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As someone who has never played a competitive RTS until buying SC2 six months ago then yes, yes you can.
Got placed in Silver, ended first season top of gold, ended second season top of diamond, ended third season top of diamond, fourth season placement match loss -> in to masters.
And I am fucking TERRIBLE at this game.
As a Terran player here's my advice...
Get a build for each match up that works, is fairly decent, has some room for variation, has economy and hits a STRONG mid game timing push, maybe with some earlier harrasment that isn't terrible to transition out of.
Once you work out how to react based on scouting info and still manage to hit your timing and steamroll them you feel like a god.
As an example in every TvP I'll go 1 rax reaper expo and then hit a timing with first two medivacs and stim. Easily transitions to taking a third, getting upgrades and then grabbing ghosts or vikings depending on their tech path.
EDIT: And your APM is higher than mine
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On February 16 2012 12:41 NA.Tiberius wrote:
Table of Contents
Learning Barriers
The first thing I would like to touch upon is the concept of learning barriers. During the learning process, it is imperative that you have the knowledge necessary to identify and remove any barriers that are blocking your path to progression.
This may sound simple, but believe it or not, many people have hit a learning barrier without even knowing that it is there. A common misconception is that when you stop progressing, it means you have reached your peak performance. This is absolutely not the case.
There are a few things you can do to avoid hitting learning blocks, but it is most important to understand that they are there. As soon as you are aware of what is hindering your progress, you can easily kick its ass out of your path to excellence.
A commonly heard of learning barrier is called ‘ladder anxiety.’ I can attest to the existence of this because I used to get it. I’m no psychologist, but my guess is that it is caused by the competitive nature of laddering combined with preexisting anxiety. Your brain simply uses any excuse it can to convince you out of clicking that button.
There are much more subtle barriers that one can encounter, though. Maybe someone gave you advice that isn’t actually helpful for you personally. This can happen by following generalized advice such as, “just play a lot of ladder games and you will eventually get better.” You can take this advice, play four hours a day for two weeks, and not experience a large amount of progress at all.
This is because learning optimally is never that simple. A rule of thumb is to never follow simple or generalized advice. There is much more to be said on this topic, but for the sake of convenience I will end by reiterating the most important point.
The key to continuous improvement is to identify and eliminate potential learning barriers.
Just a disclaimer: It is a basic fact that you won’t improve without playing a lot. My point is that knowing how to maximize your practice while playing is equally as important as just numbly grinding out games.
Check out this thread in the strategy forum.
link: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=312416
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You should be able to get to masters  .
Masters still counts as "casual" gaming.
No need for crisp timmings.
No need for very consistent macro. You can still forget injects or get supply blocked and win.
No need to have too good control. You can still put your whole army in a single hotkey.
gl!
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On February 16 2012 21:56 ElPeque.fogata wrote:You should be able to get to masters . Masters still counts as "casual" gaming. No need for crisp timmings. No need for very consistent macro. You can still forget injects or get supply blocked and win. No need to have too good control. You can still put your whole army in a single hotkey. gl!
Masters casual? NA Server huh?
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Russian Federation676 Posts
low-mid masters is not good players, high masters like 1200 pts is smth not anyone can achieve. so its not hard to get low masters
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I'm master on EU serveur (800 points at season 5). I play only 1 or 2 hours in the week, and more the week end. But i play a lot in 2v2 with a friend. I got 162 games for the season 5 in 1v1.
You don't have to be a very big gamer to reach the master league. But you have to be clever and you have to known what aspect of your game you must improve.
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Most people that "are just masters" are 16+, have played computer games for 10+ years of their lives (at least some of those online, even if not competitive) and played a lot of strategy games for even longer (this also includes boardgames!).
This means they are used to thinking strategically and used to thinking fast. Thats actually the part, that is imo most difficult to catch up on. The physical part necessary to get into master (<100 apm as non-zerg) is probably the least problem.
If you have not been into strategy in your live so far, your slow learning curve is probably pretty normal. Dont compare yourself to people, who just have to apply their strategic thinking to starcraft (+ learn the physical part).
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On February 16 2012 03:34 terrantosaur wrote:
3) Are there people in the Masters league who don’t have to practise that much to be that good? Ie is there such a thing as ‘natural talent’ in SC2 or is it basically application?
im mainly watching streams for now ... not playing that much
when i play i mostly play teamgames
but its very easy to sustain am mid master rank after playing sc1 & 2 for over 12 years
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On February 16 2012 03:40 Josh_rakoons wrote:
I was bronze about 3 months ago, now masters, i could and can only play every 2 weeks on the weekends, if you put in the work you can do it.
I'd recommend coaching but i wouldnt go with anyone super expensive, such as incontrol... or destiny, go with people like apollo.
*Also, no previous RTS experience, just fps and MMORPG.
That's almost impossible to believe imo.
I think you have a grammar error, "you play every 2 weeks on the weekends" so i think you are saying that you play on weekends only? Maybe you have a pretty good intellect to get Masters from Bronze in 3 months.
I am playing since release and i am in medium gold plus i think that i am a casual player, just playing at night and weekends. This is my first RTS too like you said i played FPS and MMORPGS's since so many years ago.
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I finished last season at over 900 points in masters and I still have hundreds of holes in my play. I started off in season 1 as bronze with no RTS experience, and I reached master by season 3. If you just work on macro and general unit composition, I think anyone can get to master.
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Hi there,
You probably already got your answers by now. But I do like your mindset. Maybe you would appreciate free coaching ?
I'm a mid master terran in EU.
PM me if you need some information :-)
Edit / Might as well introduce myself.
I am a student in Information and communication, and I would like to improve my talking, and educational skills in english. What a better way to do it than coaching a british guy ?^^
Regarding SC II, I consider myself beeing a pretty "serious" gamer. I don't play more than 30-45 min a day (my goad since 2012 is 3 ladder games each day, no matter what), but I want to be consistent, keeping improving.
I have a pretty damn good analytic mind (in SC like in life in general), and people always tell me how much I explain things clearly, so..
I watch Day[9] and the GSL.
Anyway, hf with your goals
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At 38 your potential for motorical improvment is all but gone, so your advantage may come only in form of better understanding of the game, be it reaction to certain stuff or overall "feel" for the game. You will plateau at a given level and with high probability you will stay there for ever.
So
1. Yes, you are capped at Diamond level. You can as well fit the exponential curve through your progress It's not that only you will get better - the higher you go, the more people you play against will improve as well.
2. You can try to train micro (APM) but the age factor will play here the most part. It actuall comes down to dedication, but the cap there is also not as high as young people. Prolly will not push you over the diamond anyway.
3. As everywhere there is this "natural talent" in SC2 as well. I mean every profession or sport has it. Still at 38 even if you had a natural talent for SC2 - it is gone. Old dog can't learn new tricks.
4. "Everyone can be master" is just an elitist bulltalk. Not every one can be masters, not everyone will be winning player in poker and not every one will score highest mark in exams. It is a combined mixture of different abilities which define your result and not all of them are learnable/grindable. If you are not prolific in math you can push yourself to some level with work and dedication, but you will never achieve what some people just can without any effort. If your overall coordination is not good you will not achieve best micro possible in SC2 etc.
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I''m pretty sure you can hit Masters in NA with just good decision making and minimal mechanical skill. 80 APM should be more than enough to expand at the right times, keep your money low, get some stim kiting in, and unload dropships for multipronged attacks.
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Blazinghand
United States25551 Posts
On February 16 2012 23:02 Wasihasi wrote:
4. "Everyone can be master" is just an elitist bulltalk. Not every one can be masters, not everyone will be winning player in poker and not every one will score highest mark in exams. It is a combined mixture of different abilities which define your result and not all of them are learnable/grindable. If you are not prolific in math you can push yourself to some level with work and dedication, but you will never achieve what some people just can without any effort. If your overall coordination is not good you will not achieve best micro possible in SC2 etc.
I honestly think that if you're willing to sit down and do work, you can get master league, which represents the top 3% of ladderers on NA server. I plateaued in diamond and stayed there for nearly a year before sitting down and looking at how I play and working my way into master league. Don't let the little hurdles along the way get you down-- everyone has their dry spells, improvement-wise.
On February 17 2012 00:29 kcdc wrote:
I''m pretty sure you can hit Masters in NA with just good decision making and minimal mechanical skill. 80 APM should be more than enough to expand at the right times, keep your money low, get some stim kiting in, and unload dropships for multipronged attacks.
I am 100% sure this is the case. I have an average APM my games of 78, and I got into Master League. Having more than that would be really nice, but 80 should be enough for good macro and basic micro.
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1) how many games are you playing each season? If you're only platinum after a year of starcraft 2 it means you're not playing efficiently, i.e. you're not making the most of your games. You're not thinking why you lose or how to improve, you're just playing blindly. Atm there are a HUGE number of master league players, there are too many of them imo. The game is not hard to learn, you just have to learn it, which is a problem for all players who are in the lower leagues.
2)APM is not as relevant as people say. There are several pros with lowish apm (axslav, elfi, goody, etc) as long as you make the important movements it's all good
3) There are natural talents..like Stephano, but even he plays quite a bit. RTS games demand alot from the players so you need to be prepared to dump alot of thought and time into this game to get good. Everyone can get masters league imo, it is not that difficult. There are alot of free learning tools for sc2, day9, husky, hd, and all those commentators, streamers who provide commentary, and replay analysis. You need to take advantage of these free resources then you will be masters eventually with practice
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heres my experience and advice
i am 17, currently top GM in NA protoss....when i first started out sc2(my first ever rts game) i was placed into plat for first 3 days of having the game, then diamon within first week, rank 1 diamond in 2 weeks...i played around 1-2 hours for 6 days a week
i have friends/teammates(i own a css team) who all have the game and have achieved different levels in a certain period of time
how well u succeed in sc2 is determined alll very heavily by alllllll of these factors people talk about, such as apm, individual talent, amount of time u play, the way to spend your time
and
to reach the masters levels at least for NA, you dont need to have "mastered" all of these factors or master many, and the point of saying this isnt to give u an idea of how hard it is to make masters, but that it is possible to at least reach a level in each of these factors to reach masters, with some of these factors not being natural talent based
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Canada13389 Posts
Anyone can achieve masters league sure but technically because of the way ladder is set up not everyone can actually get into and stay in masters *technically* though this situation probably won't come about until well into the LotV expansion's life (or HotS if players decide LotV is not as good for whatever reason competitively).
Reason being that eventually only the hardcore serious players will remain and very few people will just pick up the game to play or play casually so that masters is a very high level of play and something like platinum or diamond may be where most people wish they could be. Speaking based on the current ladder system and assuming that fewer and fewer people play with time and more and more the people who remain are trying to be the best they can. The day may come where the mid master players become diamond or lower because the top 3% is just a smaller number of people who are all that much better.
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On February 16 2012 21:56 ElPeque.fogata wrote:You should be able to get to masters . Masters still counts as "casual" gaming. No need for crisp timmings. No need for very consistent macro. You can still forget injects or get supply blocked and win. No need to have too good control. You can still put your whole army in a single hotkey. gl!
Masters certainly doesn't count as casual gaming. Even playing SC2 multiplayer 2 years after release is hardly casual. Casual gaming is hopping into an account every once in a while in between playing all kinds of other games and maybe playing 4 or 5 games on a Silver/Gold level account.
Everyone in Masters has put in a massive amount of time into SC2 and effort to get there, whether they are aware of it or not - not just playing the games to actively improve, but also watching the related content like pro tournaments, dailies, reading TL (or put the equivalent amount of time back in Brood War to learn the fundamentals). There is nothing casual about that.
As for no need for crisp timings, getting supply blocked often, and having a one-hotkey army, these things happen regularly on a professional level (and when I say regularly, I really mean all the freaking time). So obviously you don't need to get those anywhere near perfect to hit Masters, arguably you don't even need it to win tournaments.
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Yes, especially if you are in NA. The way blizzard makes the game, its very easy to become master. If you didnt make master via promotion mid season, then you can always reach the "pts needed" and get promoted next season through 1 placement match. You wont believe how bad most masters are yet they still brag about being "master". If you talk about mechanics, watch most master level players, they get supply block more often than Kim Kardashian switch boyfriend/husband. The difference comes from High Master/low gm -> high gm -> semi pro -> pro. From normal master, meaning below top 5, the difference isnt that big just knowledge of build orders, few timings here and there, but that's about it. About hotkeys, you can get away with everything on one key (as long as your production buildings are on separate of course). You can look at most high master toss streamers and they only use 1-2 keys for army while stephano himself only uses 2 for army (4 total). SC2 is not that mechanically demanding until you reach the top level then every little edge counts, but for now it's more like knowing what to do at what time and build orders. Just my opinion.
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EPT
