EPTAs a side note, I often find myself yearning for very basic practice maps where you can do single actions in a vacuum repeatedly. A good example is the baneling marine splitting map, but it's kind of unique. What about a marine/stalker map? Or a ghost/templar map? Complex games are amalgamations of thousands of tiny aspects and it would be super helpful to be able to extract individual elements for rote practice.
Improving mechanics - Page 2
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Alacast
United States205 Posts
As a side note, I often find myself yearning for very basic practice maps where you can do single actions in a vacuum repeatedly. A good example is the baneling marine splitting map, but it's kind of unique. What about a marine/stalker map? Or a ghost/templar map? Complex games are amalgamations of thousands of tiny aspects and it would be super helpful to be able to extract individual elements for rote practice. | ||
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polybios
Czech Republic111 Posts
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megapants
United States1314 Posts
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Moosy
Canada396 Posts
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DarK[A]
United States217 Posts
On April 05 2012 02:52 Moosy wrote: All in builds? That's just silly. How do you learn to stay on top of your macro while attacking if all your focusing on is the all in. Just practice standard play (like the koreans do) and you'll improve mechanics. What's your opinion on something like the 7RR then, which isn't designed to really end the game, but more to force your opponent to spend their money on units? You take an expansion as you move out, and as long as you don't just a-move and make a cost-ineffective attack, you're ahead in econ. | ||
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Tobberoth
Sweden6375 Posts
On April 05 2012 02:54 DarK[A] wrote: What's your opinion on something like the 7RR then, which isn't designed to really end the game, but more to force your opponent to spend their money on units? You take an expansion as you move out, and as long as you don't just a-move and make a cost-ineffective attack, you're ahead in econ. 7RR is allin, the whole opening is optimized to getting 7 fast roaches, sacrificing a ton of economy. The expansion is ridiculously late compared to any standard zerg opening, and when you don't do considerable damage with it, you lose. This is why 7RR isn't used in higher leagues, it's decently easy to defend and once defended, it's GG for the zerg. Your opponent doesn't have to spend all his money on units, and even if he does, he started to spend money on units later, which is better than earlier. Zerg works by getting a drone advantage early and living off it since the zerg army is so cost-inefficient. If you lose your 7 roaches and only forced a bunker... yeah, you're going to play from behind the whole game. | ||
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Tobberoth
Sweden6375 Posts
On April 04 2012 23:52 WarpTV wrote: But I can guarantee you it is not his drone timing. it was his injects, his unit control, the timing on his building. his gas timings. he got supply blocked. All of which is hard for him to spot in a replay and improve on because there is soo much sh*t going on to focus My argument is with a laid out build order and a single objective. Players can focus on improving their core skills sets. When you try a build like FFE > 4/5 gate robo > 3rd. You must know how to deal with zerg 1 base cheese, zerg 2 base all-ins roach ling allins, Nydus hydra all ins, proxy hatch burrow roach allins. 200/200 roach timing. Muta timings. Infestor timings, Fast hive play. That is a bit too much for some one who misses 2 warp ins, wasted sentry energy and get supply blocked once. Doing a 8gate allin would still be changeling but feasible Tobberoth Your are focusing in too much on the "1 base" part of this. open your eyes and see that their are some very hard to use 3 base allins out there aka Zerg roach allin The 3base roach gameplan is not allin at all, it's a plan with planned responses at all turns. It works by giving you a massive economic advantage, then immediately getting a max army and using your superior economy and numbers to force engagements from the toss and deny thirds. The reason it's not allin is because it doesn't have to do anything, once your attack is done, you have 4 bases and 80 drones, your opponent has 2 bases and has just fought an army of roaches far bigger than his own army. Even if he had miraculous forcefields, he lost a lot of supply, which takes the toss a lot of time to rebuild, the zerg remaxes in seconds. Allins can be blocked and when they are blocked, you lose. The 3base roach can't be blocked, just mitigated, and when that happens, the zerg is still ahead. I also don't see how the things you listed are hard to see in a replay. You find a gameplan, you train it versus the AI until you have good benchmarks down and know what to do, then you use it against other players and see what happens when you lose. Checking injects is easy, just look at queen energy. Supply blocks are easy to see as well, just look at the supply. Gas timings? Just check how much gas you banked at certain points. The important thing is that if you use a proper macro build, you will lose to all those tactics you mentioned and you will learn what to scout for and how to react... if you do an allin, you will just see the defense of your opponent and learn what opponents can do to make your allin fail, there's nothing you can do to improve on that. | ||
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Bubbadub
United States156 Posts
The same is said with any build that is auto-pilot and has hard counters (most popular one I can think of is the no gas Spanishiwa-style opening). Once people start realizing the build has holes at specific timings they will compensate by hitting hard at those timings blindly. The build I refer to is very good but you can't use it every game. | ||
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Tobberoth
Sweden6375 Posts
On April 05 2012 03:11 RevBubba wrote: i don't agree with using all-ins as a means to "improve mechanics". At some point the player will realize they can't play a macro game at the level they were all-in'ing at and probably quit the game in frustration. All-ins are good in tournaments when you know your opponent will try a style weak to the specific all-in, and good to know as an ace up your sleeve... but to do all-in's every game will give you a false sense of how good you really are. The same is said with any build that is auto-pilot and has hard counters (most popular one I can think of is the no gas Spanishiwa-style opening). Once people start realizing the build has holes at specific timings they will compensate by hitting hard at those timings blindly. The build I refer to is very good but you can't use it every game. What are the hard counters to spanishiwa style opening? It's still really popular to get 4 queens and delay gas vs Terran in particular. | ||
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willverrecken
80 Posts
just playing defensive macro games won't help you in learning how to execute attacks, won't teach you proper aggressive micro that will allow you to break positions you shouldn't be able to, how to abuse bad positioning, how to properly do multiple attacks at once etc. on the other hand just playing super aggressive like that won't help you learn how to defend, how to defend multiple locations at once, how to scout and react to aggressive builds, how to properly manage a lot of bases and generally bad lategame (also known as the terran syndrome). overall you have the better win ratio with just playing a defensive safe opening and then playing a normal macro game and playing allins will result in having less than 50% against equally skilled players due to coin flips when they do an aggressive build too and the other portion doing safe play which SHOULD more often then not make you lose but that's not the point here. On April 05 2012 03:13 Tobberoth wrote: What are the hard counters to spanishiwa style opening? It's still really popular to get 4 queens and delay gas vs Terran in particular. basically a ridiculously greedy opening. fast 3 bases and tech without units etc. | ||
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Tobberoth
Sweden6375 Posts
On April 05 2012 03:17 willverrecken wrote: basically a ridiculously greedy opening. fast 3 bases and tech without units etc. How does this hard counter spanishiwa style? Going ice fisher, you have TONS of drones and amazing creep spread, all you have to do is plop down a third, you'll saturate it far faster than your opponent. | ||
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Drunken.Jedi
Germany446 Posts
Having just a single base makes clean macro an achievable goal for newer players, whereas in a standard game with many bases, beginners don't stand a chance with keeping up and there's a huge danger of slipping into bad habits such as neglecting control groups, clicking icons instead of using hotkeys or stopping to make workers far too early. On April 05 2012 02:26 polybios wrote: My (plat/diam terran) experience is that allins don't take you further than gold/plat league and they don't teach you much, maybe hotkeys, execution and army control. This is completely wrong. I'm honestly completely confused why so many people harbour this misconception. All ins work at any level of play, no matter whether you're in bronze league or in Code S. True, the higher you go, the better people will be at scouting and holding off all ins, but then better players are also able to execute their all ins more cleanly and deceive their opponents more effectively. A 6 pool executed by a bronze leaguer is patheticly weak compared to a master player's 6 pool, which in turn is nowhere close to as strong as a 6 pool performed by DRG. | ||
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Haelon
Canada5 Posts
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willverrecken
80 Posts
On April 05 2012 03:21 Drunken.Jedi wrote: I agree with the OP. Beginners should focus on training as few aspects simultaneously as possible as that approach allows more focused and more rapid improvement. Many of the fundamental skills needed to succeed in macro games can be trained more efficiently by doing all ins. For instance, doing a 1 base speedling baneling all in is a perfect exercise not only for your speedling baneling micro but also for the ability to keep up larva injects in intense situations. The same can be said for 1 base 4 gate builds and warp ins. Having just a single base makes clean macro an achievable goal for newer players, whereas in a standard game with many bases, beginners don't stand a chance with keeping up and there's a huge danger of slipping into bad habits such as neglecting control groups, clicking icons instead of using hotkeys or stopping to make workers far too early. This is completely wrong. I'm honestly completely confused why so many people harbour this misconception. All ins work at any level of play, no matter whether you're in bronze league or in Code S. True, the higher you go, the better people will be at scouting and holding off all ins, but then better players are also able to execute their all ins more cleanly and deceive their opponents more effectively. A 6 pool executed by a bronze leaguer is patheticly weak compared to a master player's 6 pool, which in turn is nowhere close to as strong as a 6 pool performed by DRG. i support your point but your example is bad i think. there is a lot of difference between a bronze 6pool and master 6pool for sure, but a master players 6pool and drgs probably will be nearly identical because there really isn't much 'magic' you can do with it. its 100% true for other allins though. On April 05 2012 03:21 Tobberoth wrote: How does this hard counter spanishiwa style? Going ice fisher, you have TONS of drones and amazing creep spread, all you have to do is plop down a third, you'll saturate it far faster than your opponent. hard counter is a bad choice of words i think cause its kinda implying an auto win instead of just getting considerably ahead. | ||
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Tobberoth
Sweden6375 Posts
On April 05 2012 03:21 Drunken.Jedi wrote: I agree with the OP. Beginners should focus on training as few aspects simultaneously as possible as that approach allows more focused and more rapid improvement. Many of the fundamental skills needed to succeed in macro games can be trained more efficiently by doing all ins. For instance, doing a 1 base speedling baneling all in is a perfect exercise not only for your speedling baneling micro but also for the ability to keep up larva injects in intense situations. The same can be said for 1 base 4 gate builds and warp ins. Having just a single base makes clean macro an achievable goal for newer players, whereas in a standard game with many bases, beginners don't stand a chance with keeping up and there's a huge danger of slipping into bad habits such as neglecting control groups, clicking icons instead of using hotkeys or stopping to make workers far too early. This is completely wrong. I'm honestly completely confused why so many people harbour this misconception. All ins work at any level of play, no matter whether you're in bronze league or in Code S. True, the higher you go, the better people will be at scouting and holding off all ins, but then better players are also able to execute their all ins more cleanly and deceive their opponents more effectively. A 6 pool executed by a bronze leaguer is patheticly weak compared to a master player's 6 pool, which in turn is nowhere close to as strong as a 6 pool performed by DRG. No matter if you're DRG or god himself, 6pool gives you 6 lings, either with a few more coming later, or 6 drones joining in. Even if you individually micro every single unit with 100APM, there's a limit to what you can do with a 6pool. Now, I agree with you, I roll 6pools at plat level easily but would probably lose if DRG 6pooled me... but that's hardly because DRG has trained 6pooling, and defending the choice to go for cheese because it works when professionals do it is just weird. Allins are the perfect exercise in how to win before skill really enters the fray, just look at people reciting games from bronze/silver... one guy on this forum recently explained how he did a fast 3hatch build vs a protoss, and the protoss went for an early attack and destroyed both the third AND the nat of the zerg... yet the zerg won. How? Because the protoss only knows how to do allins and have no idea how to play once the initial 10 minutes of the game is up and they actually have to use macro. Good macro gives you the sweetest position of all: Drag the game out, the longer the game lasts, the bigger your advantage becomes. For an allinner, everything is stress, you have to win immediately. I think it's weird to say ling/baneling allins help with injects, how hard can it be to get the few injects down before the game is over? Try injecting 3bases and a macro hatch while defending a terran push, now we're talking skill which actually helps you win games consistently. | ||
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MrTortoise
1388 Posts
APM really istn about hand speed ... most munchkins can hit 200 apm if they want to. Its about executing deliberate decisions ... boxing drones at the start doesn't give you that. Selecting single drones and telling them where to mine rapidly does. Looking after your joints is really just about body posture. Carpel tunnel and the like is really abotu warming up properly, stopping when tired and having good posture. You talk to anybody who got it properly and the story is always the same. They ignored pain. I havent sat down and trained at sc2 ... i have a low apm because i take too long over selcting units and placing buildings or waypointing things. In guitar people always want to play fast and practise fingerings ... they get really fast... the problem si that their pick end up catching strings or is inefficient and they hit a barrier. The key to APM in starcraft i suspect is *not* mechanical ... *anyone* with 10 fingers can hit 200 apm. It is fluidity of decision making ... not mentally ' oh i wan tto do x' but its actual execution physically. So the exercise moving the army about will help ... not because of your mechanics ... but because it forces you to make lots of decisions rapidly. The other problem i suspect is that peopel have to look at their keyboards to find the keys, EG in guitar i did some maths once and figured out that in one song i actually play 10 notes a second (google technical difficulties - paul gilbert ... the solo is fast but the run at the end is faster). I CANNOT think that fast or play that fast when counting each note. So hoiw can i do it? Because its a decision to play a pattern. Once it starts it starts and i have nothing more to do with it. So starcraft 2 really doesnt map onto music that easily ... in music you get it to the point where you dont have to think about it (when you play a piece you are a machine preprogrammed to rock - whilst you think about utterly unreleated things) ... unless you are talking about improv ... then its different and a closer analogy because you ahve to think and listen - but even then 80% oif the time you are playing very well rehearsed patterns that you like. They are tool i can pull out to accomplish something musically ... they are decisions. And most of the time you are makgin a decision very few seconds musically because you are thinking ahead and concentrating on crisp clean execution. so in terms of mental willpower i rekon starcraft is actually harder than playing an instrument. Instruments are technically a lot more challenging sure bt its apm under discussion here. | ||
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kranten
Netherlands236 Posts
I didn't have any problems when I started to play 'macro' games. If you have learned to macro decently on one base it's not that hard to add bases. You can learn by playing standard but it's much easier to get caught up in wrong patterns and overthinking everything. I'm sure it doesn't work this way when you're in masters and you try to play macro all of a sudden but for low levels I can recommend finding an easy to execute all in. | ||
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Tobberoth
Sweden6375 Posts
On April 05 2012 03:37 kranten wrote: I learned the basics using the 3 rax guide. I was stuck in low silver because of the usual macro problems. The 3 rax (It's not even all in at that level) gives you clear goal, you focus on your build order, supply and macro. I got better quickly because it forced me to focus on one thing intead of 5. I didn't have any problems when I started to play 'macro' games. If you have learned to macro decently on one base it's not that hard to add bases. You can learn by playing standard but it's much easier to get caught up in wrong patterns and overthinking everything. I'm sure it doesn't work this way when you're in masters and you try to play macro all of a sudden but for low levels I can recommend finding an easy to execute all in. 3rax isn't allin, you can easily get an expansion as you move out and unlike a zerg, a terran can afford to delay expansions because of mules. Sure, if you win off the first push every game, you're not going to be learning all that much, but it's definitely a gameplan which can lead to a proper macro game. When I wanted to try lower leagues and used a smurf, I won against top silvers easily using 3rax -> 3base, only building marines the whole time. It's a build where you can benefit from macro the longer the game goes on, it doesn't get to a point where you attack or lose. | ||
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polybios
Czech Republic111 Posts
On April 05 2012 03:21 Drunken.Jedi wrote: All ins work at any level of play, no matter whether you're in bronze league or in Code S. There is big difference between "all ins work at any level" and "all ins will improve your play steadily up to master level" | ||
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Drunken.Jedi
Germany446 Posts
On April 05 2012 03:28 willverrecken wrote: i support your point but your example is bad i think. there is a lot of difference between a bronze 6pool and master 6pool for sure, but a master players 6pool and drgs probably will be nearly identical because there really isn't much 'magic' you can do with it. its 100% true for other allins though. On April 05 2012 03:29 Tobberoth wrote: No matter if you're DRG or god himself, 6pool gives you 6 lings, either with a few more coming later, or 6 drones joining in. Even if you individually micro every single unit with 100APM, there's a limit to what you can do with a 6pool. I chose the example of 6 pool specifically because it's such a simple build. However, even so the differences in skill level are quite apparent. I don't know if you've ever played against a really well executed 6 pool. I have and the differences are very noticable. Obviously the skill difference will have a much greater impact with a more elaborate build, I never disputed that. On April 05 2012 03:29 Tobberoth wrote:Now, I agree with you, I roll 6pools at plat level easily but would probably lose if DRG 6pooled me... but that's hardly because DRG has trained 6pooling, and defending the choice to go for cheese because it works when professionals do it is just weird. In that part of my post, I did not defend the choice to cheese, I merely asserted that all ins work at any skill level. On April 05 2012 03:29 Tobberoth wrote: Allins are the perfect exercise in how to win before skill really enters the fray, just look at people reciting games from bronze/silver... one guy on this forum recently explained how he did a fast 3hatch build vs a protoss, and the protoss went for an early attack and destroyed both the third AND the nat of the zerg... yet the zerg won. How? Because the protoss only knows how to do allins and have no idea how to play once the initial 10 minutes of the game is up and they actually have to use macro. The bolded part is a baseless accusation. All ins undoubtedly require skill to execute. I don't see how your anecdote is relevant at all. | ||
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