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+ Show Spoiler +On April 11 2012 03:10 TheDroneNextDoor wrote:Just adding my 2 cents to this very helpful and informative thread. After reading this topic yesterday it inspired me to give SC2 another shot. I love watching SC2, I follow the pro scene for more than a year now, and I bought the game itself last October. My results were horrible, I can't remember winning any real games, only if the guy left or didn't even know what game he's playing. I tried all the races for weeks but I was terrible even for the wooden league. After this thread I tried again, without any real hopes or plans. As a terran I went for early wall-in and after that just macro like crazy. I payed close attention to SCV-production, made army (marine-marauder) constantly, whenever I went above 200 minerals I dropped a rax, teched as good as I could (stim, +1 +1, combat shield, etc), when I over-saturated the mineral line dropped an expo, so nothing really fancy. As for the attack, around the time when +1 attack finished, and I had a rather strong MMM ball, I just simply A-moved the group to the enemy's natural, and I microed them just barely, target-firing important units, etc. The results? Quite a spectacular run, the 5 placement matches were the following: - 1: bronze 6-pool defeated like a boss, poor guys didn't stand a chance - 2: bronze zerg with mass roach: by the time he scouted me and got to my base, at the 10 minute mark I had stim, concussive shells, +1 weapon, 15 marines, 6 marauders, and 2 medivacs, so I wiped the floor with him - 3: gold terran with a mirror "build": he went MMM just like me, but had less units, less upgrade, basicly less everything than me - 4: gold zerg: the baneling bust at 6:30 got me with my pants down, didn't stand a chance - 5: platinum protoss went FFE, which helped me tremendously, I was able to build up a nice army and deny the natural, but since I suck at scouting, he was able to successfully tech-switch into double stargate, and the mass skillrays effectively raped me All in all, with mostly focusing to macro, I got into mid-gold after the placement matches, which is crazy, since I've never been out out the wooden league. I know it's still nothing, but quite a big step to me. Now I know the weak spots, where I have to improve (scouting-scouting-scouting), but I know that at least I'm on the right path. So a very big thanks to the OP, and everyone who contributed to this thread 
Good read ^_^ I hope other people struggling in the low leagues will pay attention!
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I know my big problem is multi-tasking.
I get all giddy and excited when I killed like 30 probes with cloak banshees in TvP, but then I realized I banked 2k minerals in the process like a tard and now I'm trying to hurry up and spend all my minerals.
So it's like a constant battle of macro and micro. Kill some probes, go back to building supply depots, tech structure, and SCVs, and etc.
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This is pretty much true. I recently went from silver to diamond in 1 season just focusing purely on making workers and attacking units. I'm sure that mechanics can carry anyone from bronze to mid-master league even (it's just that working on your strategy as well will give you more improvement per amount of time spent at that level).
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The op is absolutely right. I am actually surprised this is not common knowledge after almost two years of Starcraft.
I disagree with one point, though. The op states that as a lower league player, one can easily obtain strategy from better player and hence does not need to be concerned about it. In fact, unless you enjoy developing builds, there is also no need to develop own strategies at the highest level of play, as information is available. Incorporating this information into your play is costly, though. I really do not see the difference between lower and higher league players here.
Anyways, good mechanics are a prerequisite for strategy. Good mechanics without strategy will bring you in one of the higher leagues. Hence, you do not really need to think about strategy until you reach one of the higher leagues - with the obvious drawback that only focusing on mechanics is boring as shit.
In fact, it has been proven many times that solid mechanics carry you very far. In Broodwar, I have seen B-level players beating the shit out of C- players using Scouts. And C- in Broodwar means you can get mid-masters easily.
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On April 10 2012 10:32 mothergoose729 wrote:
This thread has got me thinking a lot about this problem. I feel I have a natural aversion to the idea that macro is the only thing you need to get to masters league in starcraft II. I feel like, as a terran play myself, other aspects of the game are as important if not more important than macro because of the dynamics of the terran matchups. But that doesn't mean that it isn't true. I consistently out macro my opponents on the majority of my ladder games, but I never had truly excellent macro in any of my games. Maybe if I macro as close to perfectly as possible, I might be able to break master league?
I think starting my own discussion thread at this point would be redundant, so I am going to ask here: do masters league players truly believe you can make it to master with essentially excellent macro only? As a terran player, if I did a passive, economically focused build in all three matchups with an emphasis on maxing out first and attacking, would it be possible to reach masters league?
The answer I seem to be getting from the majority of people in this thread is "yes". I am thinking about starting a blog post about it, and putting the theory to test. Something like "Cecil Macro Challenge". Play some 200 games with only one build focusing entirely on macro only and see how far it gets me. Keep a sort journal documenting my successes and failures. Ignore pretty much everything else and see what flushes out. What do you guys think?
As a fellow Terran, I can say the OP's advice is very relevant to improving even at the diamond/low master lvl of play. I was stuck in diamond for 5 seasons. I pretty much exclusively worked on improving my macro last season and finally made the jump into masters yesterday. But even still, I can pick out macro mistakes in every single one of my replays ^_____^
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On April 12 2012 09:14 Laplace wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2012 10:32 mothergoose729 wrote:
This thread has got me thinking a lot about this problem. I feel I have a natural aversion to the idea that macro is the only thing you need to get to masters league in starcraft II. I feel like, as a terran play myself, other aspects of the game are as important if not more important than macro because of the dynamics of the terran matchups. But that doesn't mean that it isn't true. I consistently out macro my opponents on the majority of my ladder games, but I never had truly excellent macro in any of my games. Maybe if I macro as close to perfectly as possible, I might be able to break master league?
I think starting my own discussion thread at this point would be redundant, so I am going to ask here: do masters league players truly believe you can make it to master with essentially excellent macro only? As a terran player, if I did a passive, economically focused build in all three matchups with an emphasis on maxing out first and attacking, would it be possible to reach masters league?
The answer I seem to be getting from the majority of people in this thread is "yes". I am thinking about starting a blog post about it, and putting the theory to test. Something like "Cecil Macro Challenge". Play some 200 games with only one build focusing entirely on macro only and see how far it gets me. Keep a sort journal documenting my successes and failures. Ignore pretty much everything else and see what flushes out. What do you guys think? As a fellow Terran, I can say the OP's advice is very relevant to improving even at the diamond/low master lvl of play. I was stuck in diamond for 5 seasons. I pretty much exclusively worked on improving my macro last season and finally made the jump into masters yesterday. But even still, I can pick out macro mistakes in every single one of my replays ^_____^
As someone who's personal friend's with laplace, I can say that if HE can hit masters, ANYONE can. He's super slow, has horrible multitask, and is not really a natural video gamer. But I remember when he told me about BW when SC2 came out and he got me buy it (i didnt know about pro bw), and he was like "macro is everything" and I was like "whats macro?".
I guess that means you finally worked out that horrible macro of yours, like when you would bank so much money every time you pushed. I know that in the games we played, some of them were actually quite close, and you won that series of games when I hadn't played in a while. But the reason you lost so often was your macro, I knew that you would have won most of those games if you had macro'd better - I could tell your armies were always too small, your third was always too late, your pushes were always just a little late.
Congrats!
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For what its worth, I'm in diamond and I get supply blocked all the time xD
But this is just more proof of macro being one's first priority to improve at this game.
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Going from a low level bronze player to a Dia on NA, macro, is, by, far in a way
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THIS GAME!!!
Its only when you reach high plat and upwards that strategy start to make a big difference. i got out of Bronze Silv and Gold for the most part, just massing roaches and then relentless counter attacking with mutas. on paper that should never work, but was my go to strat that i did for at least a solid year.
Every Matchup.
Every game.
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On April 12 2012 14:34 Mazaire wrote:
Its only when you reach high plat and upwards that strategy start to make a big difference.
Nah, truly it's more like once you hit mid+ Master's does it starts getting to the point where you can't just mess around and still win easily most of the time. But if course if you're macro abilities cap out at around Platinum, then it'll feel like you require significant strategy to start winning to make up for macro deficiencies. The feeling of requiring to incorporate strategy is relative to each person's ability to macro, hence the whole point of this topic.
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Italy12246 Posts
On April 12 2012 14:34 Mazaire wrote:
Going from a low level bronze player to a Dia on NA, macro, is, by, far in a way
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THIS GAME!!!
Its only when you reach high plat and upwards that strategy start to make a big difference. i got out of Bronze Silv and Gold for the most part, just massing roaches and then relentless counter attacking with mutas. on paper that should never work, but was my go to strat that i did for at least a solid year.
Every Matchup.
Every game.
I play in high diamond/low masters and there's very, very little strategy involved in most of my games. People on ladder just do whatever they damn well please.
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Macro, i.e. building all your stuff on time, making workers constantly, using macro abilities perfectly, saturating expands efficiently etc. is a big deal all the way up to and including progamer level. If you think you are doing all these things perfectly, you are frankly kidding yourself.
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Canada13406 Posts
On April 13 2012 00:02 Fenneth wrote:
Macro, i.e. building all your stuff on time, making workers constantly, using macro abilities perfectly, saturating expands efficiently etc. is a big deal all the way up to and including progamer level. If you think you are doing all these things perfectly, you are frankly kidding yourself.
The point of the thread is this:
Don't worry about strategies and cute builds or interesting tactics in lower leagues. Burrowed banelings? Not a big deal in Silver or Gold.
As long as you make something that can shoot up and something that can shoot down, all you need to do is macro better than the other person. Eventually you will need splash, but thats a unit decision and not a tactic or trick. Macro well, you will get better its that simple.
That's the point of the thread not macro till masters then stop caring. Its more like dont worry about tactics or little things that don't matter, focus on macro.
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Thanks for posting this Cecil, much appreciated. I'm new to RTS games having got SC2 for this past Christmas from my girlfriend (big mistake on her part, hah!). Having a blast and just got promoted to Gold. When I watch my replays, it shocks me how terrible I am at every single facet of this game. It seems like an insurmountable challenge to improve, but putting my focus primarily on making probes and not getting supply blocked is a manageable goal.
My computer sucks, so large engagements of maxed armies lags me beyond belief even on lowest settings. Thus I have been trying to execute a variety of 1/2 base all in's depending on the map/opponent. (Getting the new MSI laptop at the end of this month, woot!)
My thought process is if I can execute perfectly a 4gate/2+blink 7gate/Immortal rush/insert clever build order based on opponents early scouting, I'll have improved my mechanics substantially. I can't execute any of those builds perfectly, which tells me I still have lots of work to be done. I still get supply blocked, float too many resources at times, and am too slow setting up proxy pylons regularly. A great 4gate for me is warping into his base @6:00 and I'm told this can be done at 5:45?
My next idea is to play the other races a bit to learn the feel for them a bit more. I've only ever played protoss. Figure I could learn a basics at least from the other races.
I guess to summarize my rambling point/question, here's how I'm trying to improve:
1) learn 2 macro via probes + pylons, avoid supply blocks, produce units with the buildings I have, and stay low in resources
2) have a plan/goal in mind, IE: 1 or 2 base all ins
3) take the time to play the other races to get the feel for them
4) get a better computer!
Am I going in the right direction? I've read a LOT of information on this forum and the SC2 protoss forum, and it seems this approach follows most of the advice here. I guess I'm just touching base with a community of much more skilled players than myself to double check I'm doing the right things to improve.
Cheers,
Ramone
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Holy shit. This is a great read. Well done, Cecil! :D
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On April 13 2012 02:14 Ramone wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Thanks for posting this Cecil, much appreciated. I'm new to RTS games having got SC2 for this past Christmas from my girlfriend (big mistake on her part, hah!). Having a blast and just got promoted to Gold. When I watch my replays, it shocks me how terrible I am at every single facet of this game. It seems like an insurmountable challenge to improve, but putting my focus primarily on making probes and not getting supply blocked is a manageable goal.
My computer sucks, so large engagements of maxed armies lags me beyond belief even on lowest settings. Thus I have been trying to execute a variety of 1/2 base all in's depending on the map/opponent. (Getting the new MSI laptop at the end of this month, woot!)
My thought process is if I can execute perfectly a 4gate/2+blink 7gate/Immortal rush/insert clever build order based on opponents early scouting, I'll have improved my mechanics substantially. I can't execute any of those builds perfectly, which tells me I still have lots of work to be done. I still get supply blocked, float too many resources at times, and am too slow setting up proxy pylons regularly. A great 4gate for me is warping into his base @6:00 and I'm told this can be done at 5:45?
My next idea is to play the other races a bit to learn the feel for them a bit more. I've only ever played protoss. Figure I could learn a basics at least from the other races. I guess to summarize my rambling point/question, here's how I'm trying to improve: 1) learn 2 macro via probes + pylons, avoid supply blocks, produce units with the buildings I have, and stay low in resources 2) have a plan/goal in mind, IE: 1 or 2 base all ins 3) take the time to play the other races to get the feel for them 4) get a better computer! Am I going in the right direction? I've read a LOT of information on this forum and the SC2 protoss forum, and it seems this approach follows most of the advice here. I guess I'm just touching base with a community of much more skilled players than myself to double check I'm doing the right things to improve. Cheers, Ramone
Well personally I think you can work on your mechanics and even just your macro without going to 200 supply on 3/4 bases. As you say good macro will make your attacks hit considerably earlier. Arriving earlier or at the same time but with a higher unit count can compensate for less effective unit control.
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Strategy have abosolutly no meaning in any league below plat.
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On April 13 2012 04:46 Zergmeister wrote:
Strategy have abosolutly no meaning in any league below plat.
Lol, look a few posts up.
+ Show Spoiler +On April 12 2012 14:34 Mazaire wrote:
Its only when you reach high plat and upwards that strategy start to make a big difference.
Nah, truly it's more like once you hit mid+ Master's does it starts getting to the point where you can't just mess around and still win easily most of the time. But if course if you're macro abilities cap out at around Platinum, then it'll feel like you require significant strategy to start winning to make up for macro deficiencies. The feeling of requiring to incorporate strategy is relative to each person's ability to macro, hence the whole point of this topic.
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The problem with probes and pylons threads and tips is that your target audience is your target audience BECAUSE they refuse to listen to this very piece of advice.
I cant even comprehend how many times I have told friends that all they need to do is macro efficiently. I play against bronze-platinum friends who have these crazy strategies named after pro players like "ret style double evo into fast broods" or "marineking style mech pvt" where they focus so hard on these "plans" but completely miss out on basic macro so badly that I can and do literally anything I want and still win. The worst part is at the end of the game when they say something like "I had a bad engagement at my 3rd" or "my plus 2 armor finished late".
Its less a problem of probes and pylons and more a problem of being honest with yourself for these people. It hurts to be told that the reason you lose is because you didn't pull off basic macro properly. you want to lose to engagements and timings and enemy builds like the pros you watch.
The other funny constant complaint I get (and see in here) is the "I will lose to all ins". My response : GO LOSE THEN. You are doing yourself SUCH a huge favor in low leagues by dying to an allin with 50 drones instead of expanding late and building units to be "safe". There is such thing as good losses and bad wins when you are trying to improve, and if you go out and focus on macro every game EVERY win and EVERY loss will be GOOD. Go lose 10 games in a row right now or even 20 because once you get your macro down you are gonna jump two leagues anyway.
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On April 13 2012 06:55 seupac wrote:
The other funny constant complaint I get (and see in here) is the "I will lose to all ins". My response : GO LOSE THEN. You are doing yourself SUCH a huge favor in low leagues by dying to an allin with 50 drones instead of expanding late and building units to be "safe". There is such thing as good losses and bad wins when you are trying to improve, and if you go out and focus on macro every game EVERY win and EVERY loss will be GOOD. Go lose 10 games in a row right now or even 20 because once you get your macro down you are gonna jump two leagues anyway.
I don't think blindly making 50 drones is either particularly difficult or particularly rewarding, its basically a coin-toss. You'll score some free wins against an opponent that doesn't know to attack you while you're doing it, just like you'd score some free wins using an all-in they don't know how to defend.
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On April 13 2012 08:24 Monkeyballs25 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2012 06:55 seupac wrote:
The other funny constant complaint I get (and see in here) is the "I will lose to all ins". My response : GO LOSE THEN. You are doing yourself SUCH a huge favor in low leagues by dying to an allin with 50 drones instead of expanding late and building units to be "safe". There is such thing as good losses and bad wins when you are trying to improve, and if you go out and focus on macro every game EVERY win and EVERY loss will be GOOD. Go lose 10 games in a row right now or even 20 because once you get your macro down you are gonna jump two leagues anyway. I don't think blindly making 50 drones is either particularly difficult or particularly rewarding, its basically a coin-toss. You'll score some free wins against an opponent that doesn't know to attack you while you're doing it, just like you'd score some free wins using an all-in they don't know how to defend.
Well for zerg, you usually want to keep toning back as you get comfortable with how much you can get away with. But in lower leagues I find you can get away with making fewer units because your opponents won't siege properly or split marines and such making your units infinitely more affective.
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EPT
