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On October 12 2011 10:25 Alejandrisha wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 06:08 hunger wrote:On October 12 2011 04:42 Alejandrisha wrote:On October 12 2011 04:36 1st_Panzer_Div. wrote:
I do agree; as someone who has coached lower league players, yes they can always improve their macro. I can always improve my macro. But often times their macro isn't what is keeping them from moving to the next league. Other things that are also very important:
-Build Order
-Battle Micro
-Scouting
-Over Turtling
-Dealing with Cheese (aka 6 pools, proxy 2 rax, proxy 2 gate, cannon rush, etc)
Then as you get a little higher you need things like positioning, sacrificing bases, harassing, multi prong attack/defense, multiple build orders, game sense.
That's why SC2 is so awesome, it's not just all about macro; it just happens to be that macro is a very good correlation to skill, as your macro improves typically all other aspects of your gameplay do as well. Bold- improving mechanics improves this stuff implicitly italics- this is not that important after you know when to "run away" or "fight" underline- the hell? better macro =/= better mechanics. when people tell lower level players to improve their macro they actually mean mechanicsor maybe i'm giving the avg joe too much credit
I cannot emphasize how true this is. This guy speaks wisdom. It's true.
When you say
"Dude, work on your macro, you don't inject"
They mean:
"Go fucking look at your queen's energy and inject when needed"
When you don't have enough units because you get supply blocked
"Go watch your supply/maximum supply, also your production"
When you have overmins and people tell you to lower them,
they actually just say that you are bad at tabbing and you should imrpove it.
Everything is based around mechanics when it comes to macro.
Also, a common misconception is that people think they have good macro when they spend 95% of the time in their base. But it's actually the complete opposite:
Good macro is when you look 5% of the time in your base but still have 0 energy on your macro-abilities, low minerals/gas and never get supply blocked while having a decent dronecount/production; because then you have the time to run around with your lings, overlords, dropships etc and other stuff like decision making, micro, scouting...
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On October 12 2011 19:13 KeksX wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 10:25 Alejandrisha wrote:On October 12 2011 06:08 hunger wrote:On October 12 2011 04:42 Alejandrisha wrote:On October 12 2011 04:36 1st_Panzer_Div. wrote:
I do agree; as someone who has coached lower league players, yes they can always improve their macro. I can always improve my macro. But often times their macro isn't what is keeping them from moving to the next league. Other things that are also very important:
-Build Order
-Battle Micro
-Scouting
-Over Turtling
-Dealing with Cheese (aka 6 pools, proxy 2 rax, proxy 2 gate, cannon rush, etc)
Then as you get a little higher you need things like positioning, sacrificing bases, harassing, multi prong attack/defense, multiple build orders, game sense.
That's why SC2 is so awesome, it's not just all about macro; it just happens to be that macro is a very good correlation to skill, as your macro improves typically all other aspects of your gameplay do as well. Bold- improving mechanics improves this stuff implicitly italics- this is not that important after you know when to "run away" or "fight" underline- the hell? better macro =/= better mechanics. when people tell lower level players to improve their macro they actually mean mechanicsor maybe i'm giving the avg joe too much credit Good macro is when you look 5% of the time in your base but still have 0 energy on your macro-abilities, low minerals/gas and never get supply blocked while having a decent dronecount/production; because then you have the time to run around with your lings, overlords, dropships etc and other stuff like decision making, micro, scouting...
So we've gone from "focus on your macro" to "don't focus on your macro too much so you have more time for other stuff". This thread is confusing sometimes
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On October 12 2011 03:10 Monkeyballs25 wrote:Here's another replay of the "just make roaches and hydras and kill the other guy" variety. http://www.sc2rep.com/replays/(Z)Tamerlane_vs_(T)Edodind/14308-no scouting beyond "where is his base" and "has he expanded". I literally had no idea what he was teching to, nor did I care -no looking at battles unless they take place in my base, because hey I need to look at my base anyway Its really quite an interesting experience. I remember looking at my minimap during the final attack and seeing my coloured blob of units at his natural make his differently coloured blob disappear and was like "oh sweet, I guess I'll build some more roaches and hydras and send those in too" The banshee harass(if you can call 4 very late banshees with cloak a harass) was still pretty scary given that they nearly killed my lair, need to make myself safer there. But no real dangers other then that. I think that also highlights the connection between good macro and cheese defence. I've you've got the response to a bunker in the natural or cloaked banshee attacks memorised, it hopefully won't break your macro routine as badly.
Again the purpose isn't to win. if you lose to a silly strategy just go onto the next game. People won't cheese you every game. Again zerg is the hardest to do this style. But you can get it to work and get to around the diamond level without strategy.
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On October 12 2011 21:37 Monkeyballs25 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 19:13 KeksX wrote:On October 12 2011 10:25 Alejandrisha wrote:On October 12 2011 06:08 hunger wrote:On October 12 2011 04:42 Alejandrisha wrote:On October 12 2011 04:36 1st_Panzer_Div. wrote:
I do agree; as someone who has coached lower league players, yes they can always improve their macro. I can always improve my macro. But often times their macro isn't what is keeping them from moving to the next league. Other things that are also very important:
-Build Order
-Battle Micro
-Scouting
-Over Turtling
-Dealing with Cheese (aka 6 pools, proxy 2 rax, proxy 2 gate, cannon rush, etc)
Then as you get a little higher you need things like positioning, sacrificing bases, harassing, multi prong attack/defense, multiple build orders, game sense.
That's why SC2 is so awesome, it's not just all about macro; it just happens to be that macro is a very good correlation to skill, as your macro improves typically all other aspects of your gameplay do as well. Bold- improving mechanics improves this stuff implicitly italics- this is not that important after you know when to "run away" or "fight" underline- the hell? better macro =/= better mechanics. when people tell lower level players to improve their macro they actually mean mechanicsor maybe i'm giving the avg joe too much credit Good macro is when you look 5% of the time in your base but still have 0 energy on your macro-abilities, low minerals/gas and never get supply blocked while having a decent dronecount/production; because then you have the time to run around with your lings, overlords, dropships etc and other stuff like decision making, micro, scouting... So we've gone from "focus on your macro" to "don't focus on your macro too much so you have more time for other stuff". This thread is confusing sometimes
Well the whole thread is a mix of half questions with half answers. Telling someone to "macro better" is the shittiest of half ass answers to begin with. For example, if I were to post a replay where I lost a TvP with a 40 food deficit while floating 3k resources the most common reply would be "macro better". Is "macro better" a fair statement if I was on 3 bases, hit all of my mule timings, had 72 v 63 workers, and had 90 percent up time on my producing structures? It would encompass the answer when you realize I'm on 3 rax, 1 factory, and 1 starport with no upgrades. This is where the Op makes sense. Is teaching us how to priorotize macro any different then teaching us strategy?
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There's no sense in focusing on anything other than mechanics at the lower-levels. There's a serious "tunnel-vision" effect that happens in lower leagues that isn't as prevalent in higher leagues. What I mean is, a Masters player will more likely attribute a loss to macro/mechanics reasons than a lower-level player with worse mechanics. A lower-league player will attribute a loss to "getting 4-gated" when the truth of the matter is that one supply block and/or missed inject WILL kill you. Too many low-level threads and responses begin with "I played this game perfectly but...." or "My macro was excellent however I still lost." I think it's hard to make the first step and ADMIT that your macro is bad. As anyone on TL could tell you, we're very friendly, but the reason the community is hard on you is because all of the "better players" on this forum are hard on themselves. It takes someone who's willing to tell themselves that they're complete shit at the game in order for them to improve. With regards to macro and mechanics, it's never good to benchmark yourself against your peers ("oh well I outmacro / outresource 90% of my gold league peers") because that creates tunnel vision. Is your macro good on an absolute basis? If not, suck it up and keep practicing.
Strategy and advanced build order planning are for those who can understand and conceptualize what an optimized version of the build order would look like and whether or not it is actually within the realm of feasibility in an "optimal-macro environment." What do I mean by this? A gold player doesn't have the right to spout false information / build order when it's almost 100% guaranteed that there's incredible variability in his execution and macro.
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Hello people 
I just wanted to had a little something real quick to this tread, no i am not a top player by any means.I am only a plat player who tries to improve when i have time to do it. But i do have a lot of experience teaching other things, like sports for exemple. Now i know a lot of people will say it is a completly different thing, and they are not wrong. I cannot say that because of that i know what to teach someone who is trying to learn sc2. But i do know how to teach something efficiently to someone. And i was reading the forum when i saw this thread link and i really think high player, or people interested in coaching sc2 should give a particular attention to the method explain in this thread.
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On October 12 2011 21:37 Monkeyballs25 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 19:13 KeksX wrote:On October 12 2011 10:25 Alejandrisha wrote:On October 12 2011 06:08 hunger wrote:On October 12 2011 04:42 Alejandrisha wrote:On October 12 2011 04:36 1st_Panzer_Div. wrote:
I do agree; as someone who has coached lower league players, yes they can always improve their macro. I can always improve my macro. But often times their macro isn't what is keeping them from moving to the next league. Other things that are also very important:
-Build Order
-Battle Micro
-Scouting
-Over Turtling
-Dealing with Cheese (aka 6 pools, proxy 2 rax, proxy 2 gate, cannon rush, etc)
Then as you get a little higher you need things like positioning, sacrificing bases, harassing, multi prong attack/defense, multiple build orders, game sense.
That's why SC2 is so awesome, it's not just all about macro; it just happens to be that macro is a very good correlation to skill, as your macro improves typically all other aspects of your gameplay do as well. Bold- improving mechanics improves this stuff implicitly italics- this is not that important after you know when to "run away" or "fight" underline- the hell? better macro =/= better mechanics. when people tell lower level players to improve their macro they actually mean mechanicsor maybe i'm giving the avg joe too much credit Good macro is when you look 5% of the time in your base but still have 0 energy on your macro-abilities, low minerals/gas and never get supply blocked while having a decent dronecount/production; because then you have the time to run around with your lings, overlords, dropships etc and other stuff like decision making, micro, scouting... So we've gone from "focus on your macro" to "don't focus on your macro too much so you have more time for other stuff". This thread is confusing sometimes
In this context, when people say "focus" they don't mean look at it. They mean focus on improving to the point where you don't need to constantly stare at your base for your macro-related tasks to go smoothly.
That means you need to always be looking at your base less and training your brain to perform all the menial tasks (building Probes, Pylons, executing a BO) without actively thinking about it.
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On October 12 2011 21:37 Monkeyballs25 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 19:13 KeksX wrote:On October 12 2011 10:25 Alejandrisha wrote:On October 12 2011 06:08 hunger wrote:On October 12 2011 04:42 Alejandrisha wrote:On October 12 2011 04:36 1st_Panzer_Div. wrote:
I do agree; as someone who has coached lower league players, yes they can always improve their macro. I can always improve my macro. But often times their macro isn't what is keeping them from moving to the next league. Other things that are also very important:
-Build Order
-Battle Micro
-Scouting
-Over Turtling
-Dealing with Cheese (aka 6 pools, proxy 2 rax, proxy 2 gate, cannon rush, etc)
Then as you get a little higher you need things like positioning, sacrificing bases, harassing, multi prong attack/defense, multiple build orders, game sense.
That's why SC2 is so awesome, it's not just all about macro; it just happens to be that macro is a very good correlation to skill, as your macro improves typically all other aspects of your gameplay do as well. Bold- improving mechanics improves this stuff implicitly italics- this is not that important after you know when to "run away" or "fight" underline- the hell? better macro =/= better mechanics. when people tell lower level players to improve their macro they actually mean mechanicsor maybe i'm giving the avg joe too much credit Good macro is when you look 5% of the time in your base but still have 0 energy on your macro-abilities, low minerals/gas and never get supply blocked while having a decent dronecount/production; because then you have the time to run around with your lings, overlords, dropships etc and other stuff like decision making, micro, scouting... So we've gone from "focus on your macro" to "don't focus on your macro too much so you have more time for other stuff". This thread is confusing sometimes
A good [insert random profession name] does his task well, and requires a specific amount of time to do it. A *GREAT* [insert profession name] does the exact same task, in the exact same satisfying manner, but requires only half of that time to do it. That's the difference between competent people and exceptional people, and it actually shows really well in SC2 -- the difference between top players who make us all dream, and just mid-level Masters (mid-level M isn't a break point I actually studied, just trying to give a rough idea) who have ideal mechanics but don't know what to exactly do with them sometimes ;p
Oh and I didn't bother reading all the pages and I guess that's been answered already, but in case it didn't... to all the (elitist) people asking "what's the point about asking for kewl/efficient builds when you can't execute them well"... well the point is we want to play to have fun, not specifically to be in GM or win big offline tourneys. Sure if I get promoted I'm happy, but I can have a blast staying where I am and trying to have fun with cute things like nyduses or vortices or whatnot.
Oh and in case you wonder, I'm a ("high") Plat' Zerg.
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On October 13 2011 01:51 Talin wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 21:37 Monkeyballs25 wrote:On October 12 2011 19:13 KeksX wrote:On October 12 2011 10:25 Alejandrisha wrote:On October 12 2011 06:08 hunger wrote:On October 12 2011 04:42 Alejandrisha wrote:On October 12 2011 04:36 1st_Panzer_Div. wrote:
I do agree; as someone who has coached lower league players, yes they can always improve their macro. I can always improve my macro. But often times their macro isn't what is keeping them from moving to the next league. Other things that are also very important:
-Build Order
-Battle Micro
-Scouting
-Over Turtling
-Dealing with Cheese (aka 6 pools, proxy 2 rax, proxy 2 gate, cannon rush, etc)
Then as you get a little higher you need things like positioning, sacrificing bases, harassing, multi prong attack/defense, multiple build orders, game sense.
That's why SC2 is so awesome, it's not just all about macro; it just happens to be that macro is a very good correlation to skill, as your macro improves typically all other aspects of your gameplay do as well. Bold- improving mechanics improves this stuff implicitly italics- this is not that important after you know when to "run away" or "fight" underline- the hell? better macro =/= better mechanics. when people tell lower level players to improve their macro they actually mean mechanicsor maybe i'm giving the avg joe too much credit Good macro is when you look 5% of the time in your base but still have 0 energy on your macro-abilities, low minerals/gas and never get supply blocked while having a decent dronecount/production; because then you have the time to run around with your lings, overlords, dropships etc and other stuff like decision making, micro, scouting... So we've gone from "focus on your macro" to "don't focus on your macro too much so you have more time for other stuff". This thread is confusing sometimes In this context, when people say "focus" they don't mean look at it. They mean focus on improving to the point where you don't need to constantly stare at your base for your macro-related tasks to go smoothly. That means you need to always be looking at your base less and training your brain to perform all the menial tasks (building Probes, Pylons, executing a BO) without actively thinking about it.
Oh right, that makes more sense. I think that's a more advanced thing though, something to work on once you do have solid macro even while staring at it the whole time. And if you're struggling with all those things at the same thing, the order to prioritise them should be
1) Macro
2-3) Scouting/decision making
4) Micro
Whereas most lowbies tend to focus on micro, specifically during battles when they shouldn't be.
Not sure which of the middle ones I'd put ahead, they're pretty interlinked.
Oh, and here's another macro-focused roach/hydra ZvT game.
http://www.sc2rep.com/replays/(Z)Tamerlane_vs_(T)manuelx/14353
-opponent spawned as random, so I did eventually scout him just to see what race he was since I do a slightly different build in each matchup. But I did absolutely no follow up scouting beyond checking where his expansions were, if any.
-Likewise, I completely ignored any attacking forces I sent in, beyond the small concession of routing them around his cliffs. I'll be watching the replay now to see what defences he actually had there
-harass still does terrible, terrible damage to my focus and macro. This time from drops. Better hydra/spore positioning should sort that out.
All in all its turning out to be a fun experiment, and far more successful than I initially suspected.
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I think it all comes down to one thing, strategy is different at low levels. Scouting means nothing because scouting assumes they are playing efficiently. For example if i see no gas units against toss and know he has 2 gas i can expect DTs or stargate play. I dont expect the toss player to be banking 500 gas. When i play against zerg i can FFE and safely defend allins due to good simcity macro and micro but in low leagues FFE is suicide. Master level strategies dont always work in low leagues and low league strategies dont work in higher leagues. So when you ask higher level player for strategy advice we cant actually help you. Our builds require a certain level of micro and macro to not die to allins and we expect our opponents to have a certain level of macro and micro to be able to scout and know when to push. But at lower leagues thats all different so we CANT help you with strategy. we can only say to work on your macro so then you can be good enough to use the strategies we use.
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If your macro is right,
All of a sudden you'll find you have plenty of time, money and units for "other things."
If your macro isn't right,
You'll be spending all of your time being supplyblocked / not having enough money / larvae (or production buildings) and have neither the time nor the capability to do the "other things."
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First post here,
I didn''t read all the pages but here's a nice way of learning and enjoying sc2 that I saw at a friend of mine(if you really want to and don't get lazy in the process).
So he plays toss. When he begun in bronze he played just 4 gate. So he was playing practically a 9-10 minutes game. Being so short he could learn to macro good enough for that particular build order he learnt by heart. Also 4 gate means micro and basic unit production decisions (stalker, sentry or zealot) and that's fun to focus on. He got really fast at the point where people started to hold a good-ish executed 4gate. And here I think there is the followup of this learning process. You know a bit of everything until 10 minute mark, now just extend the knowledge with longer game plans. Usually everyone that you should improve your macro in a macro-based game but I think that learning good macro for short games is done easier and also easy to extend.
Of course only then you learn about game plan, mind game(at hardcore level) etc.
In three months he got in diamond and now he is about to hit masters. And he plays just macro games.
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On October 13 2011 03:18 Monkeyballs25 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 01:51 Talin wrote:On October 12 2011 21:37 Monkeyballs25 wrote:On October 12 2011 19:13 KeksX wrote:On October 12 2011 10:25 Alejandrisha wrote:On October 12 2011 06:08 hunger wrote:On October 12 2011 04:42 Alejandrisha wrote:On October 12 2011 04:36 1st_Panzer_Div. wrote:
I do agree; as someone who has coached lower league players, yes they can always improve their macro. I can always improve my macro. But often times their macro isn't what is keeping them from moving to the next league. Other things that are also very important:
-Build Order
-Battle Micro
-Scouting
-Over Turtling
-Dealing with Cheese (aka 6 pools, proxy 2 rax, proxy 2 gate, cannon rush, etc)
Then as you get a little higher you need things like positioning, sacrificing bases, harassing, multi prong attack/defense, multiple build orders, game sense.
That's why SC2 is so awesome, it's not just all about macro; it just happens to be that macro is a very good correlation to skill, as your macro improves typically all other aspects of your gameplay do as well. Bold- improving mechanics improves this stuff implicitly italics- this is not that important after you know when to "run away" or "fight" underline- the hell? better macro =/= better mechanics. when people tell lower level players to improve their macro they actually mean mechanicsor maybe i'm giving the avg joe too much credit Good macro is when you look 5% of the time in your base but still have 0 energy on your macro-abilities, low minerals/gas and never get supply blocked while having a decent dronecount/production; because then you have the time to run around with your lings, overlords, dropships etc and other stuff like decision making, micro, scouting... So we've gone from "focus on your macro" to "don't focus on your macro too much so you have more time for other stuff". This thread is confusing sometimes In this context, when people say "focus" they don't mean look at it. They mean focus on improving to the point where you don't need to constantly stare at your base for your macro-related tasks to go smoothly. That means you need to always be looking at your base less and training your brain to perform all the menial tasks (building Probes, Pylons, executing a BO) without actively thinking about it. Oh right, that makes more sense. I think that's a more advanced thing though, something to work on once you do have solid macro even while staring at it the whole time. And if you're struggling with all those things at the same thing, the order to prioritise them should be 1) Macro 2-3) Scouting/decision making 4) Micro Whereas most lowbies tend to focus on micro, specifically during battles when they shouldn't be. Not sure which of the middle ones I'd put ahead, they're pretty interlinked. Oh, and here's another macro-focused roach/hydra ZvT game. http://www.sc2rep.com/replays/(Z)Tamerlane_vs_(T)manuelx/14353-opponent spawned as random, so I did eventually scout him just to see what race he was since I do a slightly different build in each matchup. But I did absolutely no follow up scouting beyond checking where his expansions were, if any. -Likewise, I completely ignored any attacking forces I sent in, beyond the small concession of routing them around his cliffs. I'll be watching the replay now to see what defences he actually had there -harass still does terrible, terrible damage to my focus and macro. This time from drops. Better hydra/spore positioning should sort that out. All in all its turning out to be a fun experiment, and far more successful than I initially suspected.
You should be attempting to not miss injects even when there is fights and ect. That is the biggest thing about zerg nestea said that to yellow in project A and if nestea tells someone to do that then everyone should do that.  Again this army is less micro dependant than a muta ling bling cause if you a move a muta ling bling a lot can go wrong quicker. 3 thor shoot all your muta, your bling run into the tanks and thor and then you just have lings vs marine and possibly hellion. Just not pretty.
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The big problem is that I hear a lot of lower level players say the game is imbalanced, that the other person was OP or they insinuate there was nothing they could do.
I don't mind honest posts by people about how to analyze their game, but it's really annoying when people post "What should I have done?" when it's really a not-so-thinly veiled balance complaint and way to get attention.
They will say, I don't know, Infestors are OP. But then I watch their game, and they open with a failed all-in, never take a third, get supply blocked every single time after 20 supply, and go minutes on end without making probes.
And that's when I want to smack someone in the face.
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Lol this thread is still going?
The solution is MACRO.
Nothing more to say.
Terrible Strategy + Good Macro > Great Strategy + Poor Macro
This principle exists all the way to diamond and low masters. ez. Solved :D
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On October 14 2011 01:58 TigerRawr wrote:
Lol this thread is still going?
The solution is MACRO.
Nothing more to say.
Terrible Strategy + Good Macro > Great Strategy + Poor Macro
This principle exists all the way to diamond and low masters. ez. Solved :D
Damnit, I was going to post exactly that.
If you lose in sub-diamond, it's because your opponent spent more money than you. 100%.
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On October 14 2011 00:42 D u o wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 03:18 Monkeyballs25 wrote:On October 13 2011 01:51 Talin wrote:On October 12 2011 21:37 Monkeyballs25 wrote:On October 12 2011 19:13 KeksX wrote:On October 12 2011 10:25 Alejandrisha wrote:On October 12 2011 06:08 hunger wrote:On October 12 2011 04:42 Alejandrisha wrote:On October 12 2011 04:36 1st_Panzer_Div. wrote:
I do agree; as someone who has coached lower league players, yes they can always improve their macro. I can always improve my macro. But often times their macro isn't what is keeping them from moving to the next league. Other things that are also very important:
-Build Order
-Battle Micro
-Scouting
-Over Turtling
-Dealing with Cheese (aka 6 pools, proxy 2 rax, proxy 2 gate, cannon rush, etc)
Then as you get a little higher you need things like positioning, sacrificing bases, harassing, multi prong attack/defense, multiple build orders, game sense.
That's why SC2 is so awesome, it's not just all about macro; it just happens to be that macro is a very good correlation to skill, as your macro improves typically all other aspects of your gameplay do as well. Bold- improving mechanics improves this stuff implicitly italics- this is not that important after you know when to "run away" or "fight" underline- the hell? better macro =/= better mechanics. when people tell lower level players to improve their macro they actually mean mechanicsor maybe i'm giving the avg joe too much credit Good macro is when you look 5% of the time in your base but still have 0 energy on your macro-abilities, low minerals/gas and never get supply blocked while having a decent dronecount/production; because then you have the time to run around with your lings, overlords, dropships etc and other stuff like decision making, micro, scouting... So we've gone from "focus on your macro" to "don't focus on your macro too much so you have more time for other stuff". This thread is confusing sometimes In this context, when people say "focus" they don't mean look at it. They mean focus on improving to the point where you don't need to constantly stare at your base for your macro-related tasks to go smoothly. That means you need to always be looking at your base less and training your brain to perform all the menial tasks (building Probes, Pylons, executing a BO) without actively thinking about it. Oh right, that makes more sense. I think that's a more advanced thing though, something to work on once you do have solid macro even while staring at it the whole time. And if you're struggling with all those things at the same thing, the order to prioritise them should be 1) Macro 2-3) Scouting/decision making 4) Micro Whereas most lowbies tend to focus on micro, specifically during battles when they shouldn't be. Not sure which of the middle ones I'd put ahead, they're pretty interlinked. Oh, and here's another macro-focused roach/hydra ZvT game. http://www.sc2rep.com/replays/(Z)Tamerlane_vs_(T)manuelx/14353-opponent spawned as random, so I did eventually scout him just to see what race he was since I do a slightly different build in each matchup. But I did absolutely no follow up scouting beyond checking where his expansions were, if any. -Likewise, I completely ignored any attacking forces I sent in, beyond the small concession of routing them around his cliffs. I'll be watching the replay now to see what defences he actually had there -harass still does terrible, terrible damage to my focus and macro. This time from drops. Better hydra/spore positioning should sort that out. All in all its turning out to be a fun experiment, and far more successful than I initially suspected. You should be attempting to not miss injects even when there is fights and ect. That is the biggest thing about zerg nestea said that to yellow in project A and if nestea tells someone to do that then everyone should do that. Again this army is less micro dependant than a muta ling bling cause if you a move a muta ling bling a lot can go wrong quicker. 3 thor shoot all your muta, your bling run into the tanks and thor and then you just have lings vs marine and possibly hellion. Just not pretty.
Yeah I'm trying my best with the injects. I had my first ZvP win with this new approach against a silver Protoss today and I think I did pretty good there. But that was mainly because he didn't harass me at any point. One concern is that I didn't have detection in time for a proper DT rush
http://www.sc2rep.com/replays/(Z)Tamerlane_vs_(P)RanGo/14368
Again, not stressing over what his army comp or where his forcefields got placed is quite relaxing. Sure I might lose an army or two, but my next one will be ready before his.
I also straight up lost to a high gold Zerg player who expanded before me and just had more stuff. Not sure what to do there without breaking the no scouting rule or radically altering the build. I'll stick with it a bit longer and see if I can optimise it a bit more.
http://www.sc2rep.com/replays/(Z)Malusroby_vs_(Z)Tamerlane/14369
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It is understandable that Macro improvement is acknowledged but I think it is somewhat being misinterpreted.
The reason this is said is that at lower levels, certain "optimal" strategies are actually detrimental to one's play if its not carried out with good macro in mind.
For example: A bronze zerg is told by everyone, macro is important and a good way to address that is possibly hatch first and get minimum zerglings and focus on largely drones. Now, the zerg player has yet to learn to recognize what to look for when scouting, and proper drone control so, by hatch first'ing or over droning, they are extremely vulnerable to not just cheese or timing attacks, but seemingly random, unrefined "pressure" where as if said zerg 14/14'd, while neither is carried out optimally, the survival rate at that level will be much higher.
SO when told to "macro better" it is not referring to say going harder econ say 15 hatch, 15 pool vs 14gas 14 pool because that is not "macroing better" that in itself is a switch of strategy. So instead, 14/14 should be optimized (or 1 base play in general) before slowly branching off to 2 base play, then multi base play based on comfort level and playing ability.
Now when addressing "new strategy",
New strategies are not something that can simply be implemented at will even when you hear about them.
For example: A low level protoss who plays at mid optimized one base play or poorly optimized two base play is having trouble with Roach Ling All-ins. Strategy wise, he has observed MC use a fast stargate to safely deflect it. So he adds a stargate into his play in a swap of "Strategy". Seemingly it fits, cause he can afford it in but that is of a result of slippage in macro anyways which seems like it works out well but in reality, he still loses to roach ling all ins perhaps because the stargate does not finish in time or 1 void is simply not enough with no ground backing. So he cuts corners to get to it faster but now you have just damaged your macro play further instead of trying to optimally spend your resources at reasonable points in time so now he is stuck with an early gate, barely enough resources to spend it and possibly deflects the roach all in but still loses.
This all brings back to the point that strategy changes, even when seemingly obvious, do not address problems without the proper macro backing and CERTAINLY micro should not be a focus.
So often I have observed low level players doing early harass with the scouting working and seemingly doing well, perhaps even killing a worker or 2... but then they look back at their minerals and they missed their pool by 200 minerals or something like that.
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Sorry dude but its just macro.
You see the counters in this game are only 20% to 40% effective. That means if you got a smaller army by this amount I will rolf stomp you, dont matter what I have. So focus on your macro and dont worry about strategy yo.
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On October 06 2011 21:27 marvellosity wrote:
I don't think the OP is disputing that macro is the #1 way to get better. He's just saying it's not the ONLY THING in the game and he's right.
Say it's a PvT. As a Protoss you've decided to go mass stalkers against a marauder only army. Now, having 20 more stalkers due to good macro is of course going to be very important. But it might also be nice for people to explain that stalkers suck against marauders and he should try chargelots instead.
Grossly oversimplified example, but you get the point.
1) More units = more win - true
2) You make the right decisions (strategy) = also more likely to win - true
Edit: what Plexa said
Blind, raw macro will get you to diamond.
Raw macro plus minimal scouting at the appropriate times will get you to high diamond, maybe low masters.
These are obvious generalizations, but you get the point.
Once you're at a comfortable spot macro wise, then you should start working on strategy. The reason all the help threads exist are because so many players are dealing with inconsistent pushes that happen at variable times. This is because people in the same lower leagues aren't playing efficiently either. So when you lose to the 10 minute 4gate, or 14:30 +2 blink push, strategy is not your problem. If you learn to macro DECENTLY you'll blindly stop builds like these simply by having shit at a good time.
The only point where macro doesn't become enough is when you're facing properly timed and executed pushes, which, astoundingly, is in diamond+ leagues. So seriously, just worry about macro until you're comfortable with that.
It's like any sport. You need to get the fundamentals down before you start worrying about strategy, because strategy is based around what happens AFTER proper execution of fundamental skill.
You don't see a coach going up to his peewee baseball kids saying "okay, so this is how you throw a fastball. You want to put your fingers this far apart along the stitches and flick your fingers as you're releasing. Make sure you only do it after you've consistently thrown a few sinkers or curve balls though. Okay johnny, let's see you try it, then we'll work on seeing if you can get a ball to go over the plate"
This is because strategy and tactics don't matter if you can't execute the fundamentals. It doesn't matter if he's throwing curveballs, fastballs or a hissy fit if he walks every person that comes up to plate. So again, strategy is based off of the situations that arise from proper execution of fundamentals.
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EPT
