EPTKnow that you make your 1st drone before sending workers to mine (same as other races). Timer for the next larvae to spawn will not start until that first larvae is used.
[D][G] Getting Better: Benchmarks - Page 2
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Bubbadub
United States156 Posts
Know that you make your 1st drone before sending workers to mine (same as other races). Timer for the next larvae to spawn will not start until that first larvae is used. | ||
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teide
Spain178 Posts
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BlizzrdSlave
161 Posts
On July 29 2011 03:22 Anfi wrote: A very advanced benchmark would be an ability to control more than one group of units simultaneously in different parts of the map. Best i saw so far was ~3-4 of IMMVP. Thats best done practicing against AI or something else. Dry runs via just making the units and then trying to control them while continuing o make macroing adjustments, and casting at air spots, controlling unit groups back and forth, etc. Its just like anything else in life. you get the mechanics down apart, do each thing on its own, then string it all together at the end to consolidate your learning into a complete whole that you win with. On July 28 2011 18:42 Geiko wrote: This is actually a awesome idea. Low level players don't realize just how bad their mechanics are and comparing to strict timings is a great idea. To all of the protoss player that I coach, I teach them the standard 4 gate, then tell them that I won't be coaching them anymore until they can consistently get 6 stalkers + 1 zealot at under 5:45 vs the AI. (consistently = 3 times in a row while I am obsing) I believe execution is the primary skill to have when learning to play starcraft. Yeah, the biggest problem forpeople who play 500 games and still bronze is macro, or in other words, the ability to expand, produce more units/control unit production multipliers such as Inject or Chrono. I had a 500 win bronze zerg ask me for coaching but onlly had 15 minutes, so I taught him 14 pool 14 hatch as a standard, and he still came out with 2000 unused minerals by 8 minutes. I had to tell him to be more proactive with injects and constantly using larvae. I got him to extractor too, and I never has as many minerals as he did, because I just do so much macroing intuitively. It was a little effort to try to intellectualize the process I use in order to explain to him how to keep his macro up. The truth is that the key to getting into plat is INDEED macro. Thats how I got there from playing SC:bw so much and having 10 years of macro under my belt. (fyi i was plat for a long time when I was supposed to be higher league due to lock). | ||
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hiyo_bye
United States737 Posts
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Squigly
United Kingdom629 Posts
Something like get X Stalkers and Y zealots by Z  Z time would be good. This is pointlessEDIT: haha at the unintended emoticon | ||
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saus
United States59 Posts
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FairForever
Canada2392 Posts
On July 29 2011 07:35 Geiko wrote: Yes it is. People who care about those things also get more precision later in the game. It's the difference between a master execution and a plat execution which gets everything out 1 minute later. No it's not. People put way too much stock in these things. You look at someone like July who goes 10 drones then overlord, doesn't use extractor trick, then builds all 3 drones when overlord pops... it seems like he should be way behind, yet he's still dominating. Not saying it doesn't help, but personally I'd rather spend two hours of my time trying to improve other parts of my game. | ||
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JDub
United States976 Posts
On July 29 2011 09:49 saus wrote: I completely agree. As a Zerg player, I'm not really concerned with how quickly I build my first drone and split my workers. Sure, it might make 1-2 seconds difference in the early game, but it's significance is basically nil.These are silly benchmarks for getting better. You could tell anyone who has never played a video game before to make an scv at a certain time and a supply depot at a certain time. It's remarkably simple. I was expecting these benchmarks to be more like never miss a single worker throughout the game until you reach your target number, always have your money under 100/100 unless you're saving up for something in particular, etc. Those are things that you can actually shoot for without achieving them once you realize you're supposed to do them. More meaningful benchmarks for Zerg, if you are looking to improve macro, would be something like these: 1) Each queen has < 50 energy at the 10 minute mark. 2) At no point in time does a hatchery have 3 idle larvae sitting around (unless you are maxed or out of money) before the 10 minute mark. This would be due to either forgetting to build stuff or getting supply blocked. I find it silly to be focusing so hard on the first 30-60 seconds of the game, when many masters players (including myself) have ridiculously sub-optimal injections, which matter 100x more than your drone timing at the beginning of the game. Every 25 missed seconds of injection is 4 larvae, which could be completely game changing. | ||
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Maskedsatyr
Singapore1245 Posts
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BlizzrdSlave
161 Posts
On July 29 2011 10:13 FairForever wrote: No it's not. People put way too much stock in these things. You look at someone like July who goes 10 drones then overlord, doesn't use extractor trick, then builds all 3 drones when overlord pops... it seems like he should be way behind, yet he's still dominating. Not saying it doesn't help, but personally I'd rather spend two hours of my time trying to improve other parts of my game. to be fair, I have done 10 OL 13 drone a lot, but I did 9 Ol once while watching the clock. At 10 ol, the Ol comes out at 57-58 seconds. This is actually regardless of whether u float up to 70 minerals during drone 8 or 9 or not. this means, with OL being a 25 second build, that your next three drones start at 1:22. At 9 ol, your next two drones after 10 supply block start at ~1:10. So 2 more drones sooner, or three more drones 10 seconds later. | ||
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CharlieBrownsc
Canada598 Posts
On July 29 2011 07:35 Geiko wrote: Yes it is. People who care about those things also get more precision later in the game. It's the difference between a master execution and a plat execution which gets everything out 1 minute later. I disagree again. "gets everything out 1 minute later" Although I do agree that a master level timing attack can come out a full minute before a platinum league one, it is not because they split their drones 0.8 seconds faster. That would make their timing come out 0.8 seconds faster, not a minute | ||
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Komsa
United States99 Posts
Speed is paramount if you can shave one second off of your build every twenty seconds, you will be ahead of an opponent who is lazy. Economy of motion with regards to thinking, mouse movement, and timings; it's all to get a timing edge on the opponent. The first timing (benchmark) is just as important as the 27th timing. These benchmarks set a foundation for perfect economic play. To hit these benchmarks you must be focused and your coordination and hand speed must be dialed in. If your hands are moving fast enough to hit these timings they'll be moving fast enough to hit that inject timing while micro'ing. These are the basic first baby steps, to neglect these initial benchmarks is to accept a shaky foundation. I say baby steps, because it's easy for a player to look at these and think of how insignificant they are in the grand scheme of a game. If there is one thing I could hope for a student of the game to get out of the OP it's that every single action in SC2 should be looked at as insignificant in the grand scheme. But, each individual insignificant baby step can be scrutinized and perfected one by one. And at some point you'll be sitting across from an opponent who has scrutinized the game almost as much as you have, until you both reach benchmark #1999. Benchmark #1999 is the mark your opponent stopped his analysis. B#1999 is the moment in time when you start leading. Why not start scrutinizing from moment one, rather than some moment nine minutes into the game? And one direct reply to a player with perhaps little tunnel vision. He says, "Although I do agree that a master level timing attack can come out a full minute before a platinum league one, it is not because they split their drones 0.8 seconds faster." The master's attack does come out a full minute before a plat because she splits her drones .8s faster, and makes her 1st overlord .8s faster, and makes her spawning pool 4s faster, and has her 16th drone 12s faster. Keep adding all these perfect little baby steps up. Do you understand now? | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10290 Posts
On July 28 2011 18:58 Pamposek wrote: For zerg there is a difference in sending drones/queueing another one. Zerg is different in building drones, because terran or protoss is bind by building time (you can build one worker per nexus/command center) but zerg can boost drones by big batch not like the others. So you are bound by harvest time, not by build time, when you want to eco +. splitting first is more effective. Wow, never thought of that, or knew that zergs [should?] split first. Pretty neat thanks for explaining! | ||
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CharlieBrownsc
Canada598 Posts
And one direct reply to a player with perhaps little tunnel vision. He says, The master's attack does come out a full minute before a plat because she splits her drones .8s faster, and makes her 1st overlord .8s faster, and makes her spawning pool 4s faster, and has her 16th drone 12s faster. Keep adding all these perfect little baby steps up. Do you understand now? This is terrible logic, because that is NOT what seperates a master league player from a platinum league player. The difference is not that they are faster at splitting and doubling up drones. Not at all, in the slightest. At MAX. The difference in time you could save on a 6gate by mastering the art of splitting probes/sending probes out to build at perfect times/doubling up on close mineral fields/laying new chronos immediatly is 6-8 seconds, that being the difference from someone playing for a week, and someone playing for a year. Although you will justify with "but 7 seconds can make all the difference," it is still a stupid, idiotic way to look at practice. When korean pros practice, they don't sit and practice their drone splits for 8 horus, nor do they play the first 3 minutes of the game over and over to ensure they can get their 3rd ovy out by 2:54 and not 2:56. Why? Because it is an utter waste of time. The major issues that seperate a platinum leaguer from a master leaguer are timing related, but not how well they split drones. Spending resources, and taking gases at proper times, scouting properly to see when it is just to cut corners to bring a timing out earlier, army control, and the game sense required to decide when to move out/pull back with a timing attack are what seperate platinum from masters You call me the one with tunnel vision? Because I view the game as a broader entity? Because I figure that starcraft skill entices more than who can hit a timing attack faster than one another? Go for it. If you want to spend all your practice time splitting your probes to save 2.1 seconds on a 4gate, be my guest. But please don't advertise this method of skill progression as a legitimate one. This enhances no army control, no decision making, no general macro skills, no scouting skills, and no understanding of the flow of starcraft. This just teaches you to become like bitbybit.Prime. As fun as he is to watch, he is by no means a good starcraft player. because he progressed his skill in the same way this thread suggests to | ||
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KimJongChill
United States6429 Posts
On July 29 2011 13:14 gdot5 wrote: I disagree again. "gets everything out 1 minute later" Although I do agree that a master level timing attack can come out a full minute before a platinum league one, it is not because they split their drones 0.8 seconds faster. That would make their timing come out 0.8 seconds faster, not a minute Well it's the butterfly effect, man. Building a later depot means a later rax, which means later so on and so forth. The slight delays are compounded until they coalesce into a significant setback. This is why pro zerg players can max out much faster than some random nabs. Of course, optimizing drone splits is absolutely useless for the majority of players, who simply just need better macro, unit control, and scouting. | ||
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Xation
Canada147 Posts
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Spike Himself
Netherlands5 Posts
Methods I've tested: - Build drone, then send drones to mine; - Build drone, then split drones to mine; - Build drone, use the idle worker key to send each drone to mine individually; - All 3 of the above, but building the 7th drone after sending the initial 6 to mine. The method I personally prefer using is building a drone first, then split drones. My reasoning for building a drone before sending the others to mine is the consideration of larvae being a resource. If I spend that larva quickly, it will respawn earlier than when I'd do it the other way around. It'd be a different story if doing it the other way around would give you a huge advantage mineral-wise, but that's not the case. | ||
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Komsa
United States99 Posts
 BitByBit enters into this discussion.For people who are fast already these benchmarks can be understood and practiced in a few minutes. People with slower hands however have an applicable goal to work towards. It's the hand speed that helps the novice player improve more than a single benchmark. The nice thing so far is that all these are standard and can be practiced every game. There is no special time to set aside, just play your normal amount of games and try to hit these benchmarks as you go. | ||
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BlizzrdSlave
161 Posts
On July 29 2011 16:20 gdot5 wrote: This is terrible logic, because that is NOT what seperates a master league player from a platinum league player. The difference is not that they are faster at splitting and doubling up drones. Not at all, in the slightest. At MAX. The difference in time you could save on a 6gate by mastering the art of splitting probes/sending probes out to build at perfect times/doubling up on close mineral fields/laying new chronos immediatly is 6-8 seconds, that being the difference from someone playing for a week, and someone playing for a year. Although you will justify with "but 7 seconds can make all the difference," it is still a stupid, idiotic way to look at practice. When korean pros practice, they don't sit and practice their drone splits for 8 horus, nor do they play the first 3 minutes of the game over and over to ensure they can get their 3rd ovy out by 2:54 and not 2:56. Why? Because it is an utter waste of time. The major issues that seperate a platinum leaguer from a master leaguer are timing related, but not how well they split drones. Spending resources, and taking gases at proper times, scouting properly to see when it is just to cut corners to bring a timing out earlier, army control, and the game sense required to decide when to move out/pull back with a timing attack are what seperate platinum from masters You call me the one with tunnel vision? Because I view the game as a broader entity? Because I figure that starcraft skill entices more than who can hit a timing attack faster than one another? Go for it. If you want to spend all your practice time splitting your probes to save 2.1 seconds on a 4gate, be my guest. But please don't advertise this method of skill progression as a legitimate one. This enhances no army control, no decision making, no general macro skills, no scouting skills, and no understanding of the flow of starcraft. This just teaches you to become like bitbybit.Prime. As fun as he is to watch, he is by no means a good starcraft player. because he progressed his skill in the same way this thread suggests to you are correct. the benefits of more workers scales linearly, and as such a 3 second difference in the beginning means a 3 second difference at the end. The only issue is when worker accelerators come into play (inject,chrono). with these, you can constantly keep getting ahead of the clock if you started at :01 seconds with all your splitting and droning perfected. A multiplier such as speed boost of unit throughput/production is what causes it to be bigger. Linear production does not multiply, and thus magnify, the difference like an actual multiplier. However, yes, the gain is so small in early to mid that this should be the LAST thing anyone learns. theres way more important things before this. On July 29 2011 16:49 KimJongChill wrote: Well it's the butterfly effect, man. Building a later depot means a later rax, which means later so on and so forth. The slight delays are compounded until they coalesce into a significant setback. This is why pro zerg players can max out much faster than some random nabs. Of course, optimizing drone splits is absolutely useless for the majority of players, who simply just need better macro, unit control, and scouting. the butterfly effect only occurs when the disparity becomes so great that it can lead to one person being set back significantly. in a mirror matchup, with identical player skill levels, one will lead and the other will follow, based on who droned perfectly and who was lazy about it at the very beginning, and they will continue to keep on track, one just a little behind the other, but neither actually deciding the fight as a win or loss. What comes into play is whether one player is less skilled/knowledgeable than the other and makes a mistake in countering, thus having caused that butterfly effect of putting them in the chase position instead of lead position to make tthem lose as well. if you have to players using the exact same builds and units, the one with +1 extra unit every fight will win, if both players A move and get the exact same luck of unit firing killing the units etc etc. If player B gets a little luckier, he will be able to take the lead from that point. If player A gets a little luckier, he wins decisively. | ||
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jhk0219
United States189 Posts
On July 29 2011 07:40 Island wrote: But basic goals that you should be able to meet with your race further in into the game will really let you know how good your mechanics are. I've found goals such as "get 48 drones by 6.30" to be very motivating and helpful for both training and build order design  High master zerg here. I could hardly imagine the level of play at which these little benchmarks could matter. Maybe in some PvP between players at the same caliber as MC and Alicia, but these little early game timing things are really getting out of hand. I play against top masters and GM's all the time, but I don't ever feel hugely disadvantaged because I didn't get my 13hatch down 2 seconds quicker or my overlord timing was half a second off. I guess these little things can help you since one should take advantage of everything possible in a game, but considering how most players/readers on TL are not at super-high level of play, I don't see how this can be a crucially important factor. It's almost detrimental for players at lower level to even worry about this sort of stuff. They should focus on more fundamental basics like scouting, proper macro, accomplishing game plan and building placement. Macro becomes harder to perfect as bases are added and unit count gets larger, so if anything, lower-level players should focus on maintaining acceptable macro continuously during the game. For the people who are arguing "these sort of things separate masters players from ______ players," I'm at a loss for words. The above quote shows just how ridiculous these little "benchmarks" can get. At no point should a player ever set a goal like "get x workers at x:xx." Starcraft 2 is a reactionary game, and ESPECIALLY if you're zerg you should learn to cut drones according to the situation. Creating benchmarks under the assumption that everything will go perfectly smooth is almost useless. A simple 12/12 2rax pressure, 1 rax poke, zealot stalker harass, 2 stalker harass, ling harass will all alter your outputs. It's much more important to UNDERSTAND what you need to have at a certain point in the game WITH RESPECT TO what the enemy player has. | ||
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