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On August 24 2011 05:45 quillian wrote:
A consistent theme in [G]uides for low level players is that they should just ignore cheese; cheesers won't ever improve past a certain point, so just take the loss and move on with the knowledge that you are growing.
This advice is highly misleading. If you think cheese doesn't happen at high levels, you aren’t watching enough tournaments. It is a fundamental part of the game. In a tournament, I would cheese, too. In ladder games I almost never cheese anymore because I consider it too risky. If I can force my opponent into a macro game, I feel I improve my chances to win.
When I got cheesed I carefully watch the replay to learn how I could have scout it and move on with trying to force the opponent to macro in the next game, too.
In a friendly 1v1 series I recently cheesed someone who thought I would go hatch first every game. This is different as we both know each other. I want him to always fear a roach all-in or baneling bust.
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I think there are better ways of practicing micro that don't sacrifice macro. Think of it this way:
Players are often told, like started in the OP, that pure, 100% macro play is a good way to improve, and that they shouldn't micro at all. It's also true that this doesn't teach micro and leaves people at less than their potential. However, if players are simply informed that micro can and will make or break games (better concave -> winning a battle -> more units next fight -> snowball effect!) and that they can be smart about how they engage and control fights to come out on top in reasonably equal battles.
This includes things like keeping roaches right up against enemy forces, splitting marines, and placing colossi carefully behind stalkers. These things aren't mutually exclusive with macro, whereas cheese is. It's more efficient to micro AND macro instead of focusing on just one thing at a time.
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On August 28 2011 01:09 UmiNotsuki wrote:
I think there are better ways of practicing micro that don't sacrifice macro. Think of it this way:
Players are often told, like started in the OP, that pure, 100% macro play is a good way to improve, and that they shouldn't micro at all. It's also true that this doesn't teach micro and leaves people at less than their potential. However, if players are simply informed that micro can and will make or break games (better concave -> winning a battle -> more units next fight -> snowball effect!) and that they can be smart about how they engage and control fights to come out on top in reasonably equal battles.
This includes things like keeping roaches right up against enemy forces, splitting marines, and placing colossi carefully behind stalkers. These things aren't mutually exclusive with macro, whereas cheese is. It's more efficient to micro AND macro instead of focusing on just one thing at a time.
i agree with this ! I reached master with no micro... A move then macro my base. But now i'm like someone who just cheesed his way to master, i hadto learn micro from 0.
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AS other people stated, but i will restate.
Good basis, but the title is over the top, even if funny.
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Lol, as I read this, White-ra cannon rushes on his stream xD
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On August 24 2011 05:50 Numy wrote:
Sensationalist titles aren't really something we like in strategy section. Also I don't really understand the point of this. People say not to rely on cheese on ladder to improve and you say exactly that but go on some round about tangent which is really odd. Why would you fear cheese less if you cheese yourself? Why would it heighten your game sense or apm more than doing non-cheese? Bold statements without backing are meaningless
actually, the title is what got me to look at this. the whole point of the thread is to suggest that a player practices cheesing with all 3 races to get an idea of micro and how to beat cheese. if you cheese and get beat, you have a first hand experience of how to stop it.
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It cannot be denied at all, Macro is a fundamental part of the game.
But I think it's overrated by various communities, including the TL, WellPlayed and even especially the SCReddit community.
On August 24 2011 06:11 bigbeau wrote:
Okay, first of all, I understand what you're saying, but if you want to be a macro player, you don't need to learn to cheese or all-in. If you're a pure macro player, the best in the world, and NEVER all-in, you'll still win your games.
If you're going vs a zerg, and you're terran, he 15 hatches, so you 2-rax bunker push; that's not cheese and it's certainly not all-in, it's not even designed to win, just to gain an advantage. If he's zerg and you're protoss, and he's droning like a madman, so you move across the map to put pressure on, that's not all-in, just macro play. If he keeps droning, then you kill him. Timing attacks and pressure are different than all-ins and cheese.
On the other hand, this bullshit about being a better 'player' by not cheesing is just that, bullshit. There are grandmaster players who cheese every single game. They're in grandmasters, and you aren't. Why? Because they're BETTER at the game than you or me. The game is to destroy your opponents buildings, and if they accomplish that more often than not versus any given opponent, they're better. You can claim that there's some bullshit underlying respect or code of ethics to starcraft, and that's fine and you can choose whichever style you want, but don't claim that because a player 'cheeses' every game, that somehow makes you a better sc player.
Okay, let me put this into an example that you'll hopefully get.
You have okay macro, and by the thirteenth minute, you've taken your third, have a slightly sizeable Protoss force including a couple of Stalkers, a few Zealots about 6 - 7 Sentries and about 2 or 3 Colossi. Your Terran opponent then responds with a devastating two-pronged drop on both your main and your natural, sniping about 10 probes, two Assimilators and several pylons before you can completely clean it up.
Then, because quite a bit of your army is out of position and you're distracted, he moves into yur deathball with vikings, snipes each Colossus and stims in for the kill.
Did imperfect macro lose you that game? No. Several other factors did including a possible overreaction to a drop, not anticipating the drop properly, not reacting to it quick enough, possibly not enough scouting, possibly not good enough micro. There are many factors.
And now a second example which happened in a ZvZ game I lost in the first 2 minutes. You do a 14 gas 14 pool in ZvZ on cross positions. By the time your pool is about 70 - 80% complete, oh crap, there are 2 Spine Crawlers morphing on your creep and just moments later, your opponent is camping them with 6 Zerglings. Your 14 14 extractor first build has just been hard countered by an 8 pool double spine zergling rush.
You can't attack the lings or the morphing Spine Crawlers because with anything better than inadequate micro, they can prevent a surround and just one sidedly destroy your drones, and you can't stay idle because by the time your Spawning Pool finishes, sure you can research speed and get 6 Zerglings and a Queen out yourself but your opponent is all-inning and morphing reinforcements, plus the Spine Crawlers have finished morphing. Did you lose because of "imperfect macro." No. You lost because that build gets countered pretty damn hard by horrifically early pool all-ins.
I don't think somebody can lose just because "they didn't have enough units." Sure in some situations, that may be a big factor for instance if one player prepared for a timing a bit too late and lost because of it, but that's not always the case.
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Yep, the reason I lose is almost never because I don't have enough stuff. And if it is the reason, then that's because I was put behind heavily early because I fucked up my unit control while pressuring or being pressured.
If you don't have at least adequate unit control, you can't do macro games, because you can't defend your economy, or won't even get the opportunity to macro.
Or if you play against zerg: if you don't apply pressure with adequate unit control, you will never win the macro game.
Unless you turtle so hard that it negates your stronger economy, micro, not just for defense, but also for scouting and pressure, to take expansions, is what allows you to macro in the first place.
People that sit in their base, build the army they want and then move out are those with 50% win rates in bronze. If you can't micro, you can't have safe builds.
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On August 30 2011 08:38 Clbull wrote:It cannot be denied at all, Macro is a fundamental part of the game. But I think it's overrated by various communities, including the TL, WellPlayed and even especially the SCReddit community. Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 06:11 bigbeau wrote:
Okay, first of all, I understand what you're saying, but if you want to be a macro player, you don't need to learn to cheese or all-in. If you're a pure macro player, the best in the world, and NEVER all-in, you'll still win your games.
If you're going vs a zerg, and you're terran, he 15 hatches, so you 2-rax bunker push; that's not cheese and it's certainly not all-in, it's not even designed to win, just to gain an advantage. If he's zerg and you're protoss, and he's droning like a madman, so you move across the map to put pressure on, that's not all-in, just macro play. If he keeps droning, then you kill him. Timing attacks and pressure are different than all-ins and cheese.
On the other hand, this bullshit about being a better 'player' by not cheesing is just that, bullshit. There are grandmaster players who cheese every single game. They're in grandmasters, and you aren't. Why? Because they're BETTER at the game than you or me. The game is to destroy your opponents buildings, and if they accomplish that more often than not versus any given opponent, they're better. You can claim that there's some bullshit underlying respect or code of ethics to starcraft, and that's fine and you can choose whichever style you want, but don't claim that because a player 'cheeses' every game, that somehow makes you a better sc player. Okay, let me put this into an example that you'll hopefully get. You have okay macro, and by the thirteenth minute, you've taken your third, have a slightly sizeable Protoss force including a couple of Stalkers, a few Zealots about 6 - 7 Sentries and about 2 or 3 Colossi. Your Terran opponent then responds with a devastating two-pronged drop on both your main and your natural, sniping about 10 probes, two Assimilators and several pylons before you can completely clean it up. Then, because quite a bit of your army is out of position and you're distracted, he moves into yur deathball with vikings, snipes each Colossus and stims in for the kill. Did imperfect macro lose you that game? No. Several other factors did including a possible overreaction to a drop, not anticipating the drop properly, not reacting to it quick enough, possibly not enough scouting, possibly not good enough micro. There are many factors. And now a second example which happened in a ZvZ game I lost in the first 2 minutes. You do a 14 gas 14 pool in ZvZ on cross positions. By the time your pool is about 70 - 80% complete, oh crap, there are 2 Spine Crawlers morphing on your creep and just moments later, your opponent is camping them with 6 Zerglings. Your 14 14 extractor first build has just been hard countered by an 8 pool double spine zergling rush. You can't attack the lings or the morphing Spine Crawlers because with anything better than inadequate micro, they can prevent a surround and just one sidedly destroy your drones, and you can't stay idle because by the time your Spawning Pool finishes, sure you can research speed and get 6 Zerglings and a Queen out yourself but your opponent is all-inning and morphing reinforcements, plus the Spine Crawlers have finished morphing. Did you lose because of "imperfect macro." No. You lost because that build gets countered pretty damn hard by horrifically early pool all-ins. I don't think somebody can lose just because "they didn't have enough units." Sure in some situations, that may be a big factor for instance if one player prepared for a timing a bit too late and lost because of it, but that's not always the case.
When in gold do you see multipronged drops. Never. Thw whole point is in gold the micro level is so low that its better jsut to not even try until you can macro. As good macro and no micro, always beats bad macro and good micro.
I cant tell if your trolling of what. But, if you have macrod way better, and have more gats etc. You can just warp in to defend drops and a move into their base. You will win most games. Micro is pointless in lower leagues as it makes yo macro less.
The whole point is as you get better your macro doesnt get much better, but you can do it while doing other stuff, like micro.
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Blazinghand
United States25551 Posts
On August 30 2011 08:39 imbecile wrote:
Yep, the reason I lose is almost never because I don't have enough stuff. And if it is the reason, then that's because I was put behind heavily early because I fucked up my unit control while pressuring or being pressured.
If you don't have at least adequate unit control, you can't do macro games, because you can't defend your economy, or won't even get the opportunity to macro.
Or if you play against zerg: if you don't apply pressure with adequate unit control, you will never win the macro game.
Unless you turtle so hard that it negates your stronger economy, micro, not just for defense, but also for scouting and pressure, to take expansions, is what allows you to macro in the first place.
People that sit in their base, build the army they want and then move out are those with 50% win rates in bronze. If you can't micro, you can't have safe builds.
So you're saying that you often lose while having similar or larger army size than your opponent? Barring certain exceptions (cloak units, or air units and you have no detection or AA) it seems like if you have the larger army, you could probably attack-move to victory, right?
Playing against low-level players, I rarely find micro to be a factor in who wins the fights, even against zerg players-- to be able to inject properly and spam drones when not under pressure takes good macro, which I find in the lower leagues to be stunningly absent.
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On August 30 2011 09:10 Squigly wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2011 08:38 Clbull wrote:It cannot be denied at all, Macro is a fundamental part of the game. But I think it's overrated by various communities, including the TL, WellPlayed and even especially the SCReddit community. On August 24 2011 06:11 bigbeau wrote:
Okay, first of all, I understand what you're saying, but if you want to be a macro player, you don't need to learn to cheese or all-in. If you're a pure macro player, the best in the world, and NEVER all-in, you'll still win your games.
If you're going vs a zerg, and you're terran, he 15 hatches, so you 2-rax bunker push; that's not cheese and it's certainly not all-in, it's not even designed to win, just to gain an advantage. If he's zerg and you're protoss, and he's droning like a madman, so you move across the map to put pressure on, that's not all-in, just macro play. If he keeps droning, then you kill him. Timing attacks and pressure are different than all-ins and cheese.
On the other hand, this bullshit about being a better 'player' by not cheesing is just that, bullshit. There are grandmaster players who cheese every single game. They're in grandmasters, and you aren't. Why? Because they're BETTER at the game than you or me. The game is to destroy your opponents buildings, and if they accomplish that more often than not versus any given opponent, they're better. You can claim that there's some bullshit underlying respect or code of ethics to starcraft, and that's fine and you can choose whichever style you want, but don't claim that because a player 'cheeses' every game, that somehow makes you a better sc player. Okay, let me put this into an example that you'll hopefully get. You have okay macro, and by the thirteenth minute, you've taken your third, have a slightly sizeable Protoss force including a couple of Stalkers, a few Zealots about 6 - 7 Sentries and about 2 or 3 Colossi. Your Terran opponent then responds with a devastating two-pronged drop on both your main and your natural, sniping about 10 probes, two Assimilators and several pylons before you can completely clean it up. Then, because quite a bit of your army is out of position and you're distracted, he moves into yur deathball with vikings, snipes each Colossus and stims in for the kill. Did imperfect macro lose you that game? No. Several other factors did including a possible overreaction to a drop, not anticipating the drop properly, not reacting to it quick enough, possibly not enough scouting, possibly not good enough micro. There are many factors. And now a second example which happened in a ZvZ game I lost in the first 2 minutes. You do a 14 gas 14 pool in ZvZ on cross positions. By the time your pool is about 70 - 80% complete, oh crap, there are 2 Spine Crawlers morphing on your creep and just moments later, your opponent is camping them with 6 Zerglings. Your 14 14 extractor first build has just been hard countered by an 8 pool double spine zergling rush. You can't attack the lings or the morphing Spine Crawlers because with anything better than inadequate micro, they can prevent a surround and just one sidedly destroy your drones, and you can't stay idle because by the time your Spawning Pool finishes, sure you can research speed and get 6 Zerglings and a Queen out yourself but your opponent is all-inning and morphing reinforcements, plus the Spine Crawlers have finished morphing. Did you lose because of "imperfect macro." No. You lost because that build gets countered pretty damn hard by horrifically early pool all-ins. I don't think somebody can lose just because "they didn't have enough units." Sure in some situations, that may be a big factor for instance if one player prepared for a timing a bit too late and lost because of it, but that's not always the case. When in gold do you see multipronged drops. Never. Thw whole point is in gold the micro level is so low that its better jsut to not even try until you can macro. As good macro and no micro, always beats bad macro and good micro. I cant tell if your trolling of what. But, if you have macrod way better, and have more gats etc. You can just warp in to defend drops and a move into their base. You will win most games. Micro is pointless in lower leagues as it makes yo macro less. The whole point is as you get better your macro doesnt get much better, but you can do it while doing other stuff, like micro.
I think I saw it two or three times.
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Blazinghand
United States25551 Posts
On August 30 2011 09:40 Clbull wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2011 09:10 Squigly wrote:On August 30 2011 08:38 Clbull wrote:It cannot be denied at all, Macro is a fundamental part of the game. But I think it's overrated by various communities, including the TL, WellPlayed and even especially the SCReddit community. On August 24 2011 06:11 bigbeau wrote:
Okay, first of all, I understand what you're saying, but if you want to be a macro player, you don't need to learn to cheese or all-in. If you're a pure macro player, the best in the world, and NEVER all-in, you'll still win your games.
If you're going vs a zerg, and you're terran, he 15 hatches, so you 2-rax bunker push; that's not cheese and it's certainly not all-in, it's not even designed to win, just to gain an advantage. If he's zerg and you're protoss, and he's droning like a madman, so you move across the map to put pressure on, that's not all-in, just macro play. If he keeps droning, then you kill him. Timing attacks and pressure are different than all-ins and cheese.
On the other hand, this bullshit about being a better 'player' by not cheesing is just that, bullshit. There are grandmaster players who cheese every single game. They're in grandmasters, and you aren't. Why? Because they're BETTER at the game than you or me. The game is to destroy your opponents buildings, and if they accomplish that more often than not versus any given opponent, they're better. You can claim that there's some bullshit underlying respect or code of ethics to starcraft, and that's fine and you can choose whichever style you want, but don't claim that because a player 'cheeses' every game, that somehow makes you a better sc player. Okay, let me put this into an example that you'll hopefully get. You have okay macro, and by the thirteenth minute, you've taken your third, have a slightly sizeable Protoss force including a couple of Stalkers, a few Zealots about 6 - 7 Sentries and about 2 or 3 Colossi. Your Terran opponent then responds with a devastating two-pronged drop on both your main and your natural, sniping about 10 probes, two Assimilators and several pylons before you can completely clean it up. Then, because quite a bit of your army is out of position and you're distracted, he moves into yur deathball with vikings, snipes each Colossus and stims in for the kill. Did imperfect macro lose you that game? No. Several other factors did including a possible overreaction to a drop, not anticipating the drop properly, not reacting to it quick enough, possibly not enough scouting, possibly not good enough micro. There are many factors. And now a second example which happened in a ZvZ game I lost in the first 2 minutes. You do a 14 gas 14 pool in ZvZ on cross positions. By the time your pool is about 70 - 80% complete, oh crap, there are 2 Spine Crawlers morphing on your creep and just moments later, your opponent is camping them with 6 Zerglings. Your 14 14 extractor first build has just been hard countered by an 8 pool double spine zergling rush. You can't attack the lings or the morphing Spine Crawlers because with anything better than inadequate micro, they can prevent a surround and just one sidedly destroy your drones, and you can't stay idle because by the time your Spawning Pool finishes, sure you can research speed and get 6 Zerglings and a Queen out yourself but your opponent is all-inning and morphing reinforcements, plus the Spine Crawlers have finished morphing. Did you lose because of "imperfect macro." No. You lost because that build gets countered pretty damn hard by horrifically early pool all-ins. I don't think somebody can lose just because "they didn't have enough units." Sure in some situations, that may be a big factor for instance if one player prepared for a timing a bit too late and lost because of it, but that's not always the case. When in gold do you see multipronged drops. Never. Thw whole point is in gold the micro level is so low that its better jsut to not even try until you can macro. As good macro and no micro, always beats bad macro and good micro. I cant tell if your trolling of what. But, if you have macrod way better, and have more gats etc. You can just warp in to defend drops and a move into their base. You will win most games. Micro is pointless in lower leagues as it makes yo macro less. The whole point is as you get better your macro doesnt get much better, but you can do it while doing other stuff, like micro. I think I saw it two or three times.
For the large part, I think that in the lower leagues, you'll see some well-executed strategy from time to time, but in silver and bronze league, either A) the players lack basic mechanics to truly get these strategies to work, B) the players don't really have a strategy in mind or C) they're just hanging out and having fun and not trying to win in a super tryhard fashion.
Not everyone in bronze league is on TL spamming build orders and learning, and those that are tend to rise pretty quickly.
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On August 30 2011 09:39 Blazinghand wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2011 08:39 imbecile wrote:
Yep, the reason I lose is almost never because I don't have enough stuff. And if it is the reason, then that's because I was put behind heavily early because I fucked up my unit control while pressuring or being pressured.
If you don't have at least adequate unit control, you can't do macro games, because you can't defend your economy, or won't even get the opportunity to macro.
Or if you play against zerg: if you don't apply pressure with adequate unit control, you will never win the macro game.
Unless you turtle so hard that it negates your stronger economy, micro, not just for defense, but also for scouting and pressure, to take expansions, is what allows you to macro in the first place.
People that sit in their base, build the army they want and then move out are those with 50% win rates in bronze. If you can't micro, you can't have safe builds. So you're saying that you often lose while having similar or larger army size than your opponent? Barring certain exceptions (cloak units, or air units and you have no detection or AA) it seems like if you have the larger army, you could probably attack-move to victory, right? Playing against low-level players, I rarely find micro to be a factor in who wins the fights, even against zerg players-- to be able to inject properly and spam drones when not under pressure takes good macro, which I find in the lower leagues to be stunningly absent.
Yes, that's what I'm saying. Because early game the army differences are small, even if the macro is different. The outcome of the first fight is almost never determined by unit count, because the unit count is too equal. It is determined by positioning and control and seeing it coming. It doesn't matter how many lings you have if there is a force field on the ramp, to give one of the most obvious examples. And if you can't defend 2 rax with drones you will never get to play macro games.
Also, good luck with a-moving tank marine against mass ling/bling.
It really is that simple: 90% of my games I lose, it is because I fuck up the first engagement (or even before) with some stupid control error. Hole in wall, misclick, not looking at minimap, not looking at army while placing buildings at home, ...
When I get to the game phase where macro actually does matter, I usually win, if I didn't get too behind early with some control error.
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On August 30 2011 08:38 Clbull wrote:It cannot be denied at all, Macro is a fundamental part of the game. But I think it's overrated by various communities, including the TL, WellPlayed and even especially the SCReddit community. Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 06:11 bigbeau wrote:
Okay, first of all, I understand what you're saying, but if you want to be a macro player, you don't need to learn to cheese or all-in. If you're a pure macro player, the best in the world, and NEVER all-in, you'll still win your games.
If you're going vs a zerg, and you're terran, he 15 hatches, so you 2-rax bunker push; that's not cheese and it's certainly not all-in, it's not even designed to win, just to gain an advantage. If he's zerg and you're protoss, and he's droning like a madman, so you move across the map to put pressure on, that's not all-in, just macro play. If he keeps droning, then you kill him. Timing attacks and pressure are different than all-ins and cheese.
On the other hand, this bullshit about being a better 'player' by not cheesing is just that, bullshit. There are grandmaster players who cheese every single game. They're in grandmasters, and you aren't. Why? Because they're BETTER at the game than you or me. The game is to destroy your opponents buildings, and if they accomplish that more often than not versus any given opponent, they're better. You can claim that there's some bullshit underlying respect or code of ethics to starcraft, and that's fine and you can choose whichever style you want, but don't claim that because a player 'cheeses' every game, that somehow makes you a better sc player. Okay, let me put this into an example that you'll hopefully get. You have okay macro, and by the thirteenth minute, you've taken your third, have a slightly sizeable Protoss force including a couple of Stalkers, a few Zealots about 6 - 7 Sentries and about 2 or 3 Colossi. Your Terran opponent then responds with a devastating two-pronged drop on both your main and your natural, sniping about 10 probes, two Assimilators and several pylons before you can completely clean it up. Then, because quite a bit of your army is out of position and you're distracted, he moves into yur deathball with vikings, snipes each Colossus and stims in for the kill. Did imperfect macro lose you that game? No. Several other factors did including a possible overreaction to a drop, not anticipating the drop properly, not reacting to it quick enough, possibly not enough scouting, possibly not good enough micro. There are many factors. And now a second example which happened in a ZvZ game I lost in the first 2 minutes. You do a 14 gas 14 pool in ZvZ on cross positions. By the time your pool is about 70 - 80% complete, oh crap, there are 2 Spine Crawlers morphing on your creep and just moments later, your opponent is camping them with 6 Zerglings. Your 14 14 extractor first build has just been hard countered by an 8 pool double spine zergling rush. You can't attack the lings or the morphing Spine Crawlers because with anything better than inadequate micro, they can prevent a surround and just one sidedly destroy your drones, and you can't stay idle because by the time your Spawning Pool finishes, sure you can research speed and get 6 Zerglings and a Queen out yourself but your opponent is all-inning and morphing reinforcements, plus the Spine Crawlers have finished morphing. Did you lose because of "imperfect macro." No. You lost because that build gets countered pretty damn hard by horrifically early pool all-ins. I don't think somebody can lose just because "they didn't have enough units." Sure in some situations, that may be a big factor for instance if one player prepared for a timing a bit too late and lost because of it, but that's not always the case.
Multitasking/speed/camera control(/not scouting your creep) is a whole different story.
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Cheesing for lower level players is very destructive for their development.
The brain no matter what we do for the first times, be it SC2, an assignment or riding a horse, takes whatever gives success first as fundamentals.
In SC2 this is proven quite well by how much cheesing happens at the lower levels.
A new player to SC2 will try one thing a couple of games, and mostly not win, will try another thing a couple of games and again, mostly not win, then he tries cheesing and have decent to good success with it; This fools the brain into thinking the fundamentals of success in SC2 lies in cheesing, while in truth cheesing compared to macro (which is what should be discussed, not whetever or not cheesing can make you improve as simply playing the game no matter how will make you improve) is a terribly slow way of learning, and then comes the big problem, you reach a point and realize macro is the best way to improve, problem now is that you will have a much harder time learning to macro since your brain is wired to the fundamentals of cheese.
Yes, as has been mentioned, playing pure macro will make you lose against early pools, 3rax, proxy 2gate and what not, but you despite that will reach a higher level faster with macro, and it is even better than just that, once you start mastering the art of macro you will skyrocket in skill, since at this point you will need very little time to learn how to defeat all the different cheeses and when you suddenly go over that hill you will be an outstanding player.
I would tell a friend of mine playing for the first time how to step by step macro, and would let him do that until at least high diamond.
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Blazinghand
United States25551 Posts
On August 30 2011 10:25 imbecile wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2011 09:39 Blazinghand wrote:On August 30 2011 08:39 imbecile wrote:
Yep, the reason I lose is almost never because I don't have enough stuff. And if it is the reason, then that's because I was put behind heavily early because I fucked up my unit control while pressuring or being pressured.
If you don't have at least adequate unit control, you can't do macro games, because you can't defend your economy, or won't even get the opportunity to macro.
Or if you play against zerg: if you don't apply pressure with adequate unit control, you will never win the macro game.
Unless you turtle so hard that it negates your stronger economy, micro, not just for defense, but also for scouting and pressure, to take expansions, is what allows you to macro in the first place.
People that sit in their base, build the army they want and then move out are those with 50% win rates in bronze. If you can't micro, you can't have safe builds. So you're saying that you often lose while having similar or larger army size than your opponent? Barring certain exceptions (cloak units, or air units and you have no detection or AA) it seems like if you have the larger army, you could probably attack-move to victory, right? Playing against low-level players, I rarely find micro to be a factor in who wins the fights, even against zerg players-- to be able to inject properly and spam drones when not under pressure takes good macro, which I find in the lower leagues to be stunningly absent. Yes, that's what I'm saying. Because early game the army differences are small, even if the macro is different. The outcome of the first fight is almost never determined by unit count, because the unit count is too equal. It is determined by positioning and control and seeing it coming. It doesn't matter how many lings you have if there is a force field on the ramp, to give one of the most obvious examples. And if you can't defend 2 rax with drones you will never get to play macro games. Also, good luck with a-moving tank marine against mass ling/bling. It really is that simple: 90% of my games I lose, it is because I fuck up the first engagement (or even before) with some stupid control error. Hole in wall, misclick, not looking at minimap, not looking at army while placing buildings at home, ... When I get to the game phase where macro actually does matter, I usually win, if I didn't get too behind early with some control error.
The fact of the matter is, I could a-move marine tank against ling/bling from a silver league player. You say "mass" ling/bling, but I'm not sure that someone in a lower league has sufficient macro to really "mass" a unit-- splash damage units are certainly effective, and marine-tank is a high-level strategy that's micro-intensive against armies of similar value, but if you have 1.5-2x as much stuff as the zerg player? Not only can you a-move, even if you trade inefficiently, you'll be able to macro up a new a-move more quickly than he will a defense, if your macro is superior.
I'm not saying micro is bad, or that it never holds people back; but having stuff to begin with is far more important than to what efficiency you can use that stuff.
Here's an example: back in gold league I liked to rush Thor Drop against Zerg. I would always lose my thor drop attack against roaches and queens and sometimes mutalisks and stuff, and I wondered how I could micro it better. I consulted with a Diamond league friend of mine, and he advised me that due to supply block, not taking gasses at the right time, and other basic macro problems, my thor drop was hitting 2 minutes later than the optimal thor drop, and with fewer scvs and marines in my base.
I spammed a bunch of games against an AI until I perfected the build order up through the thor drop, and suddenly it was much easier to deal damage with the thor drop, since I had it before my opponents had enough units to deal with it, and any follow-up attack or expansion was protected by more marines and funded by more scvs.
Sometimes, we misattribute macro mistakes as micro errors.
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This post is low in manners, high in truth.
If you are not masters and have posted here, you should be banned from this thread. And so, I accept my fate.
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Macro is definitely a great skill to have, that being my strong point. But not backed up by solid micro and multitasking it becomes useless at a certain point.
For example I don't know how many times I lost my reactored hellions to spines/queens/zerglings with speed/roaches before I actually had the micro and decisionmaking to make it a powerful opening.
I'm in plat playing diamonds, and usually if my hellions stay alive until my 10 min marine/tank push I've pretty much won the game.
Another example you should look at is the GSL code A august finals, Ganzi is just so amazingly good at keeping individual units alive until a bigger push. At one point he kept two cloacked banshees alive long past Marineking getting out his viking.
Additionally I have to say that micro becomes a whole other story when AOE damage comes into play, you can have all the bio you want unmicroed it won't put a scratch on a mid-game siege line.
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One of my friends cheesed to Masters. Literally, all he did was 4 gate to masters.
Then he learned to macro.
He is now one of the most well-rounded players that I know, and he is playing against Grandmasters.
I learned macro really fast, because I was learning how to do it against good players.
Just a viable alternative if you ask me.
It's kind of like boot camp this way, or you can baby yourself into it. Both ways produce good players.
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On August 30 2011 14:24 Grndr101 wrote:
Macro is definitely a great skill to have, that being my strong point. But not backed up by solid micro and multitasking it becomes useless at a certain point.
For example I don't know how many times I lost my reactored hellions to spines/queens/zerglings with speed/roaches before I actually had the micro and decisionmaking to make it a powerful opening.
I'm in plat playing diamonds, and usually if my hellions stay alive until my 10 min marine/tank push I've pretty much won the game.
Another example you should look at is the GSL code A august finals, Ganzi is just so amazingly good at keeping individual units alive until a bigger push. At one point he kept two cloacked banshees alive long past Marineking getting out his viking.
Additionally I have to say that micro becomes a whole other story when AOE damage comes into play, you can have all the bio you want unmicroed it won't put a scratch on a mid-game siege line.
Diamond is around the threshold where fundamental micro, decision making, and solid build orders need to start, as a good portion of diamond players by that point, will have good macro up to two bases. Perfect macro will still thrash your typical diamond league player. If you can maintain macro on 3+ bases while simultaneously (multi-tasking) decent control and positioning, then It'll be a one sided slaughter.
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EPT
