaller skill difference, but at that level of play the benefit from that skill difference translates into winning much more efficiently. As you get higher ranked it becomes harder for a rise in skill to equal a rise in rank. You're simply describing the effects that I detailed in the OP showing I'm right. On April 12 2011 08:08 To3-Knee wrote: Fabled Integral, I think you have the idea that skill comparison to performance is linear. Ah! Thanks! This is what I was trying to say. The higher ranked you are the more skill it takes it rise in ranks. Thus, at lower levels of player a smaller skill difference between to players translates into a major discrepancy in win/loss ratios between the two. Like I said in the OP, the skill to rank ratio is non-linear. | ||
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FabledIntegral
United States9232 Posts
On April 12 2011 08:08 CecilSunkure wrote: .1 -> .01 = 100x is the same as 1 -> .01 = 1000x. Also it's not fair to say that skill in 1v1 necessarily = winning, and is very unfair to say that skill in 1v1 = ability to win 1v2. What you're seeing when a Diamond beats 2 Gold players, is a smaller skill difference, but at that level of play the benefit from that skill difference translates into winning much more efficiently. As you get higher ranked it becomes harder for a rise in skill to equal a rise in rank. You're simply describing the effects that I detailed in the OP showing I'm right. ".1 -> .01 = 100x is the same as 1 -> .01 = 1000x." Care to explain that? Because you already said it was exponential, but whatever. That doesn't hold whatsoever with any of the math you tried to present thus far. I can better comprehend what you're saying now, at the very least, when you state that as you get higher ranked it becomes harder for a rise in skill to equal a rise in rank. But you're massively, massively overestimating the skill differentials and I'd maintain in a second that the skill difference between Gold and mid-Diamond is unquestionably larger (let alone 100x smaller) than that between 0.1% and 0.01%. You'd have a much, much better case if it were BW, but even in BW it wasn't even remotely as different as you're attempting to portray it (I'm only so insistent on this topic because it felt like reading a sensationalist tabloid). Would you argue a person who's A-/A in BW iCCuP is a full 1,000x less skilled than Olympic status, but a person who's B+ is only 10x more skilled than someone who is D- status? | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 12 2011 08:18 FabledIntegral wrote: ".1 -> .01 = 100x is the same as 1 -> .01 = 1000x." Care to explain that? Because you already said it was exponential, but whatever. That doesn't hold whatsoever with any of the math you tried to present thus far Well okay, non-linear, as in a changing ratio depending on where you lie. The exact numbers I have are definitely off, but probably not by much. So for example in lower areas, perhaps the jump of top 1% to top .1% could, for example, be a 10x jump. But the jump from .1 to .01 could be 100x (just as an example, not that is is the exact case). Sorry for saying it confusingly, but I'm somewhere between the top 1 and .1% of players, so you could say I'm somewhere around 100-1000 times worse than oGs players, which I think is realistic. On April 12 2011 08:18 FabledIntegral wrote: But you're massively, massively overestimating the skill differentials and I'd maintain in a second that the skill difference between Gold and mid-Diamond is unquestionably larger (let alone 100x smaller) than that between 0.1% and 0.01%. You'd have a much, much better case if it were BW, but even in BW it wasn't even remotely as different as you're attempting to portray it (I'm only so insistent on this topic because it felt like reading a sensationalist tabloid). I think you're still confusing skill difference with winning differences. Winning is not the end all be all of measure skill. A small skill jump of a Gold player can improve their play drastically, thus bumping them into Diamond. This can be as simple as constantly making probes, pylons, and army units from their production facilities. I think we'd both agree that the skill of making probes, pylons, and army units from production facilities isn't a very large skill jump, but it makes it so a diamond player will defeat anyone in gold league that doesn't do those things properly. Now, if I'm about .1% and oGs players are about .01%, then how could the skill difference between me and oGs players be smaller than simply making making probes, pylons, and army units from production facilities? oGs players have vast skillsets, strategies, and a very deep understanding of the game that sets them apart from me. The vast vast differences in skills between me and an oGs player still only makes them jump ahead of .09% of the total population, even though back in gold league to diamond league the tiny skill difference can make players jump over like 30% of the population. On April 12 2011 08:18 FabledIntegral wrote: Would you argue a person who's A-/A in BW iCCuP is a full 1,000x less skilled than Olympic status, but a person who's B+ is only 10x more skilled than someone who is D- status? Absolutely not. The population of iCCup is much different than the global SC2 ladder. | ||
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posistomp
9 Posts
Cecil, I want to thank you for this guide. Applying the stuff you wrote helped me really analyze my play a ton. Today I hit Masters and it felt really great. I appreciate you taking the time to do this to help the community. =] | ||
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FabledIntegral
United States9232 Posts
On April 12 2011 08:30 CecilSunkure wrote: Well okay, non-linear, as in a changing ratio depending on where you lie. The exact numbers I have are definitely off, but probably not by much. So for example in lower areas, perhaps the jump of top 1% to top .1% could, for example, be a 10x jump. But the jump from .1 to .01 could be 100x (just as an example, not that is is the exact case). Sorry for saying it confusingly, but I'm somewhere between the top 1 and .1% of players, so you could say I'm somewhere around 100-1000 times worse than oGs players, which I think is realistic. I think you're still confusing skill difference with winning differences. Winning is not the end all be all of measure skill. A small skill jump of a Gold player can improve their play drastically, thus bumping them into Diamond. This can be as simple as constantly making probes, pylons, and army units from their production facilities. I think we'd both agree that the skill of making probes, pylons, and army units from production facilities isn't a very large skill jump, but it makes it so a diamond player will defeat anyone in gold league that doesn't do those things properly. Now, if I'm about .1% and oGs players are about .01%, then how could the skill difference between me and oGs players be smaller than simply making making probes, pylons, and army units from production facilities? oGs players have vast skillsets, strategies, and a very deep understanding of the game that sets them apart from me. The vast vast differences in skills between me and an oGs player still only makes them jump ahead of .09% of the total population, even though back in gold league to diamond league the tiny skill difference can make players jump over like 30% of the population. Well, now I think I think I'm just coming to the conclusion you came to before I did, that we're just going to be going in circles! At the very least, I'll agree with you in that I gave a flawed example concerning the 1v2's earlier, as I would agree that it's not linear as the other poster (sorry, forgot the name!) mentioned earlier. But beyond that, I just think you're completely wrong. But then we're just determining numbers, while you think that there's a 100x difference between top 0.1% and top 0.01%, I'd say there's like a ~2-3x difference. On April 12 2011 08:18 FabledIntegral wrote: Would you argue a person who's A-/A in BW iCCuP is a full 1,000x less skilled than Olympic status, but a person who's B+ is only 10x more skilled than someone who is D- status? Absolutely not. The population of iCCup is much different than the global SC2 ladder.[/QUOTE] I wasn't comparing specifically to the population of iCCup, otherwise D- would refer to the bottom 20%ish or whatever it is, I was referring to the global BW population, where someone of D- calibre (obviously not like 100pts losing everything, but maintaining themselves around 800+ points) would represent a mid-gold level player. In short, I think you're vastly, vastly overestimating the skill differential, but as I said before, we're going in circles now (well, you said it first, sorry if I dragged it along). | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 12 2011 09:02 FabledIntegral wrote: But beyond that, I just think you're completely wrong. But then we're just determining numbers, while you think that there's a 100x difference between top 0.1% and top 0.01%, I'd say there's like a ~2-3x difference. Well I'll take that as a compliment I suppose. If you want to think GSL players are only 2-3x better than me go ahead... | ||
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FabledIntegral
United States9232 Posts
On April 12 2011 09:05 CecilSunkure wrote: Well I'll take that as a compliment I suppose. If you want to think GSL players are only 2-3x better than me go ahead... I think even you're underestimating how much that is... take what you have, completely double that knowledge base, and you're possibly at the bare minimum they are... you have to encompass everything when looking at school, including knowledge of the basics, mechanics, etc. I think it'd be safe to say their mechanics aren't even remotely close to 100x better than yours, so there's a lot of things bringing it down. | ||
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Alaz
108 Posts
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gr8ape
Canada302 Posts
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 12 2011 09:28 gr8ape wrote: Hey cecil have you read "Play to win" by David sirlin? No, I have not. Why do you ask? | ||
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gr8ape
Canada302 Posts
Youre gonna love this, basically a book on competitive gaming, from chess to street fighter (sirlin himself was a street fighter player) Very good read. http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/ (whole book) | ||
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SpectralFremen
Australia386 Posts
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Arisen
United States2382 Posts
"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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dicksonlam708
Canada31 Posts
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
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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Arisen
United States2382 Posts
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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Zektgn
United States71 Posts
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PoisedYeTi
Australia167 Posts
'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 + ![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Perpendicular-coloured.svg) '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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kingJY
United States39 Posts
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MilAgro
Germany102 Posts
I continue reading and hope its gets better. | ||
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infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
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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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
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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iamke55
United States2806 Posts
On April 14 2011 02:46 CecilSunkure wrote: 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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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 14 2011 02:54 iamke55 wrote: 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
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ZeroTalent
United States297 Posts
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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p1cKLes
United States342 Posts
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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TimeSpiral
United States1010 Posts
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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Albrithe
Canada187 Posts
On April 08 2011 23:42 Albrithe wrote: 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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Skroach
United States85 Posts
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Babru
196 Posts
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
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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kawaiiryuko
United States368 Posts
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 15 2011 07:45 kawaiiryuko wrote: Using windows 7, I turned off "Enhance Pointer Precision" which seems to have the same effect as turning off mouse acceleration. Is this the same thing? If so, it seems a lot easier than doing a registry edit, no? Or am I confused? Nope, it's not the same. In the link I provided there is a program that outputs the movements read by the mouse and the movements of the cursor. You can load it up, move the mouse around, and if the numbers on the left column are different from the numbers on the right, you don't have a 1:1 ratio (which you want to have ideally). Gotta follow the steps detailed in my guide. | ||
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the9thdude
United States41 Posts
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Klappsn
Germany5 Posts
 if every sc2 player would read this (and use it) the na+eu ladders would get to a whole new level, imho. | ||
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FenneK
France1231 Posts
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TheWindupMan
1 Post
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Circos
United Kingdom115 Posts
Good, but unnecessary. User was temp banned for this post. | ||
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TooN
1046 Posts
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HaakonM
Norway2 Posts
"Once you have three builds going (one for each matchup) then stick with those three until you can execute those three perfectly you can start messing with lots of other build orders." I think you see it yourself | ||
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Crugio
Australia45 Posts
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Deep.inside
Sweden9 Posts
Just started to play and need all the tips one can get! This thread delivered! | ||
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charliexjustice
United States42 Posts
Now, on to my questions: regarding mouse settings, I read in this post that Windows mouse settings have no effect on Starcraft 2, and that all that is necessary to achieve a 1:1 mouse movement/cursor movement ratio is to change the in game sensitivity to anywhere between 51-54% and deactivate "Enhance pointer precision" in Windows (this seems to contradict the previous statement, but that's what the OP says). The OP seems to have researched this well and be fairly knowledgeable about the subject (of course, this doesn't prove he's right). I am not calling you a liar, and I hope that it does not come off that way as I have a great deal of respect for you as a player, and I appreciate this guide. I just want a clear answer before I tamper with my registry files, as your post and his contradict each other and I'm not sure who is right. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=165625 Another question regarding screen scrolling and use of the minimap: Is screen scrolling an ABSOLUTE no-no? I have been doing custom games vs both AI and human opponents today and yesterday with screen scrolling disabled, and it has been a very useful exercise for increasing minimap use, but find it very difficult to micro manage battles without scrolling. It seems less efficient to use the minimap in this case, particularly when being stim kited by a terran player whose units keep running off screen. Day 9 actually mentions in #252 that "There are some times when screen scrolling is useful..." but then trails off and never quite gets back to the subject. Do you ladder with screen scrolling deactivated, or are there specific scenarios where screen scrolling is considered acceptable technique? I went through all 20 something pages of replies to see if these questions were addressed, and I was unable to find them. If they have already, I apologize for the redundancy. Once again, thanks for the guide! | ||
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charliexjustice
United States42 Posts
By the way, I speak from experience. I basically quit school when I was your age and went on tour with my band, played shows in more countries than I can count and shared the stage with my musical idols. Never got rich or famous, but I am now almost 25 and about to finish school. Sorry for the digression from the subject of gameplay, but one thing I can’t stand is young people being criticized for the pursuit of their dreams, especially someone as talented as yourself. Judging your analytical and logical abilities by the quality of your writing, I’m sure you’ll make the right decision. “It is better to regret doing something, than to regret not doing something.” | ||
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MilAgro
Germany102 Posts
Its the only improvement you can make | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 19 2011 14:30 charliexjustice wrote: First of all, great guide. Thanks very much for taking the time to write this up. Other posts about BO's looked great too, I will be lurking all of your posts from now on. Now, on to my questions: regarding mouse settings, I read in this post that Windows mouse settings have no effect on Starcraft 2, and that all that is necessary to achieve a 1:1 mouse movement/cursor movement ratio is to change the in game sensitivity to anywhere between 51-54% and deactivate "Enhance pointer precision" in Windows (this seems to contradict the previous statement, but that's what the OP says). The OP seems to have researched this well and be fairly knowledgeable about the subject (of course, this doesn't prove he's right). I am not calling you a liar, and I hope that it does not come off that way as I have a great deal of respect for you as a player, and I appreciate this guide. I just want a clear answer before I tamper with my registry files, as your post and his contradict each other and I'm not sure who is right. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=165625 Another question regarding screen scrolling and use of the minimap: Is screen scrolling an ABSOLUTE no-no? I have been doing custom games vs both AI and human opponents today and yesterday with screen scrolling disabled, and it has been a very useful exercise for increasing minimap use, but find it very difficult to micro manage battles without scrolling. It seems less efficient to use the minimap in this case, particularly when being stim kited by a terran player whose units keep running off screen. Day 9 actually mentions in #252 that "There are some times when screen scrolling is useful..." but then trails off and never quite gets back to the subject. Do you ladder with screen scrolling deactivated, or are there specific scenarios where screen scrolling is considered acceptable technique? I went through all 20 something pages of replies to see if these questions were addressed, and I was unable to find them. If they have already, I apologize for the redundancy. Once again, thanks for the guide! Actually that post you linked is right, but looks like it assumes that mouse acceleration is off. That other post was just talking about how to set the SC2 slider, and you want it at 51%. Now to turn off acceleration you must use the proper registry file to edit your registry, as the "turning off enhanced precision" button is not enough in Windows 7 to turn off acceleration. On April 19 2011 15:39 charliexjustice wrote: On another note, I have noticed many posters discouraging you from delaying your college education in order to pursue professional starcraft, as though not making tons of money from it will somehow ruin your life (it won’t). College will ALWAYS be there, while the window of opportunity for a chance at pro SC could be limited. As far as the consequences of delaying college go, the worst case scenario is you move back into your parents house and attend community college, then transfer to uni. BIG DEAL. You are obviously very talented and very young, and it there is no telling how far Starcraft could take you. Don’t let doubters and so-called “practical” adults discourage you with their vague threats of consequences. By the way, I speak from experience. I basically quit school when I was your age and went on tour with my band, played shows in more countries than I can count and shared the stage with my musical idols. Never got rich or famous, but I am now almost 25 and about to finish school. Sorry for the digression from the subject of gameplay, but one thing I can’t stand is young people being criticized for the pursuit of their dreams, especially someone as talented as yourself. Judging your analytical and logical abilities by the quality of your writing, I’m sure you’ll make the right decision. “It is better to regret doing something, than to regret not doing something.” Thanks, I definitely appreciate your words. However I've recently found that I don't enjoy playing SC2 as much as I thought I would. I actually enjoyed improving myself as a player, more than playing at the level that I do now. So, I've decided to attend this school for computer science. | ||
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GCVeila
United States39 Posts
Hopefully you will get me out of gold :3 | ||
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sJarl
Iceland1699 Posts
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 20 2011 07:30 sJarl wrote: Thank you for this awesome thread. You are welcome | ||
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rastaban
United States2294 Posts
On April 20 2011 02:53 CecilSunkure wrote: Actually that post you linked is right, but looks like it assumes that mouse acceleration is off. That other post was just talking about how to set the SC2 slider, and you want it at 51%. Now to turn off acceleration you must use the proper registry file to edit your registry, as the "turning off enhanced precision" button is not enough in Windows 7 to turn off acceleration. Thanks, I definitely appreciate your words. However I've recently found that I don't enjoy playing SC2 as much as I thought I would. I actually enjoyed improving myself as a player, more than playing at the level that I do now. So, I've decided to attend this school for computer science. Thanks for clarifying, I had thought the enhanced precision was enough, I will be using the program tonight and hopefully getting things fixed. Also I have been following your guide, I picked a single build for each matchup, practiced it a bunch until I thought I was ready and then went on line. Sadly I kept losing but then I remembered you said you have to be willing to lose. So I stuck with it and along with trying to play every day have since started seeing drastic improvements in my play. I still have a long way to go, but just seeing the improvements so far has been great. Thanks, | ||
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GnarKill
Canada68 Posts
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 26 2011 23:42 GnarKill wrote: I fully agree with the goal setting aspect you mentioned. At the start of April I set a goal to become top 1000 in NA starting from about 2000th. Now I am ranked 500 in masters, so if you throw in GM too im about 700 NA. I even passed you on ladder Cecil T_T. It is important to set goals that are measurable and attainable, and do your best to meet them. Hehe, don't take my ladder score too seriously But dang that's great to hear about you guys improving with the help of my article! Makes me incredibly glad I wrote it, if even just a few people improve with it. | ||
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Bamm
Sweden279 Posts
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Masky
Spain4 Posts
i got some questions, and since i just joined the website to be able to reply here it seems i cant write a new post Im new to Sc2, just started on silver and im finding build orders very interesting way to learn macro and the game in general, but need some help. Im playing with protoss and ive decided to start learning one build for each matchup, like u suggest here. For PvP im going 4gate push. Its fast and furious and it gets things done rather quickly. My question here would be: why not a second gas, would it make such a difference at these levels to get it, and when is it convenient to get it? If the attack doesnt work and he manages to defend it with immortals, how do i continue? Is expanding once enough? Vs Terran i do this 'genius' build, with gate-robo-gate with many sentries and fast expand, but i find that after i make a fast observer, my robo sits idle for a while (i dont do colossi till i have 2 bases mining) cos immortals are not that great vs Terran unless he goes for tanks (and still its hard to make good use of them) so wouldnt it be easier to do the 2 gates and then a late robo? I mean, since i have so many sentries i might as well go for hallucination instead of fast observers. Theres a gap vs Terran where i only have gate units and its very hard to stop a MM attack, how could i refine this build? vs Zerg I havent played much but i play the mass sentry and expand, then go deathball. Havent had the chance to try it much tho. Does anyone here have replay packs with these builds? I find it hard for some reason to get replays in SC2. Its mostly vods but since i live in china the great firewall blocks everything. thanks! | ||
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
The people in the top .01% are 1000 times better than the people in the top 1% Was very surprised at the amount of debate going on between Cecil and Fab at this. My eyes glazed over at this exaggeration to convey a greater point: when you get to the higher part of the leagues, improving your play to go from diamond to masters is way FAR away from going masters to professional gamer's play. Quantifying that with numbers is way to subjective to be all that useful of a discussion, considering the intended audience. | ||
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Caz32
United Kingdom2 Posts
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On April 27 2011 18:52 Masky wrote: thanks so much man i got some questions, and since i just joined the website to be able to reply here it seems i cant write a new post Im new to Sc2, just started on silver and im finding build orders very interesting way to learn macro and the game in general, but need some help. Im playing with protoss and ive decided to start learning one build for each matchup, like u suggest here. For PvP im going 4gate push. Its fast and furious and it gets things done rather quickly. My question here would be: why not a second gas, would it make such a difference at these levels to get it, and when is it convenient to get it? If the attack doesnt work and he manages to defend it with immortals, how do i continue? Is expanding once enough? Vs Terran i do this 'genius' build, with gate-robo-gate with many sentries and fast expand, but i find that after i make a fast observer, my robo sits idle for a while (i dont do colossi till i have 2 bases mining) cos immortals are not that great vs Terran unless he goes for tanks (and still its hard to make good use of them) so wouldnt it be easier to do the 2 gates and then a late robo? I mean, since i have so many sentries i might as well go for hallucination instead of fast observers. Theres a gap vs Terran where i only have gate units and its very hard to stop a MM attack, how could i refine this build? vs Zerg I havent played much but i play the mass sentry and expand, then go deathball. Havent had the chance to try it much tho. Does anyone here have replay packs with these builds? I find it hard for some reason to get replays in SC2. Its mostly vods but since i live in china the great firewall blocks everything. thanks! Find replays of PvP players that get into the situation you are curious about, and then mimic them. For vs Terran, I suggest finding a replay where someone delays their robo or just does a 2 Gate FE, and then mimic them. And of course the same goes for PvZ I won't give you my own answers, as you'll both feel more gratified and learn it much better if you figure it out on your own by searching for and studying replays of pro players. Edit: Set 3 | ||
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Genome852
United States979 Posts
On April 03 2011 13:14 CecilSunkure wrote: Nope, it's not the same. In the link I provided there is a program that outputs the movements read by the mouse and the movements of the cursor. You can load it up, move the mouse around, and if the numbers on the left column are different from the numbers on the right, you don't have a 1:1 ratio (which you want to have ideally). Gotta follow the steps detailed in my guide. This is incorrect. Disabling "enhance pointer precision" disables mouse acceleration within the cursor entirely. You can verify this with the mouse testing software included in the MarkC download. MarkC mouse fix / cheese mouse fix / CPL mouse fix only disable acceleration in older games that force "enhance pointer precision" on (CS 1.6 I believe does this, for example). It has zero effect on SC2. I contacted MarkC and he clarified this for me. I asked, "Do CPL mouse fix / Cheese`s mouse fix / your mouse fix actually do anything in games that DON`T turn on "enhance pointer precision" by default? For example, using the cursor in Windows 7 desktop, or in Starcraft 2." Response: "No, they don't do anything, they have no effect, when EPP is off." (ie. the fix does not affect SC2). Of course you should install the mouse fix anyways I think. I'm really glad the OP included the mouse accel. / control section though. I'm happy to see there are more people concerned with proper mouse controls in games... too many recent games (mostly multiplatform and Unreal Engine games) have forced mouse smoothing and acceleration issues (BioShock, Mass Effect, GTA4, Bulletstorm, BFBC2 before they somewhat remedied it with a patch) that make some otherwise great games nearly unplayable. Perhaps one day developers will put more effort into perfecting mouse controls like Valve have done with the Source Engine (props to valve). /side-rant. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On May 01 2011 12:25 Genome852 wrote: This is incorrect. Disabling "enhance pointer precision" disables mouse acceleration within the cursor entirely. You can verify this with the mouse testing software included in the MarkC download. MarkC mouse fix / cheese mouse fix / CPL mouse fix only disable acceleration in older games that force "enhance pointer precision" on (CS 1.6 I believe does this, for example). It has zero effect on SC2. I contacted MarkC and he clarified this for me. I asked, "Do CPL mouse fix / Cheese`s mouse fix / your mouse fix actually do anything in games that DON`T turn on "enhance pointer precision" by default? For example, using the cursor in Windows 7 desktop, or in Starcraft 2." Response: "No, they don't do anything, they have no effect, when EPP is off." (ie. the fix does not affect SC2). Of course you should install the mouse fix anyways I think. I'm really glad the OP included the mouse accel. / control section though. I'm happy to see there are more people concerned with proper mouse controls in games... too many recent games (mostly multiplatform and Unreal Engine games) have forced mouse smoothing and acceleration issues (BioShock, Mass Effect, GTA4, Bulletstorm, BFBC2 before they somewhat remedied it with a patch) that make some otherwise great games nearly unplayable. Perhaps one day developers will put more effort into perfecting mouse controls like Valve have done with the Source Engine (props to valve). /side-rant. Thanks, I fixed that section with updated information. I've also added some new updates to various sections, most importantly 4.01 where I detail about using one specific race, not multiple ones. I'll be releasing a PDF version sometime in the near future, so if anyone has anymore suggestions or questions you best ask them now! | ||
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poboxy
Canada48 Posts
Thanks, I fixed that section with updated information. I've also added some new updates to various sections, most importantly 4.01 where I detail about using one specific race, not multiple ones. I'll be releasing a PDF version sometime in the near future, so if anyone has anymore suggestions or questions you best ask them now! I already created a PDF, from a crappy LaTeX file. Source. | ||
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thelastmccabe
1 Post
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PaPoolee
United Arab Emirates660 Posts
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Lamp4life
Netherlands1 Post
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SoKHo
Korea (South)1081 Posts
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Icebergue
Portugal9 Posts
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dUTtrOACh
Canada2339 Posts
I'll try and talk them into checking this out. Such a good guide. Thanks. | ||
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EternalSC
Sweden313 Posts
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gorchiza
Bulgaria200 Posts
First about the mouse I did everything , but I feel it a little fast the mouse speed. I did not get from the text what should I do. I have razer so I think there is some good sensitivity. Should I change it down or need to be higher ? Second the opinion , is it enough for a goal , or is it a clear goal like this "win 2 matches in GSL qualifieres" ? or should be defenetely some sort of the examples ? thx in advance for the answers ! hope its not too stupid what I am asking. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On May 15 2011 20:21 gorchiza wrote: I have a basic question , because I did not understand one part of the document, and I need an opinion. First about the mouse I did everything , but I feel it a little fast the mouse speed. I did not get from the text what should I do. I have razer so I think there is some good sensitivity. Should I change it down or need to be higher ? Second the opinion , is it enough for a goal , or is it a clear goal like this "win 2 matches in GSL qualifieres" ? or should be defenetely some sort of the examples ? thx in advance for the answers ! hope its not too stupid what I am asking. I think that goal is perfectly fine! Although with the movement speed you can just set the slider down a little bit within SC2. If your mouse allows you to adjust your DPI settings, that would be better than moving the slider. | ||
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simme123
Sweden810 Posts
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BlacKcuD
Germany106 Posts
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EnOmy
Australia183 Posts
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ShnAndrei
Romania164 Posts
I am currently a 'top' gold level player on the EU server. I just read the entire thread and I have to say it took me about 2 hours and a half (maybe I am a slow reader :s). So I can only imagine how much time it took you to write it and I fully appreciate it. Thank you for taking so much of your time in making this elaborated thread on improving. Some of the things I've read are also stated by Day[9] in his dailies. I also found some helpful things to know, but above all it was great to hear the opinion of a top level player that was talking through experience. It is always great to know how another player got where he is and I find it priceless when he is sharing the way he achieved that with the rest of us. I have some questions that bother me though, because I never did the build 'emulating' thing. I perfectly agree with you on focusing on one single build until having some sense of macro, and I did this unwillingly before getting to silver (doing only the 3rax build the best I could). But what I want to ask you is if it is really important to copy a professional player's build. I find it pretty hard to do, because I know those builds have lots of twists depending on what the opponent does, and I couldn't know all of those twists even if I study a lot of replays of that player. Also, some of those builds are hard to pull of by low level players, because some of them are demanding great micro (like the risky 1 rax FE build) or are very risky if you are not an experienced player. The questions: (!) 1. How can we distinguish the safe builds that we can also pull off, from the ones that are only pro-oriented? 2. Wouldn't it be easier for us to plan our own games and learn from mistakes if we think our strategies are good enough for our current leagues (and improve the builds while meeting better and better players, until they are perfect)? Yes, I know I suck and that I should be humble. It's just that I find it very hard to understand what is in a top player's head when he performs a build and I am also unaware if that strategy is good for improving. (!!!) 3. And finally, if I got to gold (and meeting platinum players) with some 'build orders' of my own that I perform against each of the three races, would it still be better for me to abandon everything I gained regarding the refinement of those build orders and try to borrow a build from a professional (I would really like to hear your opinion on this)? | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On May 23 2011 04:30 ShnAndrei wrote: Hi Cecil, I am currently a 'top' gold level player on the EU server. I just read the entire thread and I have to say it took me about 2 hours and a half (maybe I am a slow reader :s). So I can only imagine how much time it took you to write it and I fully appreciate it. Thank you for taking so much of your time in making this elaborated thread on improving. Some of the things I've read are also stated by Day[9] in his dailies. I also found some helpful things to know, but above all it was great to hear the opinion of a top level player that was talking through experience. It is always great to know how another player got where he is and I find it priceless when he is sharing the way he achieved that with the rest of us. I have some questions that bother me though, because I never did the build 'emulating' thing. I perfectly agree with you on focusing on one single build until having some sense of macro, and I did this unwillingly before getting to silver (doing only the 3rax build the best I could). But what I want to ask you is if it is really important to copy a professional player's build. I find it pretty hard to do, because I know those builds have lots of twists depending on what the opponent does, and I couldn't know all of those twists even if I study a lot of replays of that player. Also, some of those builds are hard to pull of by low level players, because some of them are demanding great micro (like the risky 1 rax FE build) or are very risky if you are not an experienced player. The questions: (!) 1. How can we distinguish the safe builds that we can also pull off, from the ones that are only pro-oriented? 2. Wouldn't it be easier for us to plan our own games and learn from mistakes if we think our strategies are good enough for our current leagues (and improve the builds while meeting better and better players, until they are perfect)? Yes, I know I suck and that I should be humble. It's just that I find it very hard to understand what is in a top player's head when he performs a build and I am also unaware if that strategy is good for improving. (!!!) 3. And finally, if I got to gold (and meeting platinum players) with some 'build orders' of my own that I perform against each of the three races, would it still be better for me to abandon everything I gained regarding the refinement of those build orders and try to borrow a build from a professional (I would really like to hear your opinion on this)? This is really wordy. I'm just trying to help you out when I say this; anytime you message someone that might be a busy person that gets a lot of questions, make it as concise as possible. Because I'm a really really busy dude, but I hate to not answer questions people ask me, because I'd hate it if I sent a message to someone just to have it ignored. To answer your question, yes you have to copy other people's builds, if it wasn't necessary I wouldn't have made it nearly the entire piece's focus. Also, it isn't very hard. You just mimic the overall idea. The subtle variations or deviations don't really matter, as I never even talked about them in the article. I only mentioned learning the purpose of a build through trial and error. If a high level player is playing a high level player, and both are playing mind games or reacting to obtained info, then you will never experience that sort of thing at a Gold level. In the sub Master's level of play the defining factor of who wins is wholly determined by who has more stuff. So just copy the standard play build pros do and you'll be sure to have to most units possible at the right times with the best possible economy. A top player's head isn't mysterious or profound as most people would think it to be. A top player's head can simply think strategically while playing and has a very solid base of experience, and excellent mechanics. The reason they can think strategically is because their mechanics are so great that they don't need to focus to perform the tasks necessary to play, and instead can think about other things. It's like a hierarchy of needs. First in order to play, you need to be able to input actions into the game. Second, you need to be able to input the right actions (macro). Third you need to be able to input lots of precise actions and manage your units effectively (micro, macro, mechanics). Lastly once all previous things have become muscle-memory you can start thinking about things like game sense and decision making. So, you are in gold because you cannot macro. You cannot macro because you have convinced yourself that it's too hard to copy better players, probably because you are just too lazy to go do it. So then you justify not doing it with "Well I'll never learn the intricacies of the build so I might as well learn nothing about it". when in fact, learning intricacies of builds at your level is like learning to do a gymnastic performance when you have trouble with a somersault. | ||
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ShnAndrei
Romania164 Posts
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vincentlee
China1 Post
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Svizcy
Slovenia300 Posts
This topic should be featured at top imho so if any mods are reading this... good day, svizcy | ||
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Swap
Sweden144 Posts
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On May 24 2011 16:34 Swap wrote: Great write up Cecil, finally had time to read it all. I do miss your commentaries from wcreplays too Wrong Cecil, this one is different | ||
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ZeroTalent
United States297 Posts
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=216550 They're not perfect, but they're a very good tool for improving your macro. It might be worth including a link to the thread in the "Improving your Macro" section. I was working on something like this but Major's map is much better than anything I have ATM . | ||
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kuro466
United States19 Posts
1) Since the guide gets into nitty-gritty details of hand positioning and mouse settings, I recommend adding game-configuration suggestions. (a) set "show unit status bars" to "always" (b) set "menu bar mode" to "unclickable" or "hidden" (c) set "control groups" to "unclickable" (d) check (turn on) "show game timer" ------- 2) I play zerg, and I found it much easier to learn micro before macro, by starting with shorter simpler games through early aggression builds. I'm currently no pro (only platinum 1v1), but back when I was silver/gold I read similar guides suggesting learning macro first. I found this method incredibly frustrating as macro zerg play needs to effectively master too many skills at once... a) macro zerg players have to have decent micro during engagements to have a chance to win them. a-move a zerg army into a similar sized T/P army, even with reasonable composition, and zerg will much more frequently lose. b) macro zerg players have to scout to know what midgame build to use. It's commonly discussed that zerg is the reactive race... we need to know what the enemy is building to know how to be prepared. Fighting off a 7m banshee push requires very different units than fighting off a 7m 6-rax marine push. New zerg players frequently complain about the difficulty scouting behind the wall. Even Idra recently complained about it in a 'state of the game'. As a new zerg player, my multi-tasking skills were very poor, and the more energy I focused on scouting, the more my macro slipped, and vice versa. c) macro zerg players have to decide when to build drones and when to build army. There is no mechanism naturally limiting drone production, so rules like "when you have more than XX minerals make more army production buildings" don't work. For pro zerg, this is heavily dependent on scouting. The beginning player is not great at multi-tasking, and not great at scouting, which makes it easy to make a mistake here and build the wrong amount of army at the wrong time. For all these reasons, in my opinion, telling a zerg to learn to learn macro first is telling them to simultaneously learn micro, scouting , drone/army balance, and macro. For me it was just too much at once. Further, macro games are longer, which not only slows down the feedback cycle, but also makes it easier for a zerg player to make mistakes in all of a/b/c and not know which of them are the most important problem to fix. Eventually I tired of this confusion, and started using early aggression builds. Early aggression builds fix the above problems for new zerg players and allow them to learn one thing at a time. The three main zerg 5m aggression builds (11/10 pool - 7rr, speedling, and speedling/bling) are all relatively short build orders which are easy to practice and execute. They can also easily be shifted into an earlier 4m ling rush if needed. (I also spent a little time learning 6/7/8 pool, because they offer an even smaller realm to learn zerg ling micro. Understanding the mechanics of how they work also helped me learn to beat them.) For me, learning zerg through early aggression meant: a) Focus on zerg micro first. An early aggression build allows you to learn basic engagement positioning and basic micro first, which is critical to succeed as a zerg player. b) Learn scouting without so much pressure. A 5m aggression build reduces the window of opportunity for 6m tech pushes (banshee rush, dt rush, vr rush), which are common and successful against zerg players at low ladder levels. Early aggression reduces the dependence on scouting tech rushes. It also means that the tech-build is often discovered at their base, with only one tech unit is on the field, providing some time to reactively handle it. Even with 4-5m rush builds, there is opportunity for early-game scouting, so that becomes the second challenge. Scouting to compose the right 4-5m rush. Scouting to discover 6m tech pushes, and shift the aggression earlier (to 4m). c) Learn multi-tasking. Early aggression reduces the army vs drones decision complexity. A 5m aggression build has a set number of starting drones before army. After some basic micro and scouting is figured out, a player can apply their focus to multi-tasking. At first this can just mean building more army while attacking, eliminating the need to balance army vs drones. This requires learning to inject and build units while still controlling an army. As soon as this is understood, the player can finally begin to build some more drones during the rush and allow a 4-5m rush to transition into a macro game. At this point, the zerg player has incrementally built up the skills to play a macro game, and by using scouting, and the knowledge he has gained about being reactive with zerg, he can begin a macro game with confidence. This method of starting with micro, and building up skills one by one worked much better for me to learn zerg. Instead of playing for 8-12 minutes to a-move an army which the forums say is a reasonable counter and lose, or worse, get caught by an unexpected tech push -- I could work on one skill at a time. Now when I play a macro game, I better understand what happened to cause a loss, I have the attention to learn to better use later tier units, and I can focus on only a few new challenges each game. Other players (especially zerg) who find themselves frustrated learning macro-first might try a similar route. Very recently, I've enjoyed shifting to the no-gas Ice Fisher opener, because it affords me a larger mineral income to scout with overlords, throw down extra hatches, get a bunch of queens and creep spread, and get an econ advantage before first army contact. In the limited Terran/Toss I've played, the above pattern doesn't seem as prevalent, because (a) the armies are more effective with simple a-move, (b) the armies are more general purpose, and (c) the army defensive strength is realitively larger from 6-8 minutes. As a result, I can see how a focus on macro-style first may be easier with those races. | ||
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IIIOmegaIII
Sweden319 Posts
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upz
Denmark1 Post
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whoso
Germany523 Posts
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charliexjustice
United States42 Posts
So, first of all, thanks very much for those recommended builds! Do you have a recommended "standard" PVP build as well? I read through your guide again and couldn't find one, sorry if I missed it. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On May 30 2011 08:40 charliexjustice wrote: I am a protoss player, and I have been practicing your recommended PVT and PVZ builds exclusively and improving greatly with them. So, first of all, thanks very much for those recommended builds! Do you have a recommended "standard" PVP build as well? I read through your guide again and couldn't find one, sorry if I missed it. Maybe you missed this part... On April 03 2011 13:13 CecilSunkure wrote: This document is not about current strategies or trends, it's about improving the aspects of gameplay that apply to any player despite current strategies or trends. | ||
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blackodd
Sweden451 Posts
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Kleinmuuhg
Vanuatu4091 Posts
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charliexjustice
United States42 Posts
This document is not about current strategies or trends, it's about improving the aspects of gameplay that apply to any player despite current strategies or trends. Yes, I did read that part, and that is overall why I think this is such a great guide, and why I keep coming back to it. However, I also noticed that you had recommended builds for PVT and PVZ with this reasoning: Hands down, the best builds for people to improve with are ones that increase the chances for learning moments to happen. It is my belief that these builds are ones that get the improving player a lot of information, are well-documented on some sort of forum like TeamLiquid.net, and are commonly used by top players. The PvZ and PvT builds you recommended fit that description perfectly, I was just wondering if there was any such PvP build you knew of that fit the description as well. Thanks again for the great guide! | ||
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iStarKraft
United Kingdom79 Posts
On June 01 2011 05:49 charliexjustice wrote: On April 03 2011 13:13 CecilSunkure wrote: This document is not about current strategies or trends, it's about improving the aspects of gameplay that apply to any player despite current strategies or trends. Yes, I did read that part, and that is overall why I think this is such a great guide, and why I keep coming back to it. However, I also noticed that you had recommended builds for PVT and PVZ with this reasoning: The PvZ and PvT builds you recommended fit that description perfectly, I was just wondering if there was any such PvP build you knew of that fit the description as well. Thanks again for the great guide! I recommend learning the 4-Gate for now, as it is still solid with the new patch. The version I recommend is the one in this replay of Naniwa versus NightEnD, where he gets two gates initially, then adds two more later as well as getting no zealot, but 3 stalkers before the first warp in. Also, the replay illustrates how to break an opponent when they forcefield their ramp with sentries, and even when they get an immortal out. iSK | ||
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Numy
South Africa35471 Posts
. Anyway here goes:1) Boxing - I'm a small handed man(:D) currently using kinzu and I believe finger grip or something very close. I noticed in your boxing section you state that the optimal way to do it is top left to bottom right but I've always naturally done it either alternating ways or the other way. I'm just wondering if this is something I should actively try to go about changing or if it doesn't matter. I'm mainly wondering about fatigue and if it might effect that. 2) Hotkeying - The other question is that of hotkeying. I used to main zerg for awhile and I got around mid masters before I decided to change to Terran. I've been training them up for the last month or so and got around with a hotkey setup that had 5 as all production and tabbing between it but recently I've started to notice errors with the method and wondering if i should change it around. I have 1-4 as army and want to try get that working solidly but many matches I play I hardly hotkey army so I'm not sure if I should sacrifice those hotkeys and shift things down in order to compensate for added production hotkeys or I should focus on using better army hotkeys and shift everything up to accomodate. Something like 5 rax 6 cc 7 fact 8 starport. I'm sorry if you covered this before, I haven't read the whole thread(So tired right now , exams :<) but if you have I'll find it eventually. Thanks | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On June 01 2011 06:20 Numy wrote: Hey Cecil absolutely amazing work. I've read this through a few times and been actively trying to incorporate many of the principles(mentality is such a big but hard thing to change. I'm just wondering if I could ask a few questions not too sure how busy you are . Anyway here goes:1) Boxing - I'm a small handed man(:D) currently using kinzu and I believe finger grip or something very close. I noticed in your boxing section you state that the optimal way to do it is top left to bottom right but I've always naturally done it either alternating ways or the other way. I'm just wondering if this is something I should actively try to go about changing or if it doesn't matter. I'm mainly wondering about fatigue and if it might effect that. 2) Hotkeying - The other question is that of hotkeying. I used to main zerg for awhile and I got around mid masters before I decided to change to Terran. I've been training them up for the last month or so and got around with a hotkey setup that had 5 as all production and tabbing between it but recently I've started to notice errors with the method and wondering if i should change it around. I have 1-4 as army and want to try get that working solidly but many matches I play I hardly hotkey army so I'm not sure if I should sacrifice those hotkeys and shift things down in order to compensate for added production hotkeys or I should focus on using better army hotkeys and shift everything up to accomodate. Something like 5 rax 6 cc 7 fact 8 starport. I'm sorry if you covered this before, I haven't read the whole thread(So tired right now , exams :<) but if you have I'll find it eventually. Thanks No I'm definitely not too busy to answer questions. But I do appreciate concise ones like yours! 1) I personally think it's important to not box from bottom to top, either from right to left or left to right. I think boxing top right to bottom left is okay, but top left to bottom right is optimal. So yes you should actively change it, however you have to remember there is also a priority list to enforce if you want to improve optimally. For example your macro is more important to nail down than nit-picky things like boxing directions. So if you feel that optimizing your boxing is the next best step to improve your play, then by all means do it. 2) I'm not sure what you're asking here. I suggest trying out 5-8 for your army, as hitting 5a6a7a8a with pinky on the a is really easy, and that leaves the closer hotkeys for production. | ||
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Numy
South Africa35471 Posts
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
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shiNe.
Canada120 Posts
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Novabuzz
Germany23 Posts
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JustAGame
Germany161 Posts
On June 01 2011 06:35 CecilSunkure wrote: 2) I'm not sure what you're asking here. I suggest trying out 5-8 for your army, as hitting 5a6a7a8a with pinky on the a is really easy, and that leaves the closer hotkeys for production. You could as well use space for attack move. This allows to hit attack move with the thumb, so you can use army controlgroups almost anywhere on the keyboard, e.g. 1 2 3 or D F G or X C V (or what ever you like). Your handposition will be way more relaxed with this and you gain a free finger to speed up the hotkey usage. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On May 26 2011 01:11 kuro466 wrote: 2) I play zerg, and I found it much easier to learn micro before macro, by starting with shorter simpler games through early aggression builds. I'm currently no pro (only platinum 1v1), but back when I was silver/gold I read similar guides suggesting learning macro first. I found this method incredibly frustrating as macro zerg play needs to effectively master too many skills at once... a) macro zerg players have to have decent micro during engagements to have a chance to win them. a-move a zerg army into a similar sized T/P army, even with reasonable composition, and zerg will much more frequently lose. That's true for any race in any battle. Since I'm Protoss I'm inclined to say that it's even more important to have good force fields. But the thing is, is that at your level having crisp macro leaves you with so much more stuff that a lack of micro doesn't even matter, and you just roll over bad players that are focusing on trying to control their units to a degree that they think is effective. I see this come up all the time. A higher ranked player will tell a lower ranked player to just learn to get the units out they need, and the lower level player disagrees. You can't disagree with the rank disparity though. On May 26 2011 01:11 kuro466 wrote: b) macro zerg players ... SNIP ... defensive strength is realitively larger from 6-8 minutes. As a result, I can see how a focus on macro-style first may be easier with those races. You are way over thinking this. I can offrace as Zerg and play at higher level than you are simply because I have the understanding of how important it is to get out the most units as possible with the best possible economy. There isn't really any question as to whether or not a zerg player should learn to macro first or micro first or anything else. You learn you macro first, that's it. You have to be able to execute a build properly before you can do anything else at a high level. Yes, Zerg is more reactive of a race, by design. This doesn't mean Zerg is any harder or easier to play than the other races, and it doesn't mean you shouldn't learn your macro first. It simply means that build orders for Zerg players are going to be structured slightly different compared to the other races. See my original post in section 4.01 for clarification on this. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
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stokes17
United States1411 Posts
loleither way... hands down the reason I made it to diamond w/ abysmal unit control ... thanks dood | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On June 03 2011 23:27 stokes17 wrote: Wait cecil... I'm all for the pdf, but why cant i just view the guide in the OP anymore? anyway to have both? I don't have adobe on my phone loleither way... hands down the reason I made it to diamond w/ abysmal unit control ... thanks dood Sorry about that. I ended up updating the PDF and didn't think it really necessary to update the whole thing twice (different formatting for each article). | ||
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zajeBEASTY
Poland40 Posts
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ReTrY
United Kingdom79 Posts
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Neo.NEt
United States785 Posts
I also NEVER micro at all (I play Z) except when there are mutas or tanks involved since you can lose EVERYTHING in the blink of an eye. If I have money and larva I pretty much spend it instantly 99% of the time but to do this I have to almost completely disregard macro and sometimes good scouting. Is this a mistake (low master league) | ||
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Gladiator6
Sweden7024 Posts
Very interesting and great guide, I'm sure it will help many, including me. I got a question regarding hotkeys, mostly wondering if you have any hotkeys that aren't standard? Thanks! | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On June 11 2011 06:52 Neo.NEt wrote: I think I've become an "over hotkey-er". I hotkey every single unit the first time I select it and i never have to box anything. I've noticed the pros are boxing like crazy so I'm wondering if over hotkeying is a bad thing and it's slowing me down. I mean I have like 150 apm so it's not like I'm siting there staring at my keyboard looking for the numbers or anything but I don't know if it's necessary... thoughts? Is it OK to have unhotkeyed units? If I have units in 3 different spots on the map, I've got them on three hotkeys, even if it takes me all day to move each one individually. I also NEVER micro at all (I play Z) except when there are mutas or tanks involved since you can lose EVERYTHING in the blink of an eye. If I have money and larva I pretty much spend it instantly 99% of the time but to do this I have to almost completely disregard macro and sometimes good scouting. Is this a mistake (low master league) I don't really think it's a mistake, unless you're binding something in a control group that you never use. Basically, you put something into a control group if you're going to use it often. If it's not something often used, you can just use the minimap to move it around when needed. On June 13 2011 20:43 eYeball wrote: Hello, Very interesting and great guide, I'm sure it will help many, including me. I got a question regarding hotkeys, mostly wondering if you have any hotkeys that aren't standard? Thanks! Uhm I don't think so. When I offrace as Terran I put mule on S and SCV on E. I put screen position on f1-f4. Other than that, no. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
I'll work on getting it back up onto mediafire asap. Sorry for the inconvenience. Edit: For now I'd appreciate it if someone could upload my released PDF so I can download it, as the one on mediafire was I believe my last copy. You can just put the link to it in a response in this topic. | ||
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Smipims
United States61 Posts
It also looks like there's a copy of your guide here | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
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Smipims
United States61 Posts
On June 15 2011 04:04 CecilSunkure wrote: Better yet I should ask TL if they can host it. BRB pming someone. There's a copy here. I don't know how up to date it is. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
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ChickenLips
2912 Posts
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Hot_Bid/CecilSunkure/How_To_Improve_Efficiently_a.pdf | ||
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IstandAlone
11 Posts
I have however another question about mouse settings that I don't think have been answered (i've read the whole thread). I use a razer mouse with sensitivity settings. Should I temper with those ? Or leave the slider on middle position ? I actually feel more confortable with the slider all the way up while having SC2 setting on 51. Sorry if this is a dumb question. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On July 05 2011 23:49 IstandAlone wrote: Hi Cecil ! Thanks for this great piece of work. I have however another question about mouse settings that I don't think have been answered (i've read the whole thread). I use a razer mouse with sensitivity settings. Should I temper with those ? Or leave the slider on middle position ? I actually feel more confortable with the slider all the way up while having SC2 setting on 51. Sorry if this is a dumb question. Basically, you want a 1:1 ratio between what movements your mouse reads and what movements your OS has your cursor move. To do this in windows, you set your mouse sensitivity slider to 6/11 (halfway). Then to adjust your sensitivity you change your DPI readings on your mouse. So if the razer lets you move some slider to adjust the Razer's readings sensitivity, then go ahead. However, in all scenarios it's ideal to have your SC2 slider at 51%, and windows slider at halfway, with only the mouse's DPI settings being changed. Edit: Please let me know if I did not answer your question! I was a bit confused as to what you were asking. | ||
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MrTortoise
1388 Posts
No offense but i want to scan it first .. i want titles to be legible at a distance at speed Increase line spacing slightly also as it makes it easier to read :D great guide | ||
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IstandAlone
11 Posts
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GeNiuSRxN
United States5 Posts
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Hashmeister
Germany238 Posts
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IMLyte
Canada714 Posts
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unit
United States2621 Posts
2/2 upgrades and a mostly chargelot sentry stalker with a few archons army against a smaller looking 1/0 or 1/1 terran bio army with a good deal of medivacs and ghosts how do i improve this particular aspect of decision making? particularly the decision making of when i can attack as there are many points like this scenario where it appears as though i can roll my opponents army yet in reality i cannot or the opposite where i believe that i cannot when in reality i can, ive had massive trouble in this judgement area and am lost in figuring out how to improve it tyvm in advance | ||
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Antylamon
United States1981 Posts
On July 06 2011 02:34 CecilSunkure wrote: Basically, you want a 1:1 ratio between what movements your mouse reads and what movements your OS has your cursor move. To do this in windows, you set your mouse sensitivity slider to 6/11 (halfway). Then to adjust your sensitivity you change your DPI readings on your mouse. So if the razer lets you move some slider to adjust the Razer's readings sensitivity, then go ahead. However, in all scenarios it's ideal to have your SC2 slider at 51%, and windows slider at halfway, with only the mouse's DPI settings being changed. Edit: Please let me know if I did not answer your question! I was a bit confused as to what you were asking. What if I can't change the DPI of the mouse itself but I want a higher mouse sensitivity in SC2? | ||
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unit
United States2621 Posts
On July 25 2011 02:58 noobinator wrote: What if I can't change the DPI of the mouse itself but I want a higher mouse sensitivity in SC2? you can try lowering the ingame resolution, maybe not the best idea but it should work | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On July 25 2011 02:53 unit wrote: hey cecil, great read, however you seemed to miss out on a small thing such as how to pick engagements, i try to pick mine (using PvT as an example) going by upgrades and approximate army size, yet i regularly get rolled when i think i have a clear advantage 2/2 upgrades and a mostly chargelot sentry stalker with a few archons army against a smaller looking 1/0 or 1/1 terran bio army with a good deal of medivacs and ghosts how do i improve this particular aspect of decision making? particularly the decision making of when i can attack as there are many points like this scenario where it appears as though i can roll my opponents army yet in reality i cannot or the opposite where i believe that i cannot when in reality i can, ive had massive trouble in this judgement area and am lost in figuring out how to improve it tyvm in advance That doesn't really fall within the document's intent, but you can learn that by simply attacking whenever you don't know. Then you can review the replay and look for ways to improve your micro. I also suggest studying a lot of different replays of PvT over at SC2Rep.com, particularly when the Protoss engage the Terran. | ||
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`chain
United States124 Posts
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unit
United States2621 Posts
On July 25 2011 03:50 CecilSunkure wrote: That doesn't really fall within the document's intent, but you can learn that by simply attacking whenever you don't know. Then you can review the replay and look for ways to improve your micro. I also suggest studying a lot of different replays of PvT over at SC2Rep.com, particularly when the Protoss engage the Terran. tyvm i didnt even know sc2rep.com existed, ive been going off of not having replays xD i figured it would be something like that, trial and error + replays | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On July 25 2011 03:55 `chain wrote: Hey Cecil, really enjoyed this guide. I'm currently pretty low-level(gold), and I'm looking to get into Masters someday. At my level, do you think the best thing to do is to mass game? Sort of, but I wrote the guide to give you a good idea of what to do Priority schema needs to be enforced. Do these in this order:
Most players on the NA server are on this second step. Actually it's my opinion that hardly anyone but those top professional players on the NA server are on the second step. As for ways on how to do those steps, refer to the guide. Hope that answers your question! | ||
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`chain
United States124 Posts
:D | ||
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Zeweig
Sweden189 Posts
But since I am intelligent (not bragging, just have always been sharpest I know) and learn quickly, I figured that I would watch the pros, try the 3 races, learn enough from all of them to be able to choose (and ofc I chose zerg ^^) but still know enough to be able to react to builds my opponent uses against me. But your guide was extremely helpful as I easily can base my assumptions on someone else's information, and adapt in a way that I would probably not do alone. It helps infinitely to have a 2nd opinion! I can´t play sc2 atm, stuck at the summer place for 1 more week, but as soon as I get home, I will go into single player vs. very easy AI and just practice and practice (and did I mention practice?) macro, until I can make units almost as good as the pro (will be hard, since I will be copying IMNesTea), but as I wont have to scout or micro, I will just focus on speed and timing for the next 40+ games! Will type to you if I after that get over 90% win in silver! (new player, but with an average of 70% win vs. similar mmr) Thanks SOOOOOOo much again! have dl'ed it and will read it about every night for a week straight! | ||
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Zeweig
Sweden189 Posts
Maybe something to fix so no misunderstandings ^^ | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On August 02 2011 08:27 Zeweig wrote: btw, about in 40-45% in guide, you have copied the part "If the purpose of the build that Grubby was using seemed too difficult to figure out exactly why the pros do what they do, go ahead and try different things out with your build. Perhaps you don't understand why you should get early sentries with the 3 Gate Sentry expand. Try it out! You'll learn why a lack of sentries isn't desirable in that situation and have a deeper understanding for the game. Perhaps you don't quite get why Grubby was playing so passive with the build he was using; he didn't attack forever. Go ahead and copy Grubby's build, but try an aggressive style. You should be able to easily see the strengths and weaknesses of the build that Grubby used by just going through a simple trial and error process to see what works and what doesn't. In doing so you can very quickly and efficiently gather a solid understanding for the purpose of the build you are using, as well as an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the build you are emulating." is twice in a row. Maybe something to fix so no misunderstandings ^^ Oh thanks a lot! I'll fix that with the next update. | ||
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To3-Knee
Canada100 Posts
There was some debate about how much better each league is from each other (especially the difference between top level pros and masters). I think TL attack is good to show that the difference as Cecil has stated is quite true. Not exact, but the idea is there. Putting top pros into very constraining situations, they are still able to beat (quite often) decently good players (Diamonds/Masters). One thing that caught my mind was Huk's 80% handicap against another Master toss player. If anyone believes that their macro/micro is really good and the % gap isn't much, think again. | ||
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Fever_Xenocide
Belgium2 Posts
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Supert0fu
United States499 Posts
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On August 08 2011 13:10 Supert0fu wrote: So, I am a gold zerg player. Does this mean that I can't learn one build and should instead learn just how to play reactionary? If so, doesn't that make zerg the hardest race to improve in, because you are requiring newer zerg players to use the same skills of that a master player should? You can have a reactionary build. It isn't necessarily harder or easier to learn, it's just that you have to play often times play differently than the other two races. | ||
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DaMaGeLIVE
United States24 Posts
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EnvYStarcraft
United States58 Posts
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SwitchAUS
Australia106 Posts
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NewbieOne
Poland560 Posts
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FlyingSheeps
Canada204 Posts
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buncool
France70 Posts
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On September 04 2011 19:12 buncool wrote: Any update ? I have one being written, not sure when I'll release it. Sometime soon I believe. | ||
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RafikiSC
United States90 Posts
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Clbull
United Kingdom1439 Posts
On April 03 2011 13:55 WriterLee wrote: Starcraft 2 is gay as shit anyway. Play a real game like BLOPS. User was warned for this post User was temp banned for this post. Saying this on a Starcraft 2 forum, or more specifically a subforum about strategy? I think I lost 1,736 brain cells from just reading this comment and trying to justify why someone would just suck so hard at trolling. Btw, to the OP. Definitely a good guide. Reminds me of the Brood War equivalent guide too. | ||
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Saint131
30 Posts
I don't know how so many people find the time to contribute such large quantities of information. Thank you so much :D | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On September 05 2011 09:17 Saint131 wrote: This was definitely a great read, especially when I'm at a cousin's house with no Starcraft 2 for me to play I don't know how so many people find the time to contribute such large quantities of information. Thank you so much :DIt's called "project limbo" | ||
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Saint131
30 Posts
Ummm.. I don't really know what this, "project limbo" thing is. Would you care to explain? | ||
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RumbleBadger
322 Posts
As for telling myself I suck... that would just make me want to stop playing. A game isn't fun if I think I suck at it. That can be an incentive to get better, but it generally doesn't work for me. For example, I learned to juggle. I found whenever I grew frustrated while learning something new (ie, a new trick or a new medium like clubs) and started telling myself I sucked I would immediately start doing worse. It was only when I thought about what I was doing wrong in a positive manner that I could improve. This guide may work great for some people, but with a section titled "You suck" I'm afraid it just isn't for me. (This post was not to bash on the guide, as I think some people will greatly benefit from it. The idea of the post was to hopefully help explain that this guide may not be for everyone and perhaps give ideas for suggestions on future guides.) | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On September 05 2011 12:10 Saint131 wrote: Ummm.. I don't really know what this, "project limbo" thing is. Would you care to explain? A state of uncertainty; an intermediate or transitional place or state. I was being transferred from one project to another at one point in time, and thus had nothing to do at work. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On September 05 2011 13:27 RumbleBadger wrote: Maybe telling yourself you suck works for you, but it sure as heck doesn't work for me. In the end, that's the main problem with threads about learning to get better at SCII. Everyone learns differently, remembers differently, and experiences things differently. As for telling myself I suck... that would just make me want to stop playing. A game isn't fun if I think I suck at it. That can be an incentive to get better, but it generally doesn't work for me. For example, I learned to juggle. I found whenever I grew frustrated while learning something new (ie, a new trick or a new medium like clubs) and started telling myself I sucked I would immediately start doing worse. It was only when I thought about what I was doing wrong in a positive manner that I could improve. This guide may work great for some people, but with a section titled "You suck" I'm afraid it just isn't for me. (This post was not to bash on the guide, as I think some people will greatly benefit from it. The idea of the post was to hopefully help explain that this guide may not be for everyone and perhaps give ideas for suggestions on future guides.) I understand, but it sounds like you're being too sensitive. The you suck portion has the intent of making it exceptionally clear that you aren't a good player, and that you have a whole lot to learn and vasts amounts of room to improve. I then detail about how once you understand the massive difference in skill between yourself and a professional, it then becomes possible to make clear on exactly what makes you so different. Then it gets really fun figuring out where and why you are weak and working towards solving them. This is important because most people that happen across my article will think to themselves that they are a much better player than they really are. You can't improve if you go around thinking this. All in all it sounds like a choice for you to either be discouraged by understanding you can improve immensely or take initiative and work towards closing the gap with the newfound understanding of just how big the gap is. If you do decide to get discouraged, then it sounds like that's something you need to work on before you can actually improve efficiently, which in and of itself is a whole other problem. | ||
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WarLockx
11 Posts
keep up the good work man! :D | ||
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arbitrageur
Australia1202 Posts
WHY use screensaves? - Get to rally point efficiently (save ~30+ minimap clicks/game) - Set up a new base efficiently. Perhaps 6 clicks per base / transferring drones, making gases, making spines/spores, planting hatch in the first place. (save ~20+ minimap clicks/game). - Get between your bases when your queens die, or when your queens are fighting some drop/banshee/air-play. (value = invaluable!) - Transfer drones :: camera#1 box-drones, camera#2 shift+box-drones, camera#3 right click on minerals. (save ~5 seconds of screen dragging) Ever been in mid game and the game is so freaking hektik, you're banking up 800 minerals now and you want to put down your 5th base and make gases and stuff but you have drops to kill and mutas to micro and lings to use for counter attacks and overlords to spread? Thank me later. What I use if you wish to copy: F1-F5 is all my bases saved (I do this at the start of the game). SideMouseButton#1 is my hatch rally point. SideMouseButton#2 is my next hatch I'm setting up (it'll be referred to at least 5 times for gas, transfer, spines, etc, before I rebind it to my NEXT hatch after that). CAPS has been rebound to idle worker. | ||
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Edso
Canada112 Posts
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TCP
Germany13 Posts
every time I lose due to a stupid mistake I feel like I'm the worst player and that I'm too bad for this game. Although I "know" its just a stupid feeling, It takes a whole 20 min to get rid of it. This way its quite hard to queue up game after game. Greate guide nevertheless. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On September 06 2011 02:53 TCP wrote: I hate feelings... every time I lose due to a stupid mistake I feel like I'm the worst player and that I'm too bad for this game. Although I "know" its just a stupid feeling, It takes a whole 20 min to get rid of it. This way its quite hard to queue up game after game. Greate guide nevertheless. I understand! Too hard on yourself! It's just a game, and nobody should be naturally excellent at the game without prior experience. Even YellOw was in like Gold league. Instead of focusing on how you make a stupid mistake, focus on the overall habits or overall execution, which is often times harder for people to see and much more important than not making small and stupid decisions. For example on my smurf account I've been hammering out some mechanics (army on 3 hotkeys) and play terrible while getting used to this. I make the dumbest mistakes in the world, but it doesn't matter because I know I'm focusing on improving one single aspect, and as long as I do that I can see progress and feel fulfilled. | ||
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TaKaSkl
United States30 Posts
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Daaffyy
United States15 Posts
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zezamer
Finland5701 Posts
On September 08 2011 06:46 Daaffyy wrote: Very noob question, what do I have to do to read this? I tried opening it in Word/Notepad but it was just a bunch of symbols Adobe reader, you can't open pdf files without it, google "adobe reader" | ||
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googolpowder
Guam7 Posts
not sure if anyone mentioned it but part of what is in the book is also discussed by Day[9] in his Dailies #252, 257, and 261. I would suggest watching those 3 dailies as well if you are looking to improve mechanically. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On September 08 2011 07:38 googolpowder wrote: just looked at the pdf really quickly and looks pretty good. Its nice that there is a guide with all this information all in one place. not sure if anyone mentioned it but part of what is in the book is also discussed by Day[9] in his Dailies #252, 257, and 261. I would suggest watching those 3 dailies as well if you are looking to improve mechanically. Yeah I think I included all of those actually, in one of the sections! Thanks though! | ||
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MaGestic
United States12 Posts
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wisjh
Netherlands2 Posts
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Dilheisha
Canada55 Posts
Thank You !! | ||
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Bluubb
Sweden3 Posts
Truly inspirational and well written. Sometimes you just need a kick in the right direction, it is so easy just getting stuck in the mud not knowing what to do Thank you for a great guide! | ||
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eXoGhost
Australia98 Posts
it's a big guide, but that's all the better! Can't wait to read and improve. | ||
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Shin-Kai
Australia7 Posts
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Kaizoku
Sweden96 Posts
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VPCursed
1044 Posts
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Joey Wheeler
Korea (North)276 Posts
User was banned for this post. | ||
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BleaK_
Norway593 Posts
On October 03 2011 10:50 Joey Wheeler wrote: All of this is really obvious. If you didn't know stuff like this already you shouldn't be trying to get good at SC2 in the first place, since the game is 100% about decision making on the fly. Um, no it's not. | ||
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Joey Wheeler
Korea (North)276 Posts
ok so the entire guide is pick a build that suits you refine your build by watching replays don't do bad engagements the rest is about how as you play more your macro and micro gets better. this guide says nothing about the things that actually truly matter, but it's good for getting out of platinum league or something. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On October 03 2011 11:06 Joey Wheeler wrote: ok so the entire guide is pick a build that suits you refine your build by watching replays don't do bad engagements the rest is about how as you play more your macro and micro gets better. this guide says nothing about the things that actually truly matter, but it's good for getting out of platinum league or something. Go read the you suck portion, because you probably suck. It's in there for people like you. | ||
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iamke55
United States2806 Posts
On October 03 2011 11:06 Joey Wheeler wrote: ok so the entire guide is pick a build that suits you refine your build by watching replays don't do bad engagements the rest is about how as you play more your macro and micro gets better. this guide says nothing about the things that actually truly matter, but it's good for getting out of platinum league or something. You must be even worse at SC2 than you are at Yugioh. At the pro level, any time you have to think at all on the fly means you failed your practice somewhere. | ||
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Rynnte
United States16 Posts
On October 03 2011 11:06 Joey Wheeler wrote: ok so the entire guide is pick a build that suits you refine your build by watching replays don't do bad engagements the rest is about how as you play more your macro and micro gets better. this guide says nothing about the things that actually truly matter, but it's good for getting out of platinum league or something. Hmm, so by saying this, I assume you must be really good at SCII. So you must be in at grand master league right? On top of that, you stated "things that truly matter?" If all this is so obvious to you, then please illuminate us. What truly matters? | ||
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Joey Wheeler
Korea (North)276 Posts
On October 03 2011 11:16 iamke55 wrote: You must be even worse at SC2 than you are at Yugioh. At the pro level, any time you have to think at all on the fly means you failed your practice somewhere. Decision making on the fly was a bad way to term it, I should have just said decision making, but I don't think anyone knows every single build ever created. Decision making on the fly is practically what crisis management is. That said, crisis management is an example of something this guide doesn't cover. Getting good mechanics is a very simple concept, and 90% of this guide focuses exactly on that. But what about everything else? What about responding to something correctly? What about the planning ahead that pros do, like if you see a pro getting attacked and start droning before he's even killed the pylon. What about understanding exactly what is the risk in doing a certain decision. Things like this are what truly matters. Most GM players you will find not to be very impressive. However, they succeed simply by knowing what to do. This is what this guide does not cover. The section about engaging is similar to what I mean, but you can really extend this guide to beyond something that will only get you to low masters. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On October 03 2011 11:28 Joey Wheeler wrote: Decision making on the fly was a bad way to term it, I should have just said decision making, but I don't think anyone knows every single build ever created. Decision making on the fly is practically what crisis management is. That said, crisis management is an example of something this guide doesn't cover. Getting good mechanics is a very simple concept, and 90% of this guide focuses exactly on that. But what about everything else? What about responding to something correctly? What about the planning ahead that pros do, like if you see a pro getting attacked and start droning before he's even killed the pylon. What about understanding exactly what is the risk in doing a certain decision. Things like this are what truly matters. Most GM players you will find not to be very impressive. However, they succeed simply by knowing what to do. This is what this guide does not cover. The section about engaging is similar to what I mean, but you can really extend this guide to beyond something that will only get you to low masters. Maybe if you didn't simply skim the guide you'd realize how your point is pointless. | ||
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Joey Wheeler
Korea (North)276 Posts
On October 03 2011 11:38 CecilSunkure wrote: Maybe if you didn't simply skim the guide you'd realize how your point is pointless. I'm sorry I am offending you by offering constructive criticism, but I'm simply saying you should extend the most important section by far past a few paragraphs. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On October 03 2011 11:40 Joey Wheeler wrote: I'm sorry I am offending you by offering constructive criticism, but I'm simply saying you should extend the most important section by far past a few paragraphs. And I'm just saying go read the guide before offering criticism. I know you didn't read it properly by what you've said. | ||
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iamke55
United States2806 Posts
On October 03 2011 11:28 Joey Wheeler wrote: Decision making on the fly was a bad way to term it, I should have just said decision making, but I don't think anyone knows every single build ever created. Decision making on the fly is practically what crisis management is. That said, crisis management is an example of something this guide doesn't cover. Getting good mechanics is a very simple concept, and 90% of this guide focuses exactly on that. But what about everything else? What about responding to something correctly? What about the planning ahead that pros do, like if you see a pro getting attacked and start droning before he's even killed the pylon. What about understanding exactly what is the risk in doing a certain decision. Things like this are what truly matters. Most GM players you will find not to be very impressive. However, they succeed simply by knowing what to do. This is what this guide does not cover. The section about engaging is similar to what I mean, but you can really extend this guide to beyond something that will only get you to low masters. So how do you plan on improving your ability to manage crises better? You can't write a guide on how to just make better decisions, because anything done on the fly like that is just dumb luck. When MC holds a baneling bust, it's not because he has some magical ability to automatically figure out what to do on the spot; it's because he has played many games against the baneling bust and is simply remembering what he did to beat those in practice. If you can figure out a way to get better at responding correctly or planning ahead with just practicing those situations over and over, then feel free to tell us how you do it or write your own guide. | ||
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VPCursed
1044 Posts
On October 03 2011 11:16 iamke55 wrote: You must be even worse at SC2 than you are at Yugioh. At the pro level, any time you have to think at all on the fly means you failed your practice somewhere. Pretty much hit the nail on the head.At the highest level of play you want to respond to shit instantly. You want to see it and know exactly what to do. No thinking involved. Also, to the person some posts above me saying this guide is for getting above plat. You obviously never played GM players. lol they aren't that impressive = / | ||
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Lobber
Canada414 Posts
On October 03 2011 14:56 VPCursed wrote: You obviously never played GM players. lol they aren't that impressive = / Yeah, makes me happy beating them, I remember when I wasn't any good... | ||
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-Celestial-
United Kingdom3867 Posts
On a side note. I used to suffer from this heavily: On September 06 2011 02:53 TCP wrote: I hate feelings... every time I lose due to a stupid mistake I feel like I'm the worst player and that I'm too bad for this game. Although I "know" its just a stupid feeling, It takes a whole 20 min to get rid of it. This way its quite hard to queue up game after game. Greate guide nevertheless. So I thought I'd comment on what broke me of that problem. Its as simple as I this: I started to enforce a break after literally every single game I play, if only a couple minutes, to reflect on the game. If I win I take up to five minutes to come down from the emotional "high" and relax a little to concentrate on the next game, usually whilst checking a couple of key points in the replay that I wanted to look at again. If I don't quite know how I've won I'll take time out to briefly review the entire replay and try to figure it out (for example: one game I won recently I had literally no idea how I won because I lost tons of stuff; analysing the replay I found that despite losing way more units, tons of probes and even losing some buildings to harrass I had better macro so I could afford my losses, but he couldn't afford to stop my counter-attack). If I lose (rather rare lately; promotion beckons I think) then I'll sit down, take a longer break and work out how I lost by carefully analysing the entire replay bit by bit. The worst thing when learning, I've found, is to get annoyed at a loss and just queue up another game immediately because you'll be in a bad mindset going into it and are less likely to win or even to play a good game. I was on a winning streak of five or six games over a couple of nights a few weeks ago (didn't have much time to play). Then I suddenly had more free time so I sat down to play a solid run, lost the first game and felt really annoyed at ruining my streak. So then I just queued up game after game until I ended up on a solid run of losses with each loss getting worse. Now that I force myself to take breaks and analyse my play it really breaks that up. Actually seeing where things have gone wrong through the replay I find actually helps my mindset because I think "that was stupid, I won't make that mistake again now I know what it is" and now I rarely lose more than maybe two games in a row. I actually started this off by deciding that if I got a loss I'd stop playing, analyse the replay to find out where I'd lost and then literally not play any more Starcraft 2 that night. Instead I'd spend the time I was going to play reading up on how to correct the mistakes I'd made. Proved to be quite a valuable learning experience. Not recommending this as any kind of hard-and-fast philosophy but it worked/works for me. | ||
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ePhrygian
United States11 Posts
The funny thing I find is the guide is more about examining your own ability to learn and grow and how to apply SC mechanics, information, and knowledge to your own ability to learn. Reminds me very much of Josh Waitzkin's (Chess master, tai chi master, etc) "The Art of Learning" along with Chessmaster's "The Art of Learning Edition". Both have Waitzkin examining more of your ability to teach yourself to learn and and then abstract any activity in such a way that you can put it through your own black box learning process to master it rather than specific strategies and tactics. Not sure where people are finding the "just learn the build order and practice it from". I derived far more. My 2¢, thanks Cecil - gMix, ePhryg,etc. | ||
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Twisted101
Canada6 Posts
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10293 Posts
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Neodd
United States4 Posts
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NinjaPeppers
Australia4 Posts
On October 03 2011 11:28 Joey Wheeler wrote: Decision making on the fly was a bad way to term it, I should have just said decision making, but I don't think anyone knows every single build ever created. Decision making on the fly is practically what crisis management is. That said, crisis management is an example of something this guide doesn't cover. Getting good mechanics is a very simple concept, and 90% of this guide focuses exactly on that. But what about everything else? What about responding to something correctly? What about the planning ahead that pros do, like if you see a pro getting attacked and start droning before he's even killed the pylon. What about understanding exactly what is the risk in doing a certain decision. Things like this are what truly matters. Most GM players you will find not to be very impressive. However, they succeed simply by knowing what to do. This is what this guide does not cover. The section about engaging is similar to what I mean, but you can really extend this guide to beyond something that will only get you to low masters. In my opinion knowing how to deal with a "Crisis" or "Crisis Management" comes from experience and analyzing the games that you play. As stated in the guide "learning on your own is 10 times more powerful then having someone show you" (paraphrased). Ultimately I am trying to say that how you react to an event will probably be governed by your experience of similar events prior to that or if it is a new experience learning from it. I am also stating that you playing matches and making a conscious effort to learn from your decisions will be of more use then any guide showing you how to do it. | ||
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Monasou
United States218 Posts
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kushm4sta
United States8878 Posts
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gotMilkshake
Sweden10 Posts
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Nerdrage293
Canada12 Posts
The worst thing when learning, I've found, is to get annoyed at a loss and just queue up another game immediately because you'll be in a bad mindset going into it and are less likely to win or even to play a good game. I was on a winning streak of five or six games over a couple of nights a few weeks ago (didn't have much time to play). Then I suddenly had more free time so I sat down to play a solid run, lost the first game and felt really annoyed at ruining my streak. So then I just queued up game after game until I ended up on a solid run of losses with each loss getting worse. Now that I force myself to take breaks and analyse my play it really breaks that up. Actually seeing where things have gone wrong through the replay I find actually helps my mindset because I think "that was stupid, I won't make that mistake again now I know what it is" and now I rarely lose more than maybe two games in a row. Well said, I used to have very long win streaks and then be suddenly ruined by a lose streak and getting stuck in that lose streak. This is actually what I believe to be the most important after playing a match, rest up, learn your mistakes and move on. It is a very intense and stressful game after all. On November 07 2011 23:00 kushm4sta wrote: Can we get a non pdf version? I hate downloading that stuff... Then there's really no point of being on this thread, is there? | ||
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Mackx
Netherlands26 Posts
) and it looks great. Little problem at the end of chapter 5.02 though:"Kiting is the act of shooting, retreating a short distance, firing, and repeating. Go ahead and and visit youtube.com and type in the search bar "SC2 kiting". The first good result I found was this link: <blank line, no link>" I wonder if this is only me or if it is the actual guide :/ may have to check on that. Despite the small significance it's still necessary, I assume. Keep up the great work! Love from The Netherlands | ||
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hooahah
3752 Posts
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ImSoSerious
United States6 Posts
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SoniC_eu
Denmark1008 Posts
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How2getMaster
Germany124 Posts
Greetings. | ||
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danieldrsa
Brazil522 Posts
Just lose on purpose the 5 placement matches to start on bronze. Lets see where i can go... Thanks for you awesome work. | ||
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HKnNor
Norway8 Posts
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Flooz
United States37 Posts
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
I'd suggest taking some time to just re-read the whole thing. | ||
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acgFork
Canada397 Posts
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ShinyGerbil
Canada519 Posts
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iKill
Denmark861 Posts
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Fencar
United States2694 Posts
Dragging your cursor from the top left to the bottom right is the Would you mind elaborating on why it's not the best for professional SC2 players to box from top left to bottom right and what the best method is? (I'm guessing it's top right to bottom left from streams)absolute best way to create a box for everyone but the professionals. | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On June 16 2012 08:36 Fencer710 wrote: Would you mind elaborating on why it's not the best for professional SC2 players to box from top left to bottom right and what the best method is? (I'm guessing it's top right to bottom left from streams) For right hand it's best to go from top left to bottom right. It's also very useful to be able to box in any direction on the fly, but that skill isn't useful to work on until you get really good. | ||
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Deadeight
United Kingdom1629 Posts
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Cyro
United Kingdom20277 Posts
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From Afar
United States19 Posts
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myRZeth
Germany1047 Posts
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Catatafish
75 Posts
On June 16 2012 21:21 From Afar wrote: Not only does a North American master's player have the expertise to instruct other people about the game, but his guide is apparently The way to improve, and applies to everyone. Yes, as it turns out, someone who is good at something usually has the expertise to instruct someone who is significantly worse. | ||
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drooL
United Kingdom2108 Posts
On June 16 2012 08:45 CecilSunkure wrote: For right hand it's best to go from top left to bottom right. It's also very useful to be able to box in any direction on the fly, but that skill isn't useful to work on until you get really good. I don't get that. Top right to bottom left is a much more natural movement (with the right hand). | ||
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Bobbias
Canada1373 Posts
On June 17 2012 01:16 drooL wrote: I don't get that. Top right to bottom left is a much more natural movement (with the right hand). Not for me it isn't. Top left to bottom right is FAR more natural for me than right to left. | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20277 Posts
On June 17 2012 01:16 drooL wrote: I don't get that. Top right to bottom left is a much more natural movement (with the right hand). I used top right to bottom left for a long time, i always had much higher accuracy pulling mouse towards me, maybe because i am a low sens player | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On June 16 2012 22:13 Tassadarstarcraft2 wrote: i m a too good for this, but this is a really good post! Lets 1v1 Edit: How about this guy too: On June 16 2012 21:21 From Afar wrote: Not only does a North American master's player have the expertise to instruct other people about the game, but his guide is apparently The way to improve, and applies to everyone. Just PM if you guys would like to. I'll even go over games and give advice if I win! I think I can back up what I wrote by playing the game well enough. | ||
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sliced_bread
United States2 Posts
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LeodaR
United States15 Posts
As a terran, so far I can max out at 18 min with lots of low food marines. That would put me 120 supply (and usually 65 army supply) ahead of my opponent on games I've lost lasting that long. Thank you x1,000 | ||
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CecilSunkure
United States2829 Posts
On August 28 2012 03:42 LeodaR wrote: I want to echo what sliced_bread said. I've bumbled my way through 100+ bronze league games before reading this. What a waste. (or learning experience...). As a terran, so far I can max out at 18 min with lots of low food marines. That would put me 120 supply (and usually 65 army supply) ahead of my opponent on games I've lost lasting that long. Thank you x1,000 You're welcome sir! Glad I was able to help you out | ||
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LeodaR
United States15 Posts
On August 28 2012 04:10 CecilSunkure wrote: You're welcome sir! Glad I was able to help you out Perhaps this isn't the place, or maybe I missed it in the PDF, but when do you know your macro is ready? I've been able to not get supply blocked and keep my minerals/gas under 1,000. Obviously I continue to play easy A.I. Games just to practice and improve (my next goal is to keep under 600/600 before I max out), but I'm unsure of when I'm ready to actually play again. | ||
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