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Did anyone catch the panel at IPL3 with huk, stephano idra and whitera?
There was a guy who asked how to improve and later asked if there were any "Tricks" to improving on macro such as getting workers to mine faster etc.......
I feel like there is just some common misconception from lower league players where they think we are hiding special combo moves or are using tactics other then micro to achieve higher level's of skill.
honestly i dont think there is a way to get them to understand outside of just saying the same thing and hoping they get it eventually.
The lower league players who do understand that the game is about macro imo have already been following the OP guideline and dont need any extra lecturing
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I suggest to my fellow low-level players a strategy to get better non-"macro better" advice: post replays where your macro was superior and you still lost. I think that might help others give you advice by focusing on mistakes of micro, positioning, unit composition, etc.
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On October 12 2011 04:40 juked wrote:
This is a very true statement. People are very quick to bash the other player and not pay attention to their own mistakes. I feel like watching replays gives you 90% the awnsers you need. You may of found the problem but all you need is to find the solution
This man is very wise!!( i love you juked <3 )
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Generic advice like "macro better" should be forbidden altogether.
Its the same as saying "play better", which doesnt help either.
Its an arbitrary term that doesnt exactly explain what couldve been done better.
If someone didnt manage to spend all his minerals because he forgot to build units out of his production facilities, then just point out that he has to focus on not forgetting to build units.
If he did build units continuously, but his minerals piled up anyways, then point out that he needs more production facilities in order to spend all his minerals.
Dont advice players to expand, UNLESS they can spend all their money off 1 base, otherwise they are using APM on something that doesnt benefit their current game, instead of focusing on spending all minerals from 1 base.
I once made the mistake of trying to explain to my friend (platinum), that he needs to expand faster as zerg.
He completely fell apart. His minerals piled up pretty bad and he forgot to build anything at all.
Expanding is a way to increase ones income and capability of producing units, but if a player cant spend his minerals from 1 base yet, then he absolutely shouldnt be expanding.
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On October 12 2011 04:27 Jibba wrote:
That thread reminds me of the Karate Kid, except instead Ralph Machio tells Mr. Miyagi to fuck off and wax his own car, and then writes a blog about why he can't ask Ali out because he doesn't want to ruin their friendship.
I think the point of that thread was that Mr. Miyagi was just telling the kid to clean his car, and then Ralph vacuums and picks up the trash in the back, while spending a little time waxing the car. The waxxing is fine, but Mr. Miyaga can can get the crumbs out of the seems of his chair his own damn self.
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i wonder what inspired this plexa : D
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I have to say I feel like the 'macro better' thing is often misrepresented in so far as it's typically only quantified as 'spending your money'. Perhaps a reason here is because many of the people who give this advice have done a lot of grinding and copying from better players yet their understanding/analysis isn't really there. However production is only 50% of macro, the more important part of macro that new players need to learn about is how to manage their economy and this isn't talked about quite enough. It's well enough that you need to spend your money, but it paints a more complete picture for a newer player if they also realise how many minerals per minute they are getting from a saturated base or how it influences their build that they have 10 workers too few and so on.
Sheth wrote a great guide about this for Zerg and he doesn't even cover everything which can be found here http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=219257. *mad props to Sheth!*
As I'm only a mid-high masters player and feel like my understanding is some-what limited here, I'll hand off the detail to sheths great post there. My main point however is that, regardless of anything, you need to understand how to manage your economy correctly - how/if/when you should grow your economy in X situation - am I droning fast enough, am I getting supply capped and so on. Spending money is the easy part imo. Although, spending is also made easier by having the correct amount of production for your income, which is easier to identify if you know how many minerals per minute your 3base economy is giving you etc.
I think if players are having problems with the production side of macro, then it's just a mechanics thing. My advice there is to look at how good players setup their mechanics for their macroing with regards to hotkeys/habitual behaviour. Perhaps one of the most important things here for terran/protoss and somewhat zerg is Cycling. Constantly cycling through your control groups allows you to be able to constantly check everything, good players often never have stationery units or forces, they are repeatedly tabbing through and issuing commands and checking the status of everything under their command.
Hopefully I'm not talking out of my arse and someone finds something here useful, gl hf!
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Russian Federation43 Posts
I read his post, and to be honest, what he said is just 100% wrong. So I find it kind of weird you'd read his post as factual, when in fact it's completely inaccurate. If you read the majority of help topics, they're nothing like what he claimed they are. I looked at 10-15 help posts, and not a single person simply said macro better.
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United States22883 Posts
On October 12 2011 05:10 Camail wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 04:27 Jibba wrote:
That thread reminds me of the Karate Kid, except instead Ralph Machio tells Mr. Miyagi to fuck off and wax his own car, and then writes a blog about why he can't ask Ali out because he doesn't want to ruin their friendship. I think the point of that thread was that Mr. Miyagi was just telling the kid to clean his car, and then Ralph vacuums and picks up the trash in the back, while spending a little time waxing the car. The waxxing is fine, but Mr. Miyaga can can get the crumbs out of the seems of his chair his own damn self.
Karate Kid analogy aside, there is an abundance of resources available on TL that should get anyone into Masters. The worst posters here have no willingness to work or research on their own and they drag the forum down, by looking for quick outs to win games when their number one problem is that their fundamental gameplay is rotten and needs to be rebuilt.
It's the exact same as every sport. When you're at soccer practice, you run basic drills and conditioning all practice long to work on specific things, and at the very end you scrimmage. You can go down the line from sport to sport and the fundamentals are what you MUST emphasize first, strategy last. Working on the complete package at once, which is what you're doing when you're delving into strategy and timings as a Gold player, is detrimental to your overall learning and will impede your progress. I think these people are being coddled, as we've seen with numerous threads about people who can't wrap their head around cheese or are intimidated by the ladder. You scout, you macro and you expand. People should be taught how to do those, but beyond that is somewhat superfluous until the upper levels and will be picked up naturally anyways through experience. I think 95% of strategy forum threads would be unnecessary if people used some elbow grease, so to speak.
'macro better' is a low content post that should not be tolerated in the Strategy forums, but likewise the people making threads should be putting a lot more effort in than they usually do, and not become indignant when people tell them that their fundamentals are extremely poor.
I feel like the normal response in Strategy when someone tells them to improve their macro is "yeah, but what about besides that", brushing it off as if it's only a minority share of the problem. The proper response should be "ok, I'll work on that first. Anything else?" taking ownership of their weakness and realizing it's the key to advancement, everything else is tertiary.
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Plexa,
Sticky this now. Most people who've been on TL for >2-3 weeks know the deal and, I've see some really well done "help me" threads. It's the newcomers who don't know how to properly post those threads that need this advice the most. Sticky it, just in the hopes that the people with under 10 posts actually read it before uploading their replay and saying "why did I lose".
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
I am glad that people are realizing that improving your macro isn't something that happens over night, it simply takes good hard practice. People can improve on other parts of their game, while improving their macro. If you just work on your macro and mass zerglings, you are not going to feel comfortable macroing something like roach/baneling drops. Different builds and different strategies rely on very different expansion timings, gas timings, tech, upgrades, scouting, aggressive and defensive play and people can learn these things while improving their macro. It doesn't help very much to learn one without the other.
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On October 12 2011 05:24 Jibba wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On October 12 2011 05:10 Camail wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 04:27 Jibba wrote:
That thread reminds me of the Karate Kid, except instead Ralph Machio tells Mr. Miyagi to fuck off and wax his own car, and then writes a blog about why he can't ask Ali out because he doesn't want to ruin their friendship. I think the point of that thread was that Mr. Miyagi was just telling the kid to clean his car, and then Ralph vacuums and picks up the trash in the back, while spending a little time waxing the car. The waxxing is fine, but Mr. Miyaga can can get the crumbs out of the seems of his chair his own damn self. Karate Kid analogy aside, there is an abundance of resources available on TL that should get anyone into Masters. The worst posters here have no willingness to work or research on their own and they drag the forum down, by looking for quick outs to win games when their number one problem is that their fundamental gameplay is rotten and needs to be rebuilt. It's the exact same as every sport. When you're at soccer practice, you run basic drills and conditioning all practice long to work on specific things, and at the very end you scrimmage. You can go down the line from sport to sport and the fundamentals are what you MUST emphasize first, strategy last. Working on the complete package at once, which is what you're doing when you're delving into strategy and timings as a Gold player, is detrimental to your overall learning and will impede your progress. I think these people are being coddled, as we've seen with numerous threads about people who can't wrap their head around cheese or are intimidated by the ladder. You scout, you macro and you expand. People should be taught how to do those, but beyond that is somewhat superfluous until the upper levels and will be picked up naturally anyways through experience. I think 95% of strategy forum threads would be unnecessary if people used some elbow grease, so to speak. 'macro better' is a low content post that should not be tolerated in the Strategy forums, but likewise the people making threads should be putting a lot more effort in than they usually do, and not become indignant when people tell them that their fundamentals are extremely poor.
I think that is an issue that this op addresses. He acknowledges that clear macro losses should not be posted, and then diverges from your opinion slightly when saying that in an even macro game we should point out other flaws.
My point is this though, just saying macro better, or to work on fundamentals is not helpful. Every player is different and has different hurdles to surpass in their macro. By looking at replays, you can say that they don't cycle enough, so they aren't aware. Or maybe they cycle TOO much and are not processing the information. The point is that macro itself is not 'fundamental' it can be broken down into very distinct parts, where some people will need to have very specific help with.
You can't just tell a soccer/football player to juggle the ball better, just practice on juggling to ball. The good mentor will watch their technique and say, your reading the movement of the ball this way, but this other way is correct'. Macro is just as complicated as micro for many people.
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Blazinghand
United States25553 Posts
On October 12 2011 05:32 CookieMaker wrote:
Plexa,
Sticky this now. Most people who've been on TL for >2-3 weeks know the deal and, I've see some really well done "help me" threads. It's the newcomers who don't know how to properly post those threads that need this advice the most. Sticky it, just in the hopes that the people with under 10 posts actually read it before uploading their replay and saying "why did I lose".
I believe this was stickied as it was posted :D
Hopefully, this sticky will lead to a new dawn for our people this board, where all shall feel the grace of good macro and good macro advice, and our darkest nature shall be turned aside by quality posting habits.
A new era is upon us, CookieMaker. May this sticky stand the test of time! *drinks*
I can only hope that people read this sticky, and those that do not are pointed to it until all understand the glory that is good strategy posting.
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United States22883 Posts
On October 12 2011 05:35 Camail wrote:
You can't just tell a soccer/football player to juggle the ball better, just practice on juggling to ball.
Yes, you can. You don't need a shooting coach to be a good free throw shooter, you just need to practice it over and over, even if your form is bad. Even Day9 talks about it. You improve your APM by playing faster. You force yourself to play faster, and the rest of your brain activities will catch up. A prime example of this with TONS of evidence to back it up is speed reading.
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Thanks for this, I feel like it will clean up the strat forum going forward =D, after all better replays only help those of you asking for advice
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On October 12 2011 05:41 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 05:35 Camail wrote:
You can't just tell a soccer/football player to juggle the ball better, just practice on juggling to ball.
Yes, you can. You don't need a shooting coach to be a good free throw shooter, you just need to practice it over and over, even if your form is bad. Even Day9 talks about it. You improve your APM by playing faster. You force yourself to play faster, and the rest of your brain activities will catch up. A prime example of this with TONS of evidence to back it up is speed reading.
I was mistaken in using other sports as an analogy. Because part of my reasoning as that macro isn't just one thing. Your going under the assumption that we can block of this entire thing as 'macro' and we can deal with it all as one thing. For some people this is true, and we can tell them to go off and just play. In fact, that just might work for everyone, but does that mean its the only way? Wouldn't you rather have someone help you? Even if you don't, not everyone wants to rise through the ranks independently, we are a community, and some people learn better if they can have help. If you don't want to help them its fine, but you shouldn't force someone to learn the way you want them to learn.
edit: The last part of that statement is the only important part.
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On October 12 2011 05:01 gh0un wrote:
I once made the mistake of trying to explain to my friend (platinum), that he needs to expand faster as zerg.
He completely fell apart. His minerals piled up pretty bad and he forgot to build anything at all.
Expanding is a way to increase ones income and capability of producing units, but if a player cant spend his minerals from 1 base yet, then he absolutely shouldnt be expanding.
This is kinda funny to hear - when my girlfriend started playing, she got through about half the campaign on easy and then started laddering. She lost pretty often and was seated in Bronze. I watched her play, and as protoss she grabbed an expansion around 7 minutes after building a decent army. I asked why she expanded and she said she can build a bigger army if she mines more. Then the opponent comes at her with something like banshees or thors and she doesn't know what to do and dies =(
On topic, I agree that if both players in a replay were equal macro and the OP made strategic incorrect decisions that it's pointless to say 'you would have won if you had better macro'. Macro is something everyone is always developing, you cant disregard all other aspects of the game until macro is perfect.
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I remember a while back there was the big thread about posting in the Strategy section with a huge list of dos and don'ts, and everybody was happy about the overall improvement that such a clear outline would have on the section itself.
It is painfully obvious, however, that some people still don't put a lot of thought into why they lose or are actually completely unable to identify their own weaknesses. Sometimes, I feel like people just post arbitrarily seeking solutions that aren't there, since they either lack the macro or multitasking to execute the help you try to give them. Telling them to macro better or to focus on not being supply blocked and making constant SCVs and units is often the best advice you can give. I suppose you could point out the 6 times they got supply blocked in your reply or tell them they stopped researching upgrades after +1 and lost to a 3-3 army later in the game, but they should honestly be able to see that for themselves.
That old thread back in the day seemed to outline the posting guidelines very nicely. I just think some people ignore it and in a way deserve to be shot down, or at least told to go back and practice macro before posting an [H] Thread.
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United States22883 Posts
Well, I agree with a lot of that but I think it's mostly a problem of people trying to run before they can walk. I've watched a lot of a stream of an unnamed Gold player in #teamliquid on IRC and he continually tries cute strategies involving HTs or blink stalkers, when he could just make a shit ton of zealots and stalkers and run over 90% of his opponents. I've demonstrated exactly that to him, but he refuses to listen. Basic principles will continually outperform grand strategical theories all the way up to GM, and I've never seen any evidence contrary to that.
Like I said, just saying 'macro better' is insufficient and should be banned. But the basic principles such as creating more production buildings when your minerals float, or keep tabs on your opponent's army or don't expand/tech/macro at the same time, should be the first thing they learn.
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Am I the only one whose imediate reaction to the thread title was "We salute you!"?
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EPT
