EPTBut it's like: if you improve macro, you'll win say 80% more games. Working on the other aspects will only get you the last 20%.
Working on macro is more efficient but it's not all.
[D] Why us lower level players hate "macro better" - Page 2
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AlgoFlash
Canada96 Posts
But it's like: if you improve macro, you'll win say 80% more games. Working on the other aspects will only get you the last 20%. Working on macro is more efficient but it's not all. | ||
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Monkeyballs25
531 Posts
On October 06 2011 20:48 Sm3agol wrote: There's a reason every looks down on low tier players, and just tell them to macro(and micro) better, and not worry about strategies as much. Multiple top tier players have shown that that you can basically do WHATEVER you want at low levels, and as long as your macro and mechanics are good, you will win most of the time regardless of unit composition. Players have 4 gated, 6 pooled, mass queened, mass marined, etc all the way to diamond and sometimes even masters, just by simply outproducing and out microing their opponents. Watch Destiny beat tanks, thors, High templar, etc, with queens, even vs people that were trying to stream snipe him, and knew what he was doing, and would still lose. That's why high level players say ignore strategies and unit compositions for right now.....because IT DOESN'T MATTER. Sure, strats and unit comps don't matter FOR THEM. Destiny does some cool things with queens because he's got the godly micro and macro to support it. But as the OP said, getting your own skills to that level ranges from difficult to impossible for anyone still in silver/gold. Whereas changing your unit comp or your build order or your general strat is MUCH MUCH easier. Its like in the Karate Kid where he's trying to catch the fly with the chopsticks. The "just macro better" people would tell him to practice for weeks and months until he can do it. Whereas if you offer strategy advice its more like telling them to use a bloody fly swatter instead. I still think its good to point out appallingly bad macro, IE considerably worse than his opponent as a reason for losing. Sometimes they may not be aware of it. But at some point "improve your macro" hits diminishing returns and its more efficient to work on the higher parts of the Starcraft pyramid too. Lastly I'd just like to wonder whether the diamond+ people giving advice are looking at these low leaguers with the idea that they're looking to get into diamond+ also, where "macro better then work on your strats more" would be good advice. But if they're just fairly casual 1-3 games a night types like myself, they probably just want to get promoted one league up and get a nice Top 8 Silver/Gold/Plat badge on their account. | ||
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Sareth
Germany1008 Posts
Just play Macrogames. I know how tempting it is to try this new "cool" strat, that you heard about, or think after a lost game "if i just had build some more of that unit i would have won" or "i just had the wrong strat"... But if you choose a "safe" macrobuild; like 3gate expo, 14 pool 14 gas, 3rax, play defensivly and then just take another base and dont try to end the game in 10 minutes you will get better and better. After the games just watch the replay and look at your money and workerproduction. if there is a moment when your money goes high -> just expand. Just play a lot of games and remember such small things, and you will get better and better. I know you dont want to hear this but macro > micro&strategie. | ||
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SheffiTB
Canada223 Posts
On October 06 2011 20:38 sfbaydave wrote: Another frustrating part is that us lower level guys know we need to work on our macro but its not something you can change overnight. Working on never missing an inject, macroing during a big battle, never being supply blocked are things that even diamond/masters players work on. Having perfect macro is something that some people may never even be able to achieve. We just might be too slow or our multitasking may never be at a great level. You would be incredibly surprised. If you can't improve dramatically overnight, it means you are not learning in the correct way. I literally learned how to constantly produce/never queue in A SINGLE GAME. I said "hm, I'm gonna try this macro stuff", I hotkeyed my production facilities, and did a rotation: 1,aad,2,ss,3,s,4,vv, I watched the replay and saw that I didn't miss a beat (on one base, without attacking or upgrading, obviously I had a lot to improve on). You CAN improve overnight, if you know what you're doing. But what what we can improve quickly on is our knowledge of the game. We may not have time to spend playing 10-15 games everyday but do have time to read up and ask how to counter a certain build I see. And it will help us immediately in our next ladder game. Your knowledge of the game (unless I am learning this wrong as well) takes way longer to improve on than macro, and matters much less than macro, and unlike improving your macro, (contrary to what you said) it won't necessarily help you in the next game unless you are in a very similar situation next game, which could have been solved with better macro anyway. | ||
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Warlock40
601 Posts
Another frustrating part is that us lower level guys know we need to work on our macro but its not something you can change overnight. Working on never missing an inject, macroing during a big battle, never being supply blocked are things that even diamond/masters players work on. Having perfect macro is something that some people may never even be able to achieve. We just might be too slow or our multitasking may never be at a great level. But what what we can improve quickly on is our knowledge of the game. We may not have time to spend playing 10-15 games everyday but do have time to read up and ask how to counter a certain build I see. And it will help us immediately in our next ladder game. You shouldn't think of strategy as some sort of silver bullet. Strategy might help you "immediately" in your next ladder game, but only in that specific situation, whereas practicing macro will improve your overall game. Besides, you can find plenty of strategy in threads started on TL. If you can't find strategy that applies to your level, the answer is to get to the level of the strategy threads currently existing first. | ||
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Iranon
United States983 Posts
Let me give an extreme example to illustrate this. Suppose you keep losing to some kind of mass marine push. This becomes incredibly frustrating, every damn Terran you play just rolls into your base with 30 marines and kills you. GAH! You try different unit compositions to try and stop it, but nothing works. You always just die to 30 marines. Clearly there's a way to stop it, since pros aren't losing to mass marine pushes every game, but what is that way? Wait, we're all members of a community that would know those answers! Hooray! TL HELP ME HOW DO YOU STOP MASS MARINE? Now let's look at 3 possible answers you could receive: (1) tech to colossi, get range, attack before he gets too many vikings, (2) get a few sentries, cut his army up into pieces and kill the small pieces with zealots/stalkers, (3) macro better. NOW. The first of those options sounds pretty sexy. How do you kill mass low-heath units? Of course! With giant fucking laser beams designed to kill those units! Maybe you try this, and maybe it works. Hooray! The answer has been found! But no, no, you're wrong. In fact, your opponents making 30 marines are terrible, and they're pushing out at like the 11 minute mark. This gives you ample time to make those colossi, and by the time they get to your base they get rolled. But if they were playing better (i.e. macroing better), those marines would be knocking on your door at the 6:30 mark and your robo bay wouldn't even be done yet. So this "strategy" that looked good is really only working because your opponents suck ass. So let's look at the next option. Suppose your opponents are playing a little better, there's no way you can sit tight and tech to ranged colossi, so you sit at the top of your ramp with some sentries and kill their army bit by bit (ha! a pun!) until your advantage becomes insurmountable. Proceed to win however you want, likely by A-moving their main. This FEELS like a better strategy, because not only does it not rely on your opponents sucking ass, it feels awesome when you pull off those forcefields and see yourself getting farther and farther ahead. You're happily getting a healthy mix of zealot/stalker/sentry in a nice 2:2:1 ratio like Liquipedia says, and you murder his push when it finally comes and you win shortly after. I'm just going to be making up numbers here, but suppose that push you held off came at the 8 minute mark, and you had about 45 supply, and he had about 55. Your sick forcefield micro can make up that gap (strategy! awesome!) and you win anyway. This sounds like what you were looking for. BUT let's look at the third hated "macro better" option and compare them. If you had been just trying to macro better and paying less attention to your unit composition, by the 8 minute mark you could have been sitting on like 65 supply, and instead of waiting to defend his push, just A-moved his main and straight-up won. Huh. So how is this any different than the previous option? You still won, right? The point is this. If you and your opponents are equally bad, then you're absolutely right, good strategy WILL win you games. It's this feeling that makes it so annoying to hear better players say "just macro better", because you know you lose games based on strategy and strategy alone. But there's a "but" after that, and it's a big one. When we play a game like Starcraft, the goal is not to grind wins, it's to get better, and the way you do that is by playing and winning a lot. If you keep prioritizing strategy over mechanics, your "mass gateway beats mass marine" strategy will eventually stop working, no matter how good your game sense is. You'll keep winning for a while, fighting your way up the ladder, trouncing stronger and stronger opponents with your massive intellect. But eventually your opponents will just be BETTER than you. How can this be? Your strategies are great, your unit compositions are always perfect counters to theirs thanks to great scouting and exhaustive knowledge of how to respond. But despite all that, you still lose to these idiots. That's because they're "just macroing better". Sure, your units might be the perfect counter to his at the perfect time, but if they just have more stuff than you do, they can just A-move and crush you anyway. To add insult to injury, the strategies you crafted to dominate in the low leagues won't even be relevant anymore, since higher level players won't be doing the ridiculous shit silver players threw at you. Anyway. To sum up, should you learn how to counter common cheeses/all-ins and practice micro? Sure, absolutely, that will prevent a lot of stupid losses and remain a useful skill no matter where you are on the ladder. So the remaining this you need to know are how to macro and good strategy. If you do them the other order, strategy first and macro as it comes to you, then you'll win for a while in the low leagues, and then get absolutely stomped on in the higher leagues as the slight edge you get from better strategy gets slowly eaten away and eventually reversed by stronger macro from your opponents. You end up having to relearn all your strategy anyway. But if you focus on macro first and strategy later, you should be able to cruise through the lower leagues by just being a better player than they are (on average, you'll still lose here and there to weird stuff, obviously), and then once you're up in the higher leagues you'll be on even footing with those scary opponents from the previous case, and THAT's where strategy comes in -- it tips the balance of "equally strong mechanics" towards the "smarter" player. | ||
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sleepingdog
Austria6145 Posts
On October 06 2011 21:33 AlgoFlash wrote: Plexa is right. But it's like: if you improve macro, you'll win say 80% more games. Working on the other aspects will only get you the last 20%. Working on macro is more efficient but it's not all. That's the core problem - if people ask for help around here, I assume that they do it because they want to win games. And in 90% of the cases, getting rid of specific (!) macro-deficiencies will drasticly improve your win-rate. I think the problem is that too many advices are way too "general" - the simple "macro better" is stupid. But when someone points out "you always get supply-blocked in midgame because you only build one depot after another" then this is a specific macro-advice that can be as easily implemented as a strategic advice. Also, many low-level-players make huge mistakes in very different parts of their game. Some just stop producing workers at a random point too early but never get supply blocked. Others macro workers perfectly, but just can't spend their money. Others macro well, but just expand way too late because they don't feel safe enough. Others tend to forget to take their 3rd-xth gas or put workers on it regularly. TL; DR: "macro better" is indeed a frustrating advice; but you should realize that most players lack in different macro-areas, so pointing these areas out will be more helpful than strategy-related suggestions. Especially on the bronze-gold levels. | ||
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RubiksCube
Germany259 Posts
He's playing at Silver/Gold Level and actually thinks he's not able to improve on his mechanics. Meaning he thinks he reached his limit and he's fine with it. Now he actually just wants to play with his limited mechanice against other people with limited mechanics. How does he beat them? Superior strategy. Everything everyone was saying about mechanics being the most important is totally right. But if you set the mechanics on both sides as equal, what is left becomes more important. It's probably not everyones Goal to get into masters as soon as possible, because probably not everyone is capable of it. What he says is that he still wants to be playing different strategies regardless. This thought process, while technically being correct has a major flaw. Most of the time these players encounter some seemingly unbeatable strategy and come here to ask for help, it's not the strategy that beat them, so there is no counter strategy. Most of the time it's the opposing players superior macro, which can only be beaten by "macroing better" yourself. | ||
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j0ker
275 Posts
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HystericaLaughter
Australia720 Posts
On October 06 2011 20:38 sfbaydave wrote: I am not trying to be one of those silver guys who say, "but I play up to a diamond level..." Most of us know why we are in the level we are. We know our MACRO SUCKS but that doesnt mean we can't use strategy. Strategy wouldnt matter if I'm playing a much better player but in ladder were are evenly matched. You are of course right, if you have equally good macro with somebody then strategy is what will win or lose you a game. That said, having better macro would enable you to win a game just as much as having a better strategy would enable you to win a game. So there is no reason to ever prioritise developing strategy over macro, there just isnt. Always ask when you post a replay 'how can I have more stuff?', not 'should I have made 16 zealots and 12 stalkers, or 12 zealots and 16 stalkers?' | ||
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Sbrubbles
Brazil5776 Posts
On October 06 2011 20:38 sfbaydave wrote: But the frustrating part is sometimes we lose because of wrong STRATEGY. I know this sounds silly to the higher level players out there...."How can you use strategy when u miss injects, are supply blocked, etc." But it does happen....and when it does, we come here asking for advice. But, sometime its hard to get advice, as soon it becomes known, that we are silver/gold players. This is the part you got wrong. If you have more substantially more stuff, it doesn't matter what units you use. You can beat a mid game Terran marine/tank push with mass roach so long as you just have more stuff. In this case you're more likely to win with mass roach and good macro than a perfect proportion of mutas/ling/bane and 1500/500 in the bank. Of course, after your opponent's macro also gets refined, you won't be able to do so anymore, at which point you have to refine your strategy. | ||
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FeyFey
Germany10114 Posts
So basically people saying learn to macro, tell you to concentrate on that and you will easily make it into masters like they did. What they don't tell you, they will hit a straight wall there were they can't win no matter how good their macro is and then start to train the other things is really frustrating. So basically its up to you, can you deal with walls or not. If you can concentrating on one thing is okay, as you get really strong players and if strong opponents make you play better i would guess its a good training bonus. But if you get discouraged easily macro only will get you into masters, but there will be your grave. (its pretty funny that you can get into masters by only macroing ... though i made it into masters by only defending macro only players and win the lategame with ease, thought macro players should shine in the late game) On the other hand i probably made it because i only play one game a day, so i get tons of points compared to my mmr for winning. I am always happy to see other players able to not only macro, as they don't use the standard currently hyped midgame push. (terran was a free win pre patch if i played protoss) But terran players benefit the most from a good macro (base management), Zerg players the least imo. (my macro is horrible and zerg is by far my strongest race) So my advice for fun games, is train macro, but also train micro and decision making a little (which is way harder), it will decrease the wall impact you will have in masters. But with a good macro you will have fun macro games, while if you only have a good decision making, you will turtle till the late game and rush over 80% of your opponent, which gets a bit yawnie. Especially if they allow you to cheese every game with cc nexus first or a tripple hatch before pool. | ||
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Philymaniz
United States177 Posts
On October 06 2011 21:17 ETisME wrote: that's not so true. The only reason how destiny managed to win with mass queens is not because he could just macro better. It is because the other player doesn't take advantage of the fact that destiny is only making queens. For example, mass queens would have lost to any terran that simply put one or two ghosts into their army. your last statement is also arguable. ZvP shows it quite clearly that even if Zerg can have macro'd up 200 food, they can just lose to a 170 food protoss deathball if engaged in a bad position and just get stream roll'd If your the Zerg and you outmacro your opponent at such a low level the other person with not have an army anywhere close to as big as yours. I troll on diamond and below accounts and do whatever I want. I shouldn't win with the strategies, but I just have so many more units. | ||
Plexa
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On October 06 2011 21:45 sleepingdog wrote: Eh? I don't agree. If people are posting reps here for advice they should haveThat's the core problem - if people ask for help around here, I assume that they do it because they want to win games. And in 90% of the cases, getting rid of specific (!) macro-deficiencies will drasticly improve your win-rate. I think the problem is that too many advices are way too "general" - the simple "macro better" is stupid. But when someone points out "you always get supply-blocked in midgame because you only build one depot after another" then this is a specific macro-advice that can be as easily implemented as a strategic advice. Also, many low-level-players make huge mistakes in very different parts of their game. Some just stop producing workers at a random point too early but never get supply blocked. Others macro workers perfectly, but just can't spend their money. Others macro well, but just expand way too late because they don't feel safe enough. Others tend to forget to take their 3rd-xth gas or put workers on it regularly. TL; DR: "macro better" is indeed a frustrating advice; but you should realize that most players lack in different macro-areas, so pointing these areas out will be more helpful than strategy-related suggestions. Especially on the bronze-gold levels. a) read this: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=195389 b) followed its advice c) posted a rep where yes better macro could have won the game, but lost the game because of another error When players macro equally bad what puts the other players ahead is doing all the other things right. And if you only focus on macro, you'll run into someone with equal macro but with better overall play and lose. And in those cases people should be asking for help. Let's be real here, even at Masters level the advice "macro better" is true - vacuous advice isn't useful. | ||
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ForgottenOne
Romania236 Posts
1. Learn all units, their characteristics (like is light/heavy/bio, etc) and the tech tree. 2. Pick ONE pro player that you like and steal ONE build+strategy for every matchup. Execute exactly those strategies every game. 3. Scout to know what the opponent is doing. 4. Macro. 5. Macro. 6. Macro. 7. Macro. 8. Macro. 9. Macro. ... Since it should be obvious if you executed points 1, 2, 3, all you need to get to Masters is macro better (the proper reactions you'll learn while playing and comparing how you react to how the pro player reacts). But I, somewhat, agree. Sometimes it would be helpful if someone would point exactly why your reaction to something was bad and what the correct response would be. Edit: I play a very reactive style based on scouting, reacting and macroing. I don't know build orders (I only know build orders up to where both my expo and spawning pool and expo are up), nor timings very. Recently I played a bit in some online cups and I only focused on not getting supply blocked at all and not missing larvae injects and macroing on top of this. And I managed to go toe for full games with three Grandmasters this week only (took down two of them)... | ||
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wheelchairs
United States145 Posts
Now i macro decent, playing in masters, and am devoting all my attention to strategic play and builds, since I've got a base to allow me to win and improve fast. This is the way i think people should practice if they want to move up | ||
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Ada
Germany150 Posts
 ). Then I watch the replay myself and either I just was outplayed or my macro/scouting just sucked.I understand why some lower league players think it is a stupid advice, but that still applies in every league and sometimes even pro level. | ||
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HeavyWeapons
50 Posts
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FlaminGinjaNinja
United Kingdom879 Posts
On October 06 2011 21:06 uraza wrote: Why focus on improving your strategical aspect when you can't even execute it at a decent level? The OP is saying that having better macro and mechaniques etc does help and i agree with him when he says that every low level help thread is "macro better". You could just copy and paste the same generic "macro better" statement into every one of those threads but tbh it doesnt always help. For example a friend of mine plays terran and likes to only make one type of unit each game, in one game he made alot of marines and then raged when banelings killed him. This is obviously an extreme example but "just macro better" isn't really going to help him when he does not have basic knowledge of the game or statigies beyond "mass unit X and A-move". In a situation like this (only less extreme) it could be more useful for suggestions about unit composition in addition to the usual "macro better" advice. For a less extreme example, i play zerg, im working on my injects and creep spread, trying to keep my money low but i have alot of problems ending games which i have effectivly already won. I played 3 games in a row, after the first 15mins i had decided that i was so far ahead i would win the game, but in each case i could not simply end it despite being ahead and the games each lasted twice as long as they should have. "Macro better" would of course be good advice because if i was so far ahead then i could mass an army and just A move, but some other suggestions such as nydus, drops etc would have ended the game in many of the situations i found myself in. Also some advice about how to go 'All-In' would be helpful since i actually never do it. TLDR: "Macro Better" is always valid but may lower level players have heard it soo many times and are working on it already, what they are asking for is something new, some tip to improve their play quicker since improving macro is had to judge and notice improvement | ||
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E.H Eager
United States227 Posts
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