EPTOTOH, its way too easy to fall into the trap of all-inning every game. A player who has excellent macro can cobble together an all-in, but a player who only all-ins cannot cobble together a solid macro game.
[D] Learning through cheese - Page 2
| Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy |
|
Dental Floss
United States1015 Posts
OTOH, its way too easy to fall into the trap of all-inning every game. A player who has excellent macro can cobble together an all-in, but a player who only all-ins cannot cobble together a solid macro game. | ||
|
Saiton
Sweden467 Posts
That is NOT the way to get better, you can always get better. Nobody's perfect. | ||
|
Joey Wheeler
Korea (North)276 Posts
The thing about cheese is that it's incredibly easy to execute it. You can literally read up a build order on how to 5gate and do it perfectly in a couple of practice runs. And that cheese isn't even as easy as something like proxy 2gate or 6pool. Sure it's a good idea to learn how to cheese if you think that's a good way of learning to deal with it, but honestly devoting even a portion of your time just to cheese is retarded. I can guarantee you I can Baneling Bust just as well as Kyrix or July. | ||
|
bigbeau
368 Posts
On August 24 2011 06:40 Joey Wheeler wrote: I can guarantee you I can Baneling Bust just as well as Kyrix or July. Oh god. Regardless of whether you're like me and think cheese is a fine and dandy thing or if you're like idra and most of the TL community and despise the notion of getting a perceived 'cheap' win, this statement is abso-fuckin-lutely retarded. No, you cannot cheese as well as any pro player. Mid masters players cannot cheese as well as pro players. | ||
|
Ziktomini
United Kingdom377 Posts
On August 24 2011 06:55 bigbeau wrote: Oh god. Regardless of whether you're like me and think cheese is a fine and dandy thing or if you're like idra and most of the TL community and despise the notion of getting a perceived 'cheap' win, this statement is abso-fuckin-lutely retarded. No, you cannot cheese as well as any pro player. Mid masters players cannot cheese as well as pro players. Mid Masters players can in most cases cheese as well as a pro, but I guess it depends on their micro skill and how micro dependent the cheese is, in the case of a baneling bust, I'm sure with enough practice even a diamond player could execute it as well as a pro. | ||
|
Squigly
United Kingdom629 Posts
On August 24 2011 06:55 bigbeau wrote: Oh god. Regardless of whether you're like me and think cheese is a fine and dandy thing or if you're like idra and most of the TL community and despise the notion of getting a perceived 'cheap' win, this statement is abso-fuckin-lutely retarded. No, you cannot cheese as well as any pro player. Mid masters players cannot cheese as well as pro players. Im fairly confident that i can proxy 2 gate as well as a pro. Microing zealots in low numbers isnt hard, theres a very low skill cap. Cannon rushing however has a huge skill cap. | ||
|
awakenx
United States341 Posts
| ||
|
Sententia
United States90 Posts
On August 24 2011 06:16 quillian wrote:The problem is, if you are a plat player who has only ever built MMM and 1-A, how do you know how to use your scvs or micro your units when you all-in? If you've practiced marine-scv allin, or bunker rushing, you will have developed skills that are extremely useful in these moments of crisis. As I see it, in your OP you basically stated that when you do a thing you become better at it, and all-ins involve microing small numbers of units, or odd units like workers that you usually don't use, therefore you become better at those things, and playing a standard more macro-oriented style won't give you those situations. Well that's just not true. There are plenty of times in a macro-opening like 1-rax FE where you have to micro small numbers of units, and even pull units off the mineral line to defend. Macro games expose players to a much much larger variety of tasks to be done that you just never see when you cheese, like operating and defending multiple bases, positioning your army, keeping up in upgrades and scouting important timings. There's infinitely more benefit from a learning perspective to play macro games than to cheese. I think from a pro level, you should learn how to do some cheeses and use them sometimes, just to keep your opponents on their toes because they know they have to play you in a tournament setting and they know you have some cheese in your armory. But for normal players who just ladder and do customs and such, where no one is specifically preparing for you, there is no reason you have to have cheese in your arsenal. And no, I don't agree that cheesing makes you more comfortable when you get cheesed unless it's by your own race, by the cheese that you do. If you cannon rush a lot and you get cannon rushed once, obviously you'd know the important strengths and weaknesses better, but if you cannon rush a lot and you get DT rushed or 3 rax you're not going to be any better off than if you spent those cheese games playing macro. | ||
|
Puph
Canada635 Posts
On August 24 2011 05:57 Herculix wrote: pretty much this entirely. "lies the random gosu who I won't name or quote told me, which now having risen to a level of understanding which I won't announce, I know to be false." more like, figments of the chobo's imagination fragmenting the ideas that you poorly understood the gosu (who is more likely just a mid-level player) attempting to convey due to your vague and ignorant perspective of how the game works. REALLY? You are going to dismiss a perfectly sensible article because of the title and conclude it is invalid due to the suspected connection with mid-level players? What a terribly narrow mind to ignore the benifits of what of the OP's claims. It is true,you cannot 1A your way to victory. Now, what if all you know is 1A or a disgruntled version of it? Micro is necessary, and the best way to practice it than micro-intensive, quick builds? (IE: Cheese). That doesn't mean cheese all day, erry day. This seems to have blown right past you. Once you feel comfortable with cheese, getting the micro on is a piece of cake because you pure know what can stop you, and fast(in every sense possible). To deny cheese is to deny a resourceful way of learning. You like resources, don't you? | ||
|
xlava
United States676 Posts
| ||
|
BioTech
Australia264 Posts
My advice to Bronze thru to Diamond players - dont worry about APM at all. Concentrate on macro, unique build orders, strategy, scouting and having an excellent grasp on what unit compositions you need in any given situation. | ||
|
Joey Wheeler
Korea (North)276 Posts
On August 24 2011 06:55 bigbeau wrote: Oh god. Regardless of whether you're like me and think cheese is a fine and dandy thing or if you're like idra and most of the TL community and despise the notion of getting a perceived 'cheap' win, this statement is abso-fuckin-lutely retarded. No, you cannot cheese as well as any pro player. Mid masters players cannot cheese as well as pro players. Where's your evidence what you said is true? The execution is simple, what seperates me from July is his decision making on to when to do it. Idra and Ret both have lost to a baneling all-in multiple times from a player who I know has low diamond macro mechanics at best. | ||
|
whoopingchow
United States293 Posts
On August 24 2011 07:14 xlava wrote: You gotta be able to macro before you can micro. Cheese is a bad idea for new players. But then again, things like 3 rax, 4gate, 1 base roach, etc, doesn't have to be cheese at the lowest levels. Just practicing making units off one base is enough macro practice without it being the cheese. I was just promoted from Bronze doing mostly nothing but 3-rax openings. The 3-rax stim timing push has such a tight window that practicing the same build over and over actually increased my game sense and macro, since a single missed supply depot or late marine throws off the timing substantially. That said, I think practicing cheeses are the absolute best way to practice becoming crisp at macro-ing (throwing down supply depots at exactly 100 minerals, calling down MULES at exactly 50 energy, etc). Obviously, you'll have to learn to adapt later, but you've gotta start somewhere right? The longer games go on, the more decisions have to be made, and the more variability you'll encounter--but if you blindly cheese, then there's nothing to focus on except your mechanics. | ||
Falling
Canada11349 Posts
On August 24 2011 06:05 quillian wrote: Perhaps the title is too provacative =D Executing micro intensive builds will improve your apm. Practicing builds that require tight executing a good timing will improve your sense for both of these thigns when you return to macro builds. Having executed cheese and seen it defended will make you more confident in defending it yourself. These things seem self evident. Low level players who practice only macro usually hit a wall. They never even try to position units correctly or micro fights. If this is never even attempted, they can't improve. By taking a break from macro to focus exclusively on micro and defending against cheese, they will be freed up to improve both more fluidly. I think there's definitely some truth here. At this point in BW, I am sometimes throwing games where I have 30 supply lead and losing due to poor engagements. (Tank pushes are hard to deal with.) And going back to SC2 it's the same thing. I don't know if cheese is necessarily the answer, but experimenting with small force early aggression timings is probably very useful- (the difficulty is not usually macro or micro, but rather macro AND micro at the same time.) Although I personally use safe builds, I really think there it's useful to have a wide array of openings including cheese. Based on all those "Korean netizen reaction to ____________", one of their consistent critiques and sources of amusement is on the passivity of North Americans- that we actually allow Zergs to drone, drone, drone, that we hardly engage in the early game. So there might be something to this. We have blocked ourselves off from much more aggressive play "cheese is noob" while the Koreans look at us as "lol, passive noob." Not saying we should all start cannon-rushing like CombatEx. But we might be erring too far on the passive side in our disdain for anything close to 'cheese. "Cheese" by the way, get's thrown around too much. There's always those scrubs who prefer a 10 min, no rush policy. But... 1) A safe build can't be considered safe, if it's vulnerable to a rush. No anger, but there's a need to refine or rethink as it clearly didn't work. If the point is to just barely survive to get a long term advantage and you didn't survive, that's not their fault... it's yours. There was a flaw because they didn't 'cheat.' It's very much a scrub mentality that blames other people for not playing the right way. The entire idea is that safe builds are harder and will take longer to develop and so theoretically cheesers are sprinting and you're running the marathon... so then why get angry at them for sprinting? Just crush them 4 laps later. 2) I would hope a cheeser would eventually develop a longer term strategy that is highly aggressive. The problem of cheese/ all-in is not that it's aggressive, but that there's no transition plan if it fails. But if there is a transition plan, then suddenly it's not an all-in. I could rant further on why 'cheese' is actually necessary to the development of strategy, but I'll stop. edit: I think most all-in players will either plateau or transition. In BW I figured out the 10/12 zealot gateway rush and crushed people at the 8 minute mark, but eventually found better builds. In SC2, my cousin developed highly refined rax proxies, m&m rushes, and reaper builds that could clean out your worker lines or snipe nexuses. And yet now he's a giant macro player. So patience with all those cheesers, they're necessary to refine safe builds and probably a necessary part of new player growth. Ok, that was probably a big tangent, but there were a few anti-cheese ranters on here, so just bringing balance to the force  | ||
|
FMJ
United States169 Posts
Cheese is easy to pull off and execute, but macro is a life-long skill to develop. People who can macro like mad and survive can probably cheese (the cheesing APM is much, much lower). People who can cheese cannot necessarily macro if they wanted. It's hardly a lie. | ||
|
Joey Wheeler
Korea (North)276 Posts
On August 24 2011 07:51 whoopingchow wrote: I was just promoted from Bronze doing mostly nothing but 3-rax openings. The 3-rax stim timing push has such a tight window that practicing the same build over and over actually increased my game sense and macro, since a single missed supply depot or late marine throws off the timing substantially. That said, I think practicing cheeses are the absolute best way to practice becoming crisp at macro-ing (throwing down supply depots at exactly 100 minerals, calling down MULES at exactly 50 energy, etc). Obviously, you'll have to learn to adapt later, but you've gotta start somewhere right? The longer games go on, the more decisions have to be made, and the more variability you'll encounter--but if you blindly cheese, then there's nothing to focus on except your mechanics. There's nothing to focus on except mechanics if you 3rax, but those mechanics only relate to rallying units from 3 barracks and stutterstepping non-stimmed marines. Longer games means your mechanics will be better because you start needing to manage multiple bases, harassing yourself, and controlling your army. | ||
|
Squigly
United Kingdom629 Posts
On August 24 2011 07:27 BioTech wrote: The biggest lie I think that is perpetuated is APM means much. I am a 430pt diamond T who is aged 37, Im ranked 2 in my div and my APM has never reached 50. I often beat Masters and may well crack that level soon. My advice to Bronze thru to Diamond players - dont worry about APM at all. Concentrate on macro, unique build orders, strategy, scouting and having an excellent grasp on what unit compositions you need in any given situation. I agree. I often beat masters chilling at a nice 60 apm | ||
|
rd
United States2586 Posts
On August 24 2011 06:05 quillian wrote: Perhaps the title is too provacative =D Executing micro intensive builds will improve your apm. Practicing builds that require tight executing a good timing will improve your sense for both of these thigns when you return to macro builds. Having executed cheese and seen it defended will make you more confident in defending it yourself. These things seem self evident. Low level players who practice only macro usually hit a wall. They never even try to position units correctly or micro fights. If this is never even attempted, they can't improve. By taking a break from macro to focus exclusively on micro and defending against cheese, they will be freed up to improve both more fluidly. You won't magically macro perfectly because of a higher APM, you'll just develop the muscle memory to executing x cheese like a robot. The second you go into a 2 base situation trying to macro perfectly and execute any multitask, you will immediately become overwhelmed when you actually don't do it enough. Low level players who hit a wall macro'ing don't have perfect macro, and it's difficult to suggest after hundreds of games they don't naturally come across superior methods of positioning and micro. Not every unit in SC2 requires micro, if any. It's flawed to suggest a player to drop macro to cheese and then somehow learn how to micro. Micro'ing isn't a mysterious art. They can go into a custom game and practice FF'ing perfectly, or stutter stepping to get the hang of it. The real practice they need is not being afraid to look at their base mid battle, and then returning to the battle to accept any disadvantage and continue to micro. APM thats much more valuable than spamming to execute a cannon rush for 6 minutes. Get fast enough at it, and you're already high master level with at least 150+ apm. | ||
|
FoeHamr
United States489 Posts
| ||
|
Artisian
United States115 Posts
This will do 3 things: 1. You will get very good at executing tight builds and learn how timing windows work. 2. You will practice intense micro in a wide variety of situations with all kinds of units. 3. You will learn how good players defend against cheese, and will stop fearing it. and saying you get the same out of a macro game. I can pretty safely say you can't, at least not in nearly the same amount of time. A good cheese will get the game over with either way in roughly 10 minutes, any mistake you make has almost immediate consequences that are usually painfully obvious. From personal experience, I've learned a ton about positioning, kiting, and when to run by playing and cheeseing as the other races. When I play my main race, protoss, I have a much better concept of what I'm scouting, what will counter it, and when I need to worry about. I also know how difficult a given strategy is, and how vulnerable it is before, during, and after the initial build order. The benefit of cheesing as the other races is that you don't need a practice partner to tell you what happens when and why, you are doing it yourself. You learn very quickly what completely destroys any given strat you try as the league system places you against better people until someone can hold it, and it is infinitely easier to hold it as the defender when you know exactly what tactic, position, and build will put you furthest ahead. You don't have to wait for someone to beat you with a 6 pool so you can analyze the replay and theory-craft your response, you have a huge data set from these cheese games you've done where you can look at multiple answers other people have found or tried to hold your cheese. When the impossibly hard to hold 3 rax came out, I played terran for some 20 games until I knew where it would have difficulty and what I could do to reliably scout and hold it. At one time I was having a really hard time keeping an expo vs a large speedling attack, so I played zerg for a season with as many zergling centered styles as I could think of until I had a solid idea of when I was safe, and what I could scout for. TL;DR: Cheesing gives you much better early game sense and positioning experience faster than playing only macro games. | ||
| ||
