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No, not everyone can be masters. But I do believe that everyone with enough dedication can be masters.
In some cases that will require more than others, but that should not stop anyone from trying.
1.Regarding your progress so far, I think its great that you can see so clearly where you've been and where you are now.
Just remember that the better you get, the longer it takes to improve. (just compare first three weeks vs the last three weeks.)
You also has to remember that while you may get better, others too get better, which will slow down your league progress.
2. Will your apm be capped? I dont know. Does it matter? no.
Apm is something that really only matters when
a) you are at grandmaster level
b) you are at very low apm say 30-40ish, at 80 apm, you are fine up until at least high masters.
High apm is a matter of focus: How many different operations can you juggle in your head at the same time?
The best way to improve apm is imo to do a little more than you are comfortable doing. For instance
keeping your scouting worker alive vs a marine and not missing anything in your own main. Focusing not only
on what your need to do right now, and also on what you need to do next and even on stuff that you will need to do
10 minutes from now.
3. this article:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=285603
claims that Stephano only practises 4 hours/day, and as you know he is pretty good at this game.
Probably not something just anyone can do however, also note that stephano was already good in warcraft 3,
and who knows what he played before that game came out.
So yes, I think its pretty safe to assume that some people just have the natural talent for starcraft 2. But as with anything else in sports:
hard work> talent.
I really dont think age is a barrier, many "older" players have families and other obligations which makes them play less,
therefore you do not see so many "up there". Starcraft 2 is also a new game. Most "older" already had a job,
quitting to maybe get good enough to become pro and make less money than currently, dont see many doing that.
Whereas if you are say 20, you can easily take a year and try to become pro, and I believe there are quite a few
trying to do that right now.
Where should you go from here?
Getting practice partners would not hurt, thats for sure.
However, at your level I think you can still improve a huge deal just playing vs the computer (on very easy).
Its alot easier if you only have to learn one thing at one time, instead of trying to learn everything at once.
When playing on the ladder you not only need to focus on what you are doing, but also on what your opponent is doing.
But vs the computer you are only really playing against yourself and discovering supply blocks and when you are not
making scv:s is much easier to do.
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I think some practice fairly regularly, even if only 10 games a week, not much of a commitment, that's perhaps 2-3hours on Saturday.
Watching all forms of SC2 - tournaments, streams, your replays, and even pro replays. This way you get a sense of the metagame and it's builds and timings, timings timings timings, one thing that it is very hard to teach, save this way. My bronze friend always asking, I don't know what to do next, so I say you must go watch and learn.
Macro better. This is key. As a brilliant thread about how people spend their money in SC2 said a while back, most leagues above spend their money better.
I do not believe APM affects your SC2 gameplay to the extent of defining whether or not you can be masters. I've faced enough terran turtlemechs and protoss turtle to max to know that you can be beaten by someone with 60 APM if you have double or more.
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On February 16 2012 21:56 ElPeque.fogata wrote:
No need to have too good control. You can still put your whole army in a single hotkey.
gl!
Hey man, MKP puts everything in one hotkey. At least I think he does. A lot of the times I've seen him put tanks and marines in one hotkey... the tanks siege and then the marines are trapped inside them and get stuck. Even pro players aren't perfect.
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I think the best way to improve is to first identify your weaknesses. The best way to do that as an individual (e.g. no one else to coach you or something like that) is by analyzing your games via SC2Gears. Isolate which match-ups and maps you are doing poorly on and then focus 100% on shoring up that match-up and/or map.
Of course to focus on a specific match-up/map you have to do customs and to do that you need practice partners, so the 2nd step is really to either find individual practice partners or try to join a clan. If possible, it is also better to practice with players who are slightly better than you and this will also increase the rate of your improvement.
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anybody can be masters. just requires the time and effort.
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On February 17 2012 02:18 Genome852 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2012 21:56 ElPeque.fogata wrote:
No need to have too good control. You can still put your whole army in a single hotkey.
gl! Hey man, MKP puts everything in one hotkey. At least I think he does. A lot of the times I've seen him put tanks and marines in one hotkey... the tanks siege and then the marines are trapped inside them and get stuck. Even pro players aren't perfect.
But since he is Pro we have to assume that is actually intentional to leave support for those tanks ^.^
But realistically I think yes, anyone can be masters but it does take the effort to get there. How much effort will be different for each person depending on alot of factors, probably most importantly RTS experience.
As for your questions:
1) Possibly, but it might be more the limit of where you can go given the time you can put in, not because of some arbitrary skill cap.
2) No, sounds like your APM is pretty good and really APM is overrated. Sure it's useful, but unless you are High masters/GM low APM is probably the least of your worries.
3) Yes and no. I know people who are either consistently in Masters or could be if they actually laddered yet don't play all that much. However these people tend to have quite a lot of previous RTS experience before SC2 so I think it's fair to say they have already put in their time to get that good. I think there is such a thing as natural talent for something like SC2 but consistent practice will trump some upstart gosu who hardly plays anytime.
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On February 16 2012 03:34 terrantosaur wrote:
1) Does this (slow) rate of progress indicate that I have roughly ‘found my level’? Ie I will be high Plat/low Diamond maybe but not much better.
2) Will I be naturally capped by my low APM? Is APM like IQ ie it doesn’t really change that much over time. Or can anyone provide examples of how there APM has improved markedly?
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?
1). The overall level of skill in SC2 is increasing as time passes. Also, the amount of people in the mid to higher leagues have probably been around longer than those in the lower leagues. The fact your level is around the same means that your skill is improving (if it wasn't then you'd be going down). Have you tried practicing with higher level opponents? It may be hard to see the deficiencies in our play when all are games are against people around our level, but holes become glaringly obvious when a mid-masters pummels us good!
2). APM can increase as practice and skill increases. When I played BW I kept track of my APM and EAPM and watched it change over time. Here's what the earliest graph looked like when I started:
![[image loading]](http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z310/j5bruno/apmtracking12609.jpg)
Over summer 2010 it evened out at about 135. You can see that constant play produced a constant increase and then when I stopped playing a while for school it went down. For SC2 my APM is consistently about 140 (85-95 outside SC2gears) but as I play more it goes up to about 160. I feel as though APM levels off at a speed where we feel comfortable with our strategy, so for most people it will level off and only increase when practicing different techniques.
The only situation I can think of right now where a player is capped by APM are situations where Goody (a pro with slower APM) is getting harassed at every angle and something slips. Since you're in platinum (as am I) macro, scouting, and adapting our strategy are probably keeping us down the most.
3). I'll put it this way: when I was in grade school I joined band. I practiced my butt off and became an accomplished trombonist. My little brother rarely touched his instrument, but he had a very high base level of skill.
I work my butt off in my engineering courses and consistently score lower than those who studied an hour or two.
Base level of skill can take you into masters league, especially if you've games a lot in the past. However, hard work is necessary by all to be the top!
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I think there's a lot of very modest Masters players in this thread 
It is something only about 2% of the active SC2 population can achieve after all, it can't be all that easy to just do.
If you're not either more talented or more dedicated or both than the 2% that are already there, then obviously you won't be able to make it to masters yourself.
If you're older then that is an extra handicap due to slower reflexes that you have to compensate for with yet more dedication and practice, or a natural flair for good strategies.
So in theory yes. In practice, probably not, due to the existing competition for those roughly 12k spots in Masters from people who are better equipped physically, and in terms of the time they can dedicate. All you can do is try and use your time as efficiently as possible. Which includes not bothering to read this post 
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Hey, you're me on the EU server! ^^
I'm same age, same background (gamer but no RTSes), same APM, same achievements (bronze -> plat in season 3, stuck high plat since then, but about to break the diamond barrier). Except I'm on NA and do not work in finance but programming
So I can relate. I've worked quite hard at SC2 (since launch) on my free time too, but it is not a student free time. Kids, whatever you say, being in masters require a LOT of ladder grinding or custom practice. And I remember being in your position, you have waaayyy more free time than the OP and I do.
So I honestly don't know if I'll be masters any day. In the meantime I'm having fun and also love to watch the pro streaming or fighting in tourneys.
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You dont really need a High apm to be masters, its just one of a few factors that influence your ability to play the game optimally. Id recommend shifting your focus towards scouting information at key points in the game, solid build knowledge and timings, and hitting those timings when it counts based on the information you have gained in the game.
What good will apm do if you didnt scout and prepare for an incoming cheese/all-in/2base?
Id recommend learning some other key pieces of information that seperate diamond players from master players such as when to attack and what you should aim to achieve while doing so? Is it to hault an expansion, distract their attention while you snuck medivacs into their base??
So yeah id say its definately possible for most people to reach masters with the proper knowledge of the game and a very modest amount of apm to put it in action.
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I also wanted to talk about something that really hindered my progression: LADDER FEAR. It took me 6 months to overcome it a little, and more than one year to get over it. And even then, it still happens that I'm nervous after a series of victories to the point of switching to something else until the next day.
I have no idea where it comes from. It was not the first game I played online. It was not the first time I played something competitively (played squash, although I must admit to being nervous during competitions, but nothing like the ladder fear).
I overcame it with a mixture of playing a lot, having a secondary account to throw away games (in the end it's this account that's the highest ^^) and a bit of alcohol. Oh and also playing 2v2 with a friend. I dunno why but I'm not stressed in the least when playing 2v2.
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if you want some free coaching i might be willing to help you out.. pm me and send me a replay and i'll see if there are some specific pointers i can give you..
i think there are a few basic aspects of the game that every player should consider:
1. general understanding of the gameplay (units, match-ups, tech routes, unit/building costs, hot keys, maps) - every player should know (and use) every hot key for their race and should know every unit and tech route each race can take as well as the related costs. this is a simple and easy way to help you: read what your opponent is doing, estimate how much money they have spent, and predict where they are going in the game. A lot of this becomes intuitive the more you play but if you actively think about these things during games it will drastically help you to reach that intuition. It is also important to know all the maps and know what builds are good for a certain map, if it is a two player map with an open expansion you probably don't want to go command center first. if it is a wide open map with no choke points or cliffs, you probably don't want to go mech.
2. macro
3. micro
4. mechanics/multitasking - the ability to keep on top of your macro WHILE scouting/harassing/engaging is incredibly important. Have you ever been in the middle of a game and just glanced up at your minerals/gas to see they are +500? if so, it means you are lacking in mechanics and multitasking. This is probably the hardest part of the game for older players to master because multi tasking can be very tiring on the brain and younger players have much better speed/stamina.
If you can master just 2 or 3 of these areas, you can become masters on the NA server IMO.
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On February 16 2012 03:52 SoulWager wrote:
If you have two functioning limbs, one functioning eye, and a functioning brain, you can be masters at sc2.
Posts like this are toxic. If there's something holding back the gaming community right now it's the notion that gamers are all teenagers trolling on x-box. Posts like this only reinforce that notion. And not only that, so do non-trolling statements like "masters is easy," or its more subtle twin which is occasionally on display in this thread. The idea that the top 2% of any skill are "bad" at it or getting there is "ez" to accomplish strikes most adults as, at best, naive. Gaming will never become a serious spectator event if it's seen as a child's pursuit.
And the irony is that it's not a child's pursuit. As the OP shows, there are plenty of people out of school, working real, quality jobs, who want to get better at this game. The gaming community has to embrace this perception.
I suspect this kind of elitism comes largely from a subset of younger players who found something they're good at. And instead of focusing on how hard it was or how unique their accomplishment, they use it to denigrate those below them. "It's not that I'm good, it's that you're bad."
This is a bad instinct. Sure you can improve, but not acknowledging statistical outliers for what they are is willful ignorance. It creates an environment that outsiders see as negative and immature. It drives out new potential players, new potential viewers, and new potential sponsors.
On February 17 2012 03:52 Monkeyballs25 wrote:I think there's a lot of very modest Masters players in this thread It is something only about 2% of the active SC2 population can achieve after all, it can't be all that easy to just do. If you're not either more talented or more dedicated or both than the 2% that are already there, then obviously you won't be able to make it to masters yourself.
Exactly.
I suspect the actual masters population is less than 2%, because a disproportionate number of Masters players have 2nd or 3rd accounts. In other words, most people in masters represent the top 1% of people who've played this game.
Before you say "masters is ez" ask yourself this question: Did you score a 2140* on your SATs? Was it easy?
Like all populations, the bell curve gets a lot steeper at the top. Of course you can always get better, and no, don't ever think you've stopped growing, but acknowledge that your accomplishments are meaningful. The sooner this community realizes that, the quicker it will grow.
* Note: 1450 if you took the pre2006 test
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Blazinghand
United States25551 Posts
On February 17 2012 06:11 celeryman wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 03:52 Monkeyballs25 wrote:I think there's a lot of very modest Masters players in this thread It is something only about 2% of the active SC2 population can achieve after all, it can't be all that easy to just do. If you're not either more talented or more dedicated or both than the 2% that are already there, then obviously you won't be able to make it to masters yourself. Exactly. I suspect the actual masters population is less than 2%, because a disproportionate number of Masters players have 2nd or 3rd accounts. In other words, most people in masters represent the top 1% of people who've played this game. Before you say "masters is ez" ask yourself this question: Did you score a 2140* on your SATs? Was it easy? Like all populations, the bell curve gets a lot steeper at the top. Of course you can always get better, and no, don't ever think you've stopped growing, but acknowledge that your accomplishments are meaningful. The sooner this community realizes that, the quicker it will grow. * Note: 1450 if you took the pre2006 test
It's the top 3% in NA that are in master, actually. And the idea that every single Master player has a smurf account that is in master is preposterous. If, say, half of them did, it'd still be 2/3rds legit players, and we're back at 2%.
I'm not sure your SAT question is a good one though, since everyone who takes the SAT is trying to get into college. Not everyone who plays Sc2 does so in a competitive fashion. I have friends all the way up through Diamond League who basically just dick around. A better question would be: Did you take the SATs? since most people do not.
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It's the top 3% in NA that are in master, actually. And the idea that every single Master player has a smurf account that is in master is preposterous. If, say, half of them did, it'd still be 2/3rds legit players, and we're back at 2%.
I'm not sure your SAT question is a good one though, since everyone who takes the SAT is trying to get into college. Not everyone who plays Sc2 does so in a competitive fashion. I have friends all the way up through Diamond League who basically just dick around. A better question would be: Did you take the SATs? since most people do not.
I never said "every single Master player has a smurf." But there are likely some that have more than 2. At the very least the active masters players are better than 98% of all other active players. My 2140/1450 numbers also represent the 98% anyway. I was being conservative in my estimates.
And the SAT comparison itself is apt. There were about 2.6 million college freshman in 2004 and about 1.4 million took the SATs in 2006 (rough comparisons here). So if 50% of the population on SC2 are at least nominally trying, it would be a great comparison.
Your unstated point is that if nobody's trying very hard, then for the few that do the statistics inflate the degree of accomplishment. A few points, first the league percentages are calculated on active players, so the non competitive (this would include your 3% numbers too) players are accounted for to some extent. Second, you refer to "competitive fashion" but what does that matter. The fact still stands that masters skill represents the top 2% of active players. You can't restrict the subset of meaningful data to a factor you've created called "competitive" play as opposed to "dick[ing] around" play. I could do a similar treatment to the SAT data and with the same result.
It's a handy yardstick to demonstrate what top 2% actually means, and to have some perspective.
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Blazinghand
United States25551 Posts
On February 17 2012 06:49 celeryman wrote:Show nested quote +
It's the top 3% in NA that are in master, actually. And the idea that every single Master player has a smurf account that is in master is preposterous. If, say, half of them did, it'd still be 2/3rds legit players, and we're back at 2%.
I'm not sure your SAT question is a good one though, since everyone who takes the SAT is trying to get into college. Not everyone who plays Sc2 does so in a competitive fashion. I have friends all the way up through Diamond League who basically just dick around. A better question would be: Did you take the SATs? since most people do not.
I never said "every single Master player has a smurf." But there are likely some that have more than 2. At the very least the active masters players are better than 98% of all other active players. My 2140/1450 numbers also represent the 98% anyway. I was being conservative in my estimates. And the SAT comparison itself is apt. There were about 2.6 million college freshman in 2004 and about 1.4 million took the SATs in 2006 (rough comparisons here). So if 50% of the population on SC2 are at least nominally trying, it would be a great comparison.
The idea that 50% of the population of Sc2 is trying to actively compete and get better is preposterous to me. Most people just play this game to dick around and have fun-- TL is a unique group of tryhard players, a subset of people who are striving to be the best at a higher rate than the general populace.
Your unstated point is that if nobody's trying very hard, then for the few that do the statistics inflate the degree of accomplishment. A few points, first the league percentages are calculated on active players, so the non competitive (this would include your 3% numbers too) players are accounted for to some extent. Second, you refer to "competitive fashion" but what does that matter. The fact still stands that masters skill represents the top 2% of active players. You can't restrict the subset of meaningful data to a factor you've created called "competitive" play as opposed to "dick[ing] around" play. I could do a similar treatment to the SAT data and with the same result.
It's a handy yardstick to demonstrate what top 2% actually means, and to have some perspective.
Again, it's the top 3% on NA, not the top 2%. Furthermore, "Active players" is just "someone who has played 1 ladder game during the 8-week season" so there are tons of inactive players.
EDIT: even my master division for last season, 25 of the 100 players had fewer than 10 wins because there are casuals all the way up here. I only had like 25 because I haven't been laddering as competitively this year. Most people play this game casually...
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On February 16 2012 03:59 CrtBalorda wrote:
1. Anyone can be masters
2. Masters still sucks
So you're in GM? Or are you in Gold and talking shit about masters players because you are a godly macro king who is stuck in Gold because of the all-inning n00bs?
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Blazinghand
United States25551 Posts
On February 17 2012 06:59 hunger wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2012 03:59 CrtBalorda wrote:
1. Anyone can be masters
2. Masters still sucks So you're in GM? Or are you in Gold and talking shit about masters players because you are a godly macro king who is stuck in Gold because of the all-inning n00bs?
I think what he's saying is "Starcraft 2 is a game with a high skill cap. As such, there's a lot of room to improve, even if you're in Master league already."
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On February 17 2012 06:59 hunger wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2012 03:59 CrtBalorda wrote:
1. Anyone can be masters
2. Masters still sucks So you're in GM? Or are you in Gold and talking shit about masters players because you are a godly macro king who is stuck in Gold because of the all-inning n00bs?
or perhaps he is gold but he tells everyone his mmr is master level if he plays more than four games a season.
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On February 17 2012 07:00 Blazinghand wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 06:59 hunger wrote:On February 16 2012 03:59 CrtBalorda wrote:
1. Anyone can be masters
2. Masters still sucks So you're in GM? Or are you in Gold and talking shit about masters players because you are a godly macro king who is stuck in Gold because of the all-inning n00bs? I think what he's saying is "Starcraft 2 is a game with a high skill cap. As such, there's a lot of room to improve, even if you're in Master league already."
No, what he's saying is that Masters represents a huge range in skill level, essentially everything from D to A+ in ICCUP (though probably not D-). It doesn't mean anything.
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EPT
