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On April 07 2012 20:03 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2012 17:57 Charon1979 wrote:On April 06 2012 16:49 Belial88 wrote:
Generally, anytime someone is arguing with a high masters/blue, especially on something big, it's because they have no fucking clue what they are talking about (hey, I've been guilty of it many times, and every time, I was completely wrong).
I don't think these lower level people realize just how much better someone a league up is, or a high masters is, then them. You won't have a single high level player saying macro isn't the absolute most important thing in the game.
So quit arguing with a high masters blue poster here. He really knows his shit, you don't. To think that you would know more about this game, with the less than 1,000 games you've played, less than 100 hours logged on playing starcraft ever in your life, against someone with 10,000+ games played with over 1,000+ hours logged in, who's followed starcraft for about 8 years longer than you have, is just ridiculous.
Like you caught something he didn't get. It's like trying to tell Michael Jordan on the nuances of basketball. Holy shit. As a lower league player I 100% agree. Macro is the most important thing (as in constant production, no supply blocks and keeping money low). BUT and this is the point ML/GML players seem to consider as "easy" ppl lack also in Multitasking. And i dont mean Multitasking in a sense as in "dropping 3 places at one while microing the shit out of my tank/marine army while expanding and Planting 3 additional barracks" Most lower league players I know actually have decent makro IF (and thats the big IF) left alone to "Probes & Pylons & Army" 12 minutes roach max out? Give a Gold player 10 - 20 tries to figure out Gas and Roachwarren timings and sooner or later he WILL hit the max out around 12 minutes. Now put the same player against another player. You will see his money rise, you will see him miss injects, you will see him getting supply blocked, you will see him with mass idle larvae. Why? Did he suddenly unlearn everything he learned for the last 30 games? Did he suddenly forget how to macro? Let me take this to an area im better in: Martial Arts Tell your Students how important are basics. Train basics every day, after they learned their basics quite well (as in starcraft there is no "perfect") let them train with a Shinai (wooden sword). After they learned their basics there and they are quite competent with their weapon, give them REAL weapons. All of a sudden everything is different, they dont remember the basics, they dont remember the techniques. All they see is the sharp edge of the other students sword. How is it any different of what we trained? Its not. Does it FEEL different? Hell yes! It feels a LOT different. So back to starcraft: In a "macro only situation" there is no need for scouting, no need to react to changing situations, no need to deal with early aggression, no need to remember the opponents timings, no need for even basic army micro. Its just probes + pylons + army. You NEED multitasking, you NEED to get away from the "If i dont look at my army, it will die!" feeling (altough it happens from time to time), you NEED to do may things and priorize these things. That is the hardest thing to do if you have just a small amount of actions available. Even if you KNOW what to do, ppl tend to make mistakes in stressful situations. Another point ML/GML seem to just ignore. Playing competitive against complete strangers IS stressful for the most low league players. Its even stressful to me. Stress is different for different ppl. I could tell you that it isnt a stressful situation if 2 ppl want to get you in a bar brawl. To me it isnt, to you it possibly might be. So multitasking, handspeed/precision, mindset ist the MOST important part to me, because without these 3 Pillars everything else WILL suffer. I think thats the reason why 1 or 2 base all-ins are so powerful in lower leagues. First you focus on probes and pylons and after you reached "the end" of probes and pylons you focus on army (+ warpins for example). You just have to focus on one thing instead of two or more. just my toughts I would say 100% of people in Bronze to Gold just genuinely do not understand how to play the game. Not, like they don't know how to play the game like 99% of midmasters do not understand map control and when to drone up and make units - but as in, you don't know the hotkeys yet. You don't realize the nuances of holding shift, control, alt, or a combination of those buttons, in conjunction with hotkeys, right click, left click, et cetera. You don't fully understand what units, counter what units - you may know "a banshee beats a roach", although most of bronze to gold don't, but you definitely don't understand things like "roaches counter stalkers at X timing" or "roaches counter thors, despite on paper it being opposite". When someone says 'lower level player', I don't consider Bronze to Gold 'lower level'. That would be like saying my grandfather is a 'lower level MW2 player' - no, he just doesn't know how to play the game yet. It's not an insult, this is an extremely complex game, and I'm sure if a blue like Cecil saw me play, he'd laugh and say I didn't know what the fuck I was doing at all (and he'd be right). You can watch the many things, like Gheed's Worker Rushing in Bronze. Oh, you can hold a worker rush? Great - but you being in the same league as people like this, means you play just at the same level, and make just as ridiculous of mistakes. You are completely wrong that lower level people have 'decent macro'. You are so wrong. You making that comment, just proves that you have no clue what decent macro is. Please, please provide a replay showing your 'decent macro' in a ladder game. I'll happily eat my words. I've actually done it many times on this forum (eat my words), every time I argued with a blue poster. What I think is going on, is you have never, ever, ever played with a GM level player (or perhaps diamond, really). You don't realize just how bad you really are. It took playing with a GM for me to realize how much of a fucking idiot I really was. I used to be just like you - 'oh yea, I macro really well, i never get supply blocked!'. Turns out, you can avoid supply blocks 100% and still have atrocious macro. But I guarantee that every bronze to diamond player gets supply blocked at least once before the 8 minute mark.I seriously do not believe a bronze-gold player can play against easy AI and max out in 12 minutes on roaches. The reason 1 and 2 base all-ins are strong in bronze-gold is because no one macros well. So 'timings' exist that are just completely nonsensical anywhere else. Like many people have said, "anything is viable in diamond- league". I could guarantee I can beat anyone in bronze-gold with just pure banelings, or roaches, or queens, or whatever. Just like a High masters could troll the shit out of me, and beat me with pure queen, pure marauder, pure queen, or whatever. There's just that large a difference in the macro. Bronze to Gold is not a 'low level player'. It's someone who doesn't know the hotkeys yet, who doesn't know all the nuances of the controls. I would say 'lower level' is more like platinum to low masters, who understands the command prompts, but may or may not know what the fuck they are doing. I mean really, just pay Cecil $20 to coach you for an hour, and by the end, you'll realize how much of an insolent brat you are for ever doubting a High Masters/GM level player. I used to be such an insolent brat, and my TL Warning & Ban History can attest to that. Now, I am ashamed I ever talked back to a blue poster, and high masters players, and I've learned I have no fucking clue what I'm doing. I mean literally. Cecil, and every other blue and high master, spend like 5+ hours every day on starcraft. For the last 10 years. How long have you been in starcraft? Oh, what, you are gold, and only been around for a year, and only play on the weekends? What, you didn't even get to D+ on ICCUP? What, you never even played ICCUP? You realize, that these guys were like B+ on ICCUP, which is like high masters, on BW, 10 years ago. Do you realize how crazy it is that you somehow figured something out to this game that they simply forgot? Don't you think it's odd that how every, single, high masters+ player says macro is the most important thing? Or are they just all assholes and wrong? I mean I get it, I did the same thing a lot too. Just find someone who's GM or High Masters, and have him play with you for a few games. You'll realize just how bad you are so quickly. I mean anyone who played on ICCUP, is at least Masters. That should tell you something. Don't be surprised that after a year of playing, you can't get past Gold. Where do you think idra was for the first year he played?
maxing out on roaches by 12 mins is a piece of piss for me in silver..
bottom of bronze you are right ... but top of bronze is actually pretty close to the top of gold (for macro players) because the leagues have HUUUUGE overlap. IE a lot of players qualify in gold maybe but a lot of bronze players would beat them.
What people forget is tiny mistakes cost you the entire game. Sure they are gigantic mistakes because they do cost you the game but players dotn play enough to keep track of the critical things.
you take me who plays 1-2 games a week. Who suddenly comes back and plays 10 games a day .. i go from 50:50 win rate to winning 10 in a row. Why? Because of the fast iterations on an idea.
It amazes me how few people actually understand how learning and being practiced at something works. They also completely undervalue a lot of basic knowledge.
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Cecil, this was very helpful in making me realize how I don`t need to cut workers cause his attack is incoming early game.
I also played a PvT eairlier and dedcided to put this concept into play. I actually had more than I normally would at a sooner time and didn`t feel more dangered at all. I only lost the game cause I threw too much stuff away and didnt expand more.
And the T was Diamond :D
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On April 07 2012 23:41 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2012 23:23 Charon1979 wrote:So.. and don't you think that was MUCH more helpful than "ohm... macro better"? All the things you say are true and i appreciate that you took your time. Now tell me the following: That was me with 80 APM. Alone to to box my workers and count them cost me a few seconds doing nothing but double checking, Do you think that all of the points you mentioned above are possible with my hand speed, so ists just an issue of "pylons & probes" or should i fix my "awareness", handspeed and settings first in order to "properly" execute probes and pylons? So give this list to a bronze player (as in lower league, the OP wrote about gold level players) with 40 APM and tell him to do all the stuff. Do you really think he will be able to do it? The main problem here is that there is a bunch of ppl which dont get tired to say "the game is easy, just macro" when the game is NOT easy. One GML Player even stated here that he can macro perfectly even with a trackball and 20 APM. The discussion here never was "is it important to build probes and pylons?" the discussion was Can a lower league player really take on this form of play and win more games due to true improvement? and as you said, I would not be able to take on this form of play and improve with "just" probes and pylons. There are other things lacking to leading to a totally screwed up probes & pylons. Like I said, even though most people don't refer to basic macro as 'multitasking', it requires a lot of multitasking to pull off. This is a hard as fuck game. Just the basics of macro take a year or two to get down. To play this game competently, takes over a year. It's like the first year of playing this game, you are in a tutorial. No one is denying that starcraft is hard a fuck. Just some people don't realize how fucking hard, it is. I also think fast third is a lot more taxing than most builds, and zerg is also a bit harder in terms of pulling off the basic macro. If you weren't going fast third, and were playing P or T instead of Z, yea, a lower level player could pull it off pretty simply with a few games. I think the heart of the OP's post, is learning how to analyze your play better, going over your replays, and focusing on your macro more than things like "muta or infestor" or "should my hotkey for army be on X or Y?" Then people are arguing, saying how no, decision making and scouting and all this stuff is so much more important, and that they macro just fine.
What we have here is failure...to communicate...you see, some men...you just..can't ...reach.
I've followed the recent related threads quite seriously. As a low apm old fart(37 year old, 50ish apm) the Protoss and Zerg I find most playable for me. I still play terran, just not so good. Which makes the work you, Monk, Kcdc, Cecil and others very very irreplacible. DRG and Stephano may be the best zergs going, and it's their playstyle that most of attempt to emulate, but it's not DRG and Stephano in these forums toiling to either help others improve or impart perspective to the perspectiveless. I cannot thank you enough for putting out the benchmark thread. It got me motivated to test if my Oldboy movie/Thorzain style training was worth anything. It was.
Coming from a guy who plays very very infrequently while watching/lurking/ tourney gazing. I was able to knock out 72, 75 , 77 in consecutive games. Not too shabby. So when you said a few posts ago that silver/golders just can't macro, you were right. I've even started having a bit o anxiety because I know the difference between a dry run vs ai and a silver leaguer looking for a good time running a Geiko Rine/scv all in.
Coincidently, it brought me online to the channels hoping to get into obs KoTH action to see how league skillsets had progressed. I wanted to watch two platinum players duke it out, and just offhand TLO joined the game. I had just had a shot of 151(alcohol) and was set to relax and somehow ended up getting squared of with the platinum. TLO's present, check. Drinking hard stuff, check and accidental participation. check. I had mid 30's supply at 8 min, just atrocious. It was my first 1 on 1 since season 4. I didn't watch the replay till today... it hurt me inside 
I have 18 whopping career wins, was a Silver in season 4, haven't placed since. With good reason. She's 2 years old and in my lap. It was just easier to play with a baby as opposed to a toddler.
I think just like myself, people need to worry less, try harder, and have some damn fun trying to improve, not just trying to win. In my own reality, I need to set up a 'game time" without so many distractions in RL or just get better headphones and a plush 'talk to the infestor" sign. The thread dissenters have some valid points, but only if you consider your improvement in a black and white /win loss mindset.
Replay: I started labeling practice runs by supply count on zerg. Including the 75 supply which was still pretty bad, 3rd late, yadda yadda. I'm pretty sure I was maxxed by 12-12:30 It's opened my eyes to my own potential, if I continue to have a macro-centric mind. I used to have a tough time taking 3rd bases, let alone 4th and 5ths against the VH AI. Now it's a afterthought, even versus GTAI(which in my situation, I love for the selectable build opponent while i work on expanding and holding off pressure/cannon rush comps ftw, good practice)
http://drop.sc/155244 75 by 8 min early 12ish max
http://drop.sc/155243 What happens with TLO, stays with TLO (love him)
Even while typing this post, Father in Law, surprise visit 20 min pp, you don't mind? do you??????? LOL ty for everything and keep em coming.
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I think there are really a few problems with the "just macro your way to masters" mentality.
A friend of mine recently started to play SC2 as zerg, and i also told him that he should just simply try to produce a lot of drones , bases and get a good unit composition and focus on his macro, because i thought that was what brought me into the higher leagues.
But that didn't really seem to work out for him, so i looked at his replays, and it wasnt that he didn't try to macro right, it was just that he was way to slow, didnt know what to focus on, and in 90% of his games were he lost, he just got rolled over by some odd 1 base play between 7 and 9 minutes.
A big problem with the "macro thinking" is , that it works quite well if you put a really fast, experienced player into bronze league and let him macro up. But looking at my friend , who didnt play that much of games at all, his control and awareness was even worse than his macro.
Even if he macroed considerably well for his level, he still just died to some surprisingly strange attack. And that actually is a really frustrating way to lose games, not just at lower levels.
So i would actually state that "macro up" isn't even an advice or any kind of help. It's just a strategical mindset that you can use or not, but its nothing you can practice.
It's like saying "if you want to play the guitar really good, you just need to play clean and use a metronome." And even if that is a very reasonable and true statement, it does not serve any educational purpose or provide any concrete structure, that someone who wants to learn something actually needs.
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So much truth in this article. Probes and pylons, plus a tiny bit of scouting so that you don't get outrageously hardcountered (by outrageously hardcountered I mean making pure ling vs pure bfh for example) is enough to jump up many leagues.
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I think the hardest part about starcraft II is knowing what things to build and when. Ideally you want near perfect macro no matter what you do, and that is a huge part of execution. The difficult to comes in adapting your build to various strategies and then as you adapt them, also maintaining excellent macro.
This thread is overtly simplistic though. Its easy to say "build pylons and probes", but that really isn't what most players who are on the cusp of diamond or master league struggle with the most. In many matchups, the game is hinged on a specific focal point; if you don't execute well at that point you are going to lose. Defending most rushes and timing attack involves near perfect macro AND good scouting AND good execution in order to defend properly AS WELL as appropriate follow up to insure your advantage after the fact. A good example; in zvp a +2 blink stalker timing with observer is a really powerful timing attack that is good against pretty much every opening against zerg in the matchup. To beat it you have to scout it, or at least prepare for a gateway timing attack. This involves near perfect macro until you scout what you need to see, near perfect macro (and positioning of spine crawlers and other defenses) while you prepare for the timing, then good unit control to deflect the attack, and you must also have an appropriate follow up or the protoss has the option to take a late third and still win the game. Another good example, is 4 gate timing after fast expansion in TvP, a roaching ling timing in PvZ, or a maruader hellion timing in ZvT, ect.
Also, many matchups, even when you play standard, hinge on specific timings. In TvP, the terran must have a decisive advantage in the mid game in order to beat a protoss late game. If you can't execute your mid game aggression well enough, even with perfect macro, you are going to struggle in that matchup. The same can be said for mid game ZvP. PvP is a good example of a matchup where macro is secondary to decision making and micro.
It frustrates me, as a diamond level player myself, when masters level players write guides that make too broad of generalizations. A silver league player with a silver league understanding of the game cannot make it to masters league if they only perfect their macro. There is more to the game then that. It is probably the single most important part of the game, but the reason you see players often focusing on other stuff is either; they suffer from a lack of understanding and they need to be educated, or they are struggling with another aspect of execution and that is more difficult for them. If you are a person who has put in thousands of games and hundreds of hours to try and improve it is frustrating to hear "all you need to do is macro perfectly and you will make it to mid level masters no problem". From my perspective, that doesn't feel like its true. Even in gold league there are other aspects of execution a player must become proficient in order to have any success. Not to mention, a big part of the game is DOES YOUR STRATEGY MAKE ANY SENSE. Strategy is complex because it involves an understanding of timing, positioning, ect that are so important. Many strategies only work if the player has decent micro; marine tank in tvz hinges on being able to target fire bannelings and split marines at least decently well for example. I think in order to progress to higher leagues you need to gradually absorb and improve in pretty much all areas of the game. Macro is the most important, but it is very inaccurate to say that it is nearly all you need to get to master league or even diamond league.
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On April 07 2012 19:50 Hylirion wrote:
I'm high silver at the moment. I've hit a wall, in that i didn't progress in rank for like 40 games. I will be the first to say to my macro is not very good, i got supplyblocked often etc. But as much as I would like to believe that macro would be the answer to everything, I just cant understand how people can say that. For example I play Protoss. When you meet another protoss, to me, it is not about macro but about micro. It is very hard to expand. Mismicro your 4gate versus his 3gate robo and lose. Mismicro your 3gate robo versus his 4gate and lose. Mismicro your initial units and lose to fast stalkers. Blink into some unseen immortals and lose. In none of these situations I feel that 1 stalker or zealot extra due to perfect macro would win you the game. Every protoss has done 4gate etc enough times to have a reasonable timing, even in silver/low gold.
Then vs zerg. You could macro like a boss, but if the zerg also macros (and most of them that I meet on ladder do), you'll still need good micro to be cost effective versus roaches, as stalkers are so much more expensive and zealots just get kited. And you'll need to anticipate a muta switch or you will still lose. I dont understand how pure macro can win this.Tips would be welcome.
Protoss vs Terran. This is the only matchup were I feel that macro would work, as zealots can be cost effective as long as they can actually hit anything, and good macro would lead to earlier collosi which wins you the game. But mismicro vs a drop and you can still lose.
All in all, i'm not really convinced. But i'll give it a try and will try to focus purely on not getting supplyblocked in my next games.
As someone who went from diamond toss to silver random (now up to platinum as random, yay!) In PvP at silver level you just need one build that you do and you do it cleanly, macro is probably less important in that matchup than any others, even though it is no longer nothing but one base play, its still very heavy, but never, ever get supply blocked in the early game.
When watching many of my pvps, I see myself lose my scouting probe to his workers (lame) and watch him keep his alive but paying so much attention to it he ends up supply blocked and behind even though he lost no units. If you slip up on micro, you will lose some games, if he hits you with dts and you have no detection, you lose. But getting up to those few probes you plan to build quickly and never getting supply blocked will get you more stuff. That will give you an advantage and you can make more mistakes and still win, but its not like you can just press 1 then a then click and win.
In PvZ you sure as hell can just macro your way to victory, take a fast third on heavy gateway immortal after some opening then go kill him when you can. You need to make sure you have a solid number of stalkers and gateways (maybe 6-10 each, 4 or so gates added on to simcity your third after you take it) plus blink from the twilight council you want for upgrades and templar tech anyways, you can handle a muta switch if you lay down cannons liberally after you see it coming, otherwise warpins and what you have will have to suffice, you might take damage but if you have enough probes it doesnt matter as much. If his macro was actually terrible and he just throws down 20 mutas at once from a 2000/2000 bank, then you might have problems but your mistake was not killing him before then (you have obs, build them and look for opportunities to kill shit). At least thats my experience in pvz at low levels.
Also remember at the level you're at and I'm at, you can't rely on knowing his timings at all, because his macro is bad and his builds are unrefined, so just having enough stuff to kill whatever the hell he throws at you is even more important than trying to counter builds directly or anything like that. I have never seen a clean Stephano style build, but I have had a lot of zerglings and roaches thrown at me between 13-14 minutes many times. Theres just never enough to kill me, now buildings and forcefields are still what makes the difference, but just get plenty of stuff and you can survive way more easily.
http://blip.tv/day9tv/day-9-daily-436-p1-pvz-3-base-and-long-term-play-6056377
Do that actually, just do what day9 says and hit those probes/pylons and you should be safe. Do not focus on your air units enough to forget your third or pylons or anything else, just let those units float in the empty space on maps. 4 pheonixes will also buy a lot of time if a player goes mutas even if he has a lot of them.
Edit: @Mothergoose: At lower levels most players cannot properly hit timings, except for relatively simple one base all-ins or cheeses. Defending them is much simpler because they show up late anyways except for something like a double proxy 10 gate, those always show up at about the same time. Players cannot ignore all aspects of micro and composition, I think this assumes they stole a build from a pro and have a vague idea about timing attacks and proper composition, speaking as someone who has spent the past couple seasons in the lower leagues, this is all you need to get to diamond, timings become more important around then but before then they don't matter anywhere near as much. I really think you're underestimating how bad most low level player's macro really is. Macroing properly is hard but if you do it well and as a primary goal, you are better off than trying to adapt to whatever crazy far from standard attack and comp is being thrown at you.
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On April 08 2012 01:12 netherh wrote:
Ask why they missed it. I'm willing to bet that it's not because they were being idle (I know that I wasn't really conscious of any idle time in my brain with my 2 rax build). They were almost certainly doing something else (i.e. it's a multi-tasking issue). What were they thinking about or doing? Can they cut out the thought? or learn to move away from microing and come back? Can they speed up the process mechanically or use better hotkeys? Or just become more familiar with the build order?
Asking all of these questions will lead to an answer that helps correct the issue. Saying "build probes and pylons" like someone hasn't heard this before a million times is almost insulting. Yes, the issue is that they don't build them, but until you ask why they're not building them, you're not actually helping.
I think I tried to address this. The main idea in the OP was that the low league players I've experienced (including myself, I used to be in Silver) focus on unimportant details, and or ignore the most important ones at the time.
As for much more specific than this I'd be getting into the realm of personal coaching, which I usually have people pay me for. So I can't really do this for free on a forum now can I? That's out of the scope of the discussion. Like I've said before, I have a whole lot of free resources in my TL profile, and also on Youtube. Feel free to use any of them to help yourself figure out why what you did is wrong or to figure out something better to be doing.
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I agree that lower league players sometimes focus to much on small non important details like splitting your probes. I think that you should not focus on anything else than spending your resources, saturating your bases and getting the correct army composiotion when you play in lower leagues.
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On April 08 2012 01:17 Southwards wrote:
Just wanna say I'm a top diamond toss who has been playing about 50% diamonds, and 50% masters on NA server, and I just realised the main thing that was holding me back was the gaps in my probe production before saturated 3 base, so I would say there are very few people reading this to whom this doesnt apply to anymore
You're arguing against a strawman, though. I haven't seen any low level players saying their macro is perfect, just that there's other stuff that's important too. Like army positioning as Cecil said.
if you're diamond, you probably already have a good grasp of the other stuff, and it makes sense to go focus on small macro gaps.
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But telling them that they have done so, and that they should fix it is not necessarily helping. They already know they have to.
Oh, no no no! I think a big part of what I am saying (and if I may be as bold to speak for Cecil as well), is that people don't know this. Sooooo many bronze to diamond players think they macro just fine. Just take for example that replay Charon submitted as 'proof' that a lower level player can macro well in insolation and it's the pressures of the game that are the real difference between lower level players and pros - I ripped him apart, and his replay was actually proof that lower level players are completely unable to pull off basic macro in a vacuum.
I mean, it's quite evident in the replies here from some of the lower level players. They insist their macro is fine, or that other things like decision making are more important. I'm a mid-masters player, and I can definitely attribute about 80% of my losses to just plain macro screw-ups. So I'm pretty sure that lower level players than myself, have it much worse.
People think they macro just fine. Charon seriously believed that the replay he submitted, was of half decent macro. He had no clue, that had he played like that in a real game (and the toss didn't do any pressure and told him what build he was doing so he wouldn't have to scout), he would have just autolost because his macro was so poor.
People just don't realize it. They don't realize how bad 5 seconds is, or a supply block is. They don't realize that making a supply 3 supply too early is bad. They don't think making 3 overlords at once is bad. But it's SO horrible. They have no idea that idle larva is bad. They are completely unaware that for 2 seconds, they hit 500+ minerals. And that's okay - the better the player you become, the better you can analyze your macro. But that's also the problem - lower level players are unable to identify their macro problems. So then they post here saying their macro is fine.
They just play these games where their games, vs their opponents, looks just like a pro game. Except it's 10:00, instead of 8:00. And their opponent is doing stuff like ZvP deathball or pure marine ZvT, and they complain about how 'broken' or 'ridiculous' it is, when in reality it's just their poor macro letting their opponents get away with it.
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maxing out on roaches by 12 mins is a piece of piss for me in silver..
bottom of bronze you are right ... but top of bronze is actually pretty close to the top of gold (for macro players) because the leagues have HUUUUGE overlap. IE a lot of players qualify in gold maybe but a lot of bronze players would beat them.
False (it seems almost no one in the lower leagues understand the ladder system - it's quite complicated, I went around saying I was high masters for a long time, even though I thought i understood it).
Ranking, points, and placement in your league, only matter in the current top division. Right now, that's masters (gm is an exception, it's invite only). It used to be Diamond (and before diamond was introduced, it was plat, then gold like way back in beta). In the lower leagues, divisions are spread all over the place, and points value is so arbitrary because you could or could not rank up, that you really can't take your ranking/points value as any indication of your relative place compared to other bronzes.
Also, there's a huge gap between bronze and silver, silver and gold. At gold and below, macro is just so atrocious that avoiding a supply block at 26 randomly in one of the games would just make your macro like instantly twice better than your average opponent. These advantages are instantly lost by such players not making constant workers, taking gas too early, whatever, but it is amazing how the ladder system can average these out and say 'your macro is basically at this level/mmr'.
What people forget is tiny mistakes cost you the entire game. Sure they are gigantic mistakes because they do cost you the game but players dotn play enough to keep track of the critical things.
I completely disagree. It may look like a tiny mistake that 'oh no i move commanded my army for 5 seconds through mass roach', but in reality you had already lost the game. Although in lower levels the game is just going everywhere and who knows what's going on, both players hit points where they cannot possibly win the game, but the other player just fucks up so bad that it doesn't matter, and it just bounces back and forth like that. It's not a 'tiny mistake' to have idle larva for 20 seconds, or miss injects.
Anyways, you act like top of gold has anything going for it. It does compared to bronze, sure, but to everyone else, gold is just so horribly, horribly bad at macro.
I think there are really a few problems with the "just macro your way to masters" mentality.
I think a problem is that people say "macro better". And yes, it's 100% true, but what they are leaving out, is that it's really fucking hard to macro well, it takes a lot of multitasking and APM, and it requires you to be pretty quick.
It sounds simple, so people say it over and over. But to a bronze, they aren't going to be able to do that right away. So there is difficulty. But I do think that a bronze could really improve their game by just watching their replays, checking for supply blocks in their next 10-20 games, be vigilant on correcting it in their next games, and they would improve drastically just by fixing this one facet of their play.
Like, in masters, you can't do this. I can't just fix one little thing like this, and suddenly be 10% better of a player. But if you are in gold, you can. Avoid supply blocks for the first 5 mintues of the game, just the 5 minutes. Watch every replay, win or lose - try to analyze when you screw up supply blocks (too early, too late, supply blocked, and making 2 at once when production doesn't warrant it), and try to actually find what the tangible result of that supply block/late/screw up was. Would that have been 5 more marines earlier, that would have ended the game/saved the game? Would that have been 5 more drones, which over 5 minutes, is 300 minerals, which, could have been another hatch that would have helped your income? et cetera.
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To add to the discussion, I remember when I first started playing SC2 after BW. I had a terrible comp that couldn't handle large amount of units battling, so I would lose every single long game I played, and since I was, at that point, a macro only Zerg (I blame IdrA ;p) I could not get out of gold league. It was frustrating as hell, then I watched Mr.Bitter coaching some diamond level Zerg and telling him how bad his macro was ON STREAM. Like, he was actually yelling at him a bit, it was funny to watch.
Then he told the guy that in the next game he played, he wasn't allowed to make units. He was just going to make drones, hit injects, spread creep (in that order), OLs at appropriate times, and keep a few lings scouting so he would make units when the opponent pushed out. It was incredible how much drastically better he got. Sometimes the opponent's army would be almost at his natural RAMP, but he just had so much more income than his opponents, he could pump out so many units.
When I finally got a decent comp, I applied that same philosophy to my games. While I would lose to unscouted cheese here and there, the pure focus on just macro-multitasking made my opponents seem downright silly and terrible all the way up to platinum. It was like we were playing two different games, or like I was already declared the winner once we hit 28 supply.
Just improving little parts of your macro at a time (say, instead of making 2 OLs at 34 supply, you make 1 at 32 supply then 1 at 36-38) will improve you SO much at lower levels it's astonishing.
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I disagree with this. Why? I am in bronze league, near the top. I outmacro my opponent almost every game, and have solid build orders that I can execute fairly well. However. I often lose because of a strategy that you don't know how to respond to. Higher league players really don't realize how many lower level games are nonstandard. Half of my TvPs involve a double proxy stargate into mass void rays. I get rushed in almost every single TvZ I play, and I often lose to these special tactics, even with better macro.
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You know how you beat non-standard, goofy, unoptimized strats? By having so much shit that it doesn't matter.
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United States8476 Posts
On April 09 2012 04:03 PinheadXXXXXX wrote:
I disagree with this. Why? I am in bronze league, near the top. I outmacro my opponent almost every game, and have solid build orders that I can execute fairly well. However. I often lose because of a strategy that you don't know how to respond to. Higher league players really don't realize how many lower level games are nonstandard. Half of my TvPs involve a double proxy stargate into mass void rays. I get rushed in almost every single TvZ I play, and I often lose to these special tactics, even with better macro.
One big point of the thread that you're missing is the following: At any level with 2 players of identical skill, one player will always have better macro than the other player, but will be deficient in other parts; this is the case with you. However, at lower levels, if you have masters level macro, you can overcome almost anything. Even though you may macro better than your opponents at your level/league, if you macroed even better, you wouldn't lose to the same cheese
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But I guarantee that every bronze to diamond player gets supply blocked at least once before the 8 minute mark.
I don't usually.
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On April 09 2012 04:34 PinheadXXXXXX wrote:Show nested quote +
But I guarantee that every bronze to diamond player gets supply blocked at least once before the 8 minute mark.
I don't usually.
If you'd like to you can post up a replay. I'll take a look over it and give comments. It might be really helpful.
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On April 09 2012 04:14 NrGmonk wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2012 04:03 PinheadXXXXXX wrote:
I disagree with this. Why? I am in bronze league, near the top. I outmacro my opponent almost every game, and have solid build orders that I can execute fairly well. However. I often lose because of a strategy that you don't know how to respond to. Higher league players really don't realize how many lower level games are nonstandard. Half of my TvPs involve a double proxy stargate into mass void rays. I get rushed in almost every single TvZ I play, and I often lose to these special tactics, even with better macro. One big point of the thread that you're missing is the following: At any level with 2 players of identical skill, one player will always have better macro than the other player, but will be deficient in other parts; this is the case with you. However, at lower levels, if you have masters level macro, you can overcome almost anything. Even though you may macro better than your opponents at your level/league, if you macroed even better, you wouldn't lose to the same cheese
True. But its easier to get gold level game knowledge than acquiring masters level macro.
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On April 09 2012 04:45 Monkeyballs25 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2012 04:14 NrGmonk wrote:On April 09 2012 04:03 PinheadXXXXXX wrote:
I disagree with this. Why? I am in bronze league, near the top. I outmacro my opponent almost every game, and have solid build orders that I can execute fairly well. However. I often lose because of a strategy that you don't know how to respond to. Higher league players really don't realize how many lower level games are nonstandard. Half of my TvPs involve a double proxy stargate into mass void rays. I get rushed in almost every single TvZ I play, and I often lose to these special tactics, even with better macro. One big point of the thread that you're missing is the following: At any level with 2 players of identical skill, one player will always have better macro than the other player, but will be deficient in other parts; this is the case with you. However, at lower levels, if you have masters level macro, you can overcome almost anything. Even though you may macro better than your opponents at your level/league, if you macroed even better, you wouldn't lose to the same cheese True. But its easier to get gold level game knowledge than acquiring masters level macro.
Honestly you don't need master's level macro to progress leagues. And honestly the general master level macro is very poor too. It starts getting decent once you get way up there.
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EPT
